An unknown short story by Vladislav Khodasevich

Abstract

A hitherto unknown short story by the foremost Russian modernist poet Vladislav Khodasevich was discovered in the Astrakhan-published newspaper Volga (No. 5 dated 11 February 1908). The story was never printed elsewhere, nor can it be found in the author’s later collections or editions of complete works. In his scholarly foreword, A. Bik-Bulatov, who made the discovery, explains that the short story ‘Death’ [‘Smert’] belongs in the earliest period of Khodasevich’s literary endeavours and provides a valuable insight into the early stages of his poetic journey. The story is also interesting because it mentions place names in the environs of Bologoe, a town of some significance in Khodasevich’s biography, and represents a rare example of the poet’s artistic interpretation of the area. ‘Death’ belongs to the stratum of Russian literature devoted to rustic carnival mysteries. Prof. A. Skvortsov hypothesizes that the short story is a covert parody of L. Andreev’s prose, and defines its genre as a poem in prose.