A Research on Documents of Life: The Petersburg Diaries of Zinaida Gippius
Literary texts, as an extension of people’s socio-cultural personality, are a form of expression closely related to the social essence that cannot be separated from their period of composition. Artists create their work through inspiration drawn from their bond with cultural, social, historical, and intellectual structures of their age. Therefore, diaries, which transfer personal information, became the first choice in the document search that started in Russia and abroad at the beginning of the XX century, deemed inseparable from the historical process. The idea of “archiving history,”especially internalized by the representatives of Russian immigrant literature, is a significant threshold shaping the post-revolutionary process. In this sense, Zinaida Gippius is considered to be one of the few chroniclers to write down the developments of the years 1914–1919. Gippius flourished through her poetry, which describes day by day, the historical process that started with the 1917 February Revolution and ended with the change of government in October. Thus, her Saint Petersburg Diaries (Петербургские дневники), presents a subjective view in the context of the dominant ideology of the contemporary period and the author’s affinity with this ideology, achieves the characteristics of a period narrative, going beyond the private life’s peripheries. This study discusses the myriad inter-connected issues highlighted by the New Historicism approach (Новый историзм) in the example of Gippius’s correspondence from 1917. Arguments about the textuality of thoughts, the literary dimension of historical narratives, and how much a text is affected by its immediate historical conditions revealed that the diaries blur the boundaries between history and literature and present an archivable life trajectory.
Bir Arşiv Yaşam İncelemesi: Zinaida Gippius’un Petersburg Günlükleri
İnsanın sosyo-kültürel kişiliğinin bir uzantısı olan edebi metinler yazıldıkları dönemden ayrı tutulamayan toplumsal özle yakından ilişkili bir ifade biçimidir. Nitekim sanatçı, çağının kültürel, toplumsal, tarihsel ve düşünsel yapısıyla kurduğu bağdan beslenerek eserini yaratır. Bu çerçevede kişisel bilgilerin aktarıldığı günlükler, tarihsel süreçten ayrı tutulmayarak XX. yüzyılın başlarında Rusya’da ve yurt dışında başlatılan belge arayışının ilk adresi olur. Özellikle Rus göçmen edebiyatı temsilcilerince içselleştirilen “tarihin arşivlenmesi” fikri Devrim sonrası süreci biçimlendiren önemli bir eşik niteliğindedir. Bu anlamda 1914-1919 yıllarına ait gelişmeleri kaleme alan birkaç vakanüvisten biri de Zinaida Gippius kabul edilir. Bilhassa şiir sanatıyla isminden söz ettiren Gippius, 1917 Şubat Devrimi’yle başlayıp Ekim’de yönetimin el değiştirmesiyle sonlanan tarihsel süreci günlüklerinde günbegün aktarır. Böylelikle yazıldığı dönemin hâkim ideolojisi ve yazarın bu ideolojiyle olan yakınlığı bağlamında sübjektif bir bakış ortaya koyan Gippius’un Petersburg Günlükleri (Петербургские дневники) mahrem yaşamın sınırlarını aşarak bir dönem anlatısı niteliğine erişir. Bu çalışmada Yeni Tarihselci yaklaşımın (Новый историзм) öne çıkardığı edebi, politik, toplumsal, dinsel ve kültürel güç ilişkisi 1917 yılı özelinde, Gippius’un “Petersburg Günlükleri” örneğinde ele alınmıştır. Düşüncelerin metinselliği, tarihi anlatıların yazınsal boyutu ve bir metnin, üretildiği tarihsel koşullardan ne kadar etkilendiği gibi argümanlar söz konusu günlüklerin tarih ve edebiyat arasındaki sınırları kaldırıp bir arşiv yaşam tablosu sunduğunu ortaya koymuştur.
Researcher Barbara Heldt states that Russian female writers generally produce autobiographies or poetry. Although Zinaida Gippius, was renowned for her poetry, was a part of this circle, she had also produced important prose since the 1890s and was accepted as an active member of the Symbolist Movement. Gippius and her husband Dmitry Merezhkovsky’s names are regarded as the cornerstones of the Movement.
