Dribbles of Rozanov: Fifth Droplet

Моя душа сплетена из грязи, нежности и грусти.
Или еще:
Это- золотые рыбки, "играющие на солнце", но помещенные в аквариуме, наполненном навозной жижецей.
И не задыхаются. Даже "тем паче"... Неправдоподобно. И однако- так.

Б. всего меня позолотил.
Чувствую это...
Боже, до чего чувствую.

Каждая моя строка есть священное писание (не в школьном, не в "употребительном" смысле), и каждая моя мысль есть священная мысль, и каждое мое слово есть священное слово.
-"Как вы смеете?"- кричит читатель.
-"Ну вот так и 'смею',"- смеюсь ему в ответ я.

Я весь "в Провидении"... Боже, до чего я это чувствую.

Когда, кажется на концерте Гофмана, я услышал впервые "Франческу Да Римини", забывшись, я подумал: "Это моя душа".
То место музыки, где так ясно слышно движение крыл (изумительно!!!).
"Это моя душа! Это моя душа!"

Никогда ни в чем я не предполагал даже такую массу внутреннего движения, из какой, собственно, сплетены мои годы, часы и дни. Несусь как ветер, не устаю как ветер.
-Куда? зачем?
И наконец:
-Что ты любишь?

-"Я люблю мои ночные грезы,"- прошепчу я встречному ветру.

My soul is woven from filth, tenderness and sorrow.
Or else:
It's like goldfish, "playing in the sun", but lodged in an aquarium filled with liquid sewage.
And they don't suffocate. Even "all the more so"... improbably. And even so... like this.

God has gilded all of me.
I feel this...
O God, and to what extent I feel it.

Each line of mine is holy scripture (not in the scholastic sense, not in the "usual" sense), each of my thoughts is a holy thought, and each of my words is a holy word.
-"How dare you?" - cries the reader.
-"Well, I 'dare' like this," I laugh at him in answer.

I am wholly "in Providence" ... O God, and to what extent I feel this.

When I first heard "Francesca da Rimini", at the Goffman concert it seems, I forgot myself and thought: "This is my soul."
That place in the music, where the movement of wings is so clearly audible (marvelous!!!).
"This is my soul! This is my soul!"

Never in any way did I ever expect such a mass of inner movement, from which, essentially, my years, hours and days are spun. I hurry about like the wind, I don't get tired like the wind.
-Where to? What for?
And ultimately:
-What do you love?

-"I love my night-dreams,"- I whisper into the oncoming wind.

* * *

We may have been in awe before, but now Rozanov lays bare his soul and deigns to reveal to us that we are in the presence of the Holy, in the presence of one gilded by the divine.

Plainly, this is a transgressive sort of Holy- it shimmers in a tank of sewage, manifesting itself without regard for hygiene, social mores or prior revelation.
However else it may glitter, Rozanov's Holy is essentially a tool for ordering life, amplifying certain feelings and transfiguring reality. It is a technology of the self modeled on religion, but without any disagreeable need for Others. (Clearly the most odious part of religion, alongside other such external irrelevancies. The mockery of the reader's ignorant piety deftly displays his superiority to this nonsense.)

Rozanov seems concerned here to take one thing from religion in particular. For those who find themselves looking back wistfully at religion from a meaningless world, Providence is among the most painful absences- the sense that a larger order adheres, that a higher logic or purpose governs everything for the best. Providence promised limited responsibility. At most this was responsibility for our own personal salvation or damnation (and perhaps not even that), while the plot as a whole rested safely beyond human control.
In this sense, providentialism is the opposite of existentialism. Instead of forcing the encounter with the brute fact of one's mortality, irrelevance, but paradoxically universal responsibility, it offers a soothing tapestry that relativises the importance of individual choice. Anything and everything becomes part of the larger plan.

But Rozanov isn't immersed in Providence per se- this "Providence" is of his own creation.
When he encountered those snatches of music at a concert, he detected in them the sound of his own soul flapping busily away- the same fluttering that constitutes all meaningful phenomena that make up his life. He protests he "never expected" or "never supposed" such a thing, and indeed, it is this that allows him to be so enraptured with his own ingenuity over and over again.

He whispers to the wind that he loves his "night-dreams"... and this is a strange thing. The word for "dream" he uses usually means day-dream. So it seems his love is for day dreams that happen at night, without the harsh light of day to interrupt them, or more directly, without reminding him that there is something outside of himself.

His "Providence" is a dream spun from and against the world around him, whose best moments are credited to the creative activity of his own soul. Even the God he prays to is just another costume adopted for the sake of a more interesting show.
Rozanov's is a structure of fantasy for the most part kept hidden, emerging only occasionally to flaunt itself to those forever on the outside.

On wings of filth, tenderness, and sorrow, Rozanov and his soul live a life apart.

