Literature & Theology, Vol.
. No. ", March

, pp.

"
doi:10.1093/litthe/fri057 Advance Access publication 20 January 2006

THE SALVATION STORY IN

RUSSIAN LITERATURE
Elena Volkova

Abstract
Salvation is a consistent theme in Russian Literature, found through
suffering, substitution, and through the life of the Holy Fool, such as the
central character of Goncharovs novel Oblomov.

THE RUSSIAN word for thank you is spasibo, it is a reduced form of Spasi
vas Bog (May God save you). In church we use the old full form of
the wordMay the Lord save you, whereas Russian old-believers say
May Christ save you for thank you.1
In colloquial Old Russian the word Saviour, with reference to Christ,
had also a reduced form, a diminutive, which sounded like Spas (a homonym
for the past tense, third person singular spas(he) saved). Some Russian
churches, icons and feasts are called by this name: Spas-on-blood(Spas-na-
krovy) is the church built on the place where Prince Dimitry was murdered
presumably by the order of Boris Godunov in the 17th century; Spas Not-
made-with-hands(Spas nerukotvorny) is the Russian name for a Veronicas type
of icon; The Honey Spas and The Apple Spas are the two feasts celebrated in
August: the Day of the Cross and the Transguration of Jesus Christ. Russians
have many proverbs and sayings about salvation as well.
The secular idea of salvation may be seen in all spheres of life: medicine tries
to save us from sickness and death, educationfrom ignorance; literary
criticism should save good literature, I believe . . . But any secular idea of
salvation refers mostly to the outer man who is expected to be saved from
natural cataclysms, poverty, terrorism, injustice etc., while Christians try to
save the inner man from the power of sin, despair, bitterness, godlessness, etc.
As Dostoevsky wrote about the Byronic hero: A fantastic and impatient man
longs to be saved from mostly outward things, and he will never understand,
that truth is rst and foremost within him . . .2 In literature, though, salvation
from some physical danger may metaphorically refer to the inner
transformation of the soul.
As Northrop Frye sees almost any story as that of Paradise Lost referring
to the beginning of the biblical story;3 Frank Kermode emphasises the
eschatological story referring to Apocalypse;4 I, having read their books,
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32 SALVATION STORY IN RUSSIAN LITERATURE
thought that something important was missing, which is probably the
core of the Bible, and certainly of Christianitythe idea and the story of
salvation. In the widest (almost rhetorical) sense, I see it as a meta-story,
which may be associated with any attempt to solve any conict in any
narrative. If the conict itself, as disharmony, may be referred to as the Fall
of Humankind, then the process of overcoming the obstacles, any attempts
to restore the lost harmony, either with the world around or within ones
soul, may be seen as an analogy of the biblical salvation story. I am not
going to discuss doctrinal aspects of salvation. The Eastern Christian tradition
developed the idea of realised eschatologythe assumption that the trans-
guration and deication of humanity are accessible now, not in the future.
We can speak of deication as it is presented in lives of Russian saints, and
of various forms of transformation, as journey from evil to good, in Russian
ction. There are three important ideas emphasised in Russian Hagiography
and Literature: rstly, salvation comes as inner transformation, which,
secondly, happens (or does not happen) in ones heart and then is supposed
to transform ones mind. The order heartsoulmind follows the words of
Christ: Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy
soul, and with all thy mind. Thirdly, no salvation is available without bearing
ones cross, that is, without suffering.
The diverse typology of sainthood developed in Russia, presents a great
number of different ways towards salvation. There are many types; some,
martyrs, for example, belong to common Christian tradition; Russian Grand
Dukes were usually canonised as blagovernythose who tried to build a
Christian country or defended it against enemies; the starets, an elder, usually
a monk (canonised in the likeness of God (as prepodobny); confessors
(ispovednik), the blessed and holy fools (blazhenny, yurodivy) and others.
Most categories of saints can hardly be translated into English, or their
translation may sound misleading as those in the likeness of God or
confessors (who confess their faith in the face of death but are not killed
and therefore not martyrs).
One type of saint exists only in Russian Orthodoxystrastoterpetsthe
bearer of suffering. They were murdered not for their faith, but accepted
death as Christ did, that is without resisting. The rst Russian saintstwo
brothersGrand Dukes Boris and Glebaccepted death at the hands of
their brother Svyatopolk. They knew they were going to be murdered
but did not want to resist. They could avoid death but decided to imitate
Christ in his nonresistance to violence. The story of Boris and Glebs
life relates, that they died and ascended to heaven where their souls were
united, and their relics were put in the church for the Russian people, and
for those Christians from around the world to come to Boris and Gleb,
and praise God.5
 ELENA VOLKOVA 33
The last Royal saints, the family of Nickolas II, were canonised as bearers
of suffering as well. Thus we have this fearful symmetry in Russian
Royal sainthoodwhich grew in 900 years from two brothers to a family.
And it was not just a Royal family but their servants as well, who did not want
to leave the Tsar and were shot with the Royal martyrs. Among them was a
German Lutheran servant called Trupp. It is believed that their way to salvation
was through nonresistance to violence which they saw as obedience to God.
The Russian Orthodox Church has about 2700 saints in the church
calendar, about 1200 lives of saints came from Byzantium, about 150
were written in Russia before 1917. In 2001 the Church Council canonised
1154 new-martyrs of Communism, including the royal family of Nicholas II.
There are voices today in Russia claiming that all those millions of victims of
communist repressions may be considered as a redeeming sacrice and
identied as martyrs by analogy with the slaughter of the children in
Bethlehem.6
Suffering, as a way to salvation, is an old Christian idea and a very Russian
one. Russian Christians believe, that the more one suffers the closer one is
to Christ.7 This theme of innocent suffering is a leitmotif not only in lives of
saints but in the works of many Russian writers, especially in Dostoevsky, the
little man theme in Gogol and Chekhov, in Solzhenitsyn and Gulag literature.

