The Russian Revolution as fantastic synaesthetic event (Sigizmund Krzhizhanovskii and Vladimir Sharov)

This essay introduces two experimental Russian writers, Sigizmund Krzhizhanovskii (1887–1950) from the Soviet era and Vladimir Sharov (1952–2018) from the post-Soviet period, through their depictions of the Revolution and Civil War. Both attempt to ‘estrange’ this horrific period by drawing on unusual sensory input – smells, for example, or textures and densities – thus allowing the reader to bypass the brute political event in favour of its ‘feel’. The analysed texts include an olfactory history of the revolutionary years inspired by the composer Alexander Skriabin from Sharov’s 1993 novel Before & During, and a dream-sequence involving a toad in Krzhizhanovskii’s fantastic parable from 1931, ‘Bridge over the Styx’. The resulting narratives are, of course, still moral and political tales, but grounded more universally.