Carnivalisation in the "anecdotes" of Daniil Harms

Abstract

As the background of this work stands M. Bakhtin’s theory of the earnivalisation of literature, i.e. of carnival consciousness as "the great popular feeling of the world throughout past milleniums" which is transposed into literature in the form of carnivalcsque categories: eccentricity, carnival msalliances, profanation and, especially, familiarization (the very basis of the carnival). The author refers to the work of L. Szilard who has expanded Bakhtin's thesis by contending that carnivalcsque thought is not restricted to the past but that it is to be "basically interpreted as something that is retained and constantly renewed by the collective unconsciousness particularly during disruptive, crisis-laden periods of time". The avant-garde movement can be considered as one of these periods - of enormous upheaval which is, as Bakhtin says, "always preceded, as its preparatory step, by a certain carnivalisation of knowledge". Carnivalesque features, accompanied by a prevailing sense of "the joyful relativity of dominant truths and powers" (Bakhtin) come to the fore within this "anti-formative formation"; L. Szilard shows that avant-garde literature featured all the elements which were only afterwards recognized as the qualities of twentieth century carnivalesque art. We thus find in the "anecdotes", the anti-normative lexis of Daniel Harms, a memeber oi the "Oberin" group from the twilight of the Russian avant-garde, a lively reflection of the carnivalesque consciousness. In his "anecdotes" from the "lives"/"byta" of the famous names belonging to Russian national but also to world literature/culture and civilisation, the reader finds the vivacious ambivalent carnivalesque spirit which does not assign anything absolute value but, through its liberating and renewing laughter, depreciates whatever is firmly entrenched, ordered according to strict hierarchical rules, al, that is "monolithieally serious and dark, full of awe and piety" (Bakhtin), It is becouse of this that carnivalcsque categories can be applied to Harm's brief forms where the dethronization (the carnivalesque "razvenčanie") of formerly ''untouchable" greatness (Gogol, Pushkin. Dostoyevski, Tolstoy...) represents, at the same lime, their new affirmation.