Yuri RytkheuReseñas

I was not prepared for how heartbreaking this book is. I was lulled into false hope by phrases on the back cover like "buoyantly translated" and "vibrant retelling." Was not prepared for the second half of the book to be all red flags. (CW for graphic animal cruelty, brief mention of sexual assault).

I never know how to rate a book like this. It was wildly effective, vivid, beautiful. But acutely painful.½

I really enjoyed this novel. It's about an American man who is on a ship in the Arctic, on the coast of far eastern Russian where the Chukchi people live. He has an accident that causes him to lose his hands, and while he is healing, the boat departs without him. He eventually assimilates into the Chukchi culture and this novel is the story of him doing that. As the story progresses, outside influences begin to creep in, and this reintroduction of western culture and people shows just how deeply John has adapted to this new way of living.

I thought this was really well done. Sometimes books that are this foreign in culture and setting are hard for me to connect with, but I think because there was a well-drawn American character experiencing this way of life, I was able to really get what the author was trying to say.

Highly recommended - a great look at a different culture and way of life, and also a good exploration of what matters in life.

This book seems sort of metamythic because part 1 is a creation myth and then the rest of the book is about how people engage with that myth (while its subject is still living!) and eventually become myths themselves. It makes you wonder, in reading this, will it make you part of the story? Probably, because of how universally applicable this story is, and considering how this predates the “Tragedy of the Commons” by a few millennia. Instead of the typical Western hopelessness, When the Whales Leave is a cautionary tale that has hope for humanity even though the ending is quite bleak. That being said, it doesn’t feel like it was written for a white audience, it’ll meet you halfway but won’t spoon feed you or guide you through understanding.

Rytkeu talks a lot about the difference between ancestor worship and the gods, with Nau being the living embodiment humanity’s earliest ancestors (she’s a really old lady who lives through like at least 5 generations). The escalation from the first few generations doubting her story to the last guy who just totally starts fucking up everything seems really drastic, but maybe that slippery slope is realistic. At first the misogyny was bothering me but I dont think that depiction of something is necessarily an avowal of it, and that perhaps the patriarchal society that develops is just another symptom of human hubris. But that’s the thing, this book is so deceptively simple but it won’t give you a straight answer on anything and will linger with you for a lot longer than it takes to actually read it.

The translator's note and introduction are definitely interesting, but read them after you read the story because both spoil it and it's a lot better to go in with no idea of what's coming next. I thought the prose in this was so easy to read and yet so flowery, in the translator's note Rytkheu says, "Write it like a song. Like you could sing it if you wanted to." which is honestly the best way anyone could put it.

Roalds Amundsen und seine Crew überwintern während seiner Arktis-Expedition zur Erforschung der Nordostpassage in der Tschaun-Bucht nahe einer tschuktschischen Siedlung. Diese wird von Abgesandten der Bolschewisten besucht, welche die Botschaft vom Sieg der Oktoberrevolution in die entlegensten Gegenden Sibiriens hinaustragen, sodass es im arktischen Winter 1919/20 zu einem Zusammentreffen der Zivilisationen kommt. Tschuktschische Mythologie und Tradition trifft dabei auf bolschewistische Ideologie und westliche Zivilisation.

Im Mittelpunkt steht der Schamane Kagot, der seinen Platz in der sich verändernden Welt sucht und glaubt, diese anhand der - von ihm eben erst erlernten - Mathematik erklären zu können.

Rytchëu, selbst Tschukschte, liefert einmalige Einblicke in die tschuktschische Kultur und legt eine flüssige Geschichte vor. Doch der spannende Zusammenstoß der Zivilisationen am Scheideweg der Geschichte verliert sich letztlich in fast schon plumper Verherrlichung des Bolschewismus und seiner Ideale, welche Rytchëu als regimetreuen Nationalliteraten ausweist und eine realistische, literarisch wertvolle Auseinandersetzung zur Frage kultureller Antagonismen verhindert.

