The Shackles of the Past

With a heritage spanning centuries, Russian literature is one of world literature’s most influential and prominent. It has a long and storied tradition of producing some of the most renowned and highly-regarded writers. It has the privilege of boasting distinguished names like Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Leo Tolstoy, Nikolai Gogol, Mikhail Bulgakov, Alexander Pushkin, Anton Chekhov, and Ivan Turgenev, among others. Their works, such as Tolstoy’s War and Peace and Anna Karenina, Turgenev’s Father and Sons, and Dostoyevsky’s Crime and Punishment and Brothers Karamazov, transcended the passage of time and remained relevant in contemporary literary discourses. Not to be outdone, six Russian writers were awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature: Ivan Bunin (1933), Boris Pasternak (1958), Mikhail Sholokhov (1965), Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn (1970), Joseph Brodsky (1987), and Svetlana Alexievich (2015).

Russian literature remains relevant in the contemporary not only because of its heritage but also because this heritage is being carried on by equally talented Russian writers. Among them is Lyudmila Evgenyevna Ulitskaya (Людмила Евгеньевна Улицкая). Born on February 21, 1943, Ulitskaya is one of the most widely read and internationally acclaimed modern Russian novelist and short-story writer. Interestingly, Ulitskaya initially pursued a path that is different from the literature. She earned a degree in genetics from Moscow State University; both her parents were involved in science. Post-university she worked in the field of genetics and biochemistry. She eventually left the scientific field to pursue a career in writing. She first worked as a literary consultant for a Jewish drama theater.

More doors opened for Ulitskaya following the publication of her first novella, Sonechka in 1992. It was an immediate success that marked the arrival of a remarkable voice in the ambit not only of Russian literature but of world literature. Building on the success of her debut work, Ulitskaya has since published a bevy of novels, short story collections, and even plays and screenplays that catapulted her to global prominence. Her works have earned her accolades worldwide and even made her a part of the perennial discussion for the Nobel Prize in Literature. Among her most recent works is Лестница Якова (Lestnitsa Yakova) which was published in 2015. It was eventually made available to Anglophone readers as Jacob’s Ladder in 2019 through a translation by Polly Gannon.

I looked it over, and will study it for a long time to come, but I am left with the feeling that the first part is simply unattainable It is the principle of conversation in a higher and middle register, and the lower F in the contra-octave, the very beginning, and the mighty theme, and the introduction of the strings and clarinets… The concert was enormous in its content and meaning; there was not a single empty phrase, nothing merely decorative, only the essence itself! The audience was in a state of nervous rapture, but Rachmaninoff himself was calm and unflappable. a giant among men, a giant! Everyone applauded rhythmically, then got out of phase, then picked up the rhythm again!

Ludmila Ulitskaya, Jacob’s Ladder

Jacob’s Ladder charts the fortune of a family encompassing six generations. The story initially introduces Nora Ossetsky whose story comprises the first of the novel’s two major plotlines. In late Soviet Moscow, Nora worked as a set designer, theatrical director, and writer for plays produced throughout Russia and Europe. She was anxious about the future of her son Yurik. She is married to her high school boyfriend, Viktor (Vitya), a mathematician many consider a genius in his field. However, he had difficulties navigating married life, prompting the couple to live separately; it was also a marriage of convenience. Owing to the circumstances surrounding her marriage, Nora had a love affair with Tengiz, the Georgian play director with whom she worked. Despite her complicated relationships, Nora was determined to raise her son even if it entailed doing it alone. Serving as her guidepost are echoes from the past.

The echoes from the past came in the form of a cache of letters uncovered by Nora. Following a call from her father, Genrikh, informing her of the passing of her grandmother, Maria (Marusya), While cleaning her grandmother’s apartment, Nora uncovered a small willow chest containing letters and journal entries of her young grandfather, the titular Jacob Ossetsky. Signs of nearly being forgotten enveloped the chest. The letters contained in the chest captured the history of the Ossetsky family and the romance story of Nora’s grandparents. The Ossetsky family’s story started in early 20th century Kiev where the young Jacob Ossetsky and Maria Kerns, an aspiring actress, first met during a Rachmaninov concert they both attended. The attraction was instantaneous and, without ado, they quickly became a couple. Unfortunately, Maria had to leave for Moscow to study dance. Their temporary separation would be the first of several challenges that they would have to overcome together.

