The Satanic Cosmic Force 113
Auschwitz and will, so they predict, be brought to a triumphant conclusion
by nuclear warfare against the Soviet Union. 25
In the literature of the Thaw, the linkage between the Nazi camps and
Hiroshima seems to become less prominent. Yet the conglomeration of Nazi
mass murder and the nuclear devastation of Hiroshima remained commonplace enough to merit entry in Dmitrii Prigov’s “sociopolitical ideological dictionary” of the socialist motherland. In a poem entitled Alphabet 1
(Azbuka 1) from 1980, Prigov, known for debunking Soviet propaganda
clichés by repeating them ad nauseam, lists some of the most stereotypical dogmas of Soviet life. Under the letter “kh,” we find the following
verse: “Hitler, the beast from the dark, the brute/Hiroshima his very fruit”
(“Khitler – ėto zverʹ iz tʹmy/Khirosima – vot ego plody”). 26
Prigov’s sardonic verses implicitly point to an ethical assumption inherent in the official Soviet approach to Hiroshima: the Hitler-Hiroshima
equation, as mocked by Prigov, is based on a clear-cut distinction of good
and evil. What links the Nazis to the perpetrators of Hiroshima is their
demonic will to destroy what is good in humanity and for which the Soviet
Union stands as a safeguard. The idea, propelled by Günther Anders and
other thinkers, that in the nuclear age, the technology of mass destruction
has reached a stage, where on some level the line between perpetrators and
victims becomes blurred, and traditional concepts of good and evil are seriously challenged, was not something to be discussed in Soviet literature.
A recurrent motif in Soviet poetry on Hiroshima is the prophecy of a secularized final judgment of sorts, which after an apocalyptic fight between
the righteous Soviet Union and the evil West will seal the ultimate triumph of socialism over the capitalist-imperialist forces and their nuclear
arsenal. In his 1947 poem Raise Your Voice, Decent People (Vozvysʹte golos,
chestnye liudi), Aleksei Surkov scoffs that the world’s uranium, here exclusively exploited by the Americans, will not suffice to alter history’s course
and predicts that the power of the atom will not prevent the aggressors from
their just punishment before a universal court of the righteous and free. 27
Evgenii Dolmatovskii, in a poem entitled Trial/Judgment (Sud), published in
the renowned journal Novyi Mir in 1949, sees the Nuremberg trials as but
a tame prelude to a future apocalyptic tribunal that will indict American
imperialism. The new forces of evil have armed themselves with both
financial and nuclear weapons: “the engraved dollar, the coin of betrayal/
the evil bomb that carries the atom” (“gravirovannyi dollar – moneta predatelʹstva,/zlaia bomba, v kotoruiu atom zazhat”). In heavy anapestic verse,
Dolmatovskii has the righteous from all over the world gather to bring to
justice the successors to “Rippentrop and Göring.” And this, so the last
verse announces, will be the “last death sentence administered on earth”
(“… Ėto budet posledniaia kaznʹ na zemle”). 28
Up to the mid-1950s, the concept of Hiroshima as a prelude to a universal
battle that would end with the ultimate defeat of the nuclear-armed enemy
was prevalent in Soviet literature, in accordance with Lenin’s still virulent idea
Auschwitz and will, so they predict, be brought to a triumphant conclusion
by nuclear warfare against the Soviet Union. 25
In the literature of the Thaw, the linkage between the Nazi camps and
Hiroshima seems to become less prominent. Yet the conglomeration of Nazi
mass murder and the nuclear devastation of Hiroshima remained commonplace enough to merit entry in Dmitrii Prigov’s “sociopolitical ideological dictionary” of the socialist motherland. In a poem entitled Alphabet 1
(Azbuka 1) from 1980, Prigov, known for debunking Soviet propaganda
clichés by repeating them ad nauseam, lists some of the most stereotypical dogmas of Soviet life. Under the letter “kh,” we find the following
verse: “Hitler, the beast from the dark, the brute/Hiroshima his very fruit”
(“Khitler – ėto zverʹ iz tʹmy/Khirosima – vot ego plody”). 26
Prigov’s sardonic verses implicitly point to an ethical assumption inherent in the official Soviet approach to Hiroshima: the Hitler-Hiroshima
equation, as mocked by Prigov, is based on a clear-cut distinction of good
and evil. What links the Nazis to the perpetrators of Hiroshima is their
demonic will to destroy what is good in humanity and for which the Soviet
Union stands as a safeguard. The idea, propelled by Günther Anders and
other thinkers, that in the nuclear age, the technology of mass destruction
has reached a stage, where on some level the line between perpetrators and
victims becomes blurred, and traditional concepts of good and evil are seriously challenged, was not something to be discussed in Soviet literature.
A recurrent motif in Soviet poetry on Hiroshima is the prophecy of a secularized final judgment of sorts, which after an apocalyptic fight between
the righteous Soviet Union and the evil West will seal the ultimate triumph of socialism over the capitalist-imperialist forces and their nuclear
arsenal. In his 1947 poem Raise Your Voice, Decent People (Vozvysʹte golos,
chestnye liudi), Aleksei Surkov scoffs that the world’s uranium, here exclusively exploited by the Americans, will not suffice to alter history’s course
and predicts that the power of the atom will not prevent the aggressors from
their just punishment before a universal court of the righteous and free. 27
Evgenii Dolmatovskii, in a poem entitled Trial/Judgment (Sud), published in
the renowned journal Novyi Mir in 1949, sees the Nuremberg trials as but
a tame prelude to a future apocalyptic tribunal that will indict American
imperialism. The new forces of evil have armed themselves with both
financial and nuclear weapons: “the engraved dollar, the coin of betrayal/
the evil bomb that carries the atom” (“gravirovannyi dollar – moneta predatelʹstva,/zlaia bomba, v kotoruiu atom zazhat”). In heavy anapestic verse,
Dolmatovskii has the righteous from all over the world gather to bring to
justice the successors to “Rippentrop and Göring.” And this, so the last
verse announces, will be the “last death sentence administered on earth”
(“… Ėto budet posledniaia kaznʹ na zemle”). 28
Up to the mid-1950s, the concept of Hiroshima as a prelude to a universal
battle that would end with the ultimate defeat of the nuclear-armed enemy
was prevalent in Soviet literature, in accordance with Lenin’s still virulent idea