A beautiful and sad book, a condensed history of the human downfall into greed and ego told through the Chukchi origin story.

1980 erschien dieses Buch über die alte Legende des Teryky. Wann sie aber genau spielt, kann ich nicht sagen. Sie erzählt auf jeden Fall vom Leben der Tschuktschen inmitten alter Bräuche, so wie der 1930 geborene Juri Rytchëu aufgewachsen ist.
Der Robbenjäger Goigoi treibt auf einer Eisscholle ins Meer hinaus. Er ist noch jung, grade frisch verheiratet mit seiner jungen Frau Tin-Tin, die er innig liebt. Sein ganzes Trachten ist es zurückzukehren. Und Tin-Tin kämpft ebenfalls darum, die Erinnerung nicht zu verlieren und glaubt an seine Rückkehr.
Doch die alte Sage der Tschuktschen sagt, dass ein Polarjäger, der auf einer Eisscholle abtreibt, zum Teryky wird, einem mit Fell bewachsenen Ungeheuer. Auch Goigoi ereilt dieses Schicksal und seine Sippe hat die Pflicht den Teryky zu töten.
Die Sage wird mitreißend erzählt, v.a. die Liebesgeschichte ist sehr schön.½

Excellent book about the people who live on the northeastern tip of Siberia. The book is fiction but based on stories that have been passed down orally as well as the life of the author's grandfather who was a shaman.

In the second decade of the 20th century, a young Canadian sailor, John MacLennan, comes to the far North to the northern tip of Siberia. His ship is stuck in ice and detonating charges to free it, he suffers terrible injuries to his hands. Three Chukchi tribesmen start to take him to the nearest hospital, miles and miles away, and on the way his hands turn gangrenous. So a shaman-woman amputates all but several fingers. Upon return to the Chukchi settlement, they find the ship has left without John, after a storm has broken up the ice. So he lives among them and takes up their customs. They help him and he finds, instead of being savages and frightening, they are trusting and really human, in the best sense of the word. Much of the book is a description of their daily lives--joys and troubles alike. John acculturates, adopts their customs, takes on a wife, and finally has to face a decision when his mother arrives: does he leave and go back to Canada a cripple or does he stay?

This was a marvelous book. Not only is there the description of a people, but the village elder Orvo, speaks much wisdom. Sometimes the writing was a bit awkward and clunky, but that could have been the translation.

Highly recommended.

Die Ethnologin Anna schließt sich 1947 den Tschuktschen an, zunächst um sie zu erforschen. Doch ihr Forschungsethos treibt sie dazu, sich ihnen mehr und mehr anzuschließen. Sie heiratet den jungen Tanat und wird schließlich sogar Schmananin. Gleichzeitig möchte aber der Sowjetstaat die nomadierenden Stämme auflösen und ihre Rentiere den Kolchosen übergeben. Dies macht es für die indigenen Völker immer schwieriger zu überleben.
Das Buch ist ausgesprochen interessant. Der Autor ist selbst Tschuktsche und beschreibt das Leben des Stammes von innen heraus. Wie sich Anna immer mehr von der Wissenschaftlerin zur Schamanin wandelt, ist ebenfalls plausibel. Die Unterdrückung der indigenen Stämme macht betroffen. Wirklich ein sehr interessantes Buch!
Ich kenne vom Autor schon "Traum im Polarnebel", dieses Buch hier scheint mir noch wesentlich politischer zu sein. Die Geschichte ist anscheinend wahr.

It's 1910, and Canadian sailor John MacLennan is aboard a ship frozen above the Arctic Circle, north of Siberia. While using dynamite to try and create a path through the ice to open water, John is injured, and the captain decides John's best chance of survival is with the local Chukchi people, who promise to dogsled him to the nearest doctor. The rest of the novel chronicles John's experiences with the Chukchi.

