По
Уссурийкому
Краю
и
Дерсу
Узала
&
Dersu
Uzala
V. K.
Arsen’ev
(V. K.
Arseniev)
(translation by Dennis Kalma)
There is an expression in the
Russian language:
“настолная
книга.”
Literally an “on the table book,” it refers to a book that is not
put up on the shelf and forgotten, but to one you keep beside you on the table
and read so often it becomes a part of your life. These two companion books by
the Russian explorer and geographer Vladimir Klavdievich Arsen’ev are one of my
“table books.” Originally published
separately as “Through the Ussuri Region” and “Dersu Uzala,” they
were later combined by Arsen’ev as “In the Wilderness of the Ussuri Region.”
I first learned of Arsen’ev and his companion Dersu Uzala from the Kurosawa film “Dersu Uzala.” Although given the name of the second book, the film covers the material in both. Falling in love with the movie, I then read the book, at least in translation.
The
translation, by Malcolm Burr, titled “Dersu The Trapper” is even better
than the movie. The characters are better developed and the details of where
they went and what they saw are enthralling. It suffers from some archaic
British idioms, such as “That’s rummy, …,” and is abridged, but is an otherwise
wonderful reading experience. Originally published in 1941 it was long out of
print. It was reissued in 1996, but is again unavailable.
A passion
for the book led me to ressurect my college Russian and to begin to read the
book in the original. Thanks to “Globus A Slavic Bookstore” in San Francisco I
was able to obtain a copy in Russian.
It is a
book with many levels. At the first level it is a record of the experiences of
Dersu and Arsen’ev as they traveled through the wilderness of Ussuria in the
early 1900’s. The feeling for the area conveyed by the descriptions of the land, its flora and fauna, and the
people who lived there make this some of the
best nature/travel writing ever. Perhaps it has a special appeal to me
because Ussuria seems so familiar, so much like my New England.
At another
level the book is about friendship. Arsen’ev, an educated Russian officer, and
Dersu, an unlettered native hunter and trapper, come from very different
backgrounds. But they form a friendship that is deep and strong, a friendship
between equals. I disagree with Kurosawa’s portrayal of Dersu as a lovable
sidekick to Arsen’ev. The original text shows none of this. Although Dersu is
uneducated, he is a complete and equal person. The friendship between the two
men grows as they travel together and is annealed by the adventures they share.
Each recognizes the strengths and weaknesses of the other, but these are
accepted and become part of the friendship.
And
finally, on a third level, it is a book about the relationship between
civilization and nature. Of course civilization destroys nature. What is
interesting in the book is that while Arsen’ev describes man’s effect on
Ussuria, there is a parallel and perhaps unintended story of the effect of
civilization on Dersu. Ironically and predictably it is the very friendship
between the civilized Arsen’ev and the natural Dersu that leads to Dersu’s
death at the end of the book – shades of Gilgamesh and Enkidu.
It is a
great book and deserves to be more
widely read. Because a published English translation is not readily available I
am placing my translation on this website. It is an ongoing labor of love and
will proceed with appalling slowness. I am not a Russian scholar, but am an
ecologist and naturalist who has spent much of his life tramping through
terrain very like Ussuria. I like to think that Vladimir Arsen’ev and Dersu
Uzala and I would have enjoyed traveling together.
When a pod
of humpback whales got trapped in the ice in the Bering Sea and their fate was
being followed by the international media, they were finally rescued by the
Russian government which sent an icebreaker to create a lane to open water for
them. It was a fitting if unintended tribute that the icebreaker was the “V.K.
Arsen’ev.”