In 1905, the Kiev pogrom instigated anti-Semitic violence across the Russian empire, leading to the death of roughly 2,000 Russian Jews. In light of the violent events, the state laid out two choices: the Russian Jews could either leave the empire or learn to assimilate. For the young newlywed couple – Jacob was of Jewish descent – assimilation was the most rational choice. Following the conclusion of the Russian Civil War, Jacob and Maria permanently settled in Moscow. Theirs was a love so pure and exceptional only fate could separate them. But fate can truly be cruel at times. Military enlistment during the First World War saw Jacob once again being separated from his bride. Just when everything was about to After serving his military duties, Jacob was repeatedly arrested, and forced into exile by the Soviet government. Jacob ended up spending most of his life in the Soviet Union’s infamous Gulag Archipelagos.

As Jacob was whiling his time in the Gulag archipelago, Maria was left to deal with being excluded by society for being the wife of a criminal; Jacob was considered an enemy of the state and of the people. Jacob and Maria nevertheless managed to stay in touch through letters. These letters provided glimpses into the challenges that they had to overcome while, at the same time, expressing the love they have for each other. For her part, Maria was raising their son, Genrikh. The story moves forward, charting Genrikh’s growth despite his father being in absentia for the most part. He would eventually get married to Amalia Kotenko and, in 1943, the couple would give birth to Nora. Maria’s experience of raising her son ran parallel to Nora’s own struggles of raising her own son. Letters and journal entries alternate with typical narrative form to paint a vivid portrait of the Ossetsky family’s history.

These thoughts seemed so resonant, so well constructed in my mind, but when I put them down on paper they sound naïve and half formed, simply childish. But I know what I want to say. A person has died – so, right away, everyone should just forget about that person. I once said that when I am on my deathbed I will tear up all my photographs, my papers, and I’ll ask my children not to talk about me. I’ll forbid them to wear mourning garments.

Ludmila Ulitskaya, Jacob’s Ladder

In writing the novel, Ulitsakaya drew inspiration from her own family’s history. To some extent, Nora was the author’s alter-ego. Like Nora, Ulitskaya discovered a cache of letters, journals, and other papers that belonged to her deceased grandfather, Iakov (Jacob) Samoilovich Ulitsky. A noted economist, demographer, and music aficionado, Ulitskaya’s grandfather also endured multiple and forced exiles to the Gulag archipelagos as a result of trumped-up political charges. He shared the same experiences as the novel’s titular hero. The fiction was riddled with details of nonfiction as the fictional Jacob’s letters include snippets of the writer’s grandfather’s diary entries. Actual materials from Ulitsky’s file from the KGB, the Soviet Union’s internal security and intelligence agency, further added layers of verity to the story. These details of Ulitskaya’s family’s past made the novel an intensely personal story.

With the Ossetsky family at its core, the novel captures the intricacies of family dynamics and probes into the complexities of relationships. Some secrets threaten to disrupt family harmony. Betrayals were also present. Jacob, despite his woes and his constant separation from Maria, strived hard to hold his family together. His correspondence with his wife was among the novel’s most affectionate. Despite the chasm created by time, Nora’s experiences would mirror her grandmother’s. Both had to learn how to deal with long-distance relationships. Like her grandmother, Nora endured the same separation her grandmother experienced, first from her Georgian lover and later from her eccentric son. They also learned how to raise their children on their own, with the anxieties that come along with it. They both possessed indomitable spirits that allowed them to tide over the challenging times they had to face.

In the swirl of these events, one major driving force stands out: love. “The meaning of love, its power and happiness, consists in the fact that, in loving one person, you are liberated from others, from attraction and longing for them.” Love, in the story, comes in various shapes in forms. The most powerful and palpable manifestation of love is the love between Jacob and Maria. The love they have for each other made them overcome extended periods of separation. In his letters to his wife, Jacob also expressed his love for his son. Despite the complications that kept them apart, Nora was able to navigate her erratic relationship with Tengiz because of the love she held for him. Fate may work to separate the characters but, across the din, love ultimately resonates and bounds the characters together. While romantic love permeates the story, the purest form of love comes in the form of parental love, particularly between mothers and their sons. Some of the novel’s most tender moments captured the unconditional love Maria had for Genrikh and Nora had for Yurik.

