Khrushcheva talks Russian lit

When Nina Khrushcheva was asked Monday evening if Russians view the requirements for happiness the same way as Americans view them, she responded that recently in Russia she was instead tellingly asked, "What is happiness?"; a similar question, only one inherently more Russian. Her answer is that "Happiness is not to ask what happiness is."

Khrushcheva is the great-granddaughter of former Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev, as well as a professor, scholar, and author of Imagining Nabokov: Russia Between Art and Politic.

In a lecture sponsored by the Slavic and Eastern languages and communication departments of Boston College, titled "The Prophet of Post-Communism: Vladimir Nabokov and Russian Politics," she explained how the Russian mindset, language, and the nature of the nation itself can make it more difficult for Russians to focus on individual identities, freedom, and happiness.

Khrushcheva said that Russian-American novelist Vladimir Nabokov and his Western literary and linguistic transformation can be used as a guide for how Russian politics can develop an individualized nation that engenders happier and freer inhabitants.

It has been impossible for a Russian author to compose literary works without political undertones due to the nature of the Russian government, Khrushcheva said, which is why they might prove to be useful tools for politics today.

"As an autocracy, Russia never had non-political literature," Khrushcheva said.

Nabokov's works long ago foresaw Russia's political future, Khrushcheva said, and her book assesses how Nabokov's writings can and should still be used as a "useful guide for Russia's integration in today's global world." Russia today, she says, currently "seems to have settled for state capitalism."

Before Nabokov, Khrushcheva explained, Russian literature customarily portrayed tortured characters who rarely escape their misery in life except in death. Unlike earlier writers, Nabokov took his characters "out of the Russian cul-de-sac of misery" and reinterpreted Russian tradition by creating characters who were happier and more individualistic while still remaining true to their psychological Russian roots, Khrushcheva said.

During Nabokov's career, he switched from writing in Russian to English, which, Khrushcheva explained, is related to the idiosyncrasies specific to the Russian language.

Many of the problems with writing in Russian develop from the difficulty of focusing on the self. She described the physical construction of Russia as a "geological oxymoron" containing 11 time zones, and said its vast area makes it challenging to create a personal identity.

This lack of identity can be found even within the structural context of grammar. She described the Russian language as "very difficult and not conducive to happiness or individualism." Nabokov switched from Russian to English as it was easier and less stigmatized to begin sentences with "I" and to create an egoistic sentence structure, something important to Nabokov's literature, Khrushcheva said.

Subsequently, in novels such as Pale Fire, Nabokov emphasized creating individualism and aspiring toward personal contentment.

"I thought I was writing as an assistance to the Russians to go through changes and ended up writing books as encouragements to Russians not to give up," Khrushcheva said.

Although Khrushcheva lives in America, her identity is still as a Russian author. She said this is because the formulative disposition of an individual raised speaking Russian is methodized by the grammatical structure of Russian, making it impossible for them to look at things in a way that is not decidedly "Russian." Linguistic limitations, Khrushcheva said, shape the Russian attitude.

"It's never 'I'm called' or 'I'm bored,' it's always 'It's done to me, everything is done to me because I don't take responsibility for my own existence,'" Khrushcheva said.

Louis Eppich, A&S '08, said he was most fascinated by how Khrushcheva handled her heritage as great-granddaughter of Nikita Khrushchev, leader of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union from 1953-1964 and someone who was personally disliked by Nabokov.

"What I found most interesting was how detached she was from the political history of her family. She is living in the United States but her great-grandfather was the political leader in conflict with the United States for a while. It was interesting how much of a shift had taken place throughout the generations," Eppich said.

Khrushcheva said she did not think that her heritage is related to her current work on Nabokov.

"It had nothing to do with family. People expect me to dislike Nabokov because he disliked my grandfather. I love Nabokov," Khrushcheva said.