Dostoevsky

YURI MARMELADOV

This is the only surviving image of Marmeladov, discoverer of the Elijah symbolism in Dostoevsky’s fiction (a feature of his writing about which specialists generally know nothing). It is a New York sculptor’s photo of a portrait in clay. Marmeladov sat as the model. He often joked that he would prefer marble. “Closer to immortality,” he said. After his death in New York City, Yuri Ilyich was buried at the Porokhovoye Cemetery in St. Petersburg. The fired ceramic statue was mounted on the granite headstone, but both statue and headstone were soon destroyed by local Komsomol. The keen observer will have already noted the deep scar over Yuri Ilyich’s right temple. The wound was incurred in a duel with the late Grigory Fridlender, who, as usual, was late to the duel. Fridlender had insisted “there is no Elijah the Prophet in Crime and Punishment, nor can there be.” At the duel, Fridlender’s second was Vadim Rak, who is still hanging onto life today. Fridlender’s hand trembled, probably from a guilty conscience, knowing that he had not even read Marmeladov’s study of Dostoevsky. His nervousness was exacerbated by Rak’s impatience to see Yuri Ilyich killed. Fridlender had the first shot, and at ten paces it is extremely difficult to miss with a modern weapon. But with Rak egging him on, he indeed missed, barely grazing Marmeladov’s head, as reflected in the very realistic portrait made by the sculptor in Greenwich Village. Marmeladov aimed his pistol at Fridlender’s brain but then raised his weapon and fired straight up into the sky. According to his second, he muttered, “Podonok po literature!” (“literary scumbag”), but no source has ever confirmed this. At any rate, the bullet that he fired into the sky fell straight back down and winged Marmeladov along the back of his head. Thus, he received two bullet wounds in a single duel. Museum-goers often commented that Yuri Ilyich had an awfully strong chin. His wife would respond that he had to have a strong chin because he was always taking it on the chin from academics who were too lazy to actually read Dostoevsky’s Secret Code. Readers no doubt know the story of Marmeladov’s exhumation and what was discovered on that occasion, so I will not turn this brief note into a longwinded account that will only bore anyone who is already well informed about literary discoveries.

I will always hold Yuri Marmeladov close to my heart...