I . S AV E D I N O N ES L OV I N G H E A RT

In Russian Hagiography a desire to suffer as a desire to suffer with Christ is

understood as an expression of love towards God, as empathy, as a fulllment
of His command to love God with all your heart and your neighbour as
thyself.
Prince Myshkin in Dostoevskys The Idiot asks Nastasya Philippovna, a loose
woman, to marry him: I think youll be doing me an honour, and not I you.
I am nothing, but youve suffered and emerged pure out of such a hell, and that
is a great deal.8 Suffering cleanses the soul, prince Myshkin has not suffered
as much as she has, and, hence, he sees her as a superior person. But in reality
she is not; it is Prince Myshkins ability to suffer with, his empathy (out of
which springs his love towards Nastasya Philippovna) which sees her cleansed
and saved from hell.
In Crime and Punishment Raskolnikov bent downwards, kissing the girls
feet . . . (the feet of Sonya Marmeladova, a prostitute):

What are you doing? And to me?, stammered Sonya, growing pale with sorrow-
smitten heart.
Upon this he rose. I did not bow down to you, personally, but to suffering
humanity in your person.9
34 SALVATION STORY IN RUSSIAN LITERATURE
Dostoevsky believes that it is love that makes people able to see the Imago
Dei inside ones soul, to see through the dirt of sins that covers the Divine
image, and by seeing it, to restore the ideal, iconic image of humankind.
This is how the Idiot sees Nastasya Philippovna; Sonya Marmeladova and
Raskolnikov see one another. Raskolnikov is somehow completely aware of
Sonyas purity, in spite of her being a prostitute. Hence, Dostoevsky shows
salvation as the essence of love; he believes that the one who loves restores
Gods likeness in the fallen human, and does it in his own heart when he
sees the beloved as untouched by sin: . . . vice had not affected her character;
her body alone was soiled. Raskolnikov understood this, for he read the
girls heart like a book.10 It means that Christ saves one through the love
of another, or to be more exactin the heart of the one who loves.
Having saved the beloved in his heart, both Prince Myshkin and
Raskolnikov cannot save them from suffering: salvation as in the Gospel
comes as a spiritual gift which saves ones soul but does not protect the
body from the physical suffering or death, the way Christ and Christianity
fail historically. The Idiot, as Christ, fails to save the outer man: Nastasya
Philippovna dies, but her soul is presented as pure in the novel, having been
transformed in the loving heart of the Prince.
Dostoevsky was willing to verbalise, to depict the divine image in
humanity. He certainly succeeded in showing an ideal man in the perception
of love. Prince Myshkin is his great success in this sense, and yet a failure,
because the Idiot himself is too natural to be ideal. Having realised that,
Dostoevsky borrowed for his last novelThe Brothers Karamazovan
archetype from Russian Hagiography. His starets Zosima is a verbal icon, a
man of great grace opposed to the false saintFerapont, man of law. Starets
Zosima presents Dostoevskys attempt to combine love of God with love
of humanity, to show a new type of Russian monk, who is not of this world,
as Christ, but goes to the world to save the human souls he loves so much.
Zosima shows true kenosis when he, in his turn, prostrates before Dmitry
Karamazov, a drunkard, because Zosima has discernment and can see the
future suffering of Dmitry, who is going to take his brothers sin for murdering
their father on himself and will go to Siberia for that.

