Ah, the letters Ж (Zh) and З (Z)! I decided to combine them since they do fall one right after the other in the alphabet and I’ve read so little by writers with Zh and Z names.
I only have one real, true Z-rooted favorite: Evgenii Zamiatin (Yevgeny Zamyatin). And that’s thanks to one book, Мы (We), which I haven’t read in years, and a few stories, particularly “Пещера” (“The Cave”). I read We several times in translation during my college years, when I was fixated on dystopias and still hadn’t forgotten math. I should reread it, in Russian this time, and move on to some of Zamiatin’s other works, like Уездное (A Provincial Tale) and Островитяне (Islanders).
Beyond Zamiatin, I just don’t have much Ж or З experience. I always enjoy Mikhail Zoshchenko when I pick up his stories because I love his humor… but I never seem to read much because of my overwhelming preference for long stories and novels. It doesn’t help that my Zoshchenko books love to cultivate mildew. Fungus can be a positive, though: I liked Zinovy Zinik’s The Mushroom Picker (evidently known as Русофобка и фунгофил in Russian), which includes ample servings of food and laugh-out-loud humor. I read the book in translation some years ago but haven’t sought out more Zinik. I should.
I’m even worse off with Zh/Z poetry. I have faint memories of reading Vasilii Zhukovskii (Vasily Zhukovsky), whom Mirsky’s History of Russian Literature calls “the first pioneer and the accepted patriarch of the Golden Age.” And then there’s 20th-century poet Nikolai Zabolotskii, pretty much terra incognita, though on my shelf.
A Z-Related Note. Probably the easiest place to look for more of Zinik’s work is a Russian literary journal with a name beginning in З: Знамя (Znamia for “banner”). Znamia offers lots of Zinik on this page, and recent issues of the journal have published fiction by German Sadulaev, Aleksandr Snegirev, Yury Buida, and Leonid Zorin. Maybe I should start with Zorin, since his name begins with Z and Znamia has published a lot of his work. Znamia also makes annual literary awards.
The Z-List for Future Reading: Beyond getting caught up on my Zamiatin and finding more Zinik, I want to give Vladimir Zhabotinskii’s (Jabotinsky) Пятеро (The Five) another try after setting it aside a few years ago. I learned about the novel from The New Republic, which published this positive review of Michael Katz’s translation in 2005.
Ideas for more Zh and Z reading are, as always, very welcome. I’d be particularly curious to hear thoughts on Aleksandr Zinov’ev (Alexander Zinoviev), whom I’ve never read.
Illustration: Boris Kustodiev's portrait of Evgenii Zamiatin, 1923. (Via Wikipedia)
Zamyatin on Amazon
