In submitting this book to the American public the translator has
this to say.
The artistic and psychological sides of the novel are hardly to
be discussed in a preface. Great as the art of a writer may be
and profound as his psychology may seem to one, the impression
is largely a matter of individual variations, and this side must
naturally be left to each individual's judgment and sensibilities.
There is, however, one side of the matter which deserves particular
mention and motivated emphasis.
It is perhaps for the first time in the history of the last few
decades that a Russian book, inspired by Russian life, written in
Russia and in the Russian language, should see its first light not
in Russia but abroad, and not in the language it was originally
written but translated into a foreign tongue. During the darkest
years of Russian history, in the 'forties, 'sixties, 'eighties and
'nineties of the last century, many Russian writers were forced by
oppression and reaction to live abroad and to write abroad, yet
their writings would reach Russia, as they were intended primarily
for the Russian reader and Russian life. Most of Turgeniev's novels
were written while he was in France, and with the exception of his
last short story which he dictated on his deathbed, all his novels
and stories were written in Russian. Hertzen, Kropotkin, and at one
time Dostoyevski, were similarly obliged to write while away from
their native land.
Here is a book written by an artist who lived and still lives in
Russia, and whose intimate love for Russia and her suffering is so
great that he finds it impossible to leave Russia even in these
days of stress and sorrow. But his book may not appear in the
country where it was written. It is a great tragedy--this spiritual
loneliness of the artist who cannot speak to his own people. In
bringing out this book in English, the author tries to address
himself to the world without having the opportunity of being heard
by his own people. This situation, however, is to a great extent
symbolic of the spiritual mission of Zamiatin, for no matter what
the language in which he originally writes, and no matter how
typically national his artistic perception and intuition, he is
essentially universal and his vision transcends the boundaries
of a purely national art. Moreover, is it not true that the more
genuinely national a man's art, and the more sincerely national his
personality, the more is he universal? Abraham Lincoln is more than
an American national figure, and I doubt if the appeal Lincoln's
personality makes would be universal as it is if he were not so
typically American. It is difficult to find personalities more
national than Tolstoi or Dostoyevski, and this is perhaps the reason
why they stand out as two of the most typically universal minds with
a universal appeal that the nineteenth century gave us.
Zamiatin is not so great as the men referred to above, but despite
his youth, he already proves to be the bearer of that quality of
greatness which characterizes a personality with a universal appeal.
_We_ is, as Zamiatin himself calls it, the most jocular and the
most earnest thing he has thus far written. It is a novel that
puts most poignantly and earnestly before every thoughtful reader
the most difficult problem that exists today in the civilized
world,--the problem of preservation of the independent original
creative personality. Our civilization today depends upon the
energetic movement of great masses of people. Wars, revolutions,
general strikes--all these phenomena involve great masses, large
groups, enormous mobs. Despite the fact that there is hardly a
corner in the world today where the average man does not make the
trite complaint, "What we need is leadership," the world today
seems for a time at least to have lost its capacity for producing
real leaders. For our great successes in mechanical civilization,
our exceptional efforts in efficiency, tend to bring into play
large numbers rather than great individualities. What under these
conditions is the lot of a creative individuality? What the tragedy
of an independent spirit under present conditions is, is pointed
out in an unique way in _We_. The problem of creative individuality
versus mob is today not a mere Russian problem. It is as poignant
under Bolshevist dictatorship as it is in Ford's factory.
Of course the sincere, honest and frank treatment of this problem
seems offensive to anyone who prefers to be a member of a mob or
keep this or that part of humanity in the state of a mob. That
is why _We_ could not see light in Russia, and will probably be
disliked by those whose spiritual activities are reduced to the
mechanical standards of a mechanical civilization which is devoid of
original creative effort.
A few words about the method by which Zamiatin tries to drive home
to the reader his main ideas. It is the method of "Laughter through
tears," to use an old expression of Gogol. It is the form which is
dictated by profound love for humanity, mixed with pity and hatred
of those factors which are the cause of the disindividualization of
man today. It is the old emotion of the ancient Catul: "Odi et amo."