If you are looking for a well-written piece of literature, this is not it. The style and the plot construction feel amateurish. The beauty of this work lies in the details about the Chukchi way of life. The author, himself, was born in Chukotka lands and writes convincingly of the ice, Northern Lights, walrus hunts, and ceremonial rituals. He uses Chukchi words throughout, and I hope the author's dozen novels and collections of stories help preserve the language. One of the themes of the novel is the benefits and drawbacks of interaction with non-Native peoples. Although his characters are stereotypes (the greedy White merchant, the violent gold rush prospectors, the head-in-the-clouds scientists), the conversations between John and Orvo, the village elder, touch upon important questions of Native rights, condescension, prejudice, and exploitation.

Although reviews of this book have been mixed, I found it interesting enough to make up for the lack of literary polish.

This was desolate at the end… except for the fact that the author has written this book. Native cultures of Siberia were declared worthless in the 20thC, and the main character sees his children schooled to be Bolshevik – and not Chukchi. Then I found out that Rytkheu - the main’s grandchild – toed this line for much of his life, and comes late here to celebrate Chukchi culture. Quote from A History of the Peoples of Siberia: Russia's North Asian Colony 1581-1990, By James Forsyth: "Rytkheu even came to regret the Communist Party’s indiscriminate campaign against the primal religion of his people and to feel a new sympathy not only with its inherent respect for nature, but even with the shaman, whom he no longer saw, in the stereotype of anti-religious propaganda, as merely an ignorant, predatory charlatan, but in many cases as a highly gifted person with a skill in healing, wisdom above the average, and the spiritual elevation of a poet." [p.408]

The author's grandfather, whose story is two-thirds of the book, was ‘the last shaman of Uelen’. He has failures and difficulties with his calling, but is steadfast in sticking to his beliefs, even though, as arguably the wisest of his tribe – at least the most-travelled - he has learnt Russian and American and has brought home surgical instruments from San Francisco, to help a shaman’s practice. It began with Bogoraz, a political exile who devoted his time in north-east Siberia to anthropology; after aiding him in his study, Mletkin – our last shaman – decides he wants to do anthropology of his own and signs up on a whaling ship. He didn’t mean to sign up (no-one told him what the fingerprint was for) and he sees, from the perpetrators’ side this time, the exploitation that goes on, along with the disastrous effect on sea-animal numbers.

His people descend from a whale – not from apes, like the foreigners, or made as in the Bible. The epigraphs at the start of this book are:

And God created man in his own image.
(Genesis)

Men make gods in their own likeness.
(Mletkin, the last shaman of Uelen)

It’s what he learns. His people’s name for themselves, Luoravetlan, translates as the True People. This is so of most tribes, who simply have ‘humans, people’ in their own language for a name. Horizons are widened, for better or worse, through this book, that starts with the Raven’s creation of the earth, goes on through first discoveries – of reindeer-herding (on the face of it a wonderful idea: ‘food on four legs’ in handy vicinity of the tent) and onwards to first contact with the Cossacks.

The book is titled as it is for more than one reason. A Bible features: Mletkin’s grandfather trades for a Bible at a fair, out of curiosity about these Russian shamans and their abilities. It remains in the family – no-one reads, and no-one’s Christian – until Mletkin, known also for his curiosity, pulls it out to startle a Russian trader - ‘What’s a Bible doing here?’

There’s a hot trade in vodka or any alcohol, and its ravages are pitiful. The Russian government attempts to ban the trade. They also leave the Chukchi to their ways, in a pact with them: don’t attack your neighbours, we won’t force-convert you. It’s not always abuse. Mletkin finds a friend in Nelson, a black sailor; he thinks of the anthropologist Bogoraz as a friend, with different attitudes than most of his kind – yet their acquaintance ends on a note of the alienness between them, as Mletkin settles down to family life in Uelen. With a girl he fixed on in his youth… who failed, twice over, to wait for him (he did take years, and no-one comes back from San Francisco) but that does not deter Mletkin, though he has to resort to an old cultural practice to get her.

