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.pdfwintering grounds. In the “Saga of Greenlanders” Vikings first opened the country they did not like, returned to the ship, sailed out to the sea and opened another country, then went on from there to the North-East and again saw the land [Saga of Greenlanders, 1973, p. 90]. Some of them had no graves but only epitaph: “Somebody did not return”. Naturally, Time and Space in the sagas are seen as limitless and universal. As for Space in sagas, you can see a very striking landscapes reminding us of the early days of the creation of the world: ice fields, stone slabs, snow-covered hills, fogs and extreme cold.
Ancient Norwegians and Icelanders embodied the best features of the successive generation of their ancestors as mythological heroes had been. As a well-known Russian historian A. Gurevich believed, Vikings “kept the universal examples of human behavior, requirement of morality, belief in destiny, which was considered as the main force, ruling the world, life and human beings… Their inner life was determined by destiny, but without fatality, they believed in fortune and were freed for everyday struggle” [Gurevich, 1990, p. 72]. Selfreliance was the main characteristic of their behavior. That’s why the motive of prophetic dream was so important in sagas.
Probably later epics put their impact on literature and painting of the 19th century correlating North only with Cold, Death and Horror. Jane Eyre, the main hero of the novel of Charlotte Bronte, reads the book and observes the landscapes of Norway and perceives them as lifeless and deserted edge reminding of cold and death. But much more later sagas will become the foundation of the national identity of the Norwegian literature.
§ 2. The Theme of Man – Nature – Civilization in the Norwegian,
the American and the Russian Literature
in the second half of the 19 century to the beginning of the 20s
On a boundary of the 19–20 centuries the interest to the North appeared in the world literature, and writers in different countries recreated its image as majestic Universe in which unites natural, spiritual, human, and aesthetic qualities.
It was not accidentally that the image of the Far North appeared in the literature of a boundary of 19–20 centuries. Most artists and intellectuals (such as Schopenhauer, Spengler, Nietzsche) had by that time felt the inevitability of the decay of bourgeois civilization. Disappointments in life, moral nihilism, apocalyptic mood were typical of European decadence in general. On the other hand, in a counterbalance to the tragic attitude of an epoch many writers aspired to represent heroic and positive basis in human being. Feelings of the end of civilization induced them to return to eternal sources of human life, to the natural principles of life, which could remain in the North. At that time writers creating the northern world were released from the standard conventions, the North theme became popular, thanks to the Norwegian writers: Henrik Ibsen’s dramas, novels of Knut Hamsun and Sigrid Unset.
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In the same period in Russia three writers traveled on the Kola North: they were Sergey Maximov, Konstantin Sluchevsky and Michael Prishvin. Their impressions became the basis of very successful and inordinary books of essays and poetry.
Travel to Alaska in 1896–1897 became the major event in the biography of the well-known American novelist Jack London and the beginning of his work on a cycle of Northern stories.
The main idea connecting these artists together concerned the problem of the relation between Man, Nature and Civilization.
HENRIK IBSEN (1828–1906)
Ibsen is known as the founder of “new drama” which reflected and criticized the sharpest conflicts of the present. His dramas are the chronicles of the contemporary characters under the pressure of heredity and environment (and this could be applyed to Zola as well), but Ibsen was not a mere naturalist. The heroes of his dramas living an everyday life, strive for sense of being, they possess a strong will, powerful characters and even romantic impulses and emotions. Some of them are created under the influence of Neitzsche. His plays are full of allegorical significance.
He achieved an excellence combining of ruthless realism with colorful events, extreme situations, mysteries, mythic and symbolic motives.
The relations of the Man, the Nature and the Civilization and the concept of Universal Spirit is very important for Ibsen. His heroes address to God, search for understanding of divine will (Peer Gynt, Brand, m-s Alving and others), no wonder that a universal image of the North in Ibsen’s dramas reflects cosmic vision of life. The scene of action of his plays is an impressing landscape, which represents not only Norwegian Nature but Nature itself. Wanderings of a priest Brand in snow-covered mountains, death of Borkman in deep snows far from people remind us of Shakespearean and Schiller’s undying traditions. A terrible storm helped Shakespear’s King Lear to realize the chaos of life and to tie his fate with destinies of mankind, Shiller’s raised landscapes of the Alpine Nature force the person to dream of freedom.
