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Copyright © 2013 E. Levin
IN THEIR TIME: THE RIDDLE BEHIND THE EPISTOLARY FRIENDSHIP BETWEEN
ERNEST HEMINGWAY AND IVAN KASHKIN
First published in "The Hemingway Review", Vol. 32, Spring, 2013, pp. 94-108.
ELIZABETHA LEVIN
Haifa, Israel
ABSTRACT
Hemingway is one of the most beloved American authors in the Russian-speaking world.
This success has depended to a great extent upon the high quality of translation, which
preserved in Russian (one of the world's most widely spread languages, spoken by more
than 150 million people) Hemingway’s original honesty and simplicity. It is the story of
the long-life relationship between Hemingway and his Russian translator – Ivan Kashkin.
The history of their correspondence, combined with the juxtaposition of their private
lives, provides new insights into their personalities and into their times.
We are citizens of an age, as well as of a State.
Friedrich Schiller
The age demanded that we sing
And cut away our tongue.
Ernest Hemingway
Hemingway did not speak Russian and he never visited the U.S.S.R.; nonetheless, by the 1930s
he had smashing success there (Brown 143). It is widely accepted that he owed his fame in
Russia to his translator and epistolary friend, Ivan Kashkin, an able critic and trainer of a unique
school of translators. What is less known is that Kashkin was also a poet and one of the earliest
Hemingway biographers. His 295-page critical-biographical study, Ernest Hemingway, was
published in Moscow in 1966, three years prior to Baker's seminal biography, Ernest
Hemingway: A Life Story.
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Kashkin's Ernest Hemingway uses many of the same terms that are part of the public and
private epistolary debate in which he engaged Hemingway. The reader inevitably becomes an
active participant in the conversations between the biographer and the much-adored writer,
whom Kashkin used to call lovingly “my Hemingway.” Kashkin believed that there should be a
meaningful connection between a translator and his author, and he was convinced that
“переводить надо только то, чего не можешь не переводить, то есть именно тех авторов и
те их вещи, к работе над которыми побуждает тебя твоя собственная инициатива и
склонность” [one should translate only those works and only of those authors that one cannot
resist one’s urge to translate, the urge which is motivated by one’s own initiative and
inclination1] (Dlia 2). In particular, Kashkin felt as if there was a mystical bond between him
and Hemingway. By stressing parallels and resonances between their inner worlds, Kashkin
excelled in presenting Hemingway's most appealing literary and social aspects to Russian
readers.
For many decades, Kashkin taught at institutions of higher education in Moscow. In
addition to promoting Hemingway, he and his school contributed the vast majority of the
translations published in the influential Soviet magazine International Literature (Gal).
Kashkin’s translations of Geoffrey Chaucer, Robert Frost, Carl Sandburg, and Erskine Caldwell
were appreciated for their creative reproductions of each author’s individual style. His research
studies on Joseph Conrad, Robert Louis Stevenson, and William Faulkner were known for their
brilliant philological qualities. Together with Mikhail Zenkevich (one of the early acmeists2),
Kashkin introduced Russian readers to the finest works of T. S. Eliot, Archibald MacLeish and
Hart Crane. The poet Yevgeny Yevtushenko feels that Kashkin’s role in Soviet literature cannot
be overestimated because of a creative act of bravery. During the years of terror, when Russia
was separated from the West by the Iron Curtain, Kaskin and Zenkevich published The American
Poets of the XX Century (1939), an anthology intended to reunite separated cultures of two
opposing social systems (Yevtushenko).
Despite Kashkin’s wide spectrum of interests, his name was closely associated with
Hemingway’s. His life-long attraction began with Hemingway's first publications. As early as
1927, Kashkin published translated selections from The Sun Also Rises (1926) in Moscow
magazines. becoming the first to translate any of Hemingway's works into Russian
(Venediktova). In 1934, Kashkin translated two of Hemingway's short stories and edited a
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volume of selections from his writings. During 1935-1936 a full translation of The Sun Also
Rises appeared, followed by A Farewell to Arms, both translated by members of Kashkin’s
school. In 1959, he edited Selected Works, a two-volume set that, in addition to all previous
translations of Hemingway's works, included To Have and Have Not, The Old Man and the Sea,
The Fifth Column, The Spanish Earth, the first forty-nine short stories, excerpts from Death in
the Afternoon and Green Hills of Africa, and a selection from Hemingway’s journalism. Until his
death in 1963, Kashkin waited impatiently for the Russian publication of For Whom the Bell
Tolls, banned in the U.S.S.R. until 1968.