I I . S AV E D T H RO U G H S U B S T I T U T I O N

In the case of Dmitry Karamazov we see another biblical motif of salvation

substitution, the taking of anothers sins and the subsequent punishment upon
oneself: Dmitry is not the only one who does this; there is another Dmitry in
Crime and Punishment, a worker who was painting walls in the house where
Raskonikov killed two women. That Dmitry was arrested by mistake,
 ELENA VOLKOVA 35
but confessed to the crime, because he was a devout Christian, who had
earlier spent some time with a hermit, wanted to live an ascetic life, but
then moved to St Petersburg, a city of temptation, fell into different sins,
and when arrested, decided to redeem himself through suffering. The
detective Porry Petrovich does not believe Dmitry though, he also sees his
heart, and, instead, tells Dmitrys story to Raskolnikov, who does not see
anything sinful in the murder he had committed. The detective is quite a
Christ-like gure, along with Sonya in the novel: he delays the arrest of
Raskolnikov, although he knows for certain that Raskolnikov is guilty.
Porry Petrovich wants Raskolnikov to realise the falseness of his theory and
to repent (as Christ who comes not to call the righteous but sinners to
repentance). The story about the substitutional suffering of the poor innocent
worker should have become an inspiring example for Raskolnikov but did
not reach his heart.
In Tolstoys War and Peace we come across a similar story which is said
to have been told seven times by Platon (Plato) Karataev to Pier Bezukhov.
The story is about a merchant who was sentenced to many years in Siberia
for the murder which he did not commit. Later in Siberia he meets the
man who actually committed the crime, in whose place the merchant went
to prison, but says that he has been suffering for his own sins, that is he,
being innocent, accepted the punishment as just.
Both types of the salvation storysuffering with as source of transforming
love, and suffering for the sins of others may be identied as forms of the Imitation
of Christ in Russian Literature.11

I I I . S AV E D A S A H O LY F O O L

Characters like Prince Myshkin the Idiot and Platon Karataev also refer
to another hagiographic typethat of the Holy Fool, a wise fool of Eastern
Christianity, who also sees Christ as the ideal to be imitated (followedin
Russian tradition).
The Holy Fool (yurodivy12) is a person who pretends that he is mad in order
to save his own soul and the souls of others. He chooses to become homeless,
poor, disdained and persecuted as Christ Himself was. The Holy Fool teaches
people by means of images of sin and he tells them truth disguised under
a fools appearance and behaviour. Holy Fools sacrice their private lives,
their names, and their identities to God. Wearing a mask of insanity, they
imitate Jesus Christ, who also left his family, his profession, and was accused of
being mad and possessed by the devil.
Until recently Russian Holy Fools were seen in the West as lunatics
or insane people (at least it is how E. Welsford presented them in his book
36 SALVATION STORY IN RUSSIAN LITERATURE
The Fool: His Social and Literary History (1936).13 Robert Hillis Goldsmiths
book Wise Fools in Shakespeare (1955) contains The Fool of Tradition
chapter, which even includes Old-Greek philosophers Diogenes and Socrates
(who are more likely to be called wise men), Roman jester, minstrel,
household fool, but says nothing of the Holy Fool. It was only in 1980, when
John Saward wrote his wonderful book Perfect Fools about French and
Irish saints, for the Catholic Christian, as he put it, to discover that
something apparently Eastern, so Byzantine, as folly for Christs sake, is
also one of the features of a Christian tradition in the very Far West, at
the end of the worldin Ireland. Such a discovery can open the eyes of
his mind to the fact that what is different in another tradition is already
found in his own.14
The fool story is in the centre of Russian folklore. One of the most popular
characters in Russian fairy-tales is Ivan the Fool, who is a secular variant of the
Holy Fool (A.M. Panchenko).15 Ivan the Fool seems lazy and stupid but he
is a chosen one. Miraculous forces help him. He wins at the end of the fairy
tale, and gets the princess and half of the kingdom besides. If the mystical
subtext of Russian fairy tales were not to be taken into consideration, one
would see Ivan the Fool simply as a symbol of national laziness and stupidity.
Ivan does seem a fool in common, practical situations (in matters of housing
and working the land, etc.), but he is a hero in the struggle between Good and
Evil, and the supernatural world is native to him.
The Russian fairy-tale about Ivan the Fool raises a very serious problem
of salvation: what is more importantones pure heart or his effective
activity? The juxtaposition presented in the fairy tale may sound confusing:
Ivan the Fool does nothing; he lies on the stove, that is in bed, while his
brothers work very hard. He is lazy but knows no evil, his brothers are
active but are ready to steal or kill. The brothers symbolise the world of
vita activa that lies in evil, whereas Ivan avoids it, just by being lazy. Thus
laziness becomes an allegory of vita contemplativa, the essence of which is
staying away from evil. This opposition may be referred to Martha and
Mary symbolism in the Gospel. It is the lazy Ivan who saves a princess, a
kingdom, or is saved himself by fairies or re-birds. His pure heart does in him
the work of salvation, the miraculous forces, that symbolise God, love him and
help him towards the throne. The happy ending shows Ivan the Fool (Pure
Heart) ruling the kingdoma folklore type of paradise, a kingdom ruled by a
pure heart.
There is a famous Russian novel Oblomov written by Ivan Goncharov in
1859, which is based on Ivan the Fool story. (If I were President of Russia I
would issue a Russian visa only to those who have read it.) This is an ironic
 ELENA VOLKOVA 37
salvation story about a middle-aged noble who spends his life in bed, unable to
get up, which he tries several times to do but fails.

