Americans in Russia

[Inna Caron]

Some ten years ago there was a thriller by Junius Podrug titled "Presumed
Guilty" - about an American lawyer or a DA who found herself in the middle
of lawlessness, sweeping over the "new Russia." The novel itself was
mediocre at best (and probably not even that), but the details of everyday
life, especially its more shocking aspects from an American perspective,
were so hilariously accurate, that I still quote it when making certain
points :)

Also, there was an epic novel about building a canal in Central Asia in
1920s by a Polish-Soviet writer Bruno Jasienski. The Russian title is
"Chelovek meniaet kozhu," the Polish - "Czlowiek zmienia skore" (Man Changes
His Skin). One of the main characters is Mr. Clark, an American engineer,
who joins the project to "make money," and ends up falling for a Russian
komsomolka and everything she stands for (to the extent of abandoning his
wife and three kids back in the United States). It is really more about the
Soviet perception of what the American experience in Russia would be like,
but very interesting nevertheless. There were two film adaptations, in the
50s and the 80s, I believe. I only saw the 80s version, a TV mini-series.
The novel itself was initially perceived as a Socialist Realist classic, but
later thought of as a cleverly disguised Aesopian tale, and the author was
eventually prosecuted and shot in 1938. Unfortunately, there seems to be no
English translation, but if you get a hold of the mini-series, Mr. Clark is
played by young and dashing Igor Kostolevsky, who apparently epitomized the
Russian perception of the suave and clean-cut American professional at that
time :)

Inna Caron

-----Original Message-----
From: SEELANGS: Slavic & East European Languages and Literatures list
[mailto:SEELANGS at BAMA.UA.EDU] On Behalf Of Wilkinson, C
Sent: Monday, June 09, 2008 10:31 AM
To: SEELANGS at BAMA.UA.EDU
Subject: Re: [SEELANGS] russian-american fiction/memoirs

The collection "Amerika: Russian Writers View the United States", edited by
Mikhail Iossel and Jeff Parker springs to mind.

Mayakovsky's "My Discovery of America" is available in English (Hesperus
Modern Voices).

Unfortunately Yaroslav Mogutin's "America in My Trousers" doesn't seem to be
available in English - excerpts are available for download in Russian at
http://kolonna.mitin.com/books.php?bookid=86. It's very much in the same
vein as Limonov's "It's me, Eddie" but is more far more sexually explicit
(as is Limonov's "Dnevnik neudachnika"; also untranslated as far as I know).


As for Americans in Russian, David Tuller's "Cracks in the Iron Closet"
could be an interesting read, as Mark Ames' and Matt Taibbi's book "The
eXile: Sex, Drugs and Libel in the New Russia" if more off-the-wall and
offensive material can be considered.

Further afield, Elinor Burkett's "So many enemies, so little time: An
American Woman in All the Wrong Places" about her experiences in Bishkek,
Kyrgyzstan and teaching at the Slavic university there is a great account of
culture shock (very accurate negativity) and possibly the novel "This is Not
Civilization" by Robert Rosenberg about a Peace Corps Volunteer in
Kyrgyzstan, are worth considering.

Best wishes,

Claire Wilkinson

--
PhD Candidate
Room 354, Centre for Russian & East European Studies (ERI)
University of Birmingham
Edgbaston, Birmingham, B15 2TT, UK.

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