Ibsen draws our attention to the characteristic features of Northern Nature itself. He underlines the majestic feeling of nature describing not Homeland but Universe.
Landscapes in Ibsen’s dramas become symbols and metaphors. It is also philosophical allegory about the nature of evil and good. Very often winter is the time of action in his plays. He draws snow fields, thick fog, twilights in
“Brand”, it is snowing in the garden in “John Gabriel Borkman”, snowy Christmas – is the time of action of “A Doll’s House”, winter – of “The Wild Duck”. It’s important that the most favorite Ibsen’s landscapes are glaciers, snow tops
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of mountains and cold fjords, they aren’t static, they are in a state of storm and chaos. Many scenes which symbolize the tragedy of a human being, take place on the backdrop of the landscapes hostile to a person. Ibsen attains a great dramatic effect, when describes the terrible death of Brand under the avalanche or the end of life John Gabriel Borkman among the virgin snow. “Brand (shrinks beneath the plunging avalanche and directs his words upward):
Tell me, God, in death’s abyss; –
Is no fleck of hoped for bliss
Earned by man’s will, quantum satis?
(The avalanche buries him; the entire valley fills). A Voice (calls out through the thunderous din):
His deus caritis!”
On the contrary, the same severe landscapes, snow-covered fjords, abrupt breakages and glaciers served as a condition for the birth of a strong character, capable to fight with difficulties of life. Remembering the house, Brand sees snow caps, ice heaps, his mother notices that her son freezing as an icicle has grown strong, healthy capable to reduce any barriers. Northern Nature, as a symbol, consists of many meanings, sometimes opposing each other. It provokes contradictory assessments. Endless space, severe frosts, beautiful mountains, limitless ice are perceived as abstract and sacred, as the metaphor of high human spirit. They cause not only esthetic senses but also religious. Ibsen’s heroes possessing high soul, are often intolerant to human weaknesses. Thus, Brand, in his aspiration for great aims, sacrifices both the child and the wife beloved by him. John Gabriel Borkman breaks two women’s hearts willing to realize his dream to power. Nature is the source of divine beauty and death in the same time. Some people have more energy for life (Brand, Borkman, Nora), but others have no strength for everyday work (Agnes, Osvald). Northern nature in Ibsen’s dramas wakes up high feelings, romantic impulses, spiritual searches and breaks dreams in collision with real life. Serving to a moral imperative in protestant way, northern people sometimes are obliged to rejoice life. The natural and social determinism deprives person of individual freedom.
Northern people feel obliged to follow their moral duty, it is caused by existence in severe conditions of the north, most of them can’t rejoice life. Ibsen compares vivid and serene Nora’s temper (she has spent some years in Italy) with rigid uncompromising character of Christina. He creates opposition between rainy Norwegian climate and sunny Italian days. At the same time, he concentrates his attention on the inner world of the heroes and on the epic space of the Northern Nature. Without any didactics, Ibsen creates the grandiose pictures of the Northern Nature, describes an atmosphere of social climate of his time and portrays the national Norwegian character in close co-operation with society and Universe.
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KNUT HAMSUN (1859–1952)
In spite of the fact that Knut Hamsun rather critically concerns to Ibsen’s works (the hero of his novel “Mystery” Nagel considers that Ibsen fights with a needle instead of a spear, he has no courage for battle, therefore it is impossible to name Ibsen “truly Norwegian writer”), Hamsun follows the Ibsen tradition to describe the North as a general image and a symbol of his novels. Other tradition goes undoubtedly from ancient sagas, in which the motive of a prophetic dream is the reflection of destiny. The prophetic dreams reflect some difficult psychological processes in peoples mind on edge of life and death, and a moral choice. Hamsun displays many-sidedness of the North in its great variety in every novel. Thus, in his novel “Hunger” we does not meet the detailed description of a northern country, however, motives of cold crude weather and illusive light of lanterns become accompaniment to an unstable psychological condition of the hero and his loneliness.