Lying down was not for Oblomov a necessity, as it is for a sick man or for a man
who is sleepy; or a matter of chance, as it is for a man, who is tired; or a pleasure
as it is for a lazy man: it was his normal condition. When he was at home and he
was almost always at home he lay down all the time, and always in the same
room, in the room in which we have found him and which served him as a
bedroom, study and reception room.

Oblomov is afraid of the world around him and does not accept it, because he
sees no sense in the life people lead in Saint Petersburg. Visitors come and
leave, each of them trying to make Oblomov interested in some sort of
activity, civil service, writing, making visits, etc., but he does not move, and,
on their leaving, exclaims: And this is life!He shrugged his shoulders.
Whats there left of the man? Why is he wasting and frittering away his life?
Everything seems vanity of vanities to him. It is a voice of the Russian
Ecclesiastes, who shows total disappointment in life as such.
A salvation story starts when a young lady Olga Ilyinskaya falls in love with
him, and, together with his best friend, a very active Andrei Stoltz, they decide
to save Oblomov from apathy, make him act and enjoy life. Olga tries to
involve Oblomov in reading literature and modern magazines, in studying
science, playing music and singing . . . She does not let him stay in bed, they
walk a lot, discuss new books, etc., etc . . . It seems as if Oblomov has been
revived, but the euphoria does not last long: their love lasts a year and, having
passed through its own seasons, dies in winter. Oblomov leaves Olga and
marries a simple woman who can provide him with the comfort and peace he
is used to. Olga has failed to revive Oblomov. Why? Obviously because she
could not bring such sense into his life, which would inspire him for the rest
of his years. Even their love cannot save him from rejecting life, and he dies
several years later.
Goncharov was going to create a satirical image of a Russian lazy parasitic
nobility and to oppose it to a new type of manAndrei Stoltz. Half-Russian,
half-German, Stoltz was supposed to represent an ideal combination of the
best in Russian and Western mentality: he is kind, sensitive, artistic, generous,
on the one hand; and strong, self-condent, active, pragmatic, rational,
on the other. But as the story unfolds Oblomov is getting more attractive
and very convincing, extraordinary vivid, while Stoltz remains an abstract
gure, a mere set of positive lifeless features. The historical idea behind
it, that Russia would be saved by the people who are able to
38 SALVATION STORY IN RUSSIAN LITERATURE
unite in themselves the best in Russian and Western values, turned out to
be a utopia.
Olga marries Stoltz, a German Russian, their marriage seems absolutely
happy but sometimes she feels depressed as if she is lacking something
signicant in her life. She misses Oblomov, and her husband explains why
Oblomov is still dear to her.

