‘What! Nothing more?’
Sergey Stepnyak-Kravchinsky [Quite early in life Stepnyak began secretly to sow the sentiments of democracy among the peasants in the Russian countryside. His teaching did not long remain a secret, and in 1874 he was arrested. Stepnyak went to the Balkans and joined the rising against the Turks in Bosnia in 1876, and used that experience to write a manual on guerrilla warfare. He also joined Errico Malatesta in his small rebellion in the Italian province of Benevento in 1877. Returning to Russia in 1878, he joined Zemlya i volya (Land and Liberty). On August 4, 1878, he assassinated General Nikolai Mezentsov, the chief of Gendarme corps, the head of the country’s secret police with a dagger in the streets of St Petersburg. Here is a short excerpt from his book Underground Russia ] ————————————————————– I should like now to say a few words respecting the other section of Russian society, which, owing to my position, I frequented much more; I mean the students, not yet enrolled among the conspirators-for those already in the ranks it would be impossible to say too much. Had I not the evidence of my own eyes, I should have difficulty in believing that in the same city, within so short a distance, such striking contrasts could exist as are presented between the peaceful middle classes and the Russian young men. I will merely relate what I have seen and heard. Civil courage, in which the maturer portion of Russian society is entirely wanting, is only to be found among the young. It is strange, but it is perfectly true. Here is a notorious fact, which for many days was in every mouth In the Academy of Medicine, one of the students, a Viscount,’ as they called him, took it into his head to start a collection for a crown of flowers to be placed upon the coffin of the dead Emperor. This proposal was received in utter silence. The Viscount flung five roubles into his bat, and then went about from one to another. Nobody gave him even a kopeck. ‘But, gentlemen,’ asked the Viscount, what shall we do then!’ ‘Attend Professor Mergeevski’s lecture,’ said a voice among the students. But he would not give in, and continued to go about pestering everybody. At last he succeeded in finding somebody who put two more roubles into his hat. The lecture of Professor Mergeevski being over, the Viscount went about again and urged them to subscribe. But he obtained nothing more. But what shall we do, then, gentlemen?’ he cried in despair. ‘Attend the lecture of Professor-’ I do not recollect the name. This second lecture passed off. Then the Viscount resolved to put his companions in a fix. Throwing the money upon the table, be exclaimed: ‘What shall I do with this money?’ ‘Give it to the prisoners,’ replied a voice among the throng, which everybody present echoed. The Viscount and his companion hurried away in a fury. One of the students then arose, took the money which remained upon the table, and no one doubted that the famous seven roubles were sent to those who were entitled to them. The same day the students of the Academy collected fifty roubles for ‘the prisoners.’ This happened some days after the event of March 13, when the whole population was delirious with terror. In the other higher schools the conduct of the throng was similar, but not identical; for only those who were in Russia at that time can understand what courage was required to act as the students of, the Academy of Medicine acted. What is so striking in the life of the great mass of the Russian students, is the slight account taken a personal interests connected with their profession, their future, etc., and even of the pleasures which are said to grace the morning of life.’ It would seem as though the Russian students cared only for intellectual interests. Their sympathy with the Revolution is immense, universal, almost undivided. They give their last farthing for the Narodnaia Volia and for the Red Cross; that is, for the prisoners and exiles. All take an active part in the Organisation of concerts and balls, in order to obtain, by the sale of tickets, some few roubles to assist the revolution. Many endure hunger and cold in order to give their mite to the ‘cause.’ I leave known whole Communes which lived upon nothing but bread and soup, so as to give all their savings to the Revolution. The Revolution may be said to be the principal and absorbing interest of these young men, and it should be borne in mind that when arrests, trials, executions happen, they lose the privilege of continuing their studies. They meet in little parties in their rooms, and there, around the samovar, whisper, discuss, and communicate to each other their views and their feelings of indignation, of horror, and of admiration, and thus their revolutionary fervour increases, and is strengthened. That is the time to see them; their faces become anxious and serious, exactly like those of elderly men. They grasp with avidity at everything, at every trifle connected with the revolutionary world. The rapidity with which everything now of this kind spreads throughout the entire city is incredible. The telegraph, which the Government has in its bands, cannot vie with the legs of the Nihilists. Somebody is arrested, perhaps. The very next day the melancholy news is disseminated throughout the whole of St. Petersburg. Somebody has arrived; someone else is making disclosures; a third, on the other hand, maintains an exemplary firmness towards the police; all this is known immediately and everywhere. It need scarcely be added that, animated by such feelings, these young men are always ready to render every kind of service to the Revolutionists without giving a thought to the danger they may run. And with what ardour, with what solicitude they act! But I must finish. I have not the slightest pretension to depict the young men of Russia as they are; it would be a task much above my
Patronage, Learning, Innovation
Prasanta Chakravarty The career of poet Samuel Daniel (1562-1619) is a powerful instance of how a poet might succeed through patronage, quite independent of his considerable talent. After his education at Oxford, he was taken up by Sir Edward Dymoke, the Queen’s Champion, which led his establishing a connection with Sir Edward Stafford, the English ambassador in Paris in the 1580s. With Strafford he went to Italy and upon his return, now enthusiastic to write poetry, Daniel soon came to the notice of Mary, Countess of Pembroke. She was enthusiastic about his European experience and offered him financial support, banking on his concern for the condition of the English letters. Of course, educated Englishmen and women of eminent families had appreciated by then that talented men of letters should be championed and rallied as a matter of patriotic pride. In the year 1600, Daniel made a gainful move into the household of Lady Margaret Clifford, Countess of Cumberland where he tutored her daughter. Circa 1604/5 he added the patronage of the rich Earl of Hertford to his portfolio. By this time literate aristocrats were vying for an allocation in the works of Samuel Daniel. He acquired a house in the City of London, became a Groom of the Queen’s Privy Chamber sometime in 1607, advancing to Gentleman Extraordinary in 1613 with a salary of £64, and remained in her household until the Queen’s death in 1619. Daniel, of course, kept lines of communication open to old patrons, dedicating Musophilus to Sir Fulke Greville in 1611, for example. His attentive patrons continued to care for him even after death: Lady Anne Clifford fashioned a memorial inscription for him and paid for his monument in the parish church. The immediate trigger for this lengthy preamble is the Man Booker long-list and the rather predictable unfolding of a network, which pushes and lobbies the case for an author of Indian origin. The mode is kosher. In fact, such care and diplomacy is part and parcel of our existence. There is indeed not much ground to speak from any righteous vantage point—for all of us, surely, must operate within certain finite circles and regardless of our finest professional attitude, we reserve our liking and disliking for this ideology or that style. Yes, the give-and-take in circles of patronage is a subtle art. You play by the rules, and if possible, play with certain élan and nonchalance. But the nature of creating networks and working within a coterie culture also means that you fully appreciate the rules of that particular culture or faction, as the case may be. To understand the inner workings of a faction is an art in successful communication and speech-act exchange. In India, a section of the highly feudal parliamentarian left has been the most scientific practitioners of the art of patronage. Fellow travellers have been richly and routinely rewarded from time to time. In Bengal, one has seen this phenomenon play out as a drill, almost. But there has also been a powerful and small cosmopolitan section which has kept itself out of any strict political ideology but has changed tack from time to time, morphing pragmatically as the circumstance demanded. This group of people has always used their cultural capital for advancement in life. And tried to erect a stout support system. Working within a very closed and dedicated circle of mutual dependency. Academics, artists and writers, publishers and journalists of such a dispensation