Sergei Dovlatov's life and work

Biography.

Sergei Dovlatov was born in Ufa during the evacuation of Leningrad in 1941 and he died as an immigrant in New York on August 24, 1991. His mother was Armenian and his father was Jewish. However, he always identified himself as a Russian writer, not a mere Russian, but as a Russian writer. He considered himself being Russian by occupation, for it is almost a profession to be Russian, he used to say. He also used to say, “You don’t become a writer because of a good life”and that this profession chooses its own people but people do not chose to become writers.
His writing career and his bohemian lifestyle took root in the early 60’s. He was expelled from Leningrad University, where he met his first wife, and served as a military guard for two years in a strict security prison camp. From this experience, he wrote his novel Zona. Then, he made a career as a journalist in Leningrad. His books were not published in Russia before his immigration, though he was recognized as a writer unofficial literary circles. While writing for the official press, he circulated his stories first in samizdat (“self publishing”), then in tamizdat (“published there, in the West”).
He suffered from being officially ignored and his lifestyle made of him a dissident. He was friends with Brodsky and several dissidents, had a drinking problem and didn’t hesitate to get into fights. In 1976, two of his books were published in the West. In 1978, the situation became almost desperate and after having spend few days in prison he finally decided to immigrate to New York.
His family was already waiting for him there and he worked as an editor-in-chief of a weekly Russian-language newspaper Novyi Amerikanets. He officially became a published writer in the United States. His fist published book, Nevidimaia Kniga (The Invisible Book), a sort of ironic autobiography, was published in 1978. Then followed several other novels and short stories, like Compromise (1981), Zona (1982), Nashi (1983) and many others.
He died unexpectedly in 1990, without reaching his fiftieth birthday.

Context.

It is important to analyze the historical and ideological context in which Dovlatov started his “career” as a writer because he would not have had the same life and would not have written the same works, has he lived in other time and space. He is the product of his time, since he described mainly the life of his peers. However, it does not diminish his originality and he is still being very appreciated. Moreover, his characters and situations are still very relevant.
He became closer to Leningrad bohemian and avant-garde circles in the early 60’s. This was the period characterized by the thaw in political and national relations. The young people felt free to express their ideas. However, this period of so-called freedom soon turned to a censure and writers were ignored by official institutions.
These young people’s art was both shaped by the legacy of Russian literature and modern American writers’ influence, like Falkner and Hemingway. They accepted and advocated the idea of individualism and the principle of autonomous human existence, which is very relevant to the American state of mind. However, they interpreted these concepts in their own way and added to it a more abstract dimension.
In fact this period gave birth to two generations of writers and poets. Vladimir Maramzyn, Wolf, Andrei Bitov were representative of the first one. Brodsky and Dovlatov were the representatives of the second one. According to Dovlatov himself, the second generation was unstable and lost; as a result, its representatives suffered from mental and drinking problems.

The place, the city of Leningrad has also a deep influence and meaning in Dovaltov’s life. Historically, Saint Petersburg, and then Leningrad, was geographically and intellectually closer to Europe than the rest of the country. The population has always been considered more educated and closer to Western European culture. Several avant-garde movements, for example the Silver age of Russian poetry, were born and expanded on the City on the Neva. Dovlatov’s work and life were fed by both the atmosphere of intellectualism and bohemian dissoluteness.

Dovlatov's works and characters.

Sergei Dovlatov’s prose is his identification. His style and way of writing are unique. It is impossible to describe it in one word. It is sad and ironic at the same time, and it still awaits detailed analysis. Despite his recognition and his growing popularity in the US and in Russia, very few literary critics have been written about his works.

His work follows and diverges from the Russian literary tradition at the same time.
Few aspects of his life are similar to those of other Russian writers. Firstly, some of Russian major writers have opposed the regime they lived under or at least had problems with authority. One of the most remarkable examples is Pushkin’s provocative friendship with rebellious Decabrists. Secondly, like many other writers, Dovlatov has been deliberately ignored for a long time and unknown outside his group to a large audience. Like Pasternak , he felt pity for poor and deprived people. However, he enjoyed being surrounded by a bohemian rabble. His characters are often outsiders, unnecessary people (lishnie ludi), and cranks (chudaki). Nevertheless, his literature makes them close and likable to the reader.
He has been sometimes compared to Dostoevski, although their literary styles are different. An American critic, Adam Gussev, said that “ Dovlatov’s characters where burning as brightly as Dostoevsky’s, but in a more frivolous hell”.