But there is also another kind of love that rises to the fore as the story moves forward. It is the characters’ love for and devotion to the arts; the arts were given as much attention as the sciences and politics. Cultural touchstones riddled the story, embellishing the story and providing it an even lusher tapestry. Music, theater, and literature were indelible parts of the characters’ lives. Nora, like the author, worked as a screenwriter and a designer for plays. She is greatly involved in the theater. Her grandmother aspired to be an actress. The music of Sergei Rachmaninoff and Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky featured prominently. The literary works of Anton Chekhov, Alexander Pushkin, Nikolai Gogol, Maxim Gorky, Leo Tolstoy, and Fyodor Dostoevsky, among others, all feature prominently in discourses between the characters. Jacob loves music and the arts. He studied music for most of his life while accruing nearly 1,000 books. In times of difficulties, it is to music and literature that he sojourns and finds comfort.

A nice little tie with the past. But it was remarkable – such a dynamic, theatrical, artistic people – and such dreary Socialist Realism, pathetic and simplistic, against the background of the ancient, impeccable architecture. But what a tender, somehow weightless land it was – the green veil of emerging leaves, the scent of living soil, currents of thick, wine-laden air ascending the slopes, everything growing clean and pure, dissolving in light. How good it must be for a Caucasian to be living i n his own land, in a world of mountains and valleys…

Ludmila Ulitskaya, Jacob’s Ladder

Even how the story was unpacked is akin to a matryoshka doll, with each character’s story nestled within each other. Largely inspired by her family’s own history, Jacob’s Ladder is profoundly personal. However, as the stories of the characters unfolded across a century, historical contexts further enriched what was already a lush tapestry. The story commenced with the Kiev pogrom which marked the decline in numbers of Eastern European Jews. This disappearance in the presence of Jews in the region was further driven by the purges instituted by Joseph Stalin in his latter years and by the Holocaust. All of these seminal historical events also forced the Jews to emigrate to other regions. In the novel, the main source of Jacob’s woes is his provenance. It would also seal his fate. Following his work for the Jewish Anti-fascist Committee after World War II, he was arrested for the final time.

The story of the Ossetsky family was juxtaposed with germane events that have shaped the landscape of contemporary Russian and Soviet history. The novel is primarily set in Stalinist Russia. The minutiae of Soviet life in specific periods provided an immersive reading experience. Ulitskaya’s descriptive prose breathed life into Soviet life, walking readers across private libraries, communal apartments, and registration bureaus, all of which were trademarks of Soviet life. Historical figures like Solomon Mikhoels and Alexander Tishler also made their presence felt. On op of this, the death of Joseph Stalin and the collapse of the Soviet Union and of the Romanovs. Despite the plethora of subjects and the various dimensions the story explored, the novel was resolute in giving rein to the thoughts of the characters while sustaining the flow of the plot.

In several facets, Jacob’s Ladder soars. It is a multifaceted and multilayered story of a family whose destiny is intertwined with the story of a nation edging toward pandemonium. On the surface, it is the multigenerational story of the Ossetsky family, Love blossomed and bound them together despite the challenges they had to go through. The novel further branches out as it cast a net over a vast territory of subjects and themes including science, politics, and even the arts. These details were woven together into a lush tapestry by Ulitskaya’s intricate hands and astute mind. Details of historical events, from the fall of the Romanovs to the rise of Joseph Stalin to the dismantling of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, further made Jacob’s Ladder a compelling read, making it soar. Considered by many as Ulitskaya’s final major work, Jacob’s Ladder is the triumph of both writing and storytelling, a worthy swan song from a celebrated writer with a storied oeuvre.

Devoid of character, devoid of ideology or principle, stuffed with the superficial brilliance of minds of millennia, a talented singer, rehashing the same songs that have been sung before by others, over and over, ad infinitum. A talented literary sensualist. Of what use is he to me? He’s gone. Never mind. Others will come to take his place, new ones. They must answer our questions. I have no doubt that there are powerful experiences in life outside the sexual sphere.

