An encounter with the French-Russian author Andreï Makine

Andreï Makine, a well-known and respected writer in France, recently presented his new book “Prisonnier du rêve écarlate” (Prisoner of the Scarlet Dream) in Paris.

Makine grew up in the former USSR, where he studied philology and wrote his doctoral thesis on contemporary French literature. After teaching briefly in Novgorod, he has been living in France since 1987, where his writing career began. In 1995, he was awarded the prestigious Prix Goncourt, which honours the best French-language novels of the year, for his novel “Le testament français”. He has been a member of the Académie française since 2016.

The communist Lucien Baert –
in the gulag of the ‘workers’ paradise’

In his novel “Prisonnier du rêve écarlate”, the author traces the path of a young French workingman, Lucien Baert. Lucien is an idealist and has joined the Communist Party. In 1939, he travels to the USSR with a group of young communists wishing to get to know the workers’ paradise for himself. When war breaks out in 1939, he is imprisoned as a “foreign spy” and spends several years in Stalin’s gulag.
  After Germany’s invasion of the Soviet Union, he is offered release if he fights in the Red Army against the German invaders. He survives various life-threatening situations thanks to the spontaneous help of fellow human beings, be they fellow prisoners or fellow soldiers. Finally, he can adopt the identity of a killed Russian comrade, which subsequently brings him relief and thus saves his life.
  As the Red Army advances, he is captured by the Germans, but is quickly freed. However, his martyrdom continues, given that all Russian soldiers captured by the Germans are sent back to the gulag as supposed traitors. As a result of torture and torment there, he almost loses his mind. After many years he is released in 1957.

Back in France

He is assigned a small town in the far north of Russia as his place of residence. There he meets a woman, Daria, who is also stranded in this wasteland. After having saved her life, he fells in love with her. His own memories, which had been almost erased by the torture, are brought back due to Daria’s human compassion. As a result, his desire to return to his family in France grows. In 1967, he succeeds in taking this step. After almost thirty years, the former communist returns to a country that is in turmoil and whose cultural foundations have been shaken. Lucien is received into a milieu of journalists who want to market him for their political agenda as an “anti-Stalinist”. What he actually had experienced is of no real interest.
  Makine aptly describes the milieu of Parisian intellectuals, a milieu which is defined by drugs, superficiality, opportunism and intolerance. He paints the moral picture of a generation that has influenced the further development of France and Europe and that, by a destructive cynicism, has contributed to the misguided developments and the nihilism of our societies today. Lucien increasingly takes a critical look at these processes and rebels against them. In response, he is forcibly psychiatrised and subjected to uncontrolled medical experiments, as he has neither family nor friends who stand up for him.

Back in the Soviet Union

He gets unexpected support from an older, free-thinking man politically close to the Royalists. The older royalist and the younger communist become friends. Lucien decides to return to the USSR, and he manages it with the help of his older friend. He searches for Daria and finds her. Their love for each other still exists. Together with the other inhabitants of the abandoned region in the taiga, they finally succeed in building up a network of mutual help in which their lives find valuable meaning. The following passage clearly expresses the humanist intention of the protagonists and thus of Makine:
  “Sometimes Lucien talks about the ideas of his youth: a revolution to end the servitude of workers. Threatened by the loss of their jobs, proletarians look at their labour as a privilege which the capitalist endows him with. Communism was to replace this slavery with free cooperation, in a society without classes, without financial diktats ...
  Daria says in an embarrassed tone: ‘At university, we studied these fine theories and I even got good marks in my exams. But ... those who tortured you in prison had read Lenin. And with what result?’
  Regretting this debate, she quickly concludes: ‘The most important thing is to bear in mind those who are here among us. Yes, all those old people ... You said ‘free cooperation’? No, just someone you shouldn’t let down ...’
  As Lucien travels through these ‘rural hamlets with no prospects’, he notices that the people living there are getting closer to a way of life where material interests give way to mutual aid and a desire to help the weakest. It is here that he encounters careless generosity, the freedom to work without fear of being replaced by someone more capable.”¹

Taking the path of humanity

The novel ends in the years of the collapse of the Soviet Union, the Yeltsin years, in which statehood decays and nihilism and mafioso-like structures spread.
  Makine’s novel takes us on a journey through a violent century. However, he shows that even in these times there is always a commitment to help, humanism, friendship, love and brotherhood – across all political opinions. He thus opposes the nihilistic cynicism that is prevalent today with a credo of humanity.
  With “Prisonnier du rêve écarlate”, Makine builds on his previous novels, in which he over and again deals with the fates of people who are trying to find their way amidst the confusion of their time and, in doing so, pursue the path of humanity. He provides these people with a voice and fights against the injustice done to them and their fellow human beings being forgotten.
  His way of facing the fate of his protagonists in recent history and, above all, his humanist concerns remind of the work of the Kyrgyz-Russian writer Chinghiz Aitmatov, whose novels have contributed to understanding the history of the 20^th century and, in particular, the history of the Soviet Union.
  Yet, the Western world has to face its own history in an honest and, above all, ideology-free way. Andreï Makine contributes to this from the perspective of someone who experienced both ruling systems of the 20th century, Soviet communism and Western-style capitalism.
  In France, his new novel has been ignored by the mainstream. Moreover, his last works have not been translated into German. His humanistic attitude, which is evident in his consistent commitment to understanding and reconciliation between peoples and his advocacy of freedom of thought in the best Voltairean sense, doesn’t seem to fit in with the prevailing Zeitgeist.
  We wish him and ourselves that his books will once again be translated into all the world’s languages and moreover find a broad reading public. •

¹ “Parfois, Lucien reparle des idées de sa jeunesse: une révolution mettant fin à la servitude des travailleurs. Menacé par la perte d’emploi, le prolétaire considère son labeur comme un privilège dont le capitaliste le gratifie. Le communisme devait remplacer cet esclavage par une coopération libre, dans une société sans classes, sans diktat financier … Daria confie sur un ton embarrassé: ‘A l’université, nous avons étudié ces belles théories et j’ai même eu de bonnes notes aux examens. Mais … ceux qui t’ont torturé en prison avaient lu Lénine. Et avec quel résultat?’ Regrettant ce débat, elle se hâte de conclure: ‘L’essentiel, c’est de penser à ceux qui sont là, parmi nous. Oui, tous ces vieux … Tu disais ‘une coopération libre’? Non, juste quelqu’un qu’on ne doit pas abandonner …’ En parcourant ces ‘localités rurales sans perspectives’ Lucien constate que ceux qui y vivent se rapprochent d’un mode d’existence où l’intérêt matériel cède place à l’entraide, à la volonté de secourir le plus faible. C’est ici qu’il rencontre une générosité irréfléchie, la liberté de travailler sans craindre d’être remplacé par quelqu’un de plus performant.” (p. 367)