Moscow-Petushki (V. Erofeev)

Cover. Izd. Interbuk 1990.

Title:
Moskva-Petushki [Moscow-Petushki]

Author: Venedikt Vasil’evich Erofeev (1938-1990)

Draft: 1969-1970

First published in Russian: AMI, 3, 1973: 95-165 [with a preface by Goldy Meir, abridged edition]

Description:
Erofeev’s novel-poem, Moscow-Petushki, earned the writer a legendary reputation. The exact time of its composition remains unclear.  Erofeev claimed in his autobiography that he finished the work between January and March 1970, which is questionable given that he himself wrote ‘Autumn 1969’ at then end of his text (cf. Lekmanov, Sverdlov 2018; Lekmanov, Sverdlov, Simanovskii 2019: 201-202). According to the literary critic Ol’ga Sedakova, the first chapters of Moscow-Petushki were already prepared by October 1968 and Erofeev finished his novel around the end of the year (cf. ibid.). However, given the materials we have, it seems likely that the text was written between 1969 and 1970.
The novel-poem spread via the samizdat, and was published for the first time in an abridged form, without the author’s knowledge, in Jerusalem in 1973 in the literary almanac AMI, with a run of 300 copies, achieving considerable success. In 1977 a second Russian edition was published in Paris, this time unabridged, by the YMCA Press, an emigration publishing house. In the USSR the novel was first officially published, in a considerably censored version, in 1988-1989 in the magazine “Trezvost i kul’tura” (12, 1988; 1-3, 1989); an unabridged version was published in 1989, first in the literary almanac Vest’ and then, in 1990, the year Erofeev died, in a single volume by two Muscovite publishing houses, Interbuk and Prometei (cf. Levin 1996; Zappi 2004a: 27). This last edition, edited by Vladimir Sergeevich Murav’ëv, is nowadays considered the editio princeps since it is based on Erofeev’s original handwritten text, which was thought to be lost but was recovered by the editor (cf. Zappi 2004b: 155-156). Before the text appeared in the USSR, several European publishers worked on its translation. In 1976 the Parisian Albin Michel published Moscou-sur-Vodka (Moscou-Pétouchki) translated by Antoine Pingaud and Annie Sabatier and with an afterword by Michel Heller; a year later, in 1977, Feltrinelli published Mosca sulla vodka edited by Pietro Zveteremich and in 1978 the Piper of Munich included Die Reise nach Petuschki edited by Natascha Spitz in its catalogue.
Following these first editions in Western languages, in the Eighties and Nineties English, Spanish, Czech and Polish versions of the text entered European and overseas bookshops.
In Italy, after the first edition by Zveteremich in 1977 three other translations were published, all with different titles; the 2003 a version edited by Mario Caramitti for Fanucci, Tra Mosca e Petuški (based on the text contained in the two volume collection of Erofeev’s work published in 2001), a 2004 version by Gario Zappi for Feltrinelli (Mosca-Petuški), probably dating to the Nineties and based on Muravev’s version of 1990, and in 2014, Mosca-Petuskì. Poema ferroviario, edited by Paolo Nori for Quodlibet (cf. Remonato 2013).

Giuseppina Larocca
[30th June 2021]

Translated by Diletta Bacci

Editions in Russian

• Erofeev V., Moskva-Petushki, YMCA Press, Paris 1977 [complete edition].
• Id., Moskva-Petushki, “Trezvost’ i kul’tura”, 12 (1988): 26-38 [introduction by S. Chuprinin, censured edition].
• Id., Moskva-Petushki, “Trezvost’ i kul’tura”, 1 (1989): 26-37; 2 (1989): 28-39;  3 (1989): 30-35 [censured edition].
• Id., Moskva-Petushki, in Vest’: Sbornik. Proza, poėziia, dramaturgiia, Knizhnaia palata, Moskva 1990: 418-506 [complete edition].
• Id., Moskva-Petushki, V.S. Murav’ëv (ed.), Prometei, Moskva 1990 [complete edition in volume].
• Id., Moskva-Petushki s kommentariiami Ėduarda Vlasova, Vagrius, Moskva 2000: 123-574 [complete edition in volume with critical notes].
• Id., Moskva-Petushki in Id., Sobranie sochinenii v 2-ch tt., t.1, V.S. Murav’ëv (ed.), introduction by V.S. Murav’ëv, Vagrius, Moskva 2001 [complete edition in the two-volume works by V. Erofeev].