Ludmila Ulitskaya, Jacob’s Ladder
Book Specs

Author: Ludmila Ulitskaya (Людмила Евгеньевна Улицкая)
Translator (from Russian): Polly Gannon
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Publishing Date: 2019 (2015)
Number of Pages: 542
Genre: Literary, Historical

Synopsis

One of Russia’s most renowned literary figures and a Man Booker International Prize nominee, Ludmila Ulitskaya presents what may be her final novel. Jacob’s Ladder is a family saga spanning a century of recent Russian history – and represents the summation of the author’s career devoted to sharing the absurd and tragic tales of twentieth-century life in her nation.

Alternating between the diaries and letters of Jacob Ossetsky in Kiev in the early 1900s and the experiences of his granddaughter Nora in the theatrical world of Moscow in the 1970s and beyond, Jacob’s Ladder guides the reader through some of the most turbulent times in the history of Russia and Ukraine, and draws suggestive parallels between historical events of the early twentieth century and those of more recent memory.

Spanning the seeming promise of the prerevolutionary years, to the dark Stalinist era, to the corruption and confusion of the present day, Jacob’s Ladder is a pageant of romance, betrayal, and memory. With a scale worthy of Tolstoy, it asks how much control any of us have over our lives—and how much is in fact determined by history, by chance, or indeed by the genes passed down by the generations that have preceded us into the world.

About the Author

Lyudmila Evgenyevna Ulitskaya (Людмила Евгеньевна Улицкая) was born on February 21, 1943, in Davlekanovo in Bashkiria, Russian SFSR, Soviet Union. Her parents were both involved in science; her mother was a biochemist and her father was an engineer. When she was barely a year old, her family moved to Moscow. She received a degree in genetics from the Moscow State University. Post-university, she worked at the Institute of General Genetics. She was eventually fired from her job for reading and distributing samizdat literature. After this, Ulitskaya did not work for nine years.

In 1979, Ulitskaya joined the Hebrew Theatre of Moscow as a Repertory Director. This opened a new door of opportunity for Ulitskaya. Her interest in literature increased and began writing her first works which included dramas and translations. After gaining attention for writing Russian film scenarios, Ulitskaya published short fiction in the late 1980s. In 1992, the story of her first novella Сонечка (Sonechka) appeared in the literary magazine Novy Mir. It was an immediate success that made Ulitskaya a household name and even won the Medici Prize in France and the Penn Prize in Italy. Her sophomore novel is Медея и её дети (1996, Medea and Her Children). Both her debut and sophomore novels were shortlisted for the Russian Booker Award, in 1993 and 1997, respectively. However, it is her third book, the 1997 novel Весёлые похороны (The Funeral Party) that would be her first novel to be translated into English.

In 2001, Ulitskaya made Russian literary history when Казус Кукоцкого (2001, The Kukotsky Enigma) finally won the Russian Booker Prize, making Ulitskaya the first female writer to win the award. Her other major works include Зелёный шатёр (2010, Imago / The Big Green Tent), Искренне ваш Шурик (2003, Sincerely Yours, Shurik), Даниэль Штайн, переводчик (2006, Daniel Stein, Interpreter), and Лестница Якова (2015, Yakov’s Ladder). Ulitskaya also published short stories and short story collections and wrote plays and screenplays. For her body of work, Ulitskaya was awarded by France with the Chevalier of the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres and the National Order of the Legion of Honour. She was also nominated for the 2009 Man Booker International Prize.

Until 2022, Ulitskaya divided her time between Moscow and Israel. Since 2022, Ulitskaya resides in Berlin, Germany.

I don’t quite know how to put this. I have lost faith in words and explanations. Numbers are stricter, more exacting. My last letter was neither a reproach nor an accusation, just the burning pain of an injured human life. When I first found out that you desired other women, I instinctively felt that it was the end. Life became a slowly unfolding torment. I fully comprehended your state of mind, and tried to reconcile myself to it. Your hands and lips wandered away from me, and were drawn to others, caressed others, your eyes delighted in others; and I stood as an obstacle, a stubborn obstacle, in your path. You struggle din me with yourself, and with me.

Ludmila Ulitskaya, Jacob’s Ladder