The main task of Hamsun as an artist was to analyse the inner life of the person, the irrational impulses of his consciousness, to combine physiological condition and romantic dreams of his intelligent heroes. Hamsun traced Dostoevsky in understanding man full of tragic contradictions, his moral and spiritual sufferings. Neitzsche made a great effect on him with his direct attention to destruction of idols and glorifying superman. Hamsun possibly was the first who introduced in literature so-called stream of consciousness technique.
When he changes themes from the general to the particular, from the materialistic to the mystic, he uses recognizable details, which possess special national and universal meaning concerning Norwegian North and national character. Juhan Nilsen Nagel, the main hero of the novel “Mystery”, thinking of modern literature, compares Hugo and Tolstoy with Ibsen and Byornson. He remembers brave Vikings, observing trivial life of local peasants with tragic irony. Sometimes Nagel feels an equality with Nature, he has a rest in the forest among moss and heathers, it indicates the author’s attention to Northern reality. Two prophetic dreams become characteristic features of Nagel’s tragic duality. When he feels harmony with all the world around, Nagel dreams of a small boat with a blue sail and a silver fishing tackle. When the loneliness and platitude of life surround him, Nagel plunges into the ominous bog. He looks like some kind of deprived Viking with his big shoulders and small height. Nagel’s unexpected death becomes clear when Hamsun shows the correspondence between a dull life of a small Norwegian town in the 19th century and the beauty and serenity of the northern nature. Comparing unrealized destiny of the hero with the Viking ancestors is full of allegorical significance.
Hamsun’s most successful novel “Pan” (1894) is notable for both symbolic and realistic interpreting of human nature. This story is a small – scale model of the whole human life, that’s why Hamsun retells Greek myth in Norwegian circumstances. It is no exaggeration to say that the Northern nature becomes the
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main hero of the novel. The well-known Russian writer Alexander Kuprin,
Hamsun’s contemporary, wrote, that” the main person of the novel – remains almost not named – is a mighty force of the Nature, the great Pan which breath is heard in the sea storm, and in white nights with the polar lights, and in mysterious love, which irrationally connects people, animals and flowers” [Sergeev, 1993, p. 633]. The northern nature, as Hamsun thinks, possesses absolute divine force. The images of the Scandinavian mythology can’t express its metaphysical whole because they represent nature as a scene on which human being acts. But in a classical antiquity – Nature is the main force of a Universe, it is the Space.
That’s why the main hero is shown as congenial to Pan. Lieutenant Glahn is the pantheist, he animates each natural being. Elemental Natural forces are similar to irrational feelings of his soul. He becomes sentimental when he admires sunrise or sea storm.
He is on equal footing with stones, birds, flowers, insects, even with seasons. A striking example of his pantheism can be found in describing of sea stone, it looks like the courteous wet god. As a philosopher Glahn connects microcosm with reaching Eternity when he observes small insect on the brink of the leaf. He rejects hypocrisy and utilitarian values of a modern society and searches for calm and healthy life in the country.
“There was a stone outside my hut, a tall grey stone. It looked as if it had a sort of friendly towards me; as if it noticed me when I came by, and knew me again. I liked to go round that way past the stone when I went out in the morning; it was like leaving a good friend there, who I knew would be still waiting for me when I came back… And there came a storm… Earth and sky mingled together, the sea flung up into fantastic dancing figures of men and horses and fluttering banners on the air. I stood in the shelter of an overhanging rock, thinking many things, my soul was tense. Heaven knows, I thought to myself, what it is I am watching here, and why the sea should open before my eyes. Maybe I am seeing now the inner brain of the earth, how things are at work there, boiling and foaming…” [Hamsun, 1992, p. 438–439].
Unlike Ibsen, who represents the nature of the North abstractly (ice peaks of mountains, rocks, cold fjords, avalanches), Hamsun enumerates all the creatures.
Many flowers blossoms during the short northern summer: daisies, carnations, a heather, a thistle, a raspberry brake, a yarrow, and also any white flowers with strong fragrant...
A lot of games are found in wood: black grouses, partridges, chaffinches, hares, ground beetles, caterpillars, may-bugs, bumblebees…
Clouds of summer moths light-up the night.