The writer himself liked to be compared only to Chekov. He defined Chekov as being on the borderline between writer and storyteller. It is very important to understand the distinction between being a writer and being a storyteller to truly appreciate Dovlatov’s prose.
According to Dovlatov’s definition, a writer sets highly moral goals, shows how people should live. On the contrary, a storyteller just describes how people do live. Dovlatov referred to himself only as to a storyteller comparing to a writer. He even went further in his originality and he showed his readers not only how they live but how they don’t know how to live.
On the other hand, Brodsky described Dovlatov’s work as separate from Russian tradition. One of the characteristics that differentiated Dovlatov from his predecessors is the denial of the tragic reality. Indeed, his heroes, despite of their hard lifes, never appear as tragic figures. They are denying the reality as it is and make it absurd and normal at the same time.
Dovlatov has also been criticized by Soviet critics for using a very light style and not refering to classical writers.

Here it is important to mention that despite the fact that all the novels and short stories seem to have been written from Dovlatov’s own personal experience, most of them are fiction. However, they were so close to reality, that they were presented as real ones. In fact, very often the events described were very close to those in real life but Dovlatov’s style and talent made them actually “larger than life”. Sergei Dovlatov managed to highlight in a humorious way the most insignificant words or events, to give them a new dimension.
His prose is characterized by a rhythmic, laconic style, which makes him easy to read. His incredible sense of humor and his ability to use words in a most unexpected context makes him as enjoyable as a good oral storyteller.

Emigration.

As mentioned above, Sergei Dovlatov became officially a writer after having emigrated to the US. However, he didn’t become an American writer. How could he have? Since he identified himself as a Russian writer, he was aware of his social duty. It was his duty, for instance, to emigrate and to denounce what was actually happening in the Soviet Union. It was also his vocation to keep on writing about Russians. The main characters of his novels and stories written after immigrations are still Russian: Russian immigrants. In my opinion Dovlatov’s work contributed significantly to the vision that Russians have of Russians immigrants in the United States. His short novel, Inostranka (The foreign woman) depicts with soft irony and humor the world of Russian immigrants in New York. Since the 20th century has seen a lot of émigré writers keeping on writing in Russian it makes part now of the Russian culture.

Sergei Dovlatov was also one of the initiator and participants of the conference on the Third wave of immigrants writers. On May, 1981 a number of Russian writers who had recently emigrated from the Soviet Union to the United States or Western Europe gathered at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles to meet one another, a battery of critics and journalists, and an audience of approximately five hundreds to discuss the present and the future of Russian literature. This event was called “Russian literature in Emigration: The Third Wave”. The main goal of this conference was to give a chance the writers of different schools, interests and generations to assess their position on language and literary tradition in the world of the émigré.

Sergei Dovaltov's main works.

Dovlatov's whole work as a writer was published in three volumes in Saint Petersburg, 1995.
Then was released a fourth volume, named Unknown Dovlatov, which included short stories, letters to friends and family, pictures, his friends tributes, unknown to large audience.
Nevidimaia kniga ( The Invivisble book). -- Ann Arbor: Ardis, 1997
Solo na Undervude: Zapisnye knizhki.--Paris, Third wave, 1980
Kompromiss (Compromise).--New York: Silver Age, 1981
Zona: Zapiski nadsiratelia. --Ann Arbor: Ermitazh, 1982
Zapovednik.--Ann Anrbor: Ermitazh, 1983
Marsh odinokih. --Holyoke: New England Publishing Co, 1983
Nashi (Ours).--Ann Arbor: Ardis, 1983
Demarsh Entouziastov (coed.V.Baxchanian, N.Sagalovskii). --Paris:Sintaqxis, 1985
Remeslo: Povest v dvuh chastiah.--Ann Arbor: Arids, 1985
Inostranka (Foreign woman). --New York:Russica Publishers, 1986
Chemodan (Suitecase). --Tenafly:Ermitazh, 1986
Predstavlenie. --New York:Russica Publishers, 1987
Ne tolko Brodsky: Russkaia cultura v portretax i anekdotax (Not just Brodsky: Russian culture in Portraits and Anecdotes)(coed. M.Volkova). --New York: Slovo-Word, 1988
Zapisnye knizhki.--New York: Slovo-Word, 1990
Filial. --New York: Slovo-Word, 1990

Bibliography.

Sobranie prozy v trekh tomakh, Sergei Dovlatov
Sankt-Peterburg: Limbus-press, 1995, c1993
3 v.:ill, maps, port.; 21cm

Nevidimaia kniga, Sergei Dovlatov
Ann Arbor: Ardis Publishers, 1978 92p.

The Third wave: Russian Literature in Emigration
Edited by Olga Matich and Michael Heim
Ann Arbor: Ardis Publishers, 1981 p.303

The image of Women in the prose of Sergei Dovlatov
By Boris Lanin
In Woman and Russian Culture:Project and Self-Perceptions
Ed. by Rosalind Marsh.
New York-Oxford: Berghahn Books, 1998

The Unofficial Homepage of Sergei Dovlatov (in Russian):
http://www.geocities.com/SoHo/Workshop/4368/

da Sergei Dovlatov