have often closed ranks—for they have no other way but to rely on patronage since they have kept themselves out of the political arena. The footloose writer or artist, from the other side, has depended on structures of patronage at all times. Indeed, in Bengal, Raja Krishna Chandra heavily patronized artists like Bidyapati and the sakta writings of Ramprasad, just as Raja Naba Krishna did with the likes of Haru Thakur. But what we are talking about is the patronage of an alien lettered class, developed much later and imbued with new ideas and novel methods. Over a period of time they have gotten entrenched in building institutions and have been given to using and circulating the benefits of their own new familial networks. Though far removed in time and space, a superb analysis of how a select group of gifted and cosmopolitan artists around Giotto di Bondone emerged under the patronage of the mendicant Franciscan friars and mercantile bankers has been meticulously studied by Julian Gardner in Giotto and His Publics: Three Paradigms of Patronage. The study goes far beyond the clichés of Giotto as the founding father of western art and illuminates the complex interplay between mercantile wealth and the iconography of poverty. The Franciscans were intensely local, many of them members of the leading civic families. True, the Florentines, much like the group of Bengalis we are talking about, are also often truly international and not merely global. But in practice, the internationalism of such coterie is marked by local preferences and traditions. In fact, any international success by way of an award or any other form of recognition of a member augments the imaginative cultural stature of the local patrons and the artist, who in his turn, would ideally return the favour, given a platform, by paying rich and nuanced tributes to the circles of local influence. The lonesome and precarious life of writing and art practice patiently await such recognition and patronage. The idea of the prodigal turns into a circulating and negotiating ideal. It is rather intriguing to speculate how this class of people who primarily rely on the twin pillars of learning and piety might negotiate with the emerging values of New India—heavily consumptive and nationalistic at the same time. Since this class has immense faith in its own capacity—creative, analytical or argumentative— and on the networks of the select, the first moves to enthuse the government or other funding bodies inevitably begin with a subtle form of paternalism: the view that taste can be created by
“Why are you laughing?” : George Seferis In Conversation With Edmund Keeley
George Seferis, in conversation with Edmund Keeley Seferis was nearing the end of his longest visit to the United States at the time of this interview, which took place in late December of 1968. He had just completed a three-month term as fellow of the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, and he was in particularly good spirits because he felt that his visit had served for a kind of rejuvenation: an interlude free from the political tensions that had been building up for some months in Athens and the occasion for both reflection and performance. The latter included a series of readings—at Harvard, Princeton, Rutgers, Pittsburgh, Washington, D.C., and the YMHA Poetry Center in New York—Seferis reading in Greek and the interviewer in English, each appearance with its distinct qualities of excitement and response. In Pittsburgh, for example, the audience (composed mostly of local Greek-Americans) seemed bewildered by the poetry during the reading but responded to the poet during the reception afterward as they might to Greece’s exiled king. The New York reading began with an introduction by Senator Eugene McCarthy. During the discussion period several questions from the audience had to do specifically with the political situation in Greece. Seferis refused to answer them. He was thought to be evasive by some in the audience, but he held his ground, and during the dinner following the reading he gave his reasons in private: He didn’t consider it proper to criticize his government while a guest on foreign soil, safely outside the boundaries of the government’s displeasure. He saved his answers for his return to Greece: an uncompromising statement against the dictatorship presented to local and foreign correspondents in defiance of martial law and at obvious personal risk (The New York Times, March 29, 1969). The combination of diplomatic tact and high conscience that defines the political character of Seferis also colors his presence and personal style. He is a heavy man, his voice gentle when disengaged, his