The Big Green Tent – we under it. Reflections and Comments. Vladimir Kernerman

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      From this point forward the author’s text is given in quotes. All quotes originate from L. E. Ulitskaya, The Big Green Tent, (translated from the Russian by Polly Gannon) and extracted from – https://www.amazon.com/Big-Green-Tent-Novel/dp/0374166676

      Part one

      I. “Those Wondrous School Years”

      With these words, Ulitskaya delves into the meeting of three boys. At first glance, it seems that the three have nothing in common. Sanya is a product of a family of intellectuals; he is musically gifted and is inspired by the spirit and mind of the great composers, past and present, in printed music compilations. His innate intelligence helps him endure the persecution by the hooligan elite of his schoolroom. Ilya, an illegitimate son of a lonely, unhappy, ineffectual mother, is awkward, thin and “long as a pole”. Irony and jest are his shield of self-protection and of concealment of the patched up dressing of his poverty. His hands are not used to touch piano keys, but to bat at columns of pennies in the backyard games to bring the precious little of extra money to his family. Mikha is an orphan wandering from one relatives’ house to another in accordance with the games of fate, which have so far kept him from being returned to the orphanage.

      Clearly, Mikha’s fiery red hair and pronounced Jewish features are not able to compensate him neither for dominant Sanya’s detachment, nor for Ilya’s reliance on humor, for nothing what can deflect hatred and disdain of a crazed pack of cruel adolescents led by two competing young hooligans – Mutyukin and Murygin.

      Now, it is clear what unites and makes friends of the three extraordinary boys – the hatred and contempt of the flock of the criminal teenage elite. Its leaders view cruelty as “courage” and act with seeming impunity, which inspires their underlings and keeps them in line. These acts of “courage” blacken Mikha’s eyes and break his glasses; they bloody Ilya’s lip; Murygin’s knife cuts into the tendon on the wrist of the future pianist Sanya, forever determining the future of his ambitions. Through the efforts of the school’s headmaster, these matters are hushed up giving the pack a renewed inspiration which they use for the beating and robbing of Mikha who fortuitously came to possess a pair of new skates. This venture must have seemed fruitful and fun as the “heroes” decide to merrily run away while being pursued by the barefoot Mikha. But it ends tragically for the leader of the teenage elite Murygin, who, in the rush of the chase, ends up under the wheels of a street car, having had little time, as the author notes, to be frightened by the specters of his own death. The aftermath, however, becomes personal tragedy for Mikha who blames himself for this horrible death.