Dribbles of Rozanov: Fourth Droplet

Стоят два народа соседние и так и пылают гневом:
— Ты чему поклоняешься, болван??! — Кумиру, содеянному руками человеческими, из меди и дерева, как глаголет пророк (имя рек) в Писании. Я же поклоняюсь пречистым иконам, болван и нехристь...
Стоит “нехристь” и хлопает глазами, ничего не понимая. Но напоследок испугался, снял шляпу, и со всемордовским усердием земно поклонился перед Пречистым Образом и затеплил свечку.
Иловайский написал новую главу в достопамятную свою историю:
“Обращение в христианство мордвы”, “вотяков”, “пермяков”.
Племянник (приехал из “Шихран”, Казанской губ.) рассказывал за чаем: “В день празднования вотяцкого бога (кажется, Кереметь), коего кукла стоит на колокольне в сельской церкви, все служители низшие, дьячок, пономарь, сторож церковный, запираются под замок в особую клеть, и сидят там весь день... И сколько им денег туда (в клеть) вотяки накидают!!! Пока они там заперты, вотяки празднуют перед своим богом...” Это — день “отданья язычеству”, как у нас есть “отданье Пасхе”. Вотяки награждают низших церковнослужителей, а отчасти и со страхом им платят, за то, что они уступают один день в году их “старинке”... В “клети” православные сидят как бы “в плену”, в узилище, в тюрьме, даже (по-ихнему) “в аду”, пока их старый “бог” (а по-нашему “чёрт”) выходит из христианского “узилища”, чтобы попраздновать со своим народцем, с былыми своими “поклонниками”. Замечательный обычай, сохранившийся до нашего 1911 года.

Two neighbors stand near each other, they are aflame with fury.
--“What are you worshiping, you fool??!
An idol, made with human hands, out of honey аnd wood, like the prophet [?] spake in the Scriptures. Whereas I am worshiping a holy icon, you fool and non-christian heathen…”
The “non-christian” stands and bats his eyes, understanding nothing. But then he got scared at the last minute, and having snatched off his hat, bowed deeply, with Mordvinian zeal, to the ground in front of the Holy Icon and lit a candle.
Ilovaiskii wrote a new chapter in his memorable history:
“The Conversion To Christianity of the Mordvinians, the Votyakians and the Permians.”
My nephew (came from “Shikhran” in the Kazan Region) told me over tea: “On the day for celebrating the Votyakian god (apparently called Keremet’), whose doll stands on the bell tower of the village church, every lower church attendant-- sextons, watchman, etc.--lock themselves in a special cage and sit there the whole day…And the Votyakians throw so much money into it (the cage)!!! While they are locked up in there, the Votyakians celebrate their god…” It’s a day of “Pagan Salutation”, just like we have an “Easter Salutation.” The Votyakians reward the lower church attendants, partly paying them out of fear, so that they will be allowed one day a year for their “tradition”…In the “cage” the Russian Orthodoxy sit as if “in captivity” in prison, almost (as they call it) “in hell”, and all the while the old “god” (who we call “devil”) is let out of Christian “captivity” to celebrate with his people, with those who were once his devotees. A noteworthy custom, preserved all the way to our year of 1911.

***

How many times have you heard that old argument that “pagan” traditions are re-coded under Christianity, and allowed to persist in ritual practice? That story is ubiquitous, clichéd, and, as VR shows us, not entirely accurate.

Yes, in his first story, about the Mordvinians, VR tells the clichéd tale: Christian meets non-Christian. Christian tells non-Christian to switch idol for icon. Non-Christian switches objects and transfers his old spirituality [his “zeal”, or усердие] relatively intact to a new Religion.

In his story about the Votyakians, however, passed down through his nephew, VR shows us something different: Christians lock the Votyakian deity “in the closet.” Votyakians bribe Christians to allow them to “let him out” once a year. Christians accept money and pretend they aren’t looking.

This is really two stories: The first is a story about censorship, where certain practices, objects and people, need to be actively [and even ritualistically] EXCLUDED in order for the dominant narrative to function smoothly. This story should be familiar to us. Here in America we don’t learn about Native American history for the same reason. And in contemporary Russia, for example, homosexuality is politically and culturally repressed so that reprosexuality can flourish [got to birth those babies, now!]. Same kind of story.

The second story is about carnival, where the entire system of exclusions and closetings are suspended for a few moments of decadent, dissident release. These moments of return, of “unleashing the demons” are necessary to keep the system of oppression functional for the rest of the year. These stories aren't as familiar, but they are just as factual. After all, didn't Rozanov himself keep some demons “in the closet?” Demons that he sometimes “released?”

Organized religion seems pretty illegitimate when you think of it in these terms…just a bunch of overly-performative rituals [of exclusion and release, absorption and displacement]. Practical, strategic, but totally silly.