Front-line feature stories by George Grebenstchikoff in the newspaper «Zhizn Altaya» in 1916

The authors present and analyse the reports sent by George Grebenstchikoff to the newspaper Zhizn Altaya from the theatre of World War I where he served as a volunteer. The reports are regarded as a milestone in the life and work of the writer when he was searching for his creative identity, personal writing style and as the expression of his civil and philosophical standpoints formed before the war. Grebenstchikoff writes from a position of a man being at war and writing the letters home, with the author’s creative method being ethnographic observation. In the reports, the writer is acting as an organizer of frontline life, a head of the “bath squad”, a novice writer and a journalist-in-action who is telling his compatriots about the frontline life at World War I. The blend of these functions resulted in the original series of wartime articles in the newspaper «Zhizn Altaya» in 1916. The War by Grebenstchikoff is tiresome and troublesome; it implies mud, parasites, decay and damp. It is a certain soulless and destructive power, the disaster which had split life into two spatial and temporal dimensions: «here/there», «now/then». It is shown as evil, mechanic, and hideous monster with an iron walk and iron spits. The monster is reeking, rumbling, breaking, devastating and uglifying the nature, wounding and murdering people. The War is breaking people’s lives, dragging them from home, changing their social statuses and functions. Siberia is the antithesis of the war. It is another dimension where one can find relief and solace, source of life-affirmation and spiritual cleansing. Siberia is fragrant, colourful, mellifluous and beautiful disregarding the season. It is the best place on the Earth. Everything is full of wonders here: lakes and rivers, fields and mountains, forests and steppes. The author is the participant of the events, who is actively involved in wartime life and men-of-arms community. The author’s emotions and opinions make him neither pro- or antiwar journalist. He is a chronicler. He does not show battles, attacks, enemies, targets, pathos, offensives and retreats, gifted or giftless commanders. The author is the ethnographer whose main tasks are to watch and to observe. It totally agrees with the tradition of the ethnographic feature article «Altaian Rus» (1913) where Grebenstchikoff is a watcher, a scientist, a journalist and a writer simultaneously.

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