The Created Legend by Fyodor Sologub (ebook reader color screen TXT) 📕
Description
Hidden in the forest, the poet Trirodov attempts to secede from the troubled society of early twentieth century Russia to build his own utopia: a school for the quiet children he cares for. Nothing is ever that easy though, and his personal connections to the outside world tie him into the political whirlwind of agitators, factions and power struggles that threaten his solitude.
The Created Legend portrays a stark contrast to the protagonists of Sologub’s earlier work The Little Demon, even though the setting is the same town of Skorodozh. There, they varied from at best well-meaning to actively malignant; here the lead characters are idealistic, and isolate themselves from the trials of Russian society in an attempt to maintain their idealism. Trirodov sees beauty and mystery everywhere he looks, and (following the title) works to create his own legend.
This volume, originally titled “Drops of Blood,” is the first of the “Created Legend” trilogy and the only one translated contemporaneously into English. It was received with some bewilderment by critics: the combination of current affairs and magical events proved too strange for many. However, treated as an early example of magic realism and with the benefit of hindsight, the setting and symbolism is less shocking and more readily accessible to the modern reader.
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- Author: Fyodor Sologub
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“Who hasn’t heard about it?” asked Trirodov quietly.
“The newspapers have certainly published enough about him,” the Captain continued. “Sometimes they added a trifle, but this was to his good. It turned everyone’s attention to him. He was made Vice-Governor, and now he has redoubled his efforts, and is trying to distinguish himself further. He has an eye on the governorship. He is sure to go a long way. Our own Governor is on his guard on his account. I need not tell you what a powerful arm our Governor has in Petersburg. Nevertheless he can’t decide to thwart Ardalyon Borisovitch.”28
“And yet in spite of that you. …”
“Do please consider what a time we are living in,” said the Captain. “There never was anything like it. There is such an unrest among the peasants that may God have mercy on us. Only the other day they played the deuce on Khavriukin’s farm. They carried away everything that could be carried away. The muzhiks even took away all the live stock. A pitiful case. Khavriukin is considered among the better masters in our government. He held the peasants in the palm of his hand. And now they’ve paid him back!”
“Howsoever it may have happened,” said Trirodov, “still you did whip my instructress. That was rather shocking.”
“Please!” exclaimed the Captain. “I will personally ask her pardon. Like an honest man.”
Trirodov sent for Maria. Maria came. The Captain of the police poured out his apologies before her, and covered her sunburnt hands with kisses. Maria was silent. Her face was pale, and her eyes were aflame with anger.
The Captain thought cautiously:
“Such a woman would not stop at murder.”
He made haste to take his leave.
XXIXThe educational police also conferred its presence on Trirodov’s school in the person of the Inspector of the National Schools.
The local Inspector of the National Schools, Leonty Andreyevitch Shabalov, had served all his life in remote, wooded places, and was for that reason quite an uncivilized being. Tall, robust, shaggy, unharmonious, he resembled even in external appearance a bear of Vologda or Olonetz. His face was overgrown with a thick beard. His thick hair crept down his low forehead towards his eyebrows. His back was broad and somewhat stooped, like a huge trough.
Shabalov frequently said to the instructors and instructresses in his district in a hoarse drawl:
“Batenka”29 (or “golubushka”30 if it happened to be an instructress), “brilliant instructors are not necessary. I don’t like clever men and women, I’m no respecter of modern ladies and dandies. The chief thing, batenka, in life and in service, is not to put on airs. In my opinion, batenka, if you perform your State obligations and conduct yourself peacefully you will find yourself well off. The educational programme has been worked out by people not more stupid than you and me, so that you and I needn’t spend our time philosophizing about programmes. That’s what I think, batenka!”
But, notwithstanding all his respect for educational programmes, Shabalov knew the educational business badly. It would be truer to say that he did not know it at all. He was hardly interested in it. He was not even very literate. He received his inspector’s position as a reward for his piety, patriotism, and correct mode of thinking, rather than for his labours in the interest of public instruction. He had served in his youth as a class assistant in the gymnasia. There, by a steady attendance at the gymnasia chapel and the reading of the apostles in a stentorian voice, he turned upon himself the attention of an old bigot of a general’s wife. She procured him the inspector’s position.
There was no way in which he could help the young and little-experienced instructors. When he visited the schools he limited himself to a superficial examination and gave the pupils several stupid questions, mostly on matters of piety, of “love towards the Fatherland and national pride.”31
Above all, Shabalov loved to collect rumours and gossip. He did this with great ability and zeal. Everyone knew this weakness of his. Consequently there were many eager to gossip and to inform against someone. There were even a number of informers among the instructors and instructresses who wished to gain favour and promotion. Once it was reported to Shabalov that teachers of both sexes in some of the neighbouring schools had gathered one holiday eve in one of the schools and sang songs there. He immediately sent them all a notification composed as follows:
The School District of Rouban.
No. 2187
Skorodozh,
16th of September, 1904.
Inspector of the National Schools of the first section of the Skorodozh Government. To Instructor of the Vikhliaevsky one-class rural school, Ksenofont Polupavlov:
“Dear Sir, It has come to my knowledge that on the evening of the 7th of September you participated at a meeting of instructors and instructresses, which had been arranged without the necessary permit, and that you sang there with them songs of a worldly and reprehensible character. Therefore, dear sir, I beg you in the future not to permit yourself similar actions unbecoming to your schoolmaster’s vocation, and I herewith warn you that at a repetition of such behaviour you will be immediately discharged from the service.
“Inspector Shabalov.”
On another occasion he wrote to the same instructor:
“On the occasion of an inspection of the schools of the section entrusted to me, a number of instructors and instructresses, and you, dear sir, among that number, have transgressed the limits of the programme ratified for Primary Schools by the authorities, in imparting to your pupils facts from history and geography unnecessary to the people; and therefore, in confirmation of certain verbal instructions I have already made to you in person, I beg you in the future to maintain strictly the established programmes; and I warn you that if you fail to comply you will be discharged from the service.”
Shabalov was particularly displeased with the participation of certain instructors
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