Short northern summer causes violent movement of life, in the afternoon, and at light polar night. Powerful flowering of the nature is shown as congenial to tragic love of Glahn and Edvarda.
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Hamsun underlines strangeness and illusiveness of a northern country. Sun shines all the night around. All the night long Glahn hears rustles and whispers of the life movement, his dreams are full of fantastic visions. Speed of rhythms of a northern country comes to an end at iron night when both people, and animals, and feelings fall asleep.
Drawing a northern country Hamsun keeps its greatness, severity. However, Nature embodies the native world, proportional to the person. North is a peculiar land, full of various forms of life and changes. Northern nature itself consists of elemental forces related to the man’s soul. The nature not so much builds up man’s character, but becomes original music accompaniment to emotional life of a person. That’s why Hamsun’s heroes are full of romantic dreams and irrational feelings. Sometimes they are lonely, weak, and need human understanding.
Unlike Hamsun, Ibsen especially underlines symbolic and metaphysical meanings in his description of the Northern nature. Their abstract images become one’s connection to the Universal Spirit. Some heroes of Ibsen’s plays challenges to a modern society, they possesses the firm uncompromising characters treated Protestant way.
So different, their heroes occurred from one source. The ancient Norwegian in the sagas, overcoming difficulties the northern life, were their predecessors. Each writer paid our attention to different sides of Norwegian national identity which is determined, among other things, by their attitude to Nature.
JACK LONDON (1876–1916)
Jack London was the first who has created the complete and finished image of the North in its unity of the natural, spiritual, human, esthetic features. He was deeply influenced by Darwin’s ideas of constant struggle in nature and “survival of the fittest”. He was greatly impressed by the ideal of a superman as described by Nietzsche, and was under the influence of the Marxian socialism as well. Travel to the North together with gold diggers was the major event of London’s biography. During a cold winter in the Alaskan Klondike, he had read the books that became the basis of his thought and writing. In the article “On the writer’s philosophy of life” London designated the main principles of creativity: truthfulness, originality, novelty, individuality in the image of real life.
Northern stories of London have been published from 1900 till 1912, and travel to Alaska has taken place in 1896–97. They are written in a frank and factual way and notwithstanding of details, became the model of the Northern world. On the one hand, the writer reproduced precisely the geography of Alaska and Yukon, with its routes, settlements, the rivers and the lakes, and on the other hand, he represented the North as the universal world which had a lot in common with other Nordic countries. There were boundless snow spaces, “the
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gloom of black December nights”, “foul wind”, “the sun on gold larches and aspens”, “breezy cold air”.
Poetically representing the North, London chooses steady characteristics: Space, Time, Temperature, Whiteness, Silence. In a special way London draws Space. It is motionless, boundless, silent, and has psychological characteristics. Crafter the gold miner (“In the Far Country”) thinks: “Everything in the Northland had that crushing effect, – the absence of life and motion, the darkness, the infinite peace of the brooding land; the ghastly silence, which made the echo of each heart-beat a sacrilege, the solemn forest which seemed a guard and awful inexpressible something which neither word, nor thought could compass”. Sometimes the heroes recognize the northern Space as very ancient and the mythical Universe. Nevertheless, this space is full of movement. Its heroes, gold diggers, cover hundreds of kilometers. They are similar to ancient Vikings. London introduces a legend of Great Northern Path along the entire Arctic coast. This ancient path is known to every reindeer breeder and every hunter. It is a kind of bridge across the limitless ice fields, hummocks through the endless polar night, awful winds and cold. In many stories of London self-confident gold miners become prisoners of the boundless space. Sometimes they perish, losing reference points. London draws Space of the North as irrational, cosmic and difficult for ordinary people to understand.
The theme of the Time looks the same. The Time is eternal, it consists not of hours and minutes, but of special signs. In the story “The Life Law” old manIndian Koskush left a tribe to die, makes a fire and knows that “an armful of dry twigs is his life measure now”. For example, fifty degrees below zero is a mark of one’s gold miner death.
