Autobiography of a Corpse

SIGIZMUND KRZHIZHANOVSKY (1887–1950), the Ukrainian-born son of Polish emigrants, studied law and classical philology at Kiev University. After graduation and two summers spent exploring Europe, he was obliged to clerk for an attorney. A sinecure, the job allowed him to devote most of his time to literature and his own writing. In 1920, he began lecturing in Kiev on theater and music. The lectures continued in Moscow, where he moved in 1922, by then well known in literary circles. Lodged in a cell-like room on the Arbat, Krzhizhanovsky wrote steadily for close to two decades. His philosophical and phantasmagorical fictions ignored injunctions to portray the Soviet state in a positive light. Three separate efforts to print collections were quashed by the censors, a fourth by World War II. Not until 1989 could his work begin to be published. Like Poe, Krzhizhanovsky takes us to the edge of the abyss and forces us to look into it. “I am interested,” he said, “not in the arithmetic, but in the algebra of life.”

JOANNE TURNBULL’s translations from Russian in collaboration with Nikolai Formozov include Sigizmund Krzhizhanovsky’s Memories of the Future and The Letter Killers Club (both NYRB Classics).

ADAM THIRLWELL is the author of two novels, Politics and The Escape; a novella, Kapow!; an essay-book, The Delighted States, winner of a Somerset Maugham Award; and a compendium of translations edited for McSweeney’s. He has twice been selected as one of Granta’s Best of Young British Novelists.

AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A CORPSE

SIGIZMUND KRZHIZHANOVSKY

Introduction by

ADAM THIRLWELL

Translated from the Russian by

JOANNE TURNBULL
with NIKOLAI FORMOZOV

NEW YORK REVIEW BOOKS

New York

THIS IS A NEW YORK REVIEW BOOK
PUBLISHED BY THE NEW YORK REVIEW OF BOOKS
435 Hudson Street, New York, NY 10014
www.nyrb.com

Stories copyright © by Éditions Verdier
Translation copyright © 2013 by Joanne Turnbull and Nikolai Formozov
Introduction copyright © by Adam Thirlwell
All rights reserved.

Cover image: Wassily Kandinsky, Mouvement I, 1935; © 2013 Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York /ADAGP, Paris
Cover design: Katy Homans

Published by arrangement with Éditions Verdier, which publishes these stories under the following titles: “Autobiographie d’un cadavre,” “Dans la pupille,” “Les Coutures,” “Le Collectionneur des fentes,” “Le Pays des nons,” “Les Doigts fuyards,” “La Métaphysique articulaire,” “La Houille jaune,” “Le Pont sur le Styx,” “Les Trente deniers,” and “Estampillé Moscou.”

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Krzhizhanovskii, Sigizmund, 1887–1950, author.
[Short stories. Selections. English. 2013]
Autobiography of a corpse / by Sigizmund Krzhizhanovsky ; introduction by
Adam Thirlwell ; translated by Joanne Turnbull.
  pages cm. — (New York Review Books classics)
Includes bibliographical references.
ISBN 978-1-59017-670-2 (alk. paper)
I. Thirlwell, Adam, 1978– writer of added commentary. II. Turnbull, Joanne, translator. III. Title. IV. Series: New York Review Books classics.
PG3476.K782a2 2013
891.73'42—dc23

2013019761

eISBN 978-1-59017-696-2
v1.0

For a complete list of books in the NYRB Classics series, visit www.nyrb.com or write to: Catalog Requests, NYRB, 435 Hudson Street, New York, NY 10014

CONTENTS

Biographical Notes

Title page

Copyright and More Information

Introduction

Autobiography of a Corpse

In the Pupil

Seams

The Collector of Cracks

The Land of Nots

The Runaway Fingers

The Unbitten Elbow

Yellow Coal

Bridge over the Styx

Thirty Pieces of Silver

Postmark: Moscow

Notes

INTRODUCTION

1

ACCORDING to the usual theory of the real, these are the important facts about the life of Sigizmund Krzhizhanovsky.

He was born in Kiev to a Polish-speaking family on February 11, 1887. At university, he studied law. In 1912, aged twenty-five, he traveled through Europe, visiting Paris, Heidelberg, and Milan—for the young Krzhizhanovsky was the pure apprentice intellectual. After the First World War and the 1917 Russian Revolution, he returned to Kiev, where he taught at the Conservatory and the Theater Institute. In 1922, aged thirty-five, he left for Moscow, where he lived for the rest of his life. In Moscow, Krzhizhanovsky wrote articles and gave lectures, in particular at Alexander Tairov’s Drama Studio. He also worked as a consultant to Tairov’s Chamber Theater.