Kashkin never met Hemingway and instead had to rely on his own interpretation of
Hemingway's texts as well as “though not without reservation . . . what others say” (Tragedy
156). Carefully collecting all of the pieces of available information, in 1935 he published an
insightful essay, “Ernest Hemingway” A Tragedy of Craftsmanship,” in the English edition of
International Literature. Edmund Wilson called it a “very able essay on Hemingway—which is
in fact the only serious and thoroughgoing study of him which has yet been written.”
In May 1935, Hemingway was pleased to receive this essay and a copy of the Russian
edition of his selected works sent to him by Kashkin. Kashkin's influence on Hemingway was
crucial during this stressful period in the author’s life, when he felt himself misunderstood and
isolated in the USA. Disappointed by American critics, hungry for compassion and empathy,
Hemingway eagerly “wanted to be understood and appreciated by this man in another country
who had read and written of his work” (Baker 277). In response to Kashkin's essay, Hemingway
wrote on 19 August 1935 to thank him personally: “It is a pleasure to have somebody know what
you are writing about. That is all I care about” (SL 417).
Although Kashkin's importance is widely stressed, he remains enigmatic. There are no
intimate memories of him, his name is spelled in different ways (either “Kashkeen,” or
“Kashkin”) and even his age remains uncertain. Some texts describe Kashkin as “a young
Russian critic” (Donaldson 242); others present him as “a father figure” (Brenner 143). In 1936
Hemingway complained in a letter to Kashkin: “I don't know how old you are” (SL 432). Ten
years later Hemingway’s image of Kashkin was still vague when he wrote to Konstantin
Simonov to find out if his favored correspondent was “still around”: “There is a boy (now
probably old man) in the U.S.S.R. named Kashkeen. Red headed (now probably greyheaded)”
(SL 608-609). Despite this lack of personal information, Hemingway believed that Kashkin was
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“the best critic and translator I ever had” (SL 609). In 1952, Hemingway wrote to Edmund
Wilson: “. . . I thought that he knew what I was trying to do better than I did. It was like having
a wonderful catcher if you are a pitcher” (SL 793-794).
Analyzing Hemingway's 1935 letter to Kashkin, Kim Moreland describes Hemingway’s
attitude as exceptional for its “lack of combativeness”:
Given Hemingway's contempt for most literary critics (also detailed in this letter),
not to mention his increasingly irascible attitude toward other writers, this letter
reveals a more thoughtful and even humble Hemingway, one hungry for an
understanding of his work and even willing to explain aspects of his identity as
both man and writer that many, including Kashkin, found troubling. (111)
Despite not knowing him very well, Hemingway did not hesitate to complain bitterly to
Kaskin about American critics, whose political "orthodoxy" prevented literary insight: "Here
criticism is a joke" (SL 417), and, “I do not give a damn whether any U.S.A. critic knows what I
think because I have no respect for them” (SL 420). In contrast, in a highly confessional mood,
Hemingway praised Kashkin: “Your article is very interesting” (SL 418), and “I write it to you
because of the care and the accuracy you have used in studying what I write so that you might
know something of what I think” (SL 420).
What was the secret of Kashkin's soothing and strengthening influence on Hemingway?
Paradoxically, in spite of his boundless appreciation of Hemingway’s talents, Kashkin was far
from being a kind of ecstatic follower. Moreover, he was “particularly insightful on the dark
side of Hemingway's imagination” (Mellow 479) and his characterizations of Hemingway were
merciless:
The balance of the half-healthy man is permanently disturbed, the man has torn
himself away from life, he is uprooted and drying up. All that was good in him
turns into evil. Art is there, it has been achieved, but there seems nothing for him
to speak about except himself and the void within him. (Tragedy 167)
Describing Hemingway as “a consummate literary craftsman,” Kashkin thought that
“Hemingway's art is as contradictory as his nature” and that “with no high purpose to justify” his
creative principles, he “often slips into a parody of himself, he comes to an impasse” (Tragedy
167). Expressing some fear about Hemingway's state of mind, Kashkin reached the shocking
conclusion that Hemingway's familiar face was a mask for some tragic disharmony within that
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had now brought him to the edge of disintegration. According to Kashkin, Hemingway's
obsession with death had made him a man for whom a mental crisis was at hand: “Mens morbida
in corpore sano” [an ailing mind in a sound body] (Kashkin Tragedy 167).