Translations

• Erofeev V., Moscou-sur-Vodka. (Moscou-Pétouchki), M. Heller (ed.), translation by A. Sabatieret, A. Pingaud, Albin Michel, Paris 1976.
• Id., Mosca sulla vodka, translation and edition by Pietro Zveteremich, Feltrinelli, Milano 1977.
• Id., Die Reise nach Petuschki, translation and edition by N. Spitz, Piper, München 1978.
• Id., Moscow at the end of the line, translation by W. Tjalsma, Taplinger, New York 1980.
• Id., Moscow’s circles, translation by J.R. Dorrell, Writers and Readers Publishing Cooperative, London 1981.
• Jerofejev V., Moskva-Petushky, M. Dvořák (ed.), “Sovětská literatura”, 1990.
• Eroféiev V., Moscú-Petushkí, translation by H. S. Kriúkova and V. Cazcarra, Alfaguara, Madrid 1991.
• Jerofejev V., Moskva- Petushki zpáteční, introduction by L. Konvička, Pragma, Praha 1992.
• Jerofiejew V., Moskwa-Pietuszki: poemat, introduction by A. Drawicz, Wydawnictwo Dolnośląskie, Wrocław 1994.
• Yerofeev V., Moscow Stations, translation by S. Murline, Faber and Faber, London 1996.
• Erofeev V., Tra Mosca e Petuški, translation and edition by M. Caramitti, Fanucci, Roma 2003.
• Id., Mosca-Petuški e altre opere, translation and edition by G. Zappi, Feltrinelli, Milano 2004.
• Eroféev V., Mosca-Petuškì. Poema ferroviario, P. Nori (ed.), Quodlibet, Macerata 2014.

Bibliography

• Colucci M., Il diavolo e l’acquavite, in V. Erofeev, Mosca sulla vodka, translation and edition by P. Zveteremich, Feltrinelli, Milano 1992: 187-210.
• Lekmanov O., Sverdlov M., Venedikt Erofeev: postoronny. Glavy iz zhizneopisaniia, “Oktjabr’”, 1 (2018), http://magazines.russ.ru/october/2018/1/venedikt-erofeev-postoronnij.html#_ftnref3, online (last accessed: 30/06/2021).
• Lekmanov O., Simanovskii I., Sverdlov M., Venedikt: Petushki – Moskva, in Id., Venedikt Erofeev: postoronny, AST, Moskva 2019: 201-247.
• Levin Iu., Kommentarii k poeme “Moskva-Petushki” Venedikta Erofeeva, Pfandl, Granz 1996.
• Remonato I., Sulle tracce dell’autore:’Moskva-Petuški’ di V. Erofeev, “Europa Orientalis”, XXIII.2 (2004): 209-229.
• Id., Dal russo all’italiano: gli itinerari linguistici di Moskva-Petuški, “mediAzioni”, 14 (2013), http://mediazioni.sitlec.unibo.it/index.php/no-14-2013.html, online (last accessed: 30/06/2021).
• Troubetzkoy L., Quête de la terre promise, chemin de fer, chemin de croix: la superposition des modèles de la voie dans Moscou-Pétouchki de Vénédikt Erofeev, in M. M Martinet., F. Conte, A. M. Molinié-Bertran, J. M. Valentin (eds.), Le chemin, la route, la voie. Figures de l’imaginaire occidental à l’époque moderne, Presses Universitaires de la Sorbonne, Paris 2005: 25-32.
• Vlasov E., Bessmertnaia poema Moskva-Petushki: sputnik pisatelia, in V. Erofeev, Moskva-Petushki s kommentariiami Eduarda Vlasova, Vagrius, Moskva 2000: 123-574.
• Zappi G., Il vangelo apocrifo di Venička Erofeev, in V.V. Erofeev, Mosca-Petuški e altre opere, Feltrinelli, Milano 2004: 7-15 [the Russian version of this contribution was published in “Novoe literaturnoe obozrenie”, 38 (1999): 326-331].
• Id., Note al testo, in V. V. Erofeev, Mosca-Petuški e altre opere, Feltrinelli, Milano: 155-156 e 339-341.
• Zveteremich P., Nota del curatore, in V. Erofeev, Mosca sulla vodka, Feltrinelli, Milano 1977: 183-186.
• Id., Il poema dell’emarginazione: Mosca sulla vodka, in Id., Fantastico, grottesco, assurdo e satira nella narrativa russa d’oggi, Peloritana Editrice, Messina 1980: 47-51.