Reading between the Lines: The “Musical Subtext” in Venedikt Erofeev’s Works

This paper studies the works of the late-Soviet writer Venedikt Vasilyevich Erofeev (1938–1990) with the aim of determining, based on the types, quantity, and hybrid characteristics of the musical references present in them, if it is possible to speak of a consistent “musical subtext” as one of the fils rouges in his creative writing. In fact, similarly to what has been investigated by scholars about the religious and literary domains, the pages of this author sui generis are scattered with hidden references to several popular works and protagonists of the Russian, Soviet, and international music scene. Drawing upon the methodological point of view on the conceptualization of Lotman’s semiosphere theory, the article intends to recreate the peculiar semiotic atmosphere in which Erofeev’s works were born, considering also memoirs of contemporaries, critical materials and a recent biography of the writer. The interdisciplinary approach of the research relates to the principle of dialogue between the literary and the artistic, the musical and the semiotic discourses. Among the manifold allusions in the author’s texts one can find famous arias from operas and various pieces of classical music from the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, of which, despite his modest means and his life on the margins of society, Erofeev was a passionate and fine connoisseur. This was mainly possible thanks to Soviet radio programmes, which between the 1950s and the late 1970s constantly broadcast classical music and operatic arias: with their universal themes, celebrated heroes and vocal virtuosity these musical motifs were intensely present in the daily life of the Brezhnev era. According to a lot of testimonies, along with alcohol, they were among the few elements able to “shake out” the greyness and immobilism of those years, indelibly marking even the imagination of ordinary people. After a biographical contextualization of the author, the main areas of interest will be the musical elements present in the famous prose-poem Moskva ‒ Petushki (1970) and in the tragedy Val’purgieva Noch’, ili “Shagi Komandora” (Walpurgis Night, or “The Steps of the Commander”, 1985). Secondly, some passages of the Notebooks from the collection Bespoleznoe iskopaemoe (Useless Fossil, 2001), of the writer’s youth diary Zapiski psichopata (Memoirs of a Psychopath, 1956–1957) and of the unfinished rhythmic prose Blagaja Vest’ (The Gospel, 1962) will be also taken into consideration.