Why, despite all these harsh words, did Hemingway still assure Kashkin: “But I respect
you and I like you because you wished me well” (SL 420)? What made Hemingway and his
biographers feel that Kashkin loved the American writer and was able to read his mind as if he
were one of his fictional doubles? What was the great difference between Kashkin and other
critics that made Hemingway forgive him all his ruthless observations? There is no easy answer
to this riddle.
Recent publications of Kashkin's works confirm, however, that he meant well toward
Hemingway throughout his life. In his last years, Kashkin wrote a poem, in which, paraphrasing
Hemingway's letter, he confessed to his friend Alexander Reformatskiy how much he missed
Hemingway:
Есть в Гаване старик краснорожий,
На тебя бородою похожий,
Может, вспомнит и он обо мне (Stihi 133)
[There is a red-faced old man in Havana,
Your beard reminded me of him,
And maybe he will also think about me.]
Hemingway's letters reveal that he too frequently thought about Kashkin: “I wish you
were over here” (SL 432), Hemingway wrote in 1935. In March 1939 he was even happier to
continue a dialogue with Kashkin:
Well I'm damned glad to hear from you. Not only just to hear but to know that
the translation in the USSR is being done by someone who wrote the best and the
most useful, to me, critique on my stuff I ever read and probably knows more
about it than I do. I'm damned happy you are still doing it and I will order
Scribner's to send galleys of the books as you suggest. (SL 480)
In 1937 Kashkin published his second critical essay, “La tragedie de la force dans le
vide,” in the French edition of International Literature. Hemingway thanked him for this article
in a letter to the Editor-in-Chief of International Literature, Sergey Dinamov. Kashkin
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continued to adhere to a “biographical key,” establishing “a very close correlation between the
lives of the characters and that of the author” (Parker 496). Later it led Kashkin to the important
conclusion that in all of his works Hemingway looks at one set of values “with the eyes of the
same hero who under various names personifies the various stages in the biography of the author
and of his generation” (Alive 165). All his complex and contradictory characters “are faced with
the problems of fear, violence and death; they solve them in different ways, but the best among
them look for support to life, strength and courage” (Alive 165).
The dialogue between Hemingway and Kashkin continued, and in the beginning of 1939
a meaningful coincidence took place when Kashkin's translation of Hemingway’s essay, “On the
American Dead in Spain,” appeared in the Literary Gazette just two weeks after its publication in
New Masses. Because the approval of Communist censors was necessary for publication in the
U.S.S.R., the speedy appearance of Kashkin’s translation seemed almost miraculous. Again,
Hemingway's reaction was quick and touching when in March 1939 he answered Kashkin with a
warm letter in which he confessed how difficult it was for him to write about the dead. Reaching
the conclusion that one should develop his creativity to oppose the fear of death, he encouraged
Kashkin to “try” to write “sometimes” and to become a creative person in his own right (SL 481).
Ironically, Hemingway did not know that Kashkin had been writing poetry since his
childhood. Even more ironically, Hemingway did not know that in translating him, Kashkin felt
himself to be a co-creator. Would Hemingway have approved Kashkin's translations if he had
known Russian? It is doubtful. In her fascinating chapter “Discovering Hemingway,” Nora Gal,
one of the members of Kashkin's group, vividly described the process of translation. On one
hand, Kashkin was eager to recreate Hemingway’s unique pace and rhythm in Russian. On the
other, in trying to preserve Hemingway’s depths of emotion, Kashkin intentionally manipulated
his vocabulary. The use of so-called “dirty words” illustrates one of the characteristic
differences between Hemingway and Kashkin’s styles. Hemingway is known for defending his
right to express his feelings freely, without censorship or embarrassment. After publishing The
Sun Also Rises, when his mother accused him of writing one of the “filthiest” books of the year,
he answered her that it was impossible to present actual life without including the ugly: “Things
are not that way” (SL 153). In 1934 he even published his scandalous article, “Defense of Dirty
Words.” Nevertheless, Kashkin could not agree with Hemingway. Trying to improve on him,
Kashkin as if sanitized Hemingway's language by avoiding so-called obscenities.” Therefore,
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while in his 1935 letter Hemingway wrote to Kashkin: “Even though it makes you think me a
worse shit . . .” (SL 420), Kashkin's translation was “Пусть даже, прочитав это, Вы окажитесь
обо мне дурного мнения,” which means: “Even though it makes you have a bad opinion of me”
(Ernest 281).