As I say, the end is sad. The only consolation is the book.

There's lovely description of the tundra and the sea, as - I had to feel - only an eye native here can see them. I also felt (though this is not a tract) that the questions put by Uelen's inhabitants are a fundamental sort that is hard for us, who aren't Chukchi, to even think to ask. Not because we're pigs. But the questions are so simple and direct, and asked from a sense of the absolute worth of Chukchi knowledge and ways.

It’s cold on the northeastern tip of Siberia, really cold, especially when you’re a group a ice locked sailors from everywhere except where they are icebound. When the opportunity presents itself to break through before the hardest part of winter arrives they do so however it is costly for one sailor in particular, John MacLennan. It becomes clear to sailor and native alike that he needs emergency medical attention. It’s a long trip for the inhabitants of Chukotka to make but the captain of John’s ship, Hugh Grover vows to stay until John’s return. Grover's decision forces John to learn what it truly means to be called a man among the Chukotka.
Polar Fog is a beautifully written novel. It presents what I love most about reading. Being taken away to a place and a people I had no idea existed. As it was for John it was for me, the reader, it was the chance to spend some time with the residents of Chukotka, learn their customs, their strengths and their talents

Das Buch erzählt eine sehr ähnliche Geschichte wie "Der mit dem Wolf tanzt": Ein weißer Mann, der bei einem Naturvolk Aufnahme findet und sich zu einem der ihren entwickelt.John, ein junger Kanadier, bleibt bei den im äußersten Nordosten Sibiriens lebenden Tschuktschen, nachdem er bei einer Explosion schwer verwundet wird. Obwohl ihm nach Wundbrand von einer Schamanin beide Hände teilamputiert werden, kann er dort ein vollwertiges Mitglied der Gemeinschaft werden. Zunächst denkt John viel an eine Rückkehr in die Zivilisation, doch gerade aufgrund seiner Verletzung, jedoch zunehmend aufgrund der ihm imponierenden klaren Werte und schließlich aufgrund der persönlichen Bindung durch seine Frau und Kinder, bleibt er, selbst als er am Ende des Buches abgeholt werden würde. Da der Autor selbst ein Tschuktsche ist, ist das Buch sicherlich besonders beeindruckend und glaubwürdig. Die Lebensweise dieses Volkes wird deutlich. Doch das Buch ist auch spannend, interessant, menschlich.

This is a wonderful, collection of myths, folk tales and short stories that build from the creation of the Chukchi in the harsh Arctic tundra, how the generations evolved from seafaring people to deer herders, to traders with the "hairmouths" from Russia.

The writing is poetic and the stories fascinating. We are treated to descriptions of the icy tundra in the Chukotka Peninsula and the various rituals of the shamans. We see a society evolve from a simple fishing and whaling clan who occasionally raid other clans for women to marry, who later assimilate with the deer herders in the grassy tundra so they would have warm meat, and who are later discovered by Europeans. With the influx of more explorers, their world expands and they now have different choices available to them, some good, some bad and some which would have repercussions on this tribe of people.½

Alphabetisch sortiert werden uns zu Stichworten wie Telefon, Sterne, Expedition oder Unterhosen autobiografische Erlebnisse, ja zum Teil fast Anekdoten erzählt. Man gewinnt einen Einblick in das (noch traditionelle) Leben der Tschuktschen in den 1930-er Jahren, das durch die Gewinne des Sozialismus' in der Folge ordentlich durchgeschüttelt wurde. Vermeintliche Modernisierungen und Notwendigkeiten, um das Leben angenehmer und einfacher zu gestalten werden mit einem ganz anderen Blick betrachtet und erscheinen lächerlich und verkommen einfach nur zu dem, was sie sind: Dinge, die wir so gerne um uns herum anhäufen.
Er lässt uns auf sein Leben blicken und nimmt uns an der Hand, auf eine Reise (Titel des Originals heisst auch in etwa 'Reiselexikon') zu Tschuktschischen Gesellschaftsstrukturen, Sovietischen Literatenkreisen und sozialistische Parteiapparate, Aethiopischen Staatsoberhäupten und zum kleinen Jungen, der die strahlend weissen Unterhosen über der Kleidung tragen will.