Tis an honourable, trustworthy heart. That heart is the nugget given him of
Nature, and he has carried it unsullied through all his life. Under lifes stress he
fell, lost his enthusiasm, and ended by going to sleep a broken, disenchanted
man who had lost his power to live, but not his purity and his intrinsic worth.
Never a false note has that heart sounded; never a particle of mire has clung to his
soul; never a specious lie has he heeded; never to the false road has he been
seduced by any possible attraction. Even were a whole ocean of evil and rascality
to come seething about him, and even were the whole world to become infected
with poison and be turned upside down, Oblomov would yet refuse to bow to
the false image, and his soul would remain as clean, as radiant, and as without spot
as ever. That soul is a soul of crystal transparency. Of men like him but few exist,
so that they shine amid the mob like pearls. No price could be high enough to
purchase his heart.16

The irony is that those who tried to save Oblomov nally need him,
miss him, cherish the memory of him, keep him in their hearts as a pearl
(a biblical symbol of the Kingdom of Heaven). Goncharov started with the
caricature of the lazy Russian gentry and ended with him as ideal pure heart,
the one from Russian fairy tales. But the problem was not solved: Under lifes
stress he fell, lost his enthusiasm, and ended by going to sleepa broken,
disenchanted man who had lost his power to live, but not his purity and his
intrinsic worth.
St Seraphim of Sarov, a Russian saint, a starets, who lived during the time of
Pushkin, said: Acquire peace in your soul, and thousands around you will be
saved. On a human level, this is exactly how the pure heart of Oblomov
touches the hearts of his friends in the novel.

I V. F U L L R E S U R R E C T I O N T O A N E W L I F E

In Dostoevskys Crime and Punishment the situation is similar and drastically

different: a young woman, Sonya Marmeladova, is trying to save a man,
Raskolnikov, but while in Goncharov both characters are pure and noble but
one cannot save the other, in Dostoevsky both are sinful, a murderer and a
prostitute, but they succeed in saving one another for a new life. They are
saved almost miraculously as the dead Lazarus was raised by Christ, to the story
of whom Dostoevsky refers.
 ELENA VOLKOVA 39
What makes readers believe that Raskolnikov is on his way to salvation at
the end of the story? Why do most readers become convinced that
Raskolnikov has repented of his crime, when he actually has not and there
in Siberia still believes in his right to kill people? His mind is still infected with
a false philosophy, when his heart suddenly changes at the end of the novel, as
if ice starts melting, which is described in the following scene of weeping:

How it happened he knew not, but a strong impulse came upon him, and he
threw himself at her knees. He wept and clutched her. At rst she became
dreadfully frightened, and her face was pale as death. She rose, and in agitation,
looked upon him. But one glance showed her all, and in her eyes shone ineffable
happiness. She clearly saw, and did not doubt, that he loved her loved her at
last!
They tried to speak but could not, and tears stood in their eyes. They were
both pale and ill, but in those white and worn faces already beamed the dawn of
the restored future, and full resurrection to a new life.17

Raskolnikov has restored his ability to love. His heart is transformed, not his
mind yet. His ideas are the same, he still attributes the confession he made to a
weakness in his character, but his heart has melted and cleansed him with tears.

Under his pillow lay the New Testament. He took it up mechanically. The
book belonged to Sonia; it was the one from which she had read the raising of
Lazarus to him. At rst he was afraid that she would worry him about religion,
would talk about the gospel and pester him with books. But to his great surprise
she had not once approached the subject and had not even offered him the
Testament. He had asked her for it himself not long before his illness and she
brought him the book without a word. Till now he had not opened it.
He did not open it now, but one thought passed through his mind:
Can her convictions not be mine now? Her feelings, her aspirations at
least . . ..18

They are entering a new world, which is going to be created in new seven
days, which are seven years of prison in Siberia.

V. I RO N I C S A LVAT I O N S T O RY: P U S H K I NS G O L D E N C O C K E R E L

In 1834 Alexander Pushkin wrote his last fairy talean ironic salvation story
Golden Cockerel, in which as well as in Coleridges Rime of the Ancient Mariner
we see a bird, that comes down from Heaven to save humankind.
Pushkins tale is a unique case in Russian literature when the story is
borrowed from American literature, Washington Irvings The Legend of
the Arabian Astrologer.19 However, Pushkin drastically changed both the
40 SALVATION STORY IN RUSSIAN LITERATURE
content and the form. Irvings story tells about two old men as rivals in their
struggle for a beautiful Gothic Princess. Pushkin makes his astrologer a eunuch
and a true messenger from Heaven, and as a result creates a contrast between
the tsar and the sorcerer, who become representatives of the earthly and
heavenly power.
If the narration reminds that of Irvings legend, then the subtext of
the Pushkins last fairy tale, as well as that of Coleridges Rime, I believe,
refers to the biblical salvation meta-story which passes through the following
stages:
(1) Humankind starts its life merrily, but carelessly (as represented by Adam
and Eve): in Coleridge the ship starts its journey; but does not know
how to nd the way out of ice; in Pushkin, young Tsar Dadon enjoys
attacking neighbour kingdoms.

