Sud'ba zakrestila za toboi i tvoei mater'yu okna rodnoi opustevshei izby
Daniel Rancour-Laferriere
darancourlaferriere at COMCAST.NET
Tue Jun 9 06:08:52 UTC 2009
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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