Moscoviada
Moscoviada ( Ukrainian Московіада, scientific transliteration Moskoviada) is a novel published in 1993 by the Ukrainian writer Jurij Andruchowytsch . He tells the story of the literature student Otto von F., who witnessed the fall of the Soviet Union in Moscow in the early 1990s . In 2006 the novel was published in a translation by Sabine Stöhr by Suhrkamp Verlag ( ISBN 978-3518418260 ).
action
The action takes place one day in a Moscow dormitory in 1992, in the first few years after the collapse of the Soviet Union . The living conditions and conflicts of national groups are described and the reader gets an impression of the life of the Ukrainian literature student Otto von F. Early in the morning Otto von F. goes to the basement to the showers. It is very quiet, he is enthusiastically listening to a woman who begins to sing in the women's shower. Against all the rules, Otto von F. sneaks into the women's shower room, there is no one there but her, there is intimacy. Back in his room on the 7th floor of the dormitory, four dorm friends are standing in his room - they want to go out for a drink with him. You go into town and stand in long lines to drink cheap beer from plastic cups. Otto von F. is annoyed by the banal conversations of his friends and by himself and out of this mood he spontaneously gives a speech in front of those present, in which he finally calls for the independence of Ukraine and also receives applause. Otto von F. can no longer stay with his friends, because he really wants to get a present for Kyrill's (a good friend) son before the shops close. On the way there he stops somewhere - a conversation ensues with a depressed-looking man. After a while he suddenly ignites a grenade, but Otto von F. manages to get to safety in the cellar of a restaurant. There he goes to a toilet where he notices that his wallet has disappeared. During the pursuit of a suspect toilet-user through the Moscow underground, Otto von F. falls unhappy on the floor and injures his knee. The thief is practicing malicious glee and is about to flee with his prey, but unhappy he falls into an open hole, complete with his wallet and ticket, which Otto von F. was supposed to bring to Kiev . The thief dies in the "Moscow sewer". Since the shops have now closed, all the doors are locked upwards, so Otto von F. looks for another way out and in the end accidentally ends up in a Moscow subway tunnel, where he is soon taken to the KGB by pied piper , who too Work underground, interrogate Otto von F. and lock him in a cell. Galja, Otto's love affair, soon helps him escape from the cell and gives him an approximate description of the way out. On the way to escape, however, he happened to find himself in a decorated conference room in a feast of secret service employees and functionaries. Otto von F. takes part in the company and meets an old acquaintance there who forces a prostitute on him. When trying to sleep with her, Otto von F. becomes nauseous - he throws up in the toilet. There he meets an old man who advises him to definitely take part in the symposium of the dead, just around the corner, also underground. Since everyone present is dressed up, Otto von F. decides to appear as a clown. Some of the guests are disguised as well-known figures from Russian history, e.g. B. as Lenin or as Ivan the Terrible . At the meeting, someone with tights over his head gives a speech with Bolshevik ideological content. Otto von F. is repugnant to all of this, he really wants to go back to daylight. Suddenly Sascho, a secret service employee, appears, whom Otto von F. thought he had escaped. Both of them had a long dialogue in the prison cell beforehand. Although Sascho works for the secret service, it now turns out that he too is fed up with the Bolshevik ideology that wants to establish socialism all over the world. He informs Otto von F. that there is no way out except to shoot everyone present. With Sascho's gun Otto von F. gradually shoots everyone present and finally himself. Although Otto von F. is now also dead, he still travels to his homeland in Kiev. The rain that started early in the day still never ends - Moscow is drowning in a flood.
style
The writing style is pervaded by a consistently sarcastic, cynical, absurd and ironic liveliness, precisely in order to rob the Soviet ideology of its illusions or to emphasize the bitter, bleak everyday reality of Moscow and the socialist world. The plot is largely told in the 2nd person, which gives the impression that you are directly following the protagonist's thoughts, the dialogues he is having with himself. In large parts of the story, the story seems downright surreal and the plot is often lost in the daydreams of Fs. The narrative style often appears vulgar and interspersed with swear words and words of colloquial language.
Motifs
During the action there are pages of inner dialogues with a fictional Ukrainian King Olelko II or memories of earlier events, such as E.g. the death of a friend who fell from the 7th floor of the dormitory just because the dormitory was locked and he wanted to get alcohol outside. The multinationality of the environment in which F. is staying is also frequently emphasized, which is expressed in the multilingualism of the dialogues (which, however, was left out in the German translation) and the frequent stereotyping of individual ethnic groups in the Soviet Union .