Absolut lesenswert. Wer andere Bücher von Rytcheu gelesen hat, kommt um dieses Werk nicht herum. Schade, dass er 2008 schon verstorben ist. Meines Wissens ist dies seine letze Veröffentlichung.

Die Heimat der Tschuktschen ist die russische Arktis, und ihr Leben spielt sich im überschaubaren Raum zwischen ihren Zelten am Ufer und dem küstennahen Meer ab, im Rhythmus der Jahreszeiten. Was ziemlich langweilig klingt, hat sich als sehr reizvoll erwiesen, und Jury Rytcheu ist es mit dieser schönen Erzählung gelungen, mir sein Volk näherzubringen. An der Seite des Kanadiers John McLennan, der wegen eines Unfalls anfangs erzwungen bei ihnen lebte, lernte ich die Tschuktschen und ihre einfache Lebensweise kennen und habe nachvollziehen können, warum er später nicht mehr auf dieses Leben verzichten wollte.

Besonders schön herausgearbeitet fand ich den "Zusammenprall der Kulturen", zum einen das gegenseitige Befremden über die Eigenarten der jeweils anderen und zum anderen das Erstaunen der Tschuktschen über Errungenschaften der Weissen wie etwa Seife, die teils durch John und teils ohne sein Zutun ihren Weg ins tschuktschische Dorf fanden.½

I have mixed feelings about this book, which I also read for the Reading Globally Polar Regions theme read. On the one hand, it provides remarkable insight into the world of the Chuchki people of the Arctic at a time when white explorers/traders/gold searchers are beginning to change their way of life. The descriptions of their hunting and living practices and their adaptations to their harsh environment are fascinating, if a tad anthropological. The story of John McLennan, a white Canadian who ends up first stuck living with the Chuchki and then blending in as completely as possible with the life of their village, is interesting in spots.

On the other hand, I found the book heavy-handed. The life of the Chuchki is romanticized, the story is a little plodding and didactic, and the impact of western "civilization" on traditional civilization is a little obvious. The author points out more than once that cultures are different and we should live and let live. But the portrait of a lost way of life is interesting.

An early 20th-century Canadian adventurer named John MacLennan finds himself stranded in a small Chukchi community in far northeastern Siberia. This small Arctic fishing and hunting community takes him in, cares for him and eventually embraces him. It's a wonderful and beautiful story of cross-cultural differences and acceptance. But there are certainly the inevitable dramatic confrontations, heart-breaking disasters and ugly cultural clashes. Who has even heard of the Chukchi? The novel captures their daily lives and subsistence struggles in great, powerful and beautiful detail. The author is a native Chukchi who was educated in Russia. This book was originally published in 1968 and recently translated and published in the US.

A Dream in Polar Fog tells the story of how an outsider, Canadian John MacLennan, comes to live with, and gradually become part of, a settlement of indigenous Chukchi people living on the Arctic coast of Siberia, during the years 1910-1917. Yuri Rytkheu, himself Chukchi, uses the outsider MacLennan as our introduction to the life of the Chukchi, and to the encroaching threats that Western ships and Western ways pose to their way of life and their hunting grounds.

MacLennan is forced to cross the barrier that separates white explorer from native when he is badly injured in an accident. His acceptance of, and acceptance into, the Chukchi culture is gradual and sometimes problematic, but his marriage to Pyl'mau and the birth of their children is a key factor in making him decide to stay.

Along with the observations on the ways in which cultures and both clash and cohere, there is an exciting story of death, sacrifice and survival here. If you are at all interested in either life in the polar regions, or the relationship between indigenous people and colonisers, this book is worth reading.½

Tschuktschen, russische Literatur, Roman