Time, Space, Temperature create the main image of London’s Northern stories – the White Silence. White Silence is a philosophical and poetical allegory of the Nature itself, God, Eternity, Destiny, Life, Death, Immortality: “Nature has many tricks wherewith she convince man of his finity, – the ceaseless flow of tides, the fury of the storm, the shock of the earth quake… – bat the most tremendous, the most stupefying of all is the passive phase of White Silence. All movement ceases, the sky clears, the heavens are as brass: the slightest whisper seems sacrilege the man becomes timid, affrighted at the sound of his voice…
Strange thoughts arise unsummoned, and the mystery of all things strives for utterance. And a fear of death, of God, of the universe comes over him. It is not pleasant to be alone with painful thoughts in the White Silence. The silence of gloom is merciful, shrouding one as with protection and breathing a thousand intangible sympathies; but the bright White Silence, clear and cold under steely skies, is pitiless”. The standards of usual life are cancelled in the center of the White Silence. Old man Taruoter goes mad in snow captivity and comes back to a condition of a primitive person. Nameless hero of the story “To make a fire”, freezing in the center of the White Silence, loses gravity and “almost flies as winged Merkury”.
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Abstract white Space without people seems dangerous, but the North is a peculiar land, which attracts people like a magnet, people have a longing for it. It is a challenge and a man has to meet it.
Man living in the North and submitting open spaces, becomes a generalized character concentrating mythic, natural, psychological, national senses. The names of short stories pay our attention to some epic features of London’s heroes: “An Odyssey of the North”, “A Daughter of the Snows”, “The Call of the Wild”, “The Son of the Wolf”, “Children of the Frost”, “The God of his Fathers”, “Love of Life”, “A Daughter of the Aurora”, “The Grit of Women”. Its characters are both of the antique heroes and the American pioneers, but stories possess an exciting, humorous, sometimes tragic and violent plot.
The ideal character depicted as an ancient Viking, is Axel Gunderson
(“An Odyssey of the North”): “As has been mentioned, in the making of Axel
Gunderson the gods had remembered their old-time cunning, and cast him after the manner of men who were born when the world was young… His chest, neck and limbs were those of giant… His face told the tale of a person who knew but the law of might. The wife of Axel Gunderson, a woman whose name and fame had travelled with her husband’s hand in hand through all the Northland”.
But real inhabitants of Yukon and Klondike – ordinary people of different professions, which have arrived in search of gold and good luck: they were clerks, doctors, cashiers, businessmen, seamen, teachers, simple adventurers. They left civilization for wilderness but kept a lot of its customs. Sometimes they were greedy, petty, aggressive, envious, mercenary, but they were compelled to survive under unfavourable living conditions, that’s why they changed. They rose above circumstances, became strong, hardy, courageous, brave. This regeneration London motivated as the law of nature, “survival of the fittest”. But he condemned people who were animal-like.
All London’s short stories illustrate four central themes: life, death, love,
gold.
In the North man spends more energy for life. Life and death for him are the changes of natural cycles. London doesn't avoid naturalistic details in the death description. Strong heroes meet their death hour with advantage, without breaking stately rest of space (“Love of Life”, “The Life Law”, “To Build a Fire”).
London describes trials and tribulations of being in love. His persons both follow the laws of the nature and, at the same time, violate them. Mortally dangerous struggle for the woman and will to self – sacrifice are difficult to separate from it other. Great love stories connect with trivial one’s describing the unfaithful husbands, the left wives, the runaway grooms and brides (“An Odyssey of the North”, “The Daughter of the Aurora”, “Keesh, son of Keesh” “A Day’s Lodging”). London considers that, when living in the North, people are getting cleared of prejudice, they correlate their behavior and inner life. The plot of London’s stories possesses swirl of movement, his heroes travel much across
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Yukon, their life is full of contradictions between the values of the civilization and the laws of the wild nature. For surviving they refuse former habits, ideals, customs. Human feelings are more important for them than morals of a bourgeois society. The North becomes another world, with its own rules. Thus, theft of money can be fair, and a police deceit – a debt of the decent person, double murder – unpunished. A woman’s beauty is not grace and weakness, housekeeping is not a woman’s job. Her merits are physical strength, ability to arrange bed on the snow and to read traces of any animals as Unga, Aksel Gunderson’s wife of does (“An Odyssey of the North”). Man must build a fire, must be a good dogteam driver, and a hunter. When it’s deadly windy and cold, it is necessary to learn breathing, going, working as for the first time. Gold in the North has no absolute power. Miners undoubtedly leave gold dust for the sake of life or love rescue.
