Až se hnou vody – Leskov Nikolaj (2024)

The stylized novel chronicle "When the Waters Move" (published in its definitive form in Russian in 1872) has remained overlooked in our country, unlike Leskov's well-known stories and novels – it was published in Czech for the first and last time more than one hundred twenty years ago (1903). The new translation by Jan Machonin confirms the extraordinary liveliness and modernity of this prose, in which Leskov, more than elsewhere, abandoned the form of the novel, utilized an alienated perspective akin to a film narrator, and significantly enriched the language with elements of overheard speech through the alternation of various stylistic levels. Into the almost idyllic setting of a Russian town, particularly the small community of its Orthodox clergy, penetrates the atmosphere of modernity, free thought, and nihilism, as the new currents of thought in Russia were then labeled. These clashes bring to life plots whose bizarreness sometimes reaches absurd levels. Thus, Leskov wove a remarkable net of amusing and touching incidents, from which emerges a powerful image of the spiritual and material essence of 19th-century Russia in all its complexity.