In 1940, political developments separated Kashkin and Hemingway. Communist party
leaders decided that Hemingway's ideology and his works were harmful to Soviet citizens. For
the next fifteen years Hemingway was seldom referred to in the U.S.S.R. (Parker 486). Kashkin
recalled that after the beginning of World War II he could not get any written materials from
Hemingway. After the war he received only a few written words (from Hemingway’s letter to
Simonov) and several messages communicated orally through common friends who visited
Hemingway in Cuba (Dlia 24).
Despite these difficulties, the Hemingway-Kashkin dialogue never stopped
(Venediktova). In For Whom the Bell Tolls (1940), Hemingway honored Kashkin by giving his
name to one of the Soviet fighters. Exactly as in reality, Kashkin's image in this novel remains
foggy. The fictional Kashkin—Robert Jordan's predecessor and a journalist—is already dead
when the book starts. All we know about him are the contradictory statements from Jordan and
his friends. On one hand, Kashkin is remembered as a handsome, brave and loyal friend. On the
other hand, he is said to be an ugly, jumpy, and neurotic person, obsessed with death and dying.
As a fictional character, Kashkin is wounded in action while escaping from a Nationalist troop
train he had blown up. Wounded, Kashkin’s fear of life became stronger than his fear of death
and rather than allowing himself to be captured, he asked Jordan to shoot him.
Why is Kashkin’s name mentioned so often throughout the novel? Gerry Brenner
suggests that it is due to Kashkin’s unique role of “displacement of Jordan's father.” Struggling
with feelings of guilt connected with his father's suicide, Hemingway invented Kashkin, who
“requires Jordan to shoot him, imposing guilt upon Jordan, as a parricide or a fratricide”
(Brenner 143).
Another reason for Hemingway's preoccupation with the fictional Kashkin could be his
worry for the real Kashkin. These were dark times in the U.S.S.R. At least half of the members
of the editorial board of International Literature, including the Editor-in-Chief Sergey Dinamov,
were shot by the regime during the Great Purge (Blum). Among Hemingway’s friends who were
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executed was Mikhail Koltsov, one of the most famous journalists in Russia, appearing in For
Whom the Bell Tolls as Kharkov.
In order to publish anything in International Literature, Kashkin, unlike Hemingway, had
to get the approval of the Comintern,3 which followed Stalin's directives and was intolerant of all
other literary schools. Kashkin, like other translators, lived in constant fear, and at least one of
his followers, named Romanovich, was executed in 1937 (Rybkin). Ilya Ehrenburg, whom
Hemingway befriended during the Spain Civil War, recalled that to stay alive, one had to clench
one's teeth, become one’s own censor, and master the most difficult art of all—the art of
remaining silent. Ehrenburg was grateful to Hemingway (Lyudi), because due to him he learned
the skills of forgetfulness, “dictated by a sense of self-preservation” (Childhood 8).
Kashkin the translator was well-trained in the art of self-preservation. His articles did not
disclose any personal information. As a result, Hemingway was not even aware of Kashkin’s
true age. Yet Kashkin the poet expressed his thoughts and feelings in his verse, in hopes that
“нет ран неизлечимых” [there were no incurable wounds] and that one day he would emerge
from his obscurity (Stihi 20).
The times were changing, and in 1987, Kenneth Lynn drew attention to a striking
coincidence that Kashkin and Hemingway shared the same year of birth (422). Actually, the
coincidence was even more significant: both Kashkin and Hemingway shared the same month of
birth—July 1899. To be more precise, Kashkin was two weeks older than Hemingway
(Venediktova) and was born close to the new moon, while Hemingway was born around the full
moon.