In country far, and days long gone,

There lived a famous Tsar Dadon.
When young, his strength was held in awe
By all his neighbours: he made war
Whenever he declared it right.20

(2) Then humankind nds itself in a desperate situation, doomed to die

because of some hostile natural or social environment: the ship is stuck
in the ice; neighbours attack Dadons kingdom in revenge when he is
old and weak.

With age, he grew less keen to ght,

Desiring his deserved peace:
Struggle should stop; wars clamour cease.
His down-trod neighbours saw their chance,
And armed with dagger, sword and lance,
Attacked his frontiers at will,

Salvation/Help comes from heavens or from some supernatural forces: the

Albatross descends from heavens, the Astrologer brings a golden cockerel as
gift of grace.

Arrived at court, the wise old man

Disclosed with condence his plan:
The golden cockerel he drew
Out from his bag by magic knew
Who would attack, and when, and where,
Enabling generals to prepare.
Just watch and listen, said the sage.
Dadon responded: I engage,
 ELENA VOLKOVA 41
If this be so, to grant as fee
Whatever you request of me.

(3) The saviour character is presented by a bird, which brings a lot of

biblical allusions to God appearing as Dove, to His messenger, His gifts
and His care. The astrologer, with a bird in his hands may be also seen as
allegory of Wise Voice of the poet.
(4) Humankind feels obliged to a saviour: Ancient Mariner feeds Albatross
and plays with him; Tsar Dadon rst offers piles of gold, and then
promises to do Astrologers rst will, which is an allusion to Lords
Prayer: Thine will be done.
(5) Dadon expects the cockerel to protect him from his neighbours, but the
magician warns him that there might be some other unexpected danger.
Here appears a juxtaposition between the physical and spiritual
salvationthat of the outer and the inner human being. Dadon is a
symbol of the average human, who wants to be protected from outward
things and is not so intelligent as to be able to discern any spiritual evil,
that comes in the shape of the phantom of the feminine beauty
Shamakhan Tsaritsa, who having killed Dadons sons, enchants the tsar
so that he forgets his country and the word given to his saviour the
magician.
But then the curtains of the tent
Are ung aside. The hands that rent
Them, diamond-ringed and braceleted,
The stately gure, noble head,
Royaltys redolence express.
A Shamakhanskaya Princess
She is, who sees Dadon, and smiles.
Her beckning nger so beguiles
Him that, bewitched, his sons forgot
The Tsar accepts his destined lot:
Her rule, indeed her domination.
He walks, surrendering his nation,
Into the silken-walled tent,

(6) Then humankind kills its saviour. Mariner does it unconsciously, Dadon
consciously kills the magician as rival. Dadon cannot understand that
the sorcerer wants to save him for the second time (it may refer to
the Second Coming of Christ and the Last Judgment), Astrologer comes
to free the tsar from the evil phantom of beauty (who reminds us
of Geraldine from Coleridges Christabel ):

Give me the Shamakhan Princess.

Ill be content with nothing less.
42 SALVATION STORY IN RUSSIAN LITERATURE
Take nothing then, Tsar Dadon said.
His sword-swipe smote the old man dead.

The murder is caused by the conict between the saviour and the tsar, the pair
reminding that of the prophet and the king in the Bible, or the fool and the
king in Shakespeares King Lear and in Pushkins Boris Godunov. Punishment
follows the crime: Mariner can neither speak nor drink; the golden cockerel
kills Dadon.

The crowd begins a careful cheer,

Until a whir of wings they hear
And see a bird with lance-like beak,
A golden bird, with feathers sleek,
Dive at the Tsar, piercing his head.
Dadon groans once, falls, and is dead.

(7) When punishment is over the evil spell is broken: Mariner becomes able
to love both man and bird and beast and starts to pray; Shamakhan
Tsaritsa vanishes in the air.

The crowd was dumbstruck; but the maid,

By this aggression undismayed,
Burst out in laughter, peal on peal,
As though by laughing to reveal
Her full involvement in the plan
To trick and then destroy a man.
The Tsar, though startled, deigns to smile.
Then on, along the Royal Mile.
Wheres she who was to be his queen?
Vanished, as though shed never been.

A story-teller teaches his listeners as disciples: both stories are presented as

oral narratives, both have a moral lesson at the end. The difference is that
Ancient Mariner as well as Wedding Guest has learned the lesson while
Dadon has not.

The storys false; but in it lies

Some truth, seen but by inward eyes.

