Sigizmund Dominikovich Krzhizhanovsky ( rus, Сигизму́нд Домини́кович Кржижано́вский, p=sʲɪɡʲɪzˈmunt dəmʲɪˈnʲikəvʲɪtɕ krʐɨʐɨˈnofskʲɪj, pl, ; – 28 December 1950) was a
Russian
Russian(s) refers to anything related to Russia, including:
*Russians (, ''russkiye''), an ethnic group of the East Slavic peoples, primarily living in Russia and neighboring countries
*Rossiyane (), Russian language term for all citizens and peo ...
and
Soviet
The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, ...
writer, playwright, philosopher, and historian, who described himself as "known for being unknown". He published only a few stories and essays in his lifetime; the majority of his writings were published posthumously.
Life
Krzhizhanovsky was born in
Kyiv
Kyiv, also spelled Kiev, is the capital and most populous city of Ukraine. It is in north-central Ukraine along the Dnieper, Dnieper River. As of 1 January 2021, its population was 2,962,180, making Kyiv the List of European cities by populat ...
(now in
Ukraine
Ukraine ( uk, Україна, Ukraïna, ) is a country in Eastern Europe. It is the second-largest European country after Russia, which it borders to the east and northeast. Ukraine covers approximately . Prior to the ongoing Russian inv ...
) to a
Polish
Polish may refer to:
* Anything from or related to Poland, a country in Europe
* Polish language
* Poles, people from Poland or of Polish descent
* Polish chicken
*Polish brothers (Mark Polish and Michael Polish, born 1970), American twin screenwr ...
family on 11 February 1887.
Krzhizhanovsky was active among Moscow's literati in the 1920s, while working for
Alexander Tairov
Alexander Yakovlevich Tairov (russian: Александр Яковлевич Таиров; uk, Олександр Якович Таїров; 6 July 1885 – 5 September 1950) was a leading innovator and theatre director in Russia before and durin ...
's Chamber Theater. Several of Krzhizhanovsky's stories became known through private readings and a few publications. His writing style might have been influenced by
Robert Louis Stevenson
Robert Louis Stevenson (born Robert Lewis Balfour Stevenson; 13 November 1850 – 3 December 1894) was a Scottish novelist, essayist, poet and travel writer. He is best known for works such as ''Treasure Island'', ''Strange Case of Dr Jekyll a ...
Edgar Allan Poe
Edgar Allan Poe (; Edgar Poe; January 19, 1809 – October 7, 1849) was an American writer, poet, editor, and literary critic. Poe is best known for his poetry and short stories, particularly his tales of mystery and the macabre. He is wide ...
,
Nikolai Gogol
Nikolai Vasilyevich Gogol; uk, link=no, Мико́ла Васи́льович Го́голь, translit=Mykola Vasyliovych Hohol; (russian: Яновский; uk, Яновський, translit=Yanovskyi) ( – ) was a Russian novelist, ...
Yakov Protazanov
Yakov Alexandrovich Protazanov (russian: Яков Александрович Протазанов; 4 February ( O.S. 23 January ) 1881 – 8 August 1945) was a Russian and Soviet film director and screenwriter, and one of the founding fathers of ...
's acclaimed film '' The Feast of St Jorgen'', yet his name did not appear in the credits. He also wrote the screenplay for the 1935 stop-motion animated feature film ''
The New Gulliver
''The New Gulliver'' (russian: Новый Гулливер, ''Novyy Gullivyer'') is a Soviet stop motion-animated cartoon, and the first to make such extensive use of puppet animation, running almost all the way through the film (it begins and ends ...
'', but, again, was left uncredited. One of his last short stories, "" ("The Smoke-Colored Goblet," 1939), tells the story of a goblet miraculously never running out of wine, which is sometimes interpreted as a wry allusion to the author's fondness for alcohol.
Krzhizhanovsky died in Moscow, but his burial place is not known.
In 1976, scholar Vadim Perelmuter discovered Krzhizhanovsky's archive and in 1989 published one of his short stories. As the five volumes of his collected works followed, Krzhizhanovsky emerged from obscurity as a remarkable Soviet writer, who polished his prose to the verge of poetry. His short
parable
A parable is a succinct, didactic story, in prose or verse, that illustrates one or more instructive lessons or principles. It differs from a fable in that fables employ animals, plants, inanimate objects, or forces of nature as characters, w ...
s, written with an abundance of poetic detail and wonderful fertility of invention – though occasionally bordering on the whimsical – are sometimes compared to the ''ficciones'' of
Jorge Luis Borges
Jorge Francisco Isidoro Luis Borges Acevedo (; ; 24 August 1899 – 14 June 1986) was an Argentine short-story writer, essayist, poet and translator, as well as a key figure in Spanish-language and international literature. His best-known bo ...
. "Quadraturin" (1926), the best known of such phantasmagoric stories, is a
Kafkaesque
Franz Kafka (3 July 1883 – 3 June 1924) was a German-speaking Bohemian novelist and short-story writer, widely regarded as one of the major figures of 20th-century literature. His work fuses elements of realism and the fantastic. It typi ...
tale in which allegory meets existentialism.
Bibliography
Novellas
* (1924), ''Stravaging “Strange”''. Included in the collection translated by Joanne Turnbull (Columbia University Press, 2023)
* (1926), ''The Letter Killers Club'', trans. Joanne Turnbull (New York Review Books, 2011)
* (1927-1928), ''The Return of Munchausen'', trans. Joanne Turnbull (New York Review Books, 2016)
* (1929), ''Material for a Life of Gorgis Katafalaki.'' In ''Stravaging “Strange”'', trans. Joanne Turnbull (Columbia University Press, 2023)
* (written 1929; published 1989), ''Memories of the Future''. Included in the collection translated by Joanne Turnbull (New York Review Books, 2009)
Short story collections
* (1919-1927), ''Fairy-tales for Wunderkinder''
* (1927-1931), ''Someone Else's Theme''
* (1932-1933), ''What Men Die By''
* (1940), ''Unbitten Elbow''
* (1937-1940), ''One Smaller Than the Other''
* (1940), ''Collected Stories: 1920s-1940s''
Plays
* ''That Third Guy: A Comedy from the Stalinist 1930s with Essays on Theater'', trans. Alisa Ballard Lin (The University of Wisconsin Press, 2018)
Essays and stories published in his lifetime
* (1919), ''Jacobi and 'As If
* (1925), ''Postmark: Moscow.'' In ''Autobiography of a Corpse'', trans. Joanne Turnbull (New York Review Books, 2013)
* (1931), "The Poetics of Titles", trans. Anne O. Fisher, in ''Countries That Don't Exist: Selected Nonfiction'', edited by Jacob Emery and Alexander Spektor (Columbia University Press, 2022)
Translated stories and collections
* "Quadraturin", trans. Joanne Turnbull, in ''Russian Short Stories from Pushkin to Buida'' (Penguin, 2005)
* ''7 Stories'', trans. Joanne Turnbull (GLAS New Russian Writing, 2006)
* ''Memories of the Future'', trans. Joanne Turnbull (New York Review Books, 2009)
* ''Autobiography of a Corpse'', trans. Joanne Turnbull (New York Review Books, 2013)
* ''Unwitting Street'', trans. Joanne Turnbull (New York Review Books, 2020)
* ''Countries That Don't Exist: Selected Nonfiction'', edited by Jacob Emery and Alexander Spektor (Columbia University Press, 2022)
* ''Stravaging “Strange”'', trans. Joanne Turnbull ''(''Columbia University Press, 2023)