Kashkin knew about this coincidence and felt as if his life was closely correlated with
Hemingway’s. Born almost simultaneously in different countries, both of them nevertheless
shared the same historical images that moved before their eyes, pondered the same values, and
dealt with similar passions. Kashkin thought that his brotherhood with Hemingway, based
sometimes on similarity and sometimes on difference, reflected the fact that they both belonged
to the same wave of men who came to share the same years. Therefore, to understand Kashkin's
“irresistible urge” to translate Hemingway, as well as Hemingway's peculiar belief that Kashkin
understood him better than any other critic in the world, it is important to consider their
belonging to the same generation. To illustrate this concept, Kashkin quoted another poet of
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their generation, Archibald MacLeish, whose poem “Speech to Those Who Say Comrade” he
had brilliantly translated into Russian:
It is this in life which of all things is tenderest—
To remember together with unknown men the days
Common also to them and perils ended:
It is this which makes of many a generation –
A wave of men who having the same years
Have in common the same dead and the changes. (qtd. in Ernest 18)
To treat the lives of Hemingway and Kashkin in the context of their times, it is necessary
to define the main features of their generation and to remove a veil from Kashkin's life. The
latter part of this task is complicated, because one can rarely find records about translators. Yet
Kashkin's situation changed in 2007, when Verse — a thin volume of his selected poetry — was
published (Stihi). Kashkin had prepared it at the beginning of the 1960s, but his death in 1963,
followed by the end of the liberal period of the Thaw in Russia, postponed its publication for
more than forty years. Accompanied by several critical and biographical essays, Verse, together
with Kashkin's selected articles published in 1968 under the title For the Contemporary Reader
(Dlia), revealed a new face of Kashkin. Suddenly, it became obvious that there were numerous
parallels between Kashkin and Hemingway. Both were very sensitive youths, but both were also
known as stubborn fighters. In 1917 both graduated from high school and decided to pursue a
literary vocation. One year later each made a dramatic decision: to escape to the front as a
volunteer. Both were wounded during their short voluntary service, and after recovery both
returned to literature. Crippled and frustrated by their wartime experiences, both felt themselves
to be victims of the social crises of their times. Tired and empty-hearted, both belonged to the
core of the same lost generation, haunted by “the end of something.” Eventually, their common
love for the written word led them to keep up a life-long dialogue: “Так они и жили в одном
времени: писатель и читатель-переводчик” [And so they lived in the same time: the writer and
his reader-interpreter] (Venediktova).
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Analyzing Kashkin's lyrics, Venediktova stresses that his poetry is far from optimistic
Socialist Realism. No political or social issues can be found in Verse. While there were a few
attempts in the West to label Kashkin “a Marxist,” his poetry portrays an individualist who loves
Nature and poetry, but loathes the morbid atmosphere at his Literary Institute. An outsider, he
hates his “slave” work as a literary craftsman and the frightening absence of meaning in his own
life.
Почто пишу? Зачем читаю
Нескладный, несуразный бред?
Да ведь зачем живу – не знаю,
А, может быть, и в том ответ. (Stihi 68)
[For what do I write? Why do I read
This clumsy, awkward nonsense?
Why, why do I live – I do not know
And, perhaps, this is the answer.]
Kashkin's lyrics disclose that the fear of approaching "the verge of a moral disaster" he attributed
to Hemingway was intimately known to Kashkin himself (Tragedy 158). Not once did Kashkin
blame Hemingway for wearing the “repelling and yet fascinating mask of Nada” (Tragedy 168).
Yet Kashkin's urge to translate Hemingway's poem “Montparnasse” (Stihi 137) may provide a
hint about his own pessimistic state of mind and his ironic attitude towards the dogmatic and
hypocritical Soviet society. "There are never any suicides in the quarter among people one
knows / No successful suicides."– Hemingway wrote (Poems 50). Reading Kashkin's translation
of these lines, the Soviet censors had nothing to complain about. Seemingly, the poem was
disclosing the problems of the declining capitalistic system. Of course, according to the Socialist
dogma, it could never happen in the USSR: it is only in a cruel Western society a "boy kills
himself and is dead." However, translating Hemingway's poem about suicide in Paris, had,
perhaps, Kashkin in mind the fear of emptiness of his own life in Moscow?
Remembering Kashkin's grim situation during the days of the Stalinist terror, one may
wonder whom Kashkin was really describing when writing about people whose: “every last bit
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of effort now goes into hiding their pain, into keeping the stiff upper lip, into being the
‘undefeated’ as before, though secretly they know that their strength is not what it used to be”
(Tragedy 158). Was Kashkin writing about Hemingway’s destiny or his own reality?
Although Kashkin accused Hemingway of sacrificing his creativity for the sake of
craftsmanship, this was also the core issue in Kashkin's own life. What choice did he have as an
honest person living under a totalitarian regime? Should he behave as a free creator and pay for
it with his freedom or his life, as Mandelstam or Pasternak did? Or should he remain silent?
