Book Notes: Molotov's Magic Lantern by Rachel Polonsky

The Russian writer Danil Granin used the word 'tosca' to describe the villages outside Novgorod, writes Rachel Polonsky. Russian-English dictionaries, suggest that there is no direct English equivalent for this word but Polonsky goes on to say, tosca a word which "besides melancholy, contains shades of yearning, nostalgia, even anguish", (p158).

Molotov's Magic Lantern is a book which is overflowing with tosca, positively brimming with it in fact. It's a book without a plot, and without any central characters, and almost no dialogue! It's really a stunningly written travel book, in which the author immerses herself in the, cultural, political, economic and literary history of each place she visits. The way that she does this is so compelling, absorbing and Russian, that the reader is made to feel that they have been touched by these places too.

Polonsky's travels begin in Moscow, where she was living. The flat she rented in the 1990s was however no ordinary dwelling; but a former Nomenklatura residence, reserved for the upper echelons of the Soviet hierarchy, throughout the seven decades of communist rule. The list of people who lived at 'number 3', reads like a roll-call of the cream of the Old-Bolsheviks of Lenin's revolutionary party, like Trostky and Vishinsky; through to latter characters such as the deposed Krushchev. Most significant for the book however is the fact that Vyachaslev Molotov, and his wife Polina, lived in the flat above Polonsky's; from his reign as Stalin's Foreign Minister, until his death in 1986. What's more, Molotov's flat was largely unchanged from the days when he negotiated the non-aggression pact with Hitler, signed the death-lists in the great purges, or flew off to Yalta with Stalin. Most fascinating of all, his library full of his heavily-annotated books was present too; and which Polosnky delved deeply into. The purges, gulags, The Lubyanka and the death squads of the NKVD reached deeply into "number three".

In succeeding chapters, Polonsky travels around the part of Moscow in which she lives, then down to the Sea of Azov, through the strange history of the traditional Russian banya, up to Murmansk and Barentsburg, and out through Tunka into Siberia. In each of these places she digs deeply into the lives of the people who have lived there, and into the political and literary figures who forged history and responded to it. One reviewer called it a 'delicious celebration of Russia.... from Pushkin to Putin." My knowledge of literature is very poor compared to my understanding of Russian history and politics; which I studied at university. So while most of the historical-political references made sense to me; some of the literary illusions were harder to follow. Nevertheless, when describing the physical, political, cultural and ideological landscapes in which the writers she follows operated, Polonsky evokes such profound moods that even the more obscure references are swept up into the whole. Some scenes, such as her exploration of the abandoned Stalinist scientific research centre where the ideologically Stalinist,  but Scientific charlatan Trofim Lysenko operated, are vivid:

Here, where biology once grew freely as a natural science, Stalin's favourites degraded into an ideological farce. Not all the Lutsino dachniki were natural scientists, some were in the social sciences. On the way back from the Biostation, I took the loop in the road that leads past dacha No.7, whose grounds are grander than most in the colony. Said to have a parquet floor, the dacha was given to Andrei Vyshinsky to mark his years of scholarly service to the Soviet state.... [but this was only] his reserve dacha, and visits of the chief prosecutor were rare. I had found Vyshinsky in Moscow, amongst Molotov's books and here he was again, at his property in the country. (p125)

Vyshinsky was the legal mind behind the great purges, show trials and horrors of Stalin's 30s. He was the person, who as head of the USSR's legal system declared that legal representation for the accused was bourgeois and corrupt. 

The historical references never seem to stray far from the gulags, and the purges, of course. When they do, the toska inevitably returns with a throwaway comment such as, "this is before he was arrested in 1937, tortured by the NKVK and shot in 1939", and could refer to a peasant, a politician, a writer, actor, scientist, doctor or soldier. When Polonsky follows the route of the exiles from Moscow/Leningrad out into Siberia, the sorrow of Russian history from the Okhrana to the Cheka, the NKVD, GUGB etc. is powerful.

I went to Russia during Gorbachev's era - and the country left a permanent impression on me. Although by then the communist system was ailing; the party itself had lost the will to impose itself upon the largely reluctant populace any longer; it was possible to still 'smell' the past - and imagine the state terrorising its own. The body of Lenin was still on display in Red Square, though Stalin's had been removed. Driving past the Lubyanka, was still enough to cause the tour party to shudder and imagine Beria and his ilk arriving to commit their crimes against humanity. This book is so evocative and stirring, that it is almost like a visit to Russia, in the mind; from the reading chair. For anyone who has an interest in all things Russian this is a tremendous read.