Evgenii Zamiatin

[A.Smith]

In response to Evgeny Slivkin's comment: The colour of yellow has a certain
connotation in Russian literature.
Remember Mandel'shtam: " Nad zheltiznoi pravitel'stvennykh zdanii..." ---

I think that this is an excellent comment to bear in mind. Indeed, Blok's
"Fabrika" uses such phrases as "v sosednem dome okna zhelty" (Blok's
spelling is not "yo", but "o' -- zholty) and "I v zheltykh oknakh
zasmeiutsia, chto etikh nishchikh proveli" in order to allude to the Russian
imperial glory. Yet it  is also difficult not to think of a different kind
of poetic/cultural  mythology that revolves around the colour "yellow". One
could especially talk about Annensky's poem "Peterburg" (1910): it refers to
various connotations attached to the word "zheltyi":
1. zheltyi par peterburgskoi zimy,/ zheltyi sneg, oblipaiushchii plity...";
2. tol'ko kamni nam dal charodei,/ da Nevu buro-zheltogo tsveta/Da pustyni
nemykh ploschadei, gde kaznili liudei do rassveta...

It seems that in this poem Annensky  alludes to the irrational/surreal
nature of Petersburg...In his poem "Zheltyi dom" (this title employs a
famous colloquial expression that refers to psychiatric hospital;
incidentally, one famous psychiatric unit --in the Priazhka area-- in St
Petersburg is located in a yellow building) Sasha Chernyi presents the whole
Russian empire and its creator Peter the Great as mad...Other examples that
are linked to Russian  outcasts and marginalised groups also refer to the
word "yellow": "zheltaia pressa" and "zheltyi bilet". Russian prostitutes
were given yellow ID cards...(If I'm not mistaken, it's described in
Kuprin's story "Iama"). It seems to me that in Zamiatin's "We" the
irrational and subversive connotation of the colour "yellow" is highlighted,
too: thus, in the very beginning, in the chapter titled "Balet..", the
narrator (D-503) describes the yellow dust/pollen of some flowers (veter
neset zheltuiu medovuiu pyl' kakikh-to tsvetov) that prevents him to think
rationally: "eto meshaet logicheski myslit'". Later on in the text his
seducer (a character known  as number 1) is depicted wearing a bright yellow
dress and black stockings... She is associated with the image of Buddha on
several occasions and she appears in the narrator's  erotic/subversive
dreams: (note number 7 - "resnichnyi volosok):"zheltoe, kak apel'sin,
plat'e. Potom -mednyi Budda; vdrug podnial mednye veki -- I polilsia sok. I
iz zheltogo plat'ia sok...[...] I kakoi-to smertel'no sladostnyi uzhas".When
the narrator wakes up, he realises that he must be ill since he was made to
think that dreaming was abnormal... It appears that Zamiatin represents the
irrational aspects of life with the help of the colour yellow and references
to the oriental and southern locations (he talks about Ancient Greece in the
same context). I think that Zamiatin's image of a girl who wears a
bright-yellow dress also invokes William Wordsworth's poem "Daffodils": it
portrays lots of golden daffodils that the poet imagines when he feels
lonely...

Best wishes,
Alexandra Smith

Alexandra Smith (PhD, University of London)
Senior Lecturer in Russian
University of Canterbury
Private Bag 4800
Christchurch
New Zealand

phone: 64-3-3667001, ext.8531
alexandra.smith at canterbury.ac.nz

-------------------------------------------------------------------------
 Use your web browser to search the archives, control your subscription
  options, and more.  Visit and bookmark the SEELANGS Web Interface at:
                    http://seelangs.home.comcast.net/
-------------------------------------------------------------------------