Were there any other ways he could remain faithful to his duty and stay alive? Kashkin
preferred to survive, and in his poem dedicated to Pasternak he complained that Pasternak’s
cross was too heavy for him to bear (Stihi 123). After Stalin’s death, Kashkin elaborated on his
personal philosophy of survival in his 1956 article, “Alive in the Midst of Death: Ernest
Hemingway.” Describing the dialogues in The Old Man and the Sea between Santiago
(Hemingway’s double) and his young companion Manolin, Kashkin was happy to find that the
old man is no longer a loner. Finally he has a follower to whom he “could hand down his
experience and his craft”:
“One generation passeth away, and another generation cometh,” yet not the earth
alone abides but also man's work, both as work performed and as craftsmanship
handed down from generation to generation. And though the story deals with old
age and infirmity, for once nobody dies. Victory, be it only moral, is not achieved
there at the cost of life. (Alive 173)
Seen in the light of Kashkin’s life, this passage suggests that he saw himself as an old
man doomed to carry on the craft of translation. We read Kashkin’s own tragedy— that of a
talented person, whose creativity was suppressed by the ruthless century and his cruel country—
between the lines of his critique. He sees his own salvation in future generations to whom he can
hand down his experience and his craft. Although Kashkin’s review dealt with Hemingway’s
novel, during the period of the Soviet Thaw Kashkin could for once pull his mask at least partly
off, forget his precautions and reveal his own story of moral victory. Indeed, in modern Russia,
Kashkin is highly praised for preserving the finest world culture for future generations.
This juxtaposition of Hemingway and Kashkin’s lives helps us understand why each
experienced the other as his “alter ego.” His inside knowledge of Hemingway’s time allowed
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Kashkin to differ from other critics and be the first to discern an essential consistency in all
Hemingway’s works.
Looking at Hemingway’s personality and his creativity as a philosophical unit, Kashkin
suggested that the roots of Hemingway’s obsession with violence were seeded in his personality
prior to any known traumatic experiences, and could be seen “as early as his presentation of Nick
Adams’s cloudless young day . . . ” (Tragedy 156). Treating Nick’s decision to escape to the
front, Kashkin did not mention any ideological or social reasons. Instead he discerned “Nick’s
ever growing instinct of blind protest, at which the manifestations of his will practically stop”
(Tragedy 156). Certainly, this line of reasoning has nothing to do with Marxism. Yet it does
reflect Kashkin’s search for his own truth: what made him leave Moscow and join the Red
Army?
Kashkin's illusions about the war disappeared very early, and his short period in the army
became a heavy burden for him. In Kashkin's lyrics there are numerous pieces of evidence that
he periodically suffered from depression, when he felt as if his mouth was “squeezed by the
handcuffs” (Stihi 58). Around 1926 he became seriously withdrawn, wearing “the protecting
armor” of everyday chores so that those surrounding him did not guess that he was “terminally
ill” (Stihi 98). In 1930, his desperation reached another peak: “Немею. Нету слов, нет
мыслей, нет желаний” [I became dumb. I have no words, no thoughts, no desires] (Stihi 102).
Like Hemingway, Kashkin tried different ways to escape from himself. Around 1918, he
discovered the same solution for his problems as Nick Adams—to forget: “Забыть, забыть, но
прочь, незваная слеза” [Forget, forget, but go away uninvited tear] (Stihi 13). In 1920, he
showed his doubt about running from himself:
Стремлюсь о том забыть, чего здесь и не помнят,
Но легче ль в тупости бездумного забвенья? (Stihi 41)
[I strive to forget those things that here they do not remember,
But is it easier to stay in stupidity of mindless oblivion?]
Later, he concluded that in his struggle for a decent life “man must have something to fall back
upon: he must conquer old habits and conventions; . . . He must, by training his courage,
overcome both the fear of death and the fear of life" (Alive 166). He decided to heal the past in
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order to love more tenderly, to know more closely, to believe more strongly (Stihi 20). Those
words became Kashkin's motto, his protecting shield against violence.