Both stories are parables in verse, in the centre of which is the situation of
Moral Choice: Albatross trusts the Mariner, and birds life is literally in his
hands as Christ entrusts His life to people; Dadon announces his faith in
Astrologers will and is supposed to keep his word.
 ELENA VOLKOVA 43
In Pushkins tale the whole of human life is embraced, with the youth
opposed to the old age; desired transformationto degradation. Pushkin,
being a great ironist, wrote the Golden Cockerel as an ironic tragedy and
prophesy clothed in the fairy-tale form, for it is a story of the blind sleeping
man (and the country, because Dadon is a tsar) to whom God revealed
Himself but in vain.

V I . S A LVAT I O N I N S P I T E O F T H E D E V I LS PAC T

The literature of Russian Symbolism introduced a new type of the plot

salvation in spite of the devils pact. Actually there was nothing new about it,
since Goethes Faust was nally saved.
In Mother Marias21 mystery play Anna a nun Anna meets a Faust-like
man, who sold his soul to devil for three hundred years of rich and peaceful
life. She meets him on the eve of the night when he has to die. The only
chance for him to save his soul is to nd someone else who would agree to
take the pact. He tried to persuade many people, but in vain. Anna takes
the pact on herself, but does not want anything instead, she saves his soul and
prepares herself for eternal torment. But her soul lled with sacricial love
has no room for hell, is totally alien to it. So this pact does not work,
her ability to love in Christs sake deprives the devil of his power.
Margarita in Bulgakovs novel saves the Master with the help of Voland, for
there is no God in the godless communist Russia. Voland/Satan is the only
one in Moscow who knows that God exists. Margarita is ready to become
a witch and to go to Satans ball, she is ready for everything to save the
Master from prison, the mental clinic as symbol of the mad godless world.
Human society is presented as worse than hell, humans as lower creatures
than Satan. But as epigraph from Goethe says of Voland as part of that
power which still produceth good, whilst ever scheming ill (Ein Teil von
jener Kraft, Die stets das Bose will und stets das Gute schafft), so Voland nally
has to obey the invisible God and send the Master and Margarita to the realm
of eternal peace.

V I I . A P O K ATA S TA S I S

It was as early as in the third century when Origen developed the idea of
the ultimate salvation for everyoneapokatastasisand was condemned as
heretic. Similar ideas were expressed by Gregory of Nyssa, Isaac of Nineveh,
and later revived in the 9th century by Scotus Erigena. Dostoevskys belief
in the restoration of all is expressed by words of the repentant criminal
(an archetypal gure in Russian Orthodoxy and Literature)Marmeladov,
who confesses his terrible life of a drunkard to Raskolnikov, the life which
44 SALVATION STORY IN RUSSIAN LITERATURE
is killing his family, which has made his daughter become a prostitute so that
the rest of the family could survive, and at the end of his confession he, heavily
drunk, says:

Pity for me? Why should anyone feel pity for me? Marmeladov suddenly
began to wail, rising to his feet with one arm stretched in front of him, in a state
of positive inspiration, as if these were precisely the words he had been waiting
for. Why should anyone feel pity for me, you say? Indeed! There is nothing to
pity me for! I ought to be crucied, crucied upon a cross, not pitied! Crucify
him, O Heavenly judge, crucify him and, when it is done, take pity on him!
And then I myself will come to thee for mortication, for it is not merrymaking
that I seek, but sorrow and tears!. . . Do you think, master publican, that I drank
this jug of vodka of yours for the sake of enjoyment? Sorrow, sorrow is what I
sought at its bottom, sorrow and tears, and of those I have partaken and those
I have found; and the one who will take pity on me is him that hath pity
for all men and whose wisdom passeth all understanding, he alone, he is our
judge. He will come this day and enquire: And where is the daughter that hath
not spared herself for the sake of her harsh-tongued and consumptive stepmother
and for young children that are not her own kin and kith? Where is the daughter
who took pity on her earthly father, an obscene drunkard, undismayed by his
bestial nature? And he will say unto her: Come unto me! I have already forgiven
thee once. . . Forgiven thee once. . . Thy sins, which are many are forgiven;
for thou lovest much. . . And hell forgive my Sonya, hell forgive her, I know he
will. . . I felt that then, when I went to see her, felt it in my heart!. . . And he will
judge and forgive everyone, the god and the bad, the wise and the meek. . . And
when he is done with all of them, he will raise up his voice to us, saying unto
us: Come out, ye drunkards, come out, O ye that are weak, come out you,
that lived in shame! And we shall come out, and shall not be ashamed, and
shall stand before him. And he will say unto us: You are as swine! Made in
the image of the Beast, and marked with his brand; but come you also! And
the wise, and the learned will raise up their voices, saying: Lord, why dost
thou receive them? And he will say unto them: Because they none of
them ever believed worthy of it. . . And he will stretch out his hands to us, and
we shall fall down. . . and weep. . . and understand everything! Then well
understand everything! . . . everyone will understand . . . (. . .) O Lord, thy
kingdom come!. . .