movements slow, almost lethargic at times; yet he has a habit of gripping your arm as he moves, and the grip, though amiable in the old-fashioned European manner, remains young and firm enough to give you word of the strength still in him. And the voice has a second edge that cuts sharply when he senses something dubious or facile challenging it. Then, on the diplomatic side again, comes a sense of humor: a love of nonsense, of the risqué joke, of kidding himself and others with a wry little moon of a smile that appears unexpectedly in his oval face—especially after he’s trapped his listener with the question: “Why are you laughing?” An American poet once referred to him as a “Middle-Eastern troglodyte” in a poem about his first reading in New York some years ago. When the interviewer finally got up the courage to show him the poem, Seferis fixed him with a sharp, uncompromising look. “Middle-Eastern troglodyte. Ridiculous and inaccurate. I once called myself a Cappadocian troglodyte, and that is what I plan to remain. Why are you laughing?” Then the smile. The interview took place in the Seferis temporary home at the Institute for Advanced Study, an unpretentious second-floor apartment with three rooms, with a large window overlooking the grounds, the bookcase almost empty, none of the modern Greek paintings and classical treasures that set the style of the Seferis home in Athens. Yet the poet was delighted with the place because it gave him access to a number of exotic things: changing trees, and squirrels, and children crossing the lawn from school. His wife Maro—hair still gold and braided like a girl’s—was present throughout the interview, sometimes listening with apparent amusement, sometimes preparing food or drinks in the background. There were three recording sessions. Seferis would take a while to warm up with the microphone watching him from the coffee table, but whenever he began to reminisce about friends from the war years and before—Henry Miller, Durrell, Katsimbalis—or the years of his childhood, he would relax into his natural style and talk easily until the tape died out on him. ———————————————————– INTERVIEWER Let me start by asking you about the Institute for Advanced Study and how you feel, only recently retired from the diplomatic service, about beginning a new career as a student. GEORGE SEFERIS My dear, the problem which puzzles me is: What is advanced study? Should one try to forget, or to learn more, when one is at my stage of advanced study? Now I must say, on a more prosaic level, that I enjoy very much the whole situation here because there are very nice people, very good friends, and I enjoy—how shall I put it?—their horizons. There are many horizons around me: science, history, archaeology, theology, philosophy . . . INTERVIEWER But don’t you feel out of place among so many scientists? So many historians? SEFERIS No, because I am attracted by people whose interests are not in my own area. INTERVIEWER Do you think there’s an advantage—as I think Cavafy would probably have thought—to being in dialogue with historians? In other words, do you feel that history has something particular to say to the poet? SEFERIS If you remember, Cavafy was proud of having a sense of history. He used to say: “I am a man of history”—something like that, I don’t remember the exact quotation. I am not that way; but still, I feel the pressure of history. In another way, perhaps: more mythological, more abstract, or more concrete . . . I don’t know. INTERVIEWER How about the relation of the Greek poet to his particular historical tradition? You once said that there is no ancient Greece in Greece. What did you mean by that exactly? SEFERIS I meant Greece is a continuous process. In English the expression “ancient Greece” includes the meaning of “finished,” whereas for us Greece goes on living, for better or for worse; it is in life, has not expired yet. That is a fact. One can
Bhaskar Chakrabarty’s Diary—1982: A Selection
1/1 Gist. A political journalist is more than a prostitute. 1/1 a poem is a deer with a dream in it. 1/1 Defeat becomes us. 14/1 Piku-Sadgati— incomparable, incomparable 29/1 If you want to catch a thief, kick the police. 30/1 Kamalda’s painting exhibition—academy of fine arts. 3/2 Orphee. This Cocteau film I had probably seen ten years ago. Watched it again today. Timeless classic. Kamalda’s painting exhibition. 5/2 Jule et Jim. Incomparable. Kamalda’s exhibition over. 10/2 Have to bring such a kind of laughter into grasp that nothing will ever make it fade. 10/2 A man’s body lying in this room, burnt to death. 