gifts

[Valentina Zaitseva]

Dear Simon,
here is what comes to mind about presents/gifts in Russian literature:

Actually, one can begin with folklore: Ivanushka-durachok  or another such
Simpleton would give his last piece of bread, last coin to a suffering and
insignificant person (old man or woman) and then would be either rewarded with
magical assistance or endowed with magical powers (see 1986 English
translation of V. Propp, Morphology of the Folktale, University of Texas
Press, 9th edition).

18th century:
Karamzin, "Poor Liza": Liza gives Erast flowers, refuses to take money.

19th century:
Pushkin, in his poem: life as a gift in "Dar naprasnyi, dar sluchainyj,/
Zhizn', zchem ty mne dana?"
In his Captain's Daughter: Grinev presents Pugachev with "zaiachii tulupchik",
a hare fur-coat; the event later on saves Grinev's life.

in Gogol: getting Czarina's shoes and then presenting them to Oksana as a
wedding gift in the "Night before Christmas"; see also bribe-giving in
Inspector General.
And if bribes are of interest to you-- the entire Russian history and
literature are at your disposal!

In Dostoevsky, Brother's Karamazov:
Ivan gives Katerina Ivanovna a large sum of money to save her father from
disgrace; Fedor Fedorovich Karamazov prepares a gift of 3 thousand rubles for
his lover Grushen'ka (and gets killed for this money, which later Smerdiakov
gives to Ivan). Ivan intends to give the part of money he inherited after his
father's death to Dimitriy to help him to escape the prison.  Apart from
money, the novel contains lots of sentimental gifts (a pound of nuts to little
Dimitry from the German doctor, something Dimitry has never forgotten; the
story is used during the trial as a testimony to Dimitry's good heart and the
ability to remember a good deed).

A gift with the strings attached (like unwanted marriage):
Totsky's gift of 70 thousand rubles to Ganya if he marries Nastas'ia
Filippovna in Dostoevsky's The Idiot).
    The Idiot also contains other gifts: from Rogozhin to Nastas'ia
Filippovna- twice; birthday gifts (from General Epnchin) and various
sentimental gifts like hedgehog from Aglaya to Prince Myshkin. Also: in Crime
and Punishment, Raskol'nikov gives his last money to Marmeladov's family to
help with the funerals.

If you are interested in charities, than there are lots of gift-giving to
monasteries or to the poor (again, some of these stories are presented in the
Brothers Karamasov" others can be found in the stories of  late Tostoy).
Chekhov's stories have descriptions of small and big charity-giving (e.g.,
"Anna na shee," "Kniaginia" and "Zhena"):
See also: bequeathing a violin in "Skripka Rotshil'da" ("Rotshild's Violin");
sentimental gifts in "the Seagull."
Chekhov's biographers would have lots of stories about Chekhov's own extensive
charities.

Gift as poetic power given to a poet, appears long before Nabokov in
Boratynsky's famous lines: "Moi dar ubog, i golos moi negromok"

Other gifts in poetry:
Akhmatova: "Kol'tso" (The ring) "Mne ot babushki-tataarki byli redkost'iu
podarki"
In Mandal'shtam's poetry:  a gift of a necklaces made of dead dry bees who
transformed honey into sunlight: "voz'mi na radost' iz moikh ladonei...")

Marina Tsvetaeva, in her recollections about Maks Voloshin (published as
"Zhivoe o zivom" in: Vospominaniia o Makse Voloshine, 1990, "Sovetskii
pisatel'": Moscow) talks about making a gift of a friendship (Voloshin
explains to her, that he gave her, Marina, as a gift to Adelaida Gertsyk, p.
223: "Ia tebia togda Adelaide Kazimirovne podaril"). Tsvetaeva presents
Mandel'shtam  with Moscow as a gift  (darila emu Moskvu).

Do you consider awards from the sate to deserving individuals as gifts? Then
there would be lots of "imennye chasy" or "iminnye pistolety" from "Sovetskaia
vlast'"; these things can be found, for example,  in Nik. Ostrovsky's "Kak
zakalialas' stal'" and in the stories by Arkady Gaidar;  also in the biography
of Nik. Ostovsky: the regime awarded him with a cozy house in Sochi, presently
Ostrovsky's museum.

World War II and later:
There are many stories about giving the last piece of bread to save someone's
life in memoirs about the siege of Leningrad. Also: in her autbiographical
novel, "Krutoi marshrut" Lidiya Ginzburg  describes giving that precious piece
of bread to a pitiful dying man even though she recognizes him as a former
KGB  officer who mocked and tortured her during inerrogation.

Solzhenitsyn's "One Day of Ivan Denisovich" is full of gift-giving of
existential and moral significance  (even if the gifts are as meager as a
cigarett-butt or a cookie).

False giving is rich  in A. Bitov's novel "Pushkinskii dom": Leva gave Faina
as a gift the ring he stole from her; uncle Mitya first gave the Odoevtsev
family several pieces of nice furniture as a present--and later took it all
back after his return from the concentration camp)

Many interesting gift-giving practices can be found in Fasil' Iskander's novel
Sandro from Chegem (Abkhazian customs).

Hope this helps.
Best,
Valentina Zaitseva

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