When Kashkin discovered that in For Whom the Bell Tolls, Hemingway “does not see
why he should save Jordan’s life” (Alive 170), he became truly worried about Hemingway’s
inability to see anything sacred in life. Kashkin’s greatest concern became that Hemingway
would follow the tragic examples of Hart Crane (1899-1932)4 and Harry Crosby (1898-1929)
and commit suicide (Tragedy 159). Crosby’s 1929 suicide had a great impact on both
Hemingway and Crane (Levin Teomim 206) as well as on Kashkin (Dlia 82), while Crane’s 1932
suicide had a great impact on Kashkin (Dlia 82, Ernest 69). Applying Kashkin’s own
“biographical key” approach, in which an author’s works reflect his personality and times, we
can ask: is it possible that Kashkin’s 1935 essay reflected his own struggle with the emptiness of
life? Was it written to prevent both himself and Hemingway from committing suicide?
Hemingway himself used to blame his age for the sad fate of his generation. Such approach was
in agreement with Goethe's insightful observation that "one may well say he would be quite a
different person if born ten years before or after, as far as his own cultural development and his
effect on others are concerned" (Goethe 17). Goethe treated the cultural spirit of the generation
as "the spirit of the time," which ruled the lives of those born within a decade. From this point of
view, Hemingway, Crane, Kashkin, MacLeish and Ehrenburg belonged to the same generation,
and their "lost" generation was very different from that of Goethe's "Age of Enlightenment."
Nevertheless, on the individual level, Goethe was sensitive to the differences of just a few
hours in birth times. Despite the generally "auspicious" decade, Goethe recorded that he was
born in an hour when the Moon, "just then becoming full," "resisted" his birth. Therefore he
"was brought into the world as good as dead" (Goethe 21). Born, like Hemingway and Crane, but
unlike Kashkin, close to the time of the full moon, Goethe considered such timing especially
dangerous to the newly born (Goethe 21).
Two weeks divided the births of Hemingway and Kashkin. Could this time gap reflect a
general resemblance of the common historical narrative, and at the same time a crucial difference
in the individual early formative experiences?
The answer appears to be affirmative. According to the effect of celestial twins (ECT) (Levin
Teomim), though we perceive ourselves to be discrete and unique entities, our personal potentials
are constrained by the limits of our times, and those limits are shared by people who share the
13
same or the close times of birth (Levin Prostranstvo-vremya). Based on extensive historical
research, ECT demonstrates that there is an isomorphic matching between the biographical data
of members in each and every group of celestial twins (people who were born within a short
interval of time). In other words, ECT shows that celestial twins tend to experience seemingly
non-causal synchronic correlation of their life narratives. In particular, comparative biographies
of Hemingway and Crane were treated in detail in Celestial Twins (Levin Teomim 186-217) and
they showed good correlation with ECT. Further extended research of the parallels in the lives
of people belonging to the same generation and sharing the same or close years of birth were
discussed in a piece of research on generalized time (Levin Prostranstvo-vremya). The results of
these studies provide an additional clue how to solve the riddle behind the close and prolonged
relationship between Hemingway and Kashkin. In light of these studies it might be argued that
Kashkin's 1935 letter to Hemingway was a friendly act by a person of the same age, who
belonged to the same "wave of men" and was aware of it.
Of course, this brief essay does not pretend to resolve these dilemmas or tell the whole
story of the entangled lives of Hemingway, Kashkin, and their generation. Nevertheless, even
the few incidents described here expose the deepest connections between their lives and reveal
the importance of treating their biographies in the spirit of Goethe, who wrote that:
“. . . the chief goal of biography appears to be this: to present the subject in his temporal
circumstances, to show how these both hinder and help him, how he uses them to construct his
view of man and the world, and how he, providing he is an artist, poet, or author, mirrors them
again for others” (Goethe 17). Until now Hemingway and Kashkin have been treated separately
as “Individualists” or “Communists,” as “Russians” or “Americans.” but perhaps it is time to
treat them as contemporaries — people who from their first breath shared the same years — in a
brotherhood of time.
NOTES
My deep thanks to Judy Henn and Marina Eskin for their encouragement and feedback
throughout the work on this essay. I want also to thank David Reid for his helpful remarks on
my English text.
1 This translation and all others from the Russian are made by the author unless stated otherwise.
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Copyright © 2013 E. Levin
2 Acmeism was an important school of early 20th century Russian poetry, analogous to imagism
in its rejection of symbolism and embrace of concrete imagery. Its major poets include Nikolay
Gumilyov, Osip Mandelstam and Anna Akhmatova.
3 An international communist organization founded in Moscow in 1919.
4 Coincidentally, Hart Crane, one of the greatest poets of the Lost Generation, was born on the
same day as Ernest Hemingway —21 July 1899.
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