19/2 Akaler Shondhane. How a good film can be ruined, Mrinalbabu shows at the end. Weight – 70 kg 5/3 Is it because I have been able to love that I am suffering so every day? 17/3 They read quickly, badly, and pass judgement before they have understood.—J.P.S. If the poet relates, explains , or teaches, the poetry becomes prosaic; he has lost the game.—J.P.S. 19/3 I must admit that I have never written any political poetry. But still, if someone calls any poem political, I will not be surprised. 22/3 Lochandas Karigaar is a memorable experience. 7/4 Bought a book for Rs. 50. Sinned. 8/4 You can’t be misguided. 12/4 Sinned again. Book. Rs. 21.40. Adalat o Ekti Meye. 22/5 A procession of abortive poems. 1/6 Life is good. Very good. Death, not so much. 6/6 When everyone is running after money, I am writing poetry. No money if I fall ill again. How long shall Sejdi manage. 9/6 I will awake from within one day. Illumined, incandescent. Feels as if I am walking around in unknown, uncharted country. Relationships are getting denser—hesitantly. By no means am I lonely. 14/6 Huge trouble. Too many letters to write. Must list name and date from now on. We don’t have any secretary. 21/6 Learning to use words slowly, with time. Terrible poverty. 26/6 Truly, my deepest secret poems are like the light of imagination, running in a moment from hither to thither. As if I have really been blessed with a gift of two wings. How grateful am I to life. 30/6 After every single poem, one has to stir in suspicion and examine it closely—whether it is a poem indeed. 2/7 55 poems in 6 months! Never in my life. 4/7 Perhaps my shorter poems are buried under my prose-poems. Wrong thinking. Disrespectful. 6/7 Modern Times. Classical touch of a genius. 24/7 No letter even today! Everyone’s busy? 27/7 Reality, simplicity and humanity with superb imagination. B. C. 28/7 Have coughed the whole night. Who can survive so many cigarettes? 29/7 We never came to thoughts. They came to us. H. Not liking coffee house. We are too late for the God and too early for the Being. H. 2/8 One has to love even being swindled in life. 3/8 Alone at coffee house. Extra tension. I should live with children. Have not graded any examination script the whole day. Don’t know why, but I have never worked towards a lucrative job, marriage. Today, perhaps, I have inched pretty close to marriage. Discomfitting. 4/8 Hotel. Afternoon, 3.05. Daal-rice. Fried fish. 9/8 After a trillion years, this birth. She was my mother. He, my father. My young brother, sister, didi. A few friends. And then, just vanishing into the wide yonder. Again will not see them for many trillion years. This mystery beckons me today. 9/8 Exhausted. Need a break for a couple of days. Somewhere deserted—rest. Trysting with song—Santosh Sengupta, Dhiren Mitra and Ramkumar. 10/8 Common people’s words needs to be conveyed simply to the common people— Did the political parties ever realize this? Ever? 11/8 Let there be no vacuous optimism in my writing. 15/8 One more insignificant day. 18/ 8 If the front door is bolted, smash it to smithereens. Munna has fever. I feel it coming too. 24/8 Ceaselessly, to stand upon a rickety, tremulous life and write poetry. What excrutiating poverty. 25/8 So weak I have become. Continuously thinking of ma. 26/8 Be calm be calm just be calm. 27/8 This life I have wasted by writing. Had I not written, this life I would have wasted more. Terrible poverty. Losing joy in life again. Any which way, must rummage among the daily nuts and bolts of life for happiness. Must. 29/8 Spending since morning. 30/8 Weight—68 kg 2/9 Idiot! Learn how to lie. You will be happy. Have I to lie in order to be happy? 4/9 Why don’t those who want new kinds of writing from me go to the stationary shop? Coffee House. 7/9. Theory of rebirth. A consolation to earth-loving humans. These days the young ones engage in opinion-mongering. For me Bibhutibhushan’s Ichhamati is no less than And Quiet Flows the Don. 9/9 I painfully realize today that there is nothing I can do other than writing poetry. 15/9 Can we not ever get the vast star studded night into language, into poetry? Being my own friend and my own enemy I have done, continually, so many plain chores, wishing to die silently. 16/9 In every moment of life, rejection entangles us. One has to accept it. One has to love more. Anger, excitement– I must eliminate from life. I have forgotten the habit of walking on roads. Have to start afresh in a quiet way. 17/9 I have always played with danger since childhood. Paying the penalty for that today. When Sejdi, too, tells me to write prose, I feel really anguished. 20/9 Greed, I must win over. Restraint, a valuable gift. Impassivity, stay with me. Beware. Disquiet ahead. 22/9 Someone who slipslides away from another