130 Bettina Kaibach
with the city, these very terms have been annihilated, too. The bombing of
Hiroshima is presented from the perspective of a mysterious passenger on
board the Enola Gay, who with scientific interest follows the events through
the windows of the plane. The nightly darkness over the ocean, reminiscent
of primordial chaos, instills a visceral fear in the man. In a gesture of godlike
hubris, he holds out his hand, only to be reminded of humanity’s impotence
before divine creation. 96 When light finally does rise above the ocean, it is
without his doing. Daybreak over Hiroshima is described as a reenactment
of Genesis: on the morning of August 6, 1945, the world arises from chaos
in primeval splendor, as it has done countless times since the primal act of
creation. Only this time will be the last. Grossman makes it clear that with
the dropping of the first nuclear bomb, the biblical narrative is irreversibly
suspended. The explosion of the bomb, too, is described as an act of creation, 97 only this time it is not the divine touch, but a human finger that sets it
into motion. For a moment, it seems that thanks to technology, humanity has
risen to godlike status. A ghastly vision disrupts the lofty spectacle. A cloud
of debris and body parts rising from the epicenter of the explosion appears
before the inner eye of the passenger and it dawns upon him that this is not
an act of creation but the ultimate undoing of creation, the return to chaos:
“humanity has closed the Book of Genesis.” 98
The phrase can be read both literally and metaphorically. The book of
creation is closed: life on this planet is about to end, and the biblical patterns
that for more than two millennia have provided the basis of art in JudeoChristian culture have lost their validity. It takes an altogether new book
of books and new patterns of representation to grasp the nuclear age, but it
remains doubtful whether humanity will have enough time to read it.
Some of Grossman’s thoughts surface in the official literature of the Thaw,
albeit in a mitigated form that never poses a serious moral challenge to the
Soviet nuclear program. The general doubts that befall the protagonist of Life
and Fate with respect to the fact that the hard sciences lack the self-criticism
professed by the arts are at the center of the Physicists and Lyricists Debate
launched by Il’ia Erenburg in 1959. 99 The vision, drafted by Grossman in Abel
(August 6th), of the bombing of Hiroshima as a foreboding of an irrevocable reversal of Genesis is also found in the official poetry of the 1960s. In
Mikhail Matusovskii’s aforementioned cycle of poems on Hiroshima, the
nuclear bombing of the Japanese city is no longer presented, as was the case
in the literature of the 1940s and 1950s, as the beginning of an apocalyptic
battle that will end with the triumph of good over evil. Here, Hiroshima
may well herald the end of the world altogether (“svetoprestavlenʹ[e]”). 100 Yet
nowhere in Matusovskii’s poetry are the moral implications of this insight
and the measures to prevent wholesale annihilation discussed in universally
applicable terms that transcend the Cold War agenda.
Interestingly, Matusovskii, too, employs the image of the repentant pilot,
yet he does so in a completely different vein than Grossman. In Ballad of
Eternal Insomnia (Ballada o vechnoi bessonitse), Matusovskii has a sleepless
with the city, these very terms have been annihilated, too. The bombing of
Hiroshima is presented from the perspective of a mysterious passenger on
board the Enola Gay, who with scientific interest follows the events through
the windows of the plane. The nightly darkness over the ocean, reminiscent
of primordial chaos, instills a visceral fear in the man. In a gesture of godlike
hubris, he holds out his hand, only to be reminded of humanity’s impotence
before divine creation. 96 When light finally does rise above the ocean, it is
without his doing. Daybreak over Hiroshima is described as a reenactment
of Genesis: on the morning of August 6, 1945, the world arises from chaos
in primeval splendor, as it has done countless times since the primal act of
creation. Only this time will be the last. Grossman makes it clear that with
the dropping of the first nuclear bomb, the biblical narrative is irreversibly
suspended. The explosion of the bomb, too, is described as an act of creation, 97 only this time it is not the divine touch, but a human finger that sets it
into motion. For a moment, it seems that thanks to technology, humanity has
risen to godlike status. A ghastly vision disrupts the lofty spectacle. A cloud
of debris and body parts rising from the epicenter of the explosion appears
before the inner eye of the passenger and it dawns upon him that this is not
an act of creation but the ultimate undoing of creation, the return to chaos:
“humanity has closed the Book of Genesis.” 98
The phrase can be read both literally and metaphorically. The book of
creation is closed: life on this planet is about to end, and the biblical patterns
that for more than two millennia have provided the basis of art in JudeoChristian culture have lost their validity. It takes an altogether new book
of books and new patterns of representation to grasp the nuclear age, but it
remains doubtful whether humanity will have enough time to read it.
Some of Grossman’s thoughts surface in the official literature of the Thaw,
albeit in a mitigated form that never poses a serious moral challenge to the
Soviet nuclear program. The general doubts that befall the protagonist of Life
and Fate with respect to the fact that the hard sciences lack the self-criticism
professed by the arts are at the center of the Physicists and Lyricists Debate
launched by Il’ia Erenburg in 1959. 99 The vision, drafted by Grossman in Abel
(August 6th), of the bombing of Hiroshima as a foreboding of an irrevocable reversal of Genesis is also found in the official poetry of the 1960s. In
Mikhail Matusovskii’s aforementioned cycle of poems on Hiroshima, the
nuclear bombing of the Japanese city is no longer presented, as was the case
in the literature of the 1940s and 1950s, as the beginning of an apocalyptic
battle that will end with the triumph of good over evil. Here, Hiroshima
may well herald the end of the world altogether (“svetoprestavlenʹ[e]”). 100 Yet
nowhere in Matusovskii’s poetry are the moral implications of this insight
and the measures to prevent wholesale annihilation discussed in universally
applicable terms that transcend the Cold War agenda.
Interestingly, Matusovskii, too, employs the image of the repentant pilot,
yet he does so in a completely different vein than Grossman. In Ballad of
Eternal Insomnia (Ballada o vechnoi bessonitse), Matusovskii has a sleepless