Sud'ba zakrestila za toboi i tvoei mater'yu okna rodnoi opustevshei izby

[Daniel Rancour-Laferriere]

Dear Robert,

Your question is quite complex, for both Christian and Jewish themes  
seem to be entangled in the images you mention.

It is true that the Christian cross has an apotropaic function, i.e.,  
it is used to ward off evils of various kinds.  This is the case in  
many cultures, including Slavic (for examples, see: Slavianskie  
drevnosti, vol. 2, 653 ff.).  The X-shaped cross barring the windows  
of the izba is not the typical Russian Orthodox cross with its tilted  
lower cross-piece, however.  Rather, it is a Saint Andrew's cross,  
supposedly because Andrew was crucified on a cross of this shape.  The  
Andreevskii krest, moreover, is a favorite among Russian nationalists  
(Christians, razumeetsia).  And I assume the great majority of  
"kulaks" were Christians.

But then there is Grossman's Jewish identity, the reference to  
Treblinka (Holocaust, his mother), and "madonnas and christs."  Keep  
in mind that both Jesus (Yeshua) and his mother were Jews - something  
antisemites do not care to admit.  Adolf Hitler, the one ultimately  
responsible for the construction of Treblinka, actually believed Jesus  
was an "Aryan."

Then there is an interesting coincidence in the ancient history of  
Christianity.  I quote from work in progress:

Here it should be kept in mind that the taw, the last letter of the  
Hebrew alphabet, signified a “mark,” and took the shape of a cross  
(either + or ×) in Old Hebrew script.  It already had apotropaic,  
salvific, and probably also messianic and divine significance in  
Jewish thought.[1]  Origen (third century) quotes a Jewish Christian  
who said that “. . . the form of the Taw in the old [Hebrew], script  
resembles the cross (του σταυρου), and it predicts the mark  
which is to be placed on the foreheads of the Christians.”[2]

[1]   See Finegan (1992, 343-348) for a summary.

[2]   As quoted and translated from Selecta in Ezechielem 9 by Finegan  
1992, 345.


And finally, that log could indeed be the cross-piece Jesus lugged up  
to the stipes upon which he was crucified, and the halo of mosquitos  
looks like a crown of thorns to me.

With regards to the list -

Daniel Rancour-Laferriere



On Jun 8, 2009, at 2:23 PM, Robert Chandler wrote:

Dear Inna, Oleksandr and all,

Thanks for your answers.  There is still quite a lot I need to  
disentangle.

1)
Presumably, in this case, the owners did not themselves nail these  
bars over
the window.  Apart from anything else, 'kulaks' would probably not  
have had
time.

Would the village soviet have done something like this?  I would have
thought not. I would have imagined another family would have moved in
straight away.

In which case is it likely that the expression here is entirely
metaphorical?  That it just means that the house is barred to them?
That they will never return there?

2)
The broader context is that Grossman, after writing about the Sistine
Madonna and her child, starts seeing suffering madonnas and christs in a
variety of twentieth century contexts - dekulakisation, 1937, Treblinka,
etc.  In one paragraph he describes someone carrying a great log through
swampy forest, unable to brush away a great HALO of mosquitoes   
because he
needsd both hands to keep the log in place on his shoulders.  So it is
clearly significant that Grossman has written ZaKRESTila.  He could have
written 'zakolotila', couldn't he?

Zakreshchivat' can have a protective sense - the sign of cross to avert
disaster.  Is this relevant here?  I think that it probably isn't, but  
am
not sure.

Vsego dobrogo,

Robert

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