Moscow State University

REFERENCES
1 2
Russian Language, by the way, does not asso- F.M. Dostoevsky. Pushkin//F.M. Dostoevsky
ciate the word save or saving with money; o russkoy literature (Moscow: Sovremennik,
we use a different verb for saving money. 1987), p. 303.
 ELENA VOLKOVA
3
N. Frye, Words With Power (New York:
Harwest, 1992).
4
F. Kermode, The Sense of an Ending
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000).
5
Povest vremennykh let//Pamyatniki litera-
tury Drevney Rusi. XI-nachalo XII veka,
(Moscow: Khudozhestvennaya literatura),
p. 153.
6
A. Shmaina-Velikanova, O novykh
muchenikakh./ Nashe polozhenie (Moscow:
Izdanie gumanitarnoy literatury, 2000),
pp. 21825.
7 13
Surprisingly the Russian Orthodox church
did not appreciate Leo Tolstoys idea of
nonresistance to evil. One of reasons was
14
that he demanded nonresistance as social
norm, whereas it should obviously be the
free choice of an individual.
8
F.M. Dostoevsky, The Idiot (Moscow:
Progress, in 2 Vols.) Vol. 1, p. 345.
9
F.M. Dostoevsky, Crime and Punishment,
trans. C. Garnett (London: Bantam Books,
1987), p. 301.
10
Ibid., p. 288.
11
In a crude interpretation of those char-
15
acters they may represent a negative
stereotype of Russians seeking suffering,
unable to enjoy life, gloomy and
unfriendly people. Such an understanding
16
would be an atheistic distortion of the
religious roots of Russian literature and
17
culture.
12
The stem -yurod corresponds to the
ancient Greek word moros, meaning
18
mad, stupid and salos meaning simple, Ibid., p. 564.
19
stupid. Two Russian Holy Fools were
named Salos. The rst Holy Fools
appeared in Egypt. In the Middle Ages,
20
however, this Holy Fool type of saint
21
ourished mainly in Russia until
the 18th century, when Peter the
Great issued several edicts against
the fools.
The Russian word urod means ugly.
Holy fools used to appear in public almost
naked or they would wear dirty,
45
torn clothing. (Their nakedness was con-
sidered not only indecent but also re-
minded people of sins and Satan who was
traditionally presented naked on frescoes.)
St Paul said that God had chosen
the foolish things of the world to con-
found the wise (1 Cor, 1:27). The fools
naked, dirty, ugly, strange and indecent
appearance was a metaphor for human-
kinds soiled, naked, sinful souls that
have lost their wedding garments, their
innocence.
E. Welsford, The Fool: His Social and
Literary History (1936, repr. Garden City:
Doubleday Anchor, 1961), p. 77.
J. Saward, Perfect Fools: Folly for Christs
Sake in Catholic and Orthodox Spirituality
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1980),
p. 31. If holy folly presents the tradition
which is to be discovered several centuries
later then we come across some marginal
phenomena in Western Culture, the
signicance of which cannot be compared
to the symbol of St Basils (that is, Holy
Fools) cathedral in Russia.
A.M. Panchenko, Smekh kak zrelishche,
in D.S. Likhachev, A.M. Panchenko,
I.V. Ponyrko (eds.), Smekh v Drevney Rusi
(Leningrad: Nauka, 1984).
I. Goncharov, Oblomov, trans. C.J. Hogarth
(New York: Macmillan), p. 355.
F.M. Dostoevsky, Crime and Punishment,
trans. Jessie Coulson (Oxford: Oxford
Worlds Classics), p. 563.
A. Akhmatova, Poslednyaya skazka
Pushkina//A. Akhmatova. O Pushkine.
(Moscow: Kniga, 1989).
Translation by Brian Spalding.
Mother Maria (Skobtsova) a poet of
the Silver Age and a great nun in
Russian emigration who was canonized
by Constantinoples Patriarchate. She went
to a gas chamber in the concentration
camp on Easter day of 1945 instead of a
Jewish girl.