Zamiatin laughs in order to hide his tears, hence amusing as _We_
may seem and really is, it barely conceals a profound human tragedy
which is universal today.
The reader may be interested in knowing something about Zamiatin
himself. Zamiatin does not like to tell about himself and the
translator does not think he has the right to tell more than to
quote Zamiatin's own answer to a request addressed to him a couple
of years ago to write his autobiography:
"I see you want my autobiography by all means, but I assure you
that you will have to limit yourself only to an outside inspection
and get but a glimpse, perhaps, into the dark windows. I seldom ask
anybody to enter.
"As to the outside, you will see a lonely child without playmates,
lying on a Turkish divan, hind-side up, reading a book, or under
the grand piano while his mother plays Chopin. Two steps away from
Chopin, just outside the window with the geraniums, in the middle of
the street, there is a small pig tied to a stake and hens fluttering
in the dust.
"If you are interested in the geography, here it is--Lebedyan, in
the most Russian Tambov province about which Tolstoi and Turgeniev
wrote so much. Chronology?--The end of the 'eighties and early
'nineties, then Voronesh, the _Gymnasium pension_, boredom and rabid
dogs on Main Street. One of these dogs got me by the leg. At that
time I loved to make different experiments on myself, and I decided
to wait and see whether I would or would not get the rabies and what
is most important, I was very curious: What would I feel when the
time would come for the rabies (about two weeks after the bite)? I
felt a great many things, but two weeks later I did not get the
rabies, therefore I announced to the inspector in the school that I
got the rabies and must go at once to Moscow for vaccination.
"In the _Gymnasium_ I would get _A plus_ for composition and was
not always on good terms with mathematics. Perhaps because of that
(sheer stubbornness) I chose the most mathematical career--the
ship-building department of the Petrograd Polytech.
"Thirteen years ago in the month of May--and that May was remarkable
in that the snow covered the flowers--I simultaneously finished my
work for my diploma and my first short story. The short story was
published in the old _Obrazovanye_.
"Well, what else do you want? That meant that I was going to write
short stories and was going to publish them. Therefore for the
following three years I wrote about nothing but ice cutters, steam
engines, refillers and 'The Theoretical Exploration of the Works of
Floating Steam Shovels.' I couldn't help myself. I was attached to
the chair of Ship Architecture and busied myself with teaching in
the ship-building faculty, where I teach until now.
"If I mean anything in Russian Literature, I owe this completely to
the Petrograd Secret Service. In 1911 this service exiled me from
Petrograd and I was forced to spend two years in a non-populated
place in Lachta. There, in the midst of the white winter silence
and the green summer silence, I wrote my _Provincial_. After that
the late Ismaylov expressed in print his belief that I wore very
high boots and was a long-haired provincial type, carrying a heavy
stick, and he was later very much surprised that I 'didn't look a
bit like that.' Incidentally, 'not a bit like that' I became in
England where, during the War, I spent about two years, building
ships and visiting the ruins of ancient castles. I listened to the
banging of the German Zeppelin bombs and wrote a short novel _The
Islanders_.
"I regret immensely that I did not witness the Russian Revolution
in February and know only the October Revolution, because it was in
October, a life preserver around my body and all the lights out,
passing German submarines, that I returned to Petrograd. Because
of this I felt like one who never having been in love gets up one
morning and finds himself married about ten years.
"Now I write little, perhaps because my requirements towards myself
become greater. Three new volumes are in the hands of the publisher
and begin to be published only now. The fourth will be my novel
_We_, the funniest and most earnest thing I have written. However,
the most serious and most interesting novels I never wrote. They
happened to me in my life."
* * *
Zamiatin continues to live in Russia and continues to live with
Russia, but such is the sarcasm of Fate that the first Russian
novel giving a real synthesis of the Russian revolution and its
greater universal meaning, this novel written by Zamiatin, should
remain unknown to the Russians in Russia.
Gregory Zilboorg.
_New York_, 1924.
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