London makes the mark with a special theme – Indians, the natives of Klondike. The way of Indians’ traditional life was collapsed by newcomers. The natives of the American North take part in the transformation of their own land, not forgetting as well their traditional occupations. The writer admires especially Indian women full of vitality, no wander that gold miners marry them. London believes that natives and strangers, when studying each other, adopt all they find useful for their life.
London was the first who directs attention to the American North, but he embraced the known traditions: by Cooper – depicting pioneers and Indians, by Melville – representing the Over Soul of Nature, by Twain – drawing true – life picture of the reality.
He creates a universal and poetic image of the North, where symbols expressing the concepts of the Space, Time, Nature, Life, Death, play an important part, concerning eternal senses of the Universe and human being.
He depicts the North both as the physical realm and the metaphysical absolute. The heroes of his short stories, surviving under the extreme conditions, become not only stronger, but receives energy of the Universe, spiritual consciousness of the North, respect for the laws of Nature.
THE RUSSIAN NORTH AND THE RUSSIAN MAN IN THE WORKS OF S. MAXIMOV, K. SLUCHEVSKY, M. PRISHVIN
SERGEY MAXIMOV (1831–1901)
The Russian journalist and the writer, Maximov in 1856 participatеd in ethnographic expedition to the Russian North, passed the Kola Peninsula, and in 1859 published the book “A Year in the North” which has brought to him an award of the Russian Geographical society.
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Maximov described the way of life of Russian northerners – the Pomors, theirs customs, jobs, especially fishery, their home life, their family. He described the way in which the Russians lived there for a long time. For the first time Maximov concentrated attention on the places, where settlements were situated. Every settlement was located near the water: Kandalaksha was on the shore of the White Sea, Kola – at the Kola bay, Umba – near the Ponoy-river. Every settlement had its own beautiful wooden temple. For London’s golddiggers the North was a temporary place for searching of gold and adventures, the Russians in the Kola North created their homes from the 12th century running away from a yoke of a Golden Horde, from the landowners, from the serfage. The Russian in the North strove for freedom and were always free. The North became their homeland.
A melodious dialect and peculiar speech of the Pomors living in Kola, left a profound impression on the Maximov’s creation: “Look at the sea – fall in love with it, so, don’t feel sorry for the soul. The sea is our field, everywhere with fish. In the Kola the sun looks in all eyes, shines, but not warm. When northern wind blows – put on a warm fur coat, though in the morning you went just in a shirt. Nothing grows on the earth, but there are cloudberries large as a walnut. There are so much cloudberries as snow in the tundra. “Maximov describes a circle of the Pomor’s life which is equal to the circle of the seasons, tells some historic facts, legends, depicts the occupations of the Pomors in the winter and summer, – fishing cods and salmons, – all the vital circle. The character of the Russian northerner is shown as congenial to his natural environment. The writer considers that a Russian man keeps its own identity only in the North. His book contains some interesting observations, such as:
“The Pomor can’t live without the sea. His hut is too close and stuffy for him, a Russian muzhik feels free only in the sea.
The Russian man seldom complains of the destiny, though has neither healthy food, nor warm clothes, he corrects his mood by work.
When the Pomors were going to hunt for sea animals during a storm, neither fear, nor doubt wasn’t on their bearded faces.
Easy cheerfulness, smart speech, an innocent joke, knowledge of proverbs and sayings are the main prominent features of our people”.
The Russians are cheerful in pleasure, don’t fall into boredom. The depression breaks our people, but they have a lot of strength to be the great people. As Maximov decides, the severe climate and biting cold can’t fight the Russians. The Russians in the North not so much struggle with the difficulties, but lead high-grade life, using all north treasures: fish, berries, animals, wood… He writes that in the North he meet especially healthy people because “pure sea air, a hard work, even the wine-glass of vodka drunk in time, strengthen forces and spirit of the Russian person”.
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