Disappointed by the 1905 Revolution, Gippius reflects in her art the mystical–religious ideas of decadence that would overcome the impending change. The destruction in question, included in her poetry and diaries, takes place at the turn of the century, between XIX-XX. This transition period extends to the unprecedented political turmoil in Russian history following the abdication of Nicholas II and the monarchy’s fall. During this time, the imperial regime was silently buried in history, and administration was transferred to the Provisional Government.
In 1917 Russia there were uninterrupted revolutionary movements, beginning with the February Revolution and ending with the change of government in October. The revolution process in question is reviewed in three stages: The first stage (February– March 1917): Regime change –the end of the monarchy– abdication of the Tsar and, the establishment of the Provisional Government, followed by the dual power system. The second stage (April–August 1917): This stage is considered a period of political crises. The events related to this stage are the formation of the coalition government in relation to the crisis that took place in April and the cabinet change after the July Days (demonstrations). In this context, Lavr Kornilov’s coup d’état attempt is considered an important point. The third stage (September–October 1917), includes the government crisis, the establishment of a responsible ministry and parliament, and the Soviets who took over the administration with the October Revolution. On October 25, 1917, the Bolshevik forces took action and occupied key areas of the city. Members of the Provisional Government were arrested or fled. Lenin proclaimed the victory of the workers’ and peasants’ revolution during his speech at the meeting of the Petrograd Soviet.
Many studies examined the diaries and memoirs of the intelligentsia who wrote about the year 1917. However, it would be wrong to describe them as a homogeneous group. Among them were teachers and academics like S.P. Kablukov, O.V. Sinakevich, and D.I. Mushketov, literary figures like Z.N. Gippius, D.V. Filosofov, K.I. Chukovsky, L.N. Andreyev, and A.A. Blok, government cabinet members like V.B. Lopuhin and A.V. Peshehonov, and those from different professions such as G.A. Knyazev (Historian) and A.L. Rotach (architect). The manuscripts of these names, who tried to write about what they witnessed, are classified as diaries, texts that were edited before printing, and memoirs. The diaries of Gippius, which are the subject of this study, are included in the second group. These diaries, which are continuous, covering a period of five years, as they were written before Gippius and Merezhkovsky left St. Petersburg. The diaries of Gippius were classified under different titles. These are: The Blue Book: Saint Petersburg Diaries, The Black Notebooks, The Black Booklet, and The Grey Notebook.
Gippius wrote the first of this diary series, The Blue Book, with the title Notes from Today (Современная запись). Two parts of these notes, which describe the years between 1914 and 1919, are kept in the Manuscripts Unit of the Russian State Library. Having to leave Russia due to political reasons, the writer left her diary in Petrograd and assumed that she had lost it for many years. But in 1927, a Merezhkovsky family friend V. Zlobin brought the first notebook titled Notes from Today from Leningrad. Gippius published these notes for the first time in 1929 under the name The Blue Book.
The “Saint Petersburg Diaries,” bear traces of Gippius’s poetry, prose-work, and socio-political studies, and are included in the classification of the author’s diary texts as a type of document. The text examined the relationship of the Russian intelligentsia with the government on the basis of the destroyed conventional lifestyle and fragmented ideological and spiritual values. The textual plane of the “Saint Petersburg Diaries” is in the form of separate books, which are both independent from each other and form a chronological whole. These diaries offer a subjective view in the context of the dominant ideology of the period in which they were written and the author’s affinity with this ideology. In other words, the years 1914–1919 are presented to the field of literature not through fictional texts, but through the lens of an archived life. However, the fictional closeness between a literary work and a historical text does not apply to the diaries of Gippius. The relationship of the New Historicism approach with historiography and the emphasized view that “Each generation writes its own history…” regard Gippius as one of the few chroniclers who wrote down the developments of the years 1914–1919. This is because the “Saint Petersburg Diaries,” which reveal the socio-political situation of the period in which they were written, exemplify the view that this approach cannot be isolated from the cultural circle to which the text belongs and from the historical process it is in. This study discussed the relationship between literary, political, social, religious, and cultural power revealed by the New Historicism approach in the example of Gippius’s Saint Petersburg Diaries in 1917.
