'Scientist's Code': Alexandra Pakhomova on Kuzmin's Diary, Detective Approach to Texts and Anthropology of Scents
We continue introducing prospective students to the professors of HSE University-St Petersburg. Alexandra Pakhomova, a philologist and anthropologist, delivers courses in the bachelor's and master's programmes at the Department of Philology. She will be your guide to the world of folklore, semiotics and the Russian literature of the 20th century. Find out why it is important to find a good thesis supervisor, what philologists and detectives have in common and what scents can tell about the past in the interview with Alexandra Pakhomova.
Research you are proud of
Pride for research is a feeling that the work is done well, you are not ashamed of showing it to people whose opinions are important to you. Good work is done like a puzzle. You grow it inside yourself, and then, your heart skips a beat, and it becomes clear: 'Here it is, I'm on to something'. You cannot confuse this feeling with anything else, it has its special magic.
Now, I am preparing the diary of Mikhail Kuzmin for publishing. This is the research I am proud of. It happened that I am finishing a big work which started almost thirty years ago. The work on the poet's diary involved many great scientists, the best figures in the Russian science of the 90s and 00s. And now I am finishing it. I hope this text will be finally published!
Why I started studying Kuzmin is a long story. It stretches like a thread. I enrolled in the faculty of philology to study the poetry by Egor Letov. After a year, I thought: 'Perhaps, I shouldn't study Letov straight away. I'll take someone who had been writing before, like members of Oberiu... But who exactly?'
And this is when the momentous occasion happened. I attended the presentation of the book by Konstantin Vaginov 'Song of Words'. I bought it, started reading and simply fell in love with his poems. I even carried the book in my backpack for several months—I regularly returned to it. In the end, I wrote my thesis about Vaginov but in the master's programme, I decided to expand the context a little. I wanted to study the literary groups of the 1920s and opted for the one which involved Kuzmin and Vaginov. Then, the time for my dissertation came, and my thesis supervisor recommended me to pay heed to Kuzmin: 'You have already written a master's thesis about him, you know a lot about him'. I have to say that the Kuzmin Studies is one of the most problematic areas in the history of literature in the 20th century. Everyone tried to talk me out of it because it would be too difficult: there are too many arguments about his texts. But I thought: 'Why not?'
And now, I am almost done with the work on Kuzmin's diary... In the end, this thread led me to the starting point: to Kuzmin's circle which included Vaginov as well. It turns out that I haven't left that circle, and I don't really want to.
Research which changed your conception of science
I realised that I wanted to engage in philology when I read the article by Mikhail Gasparov 'Non-Verbal Fet'. It literally opened my eyes and showed that a text can be not simply read but deciphered. A text is similar to a detective in many ways: you pull one word and get a whole branch of meanings.
Then—in the faculty of philology—my interests started to get more specific. From the first year till now, the main book for me is 'Pragmatics of Folklore' by Svetlana Adoneva. Thanks to this monography, I realised how interesting it was to scrutinize our daily lives and notice what was hidden. I wanted to understand why people do things one way and not the other, and why we remember and talk in a certain style. A part of 'Pragmatics of Folklore' is just about it—about people, conscious and unconscious. This book largely defined what I started to do further. I like discussing it with my students, though it is more about a perspective than a method.
For the same reasons, I love the book by Carlo Ginzburg 'The Enigma of Piero' about Piero della Francesca’s wall paintings. It is a cultural detective which resembles a series 'Columbo': you already know who committed the crime but you have to recreate the whole story using small clues. A very inspiring method. It reminds us that nothing disappears in culture. You can discover some meanings even if it seems like they have been irreversibly lost.
Researcher you want to look up to
All my life, I was fabulously lucky with my thesis supervisors, there were four of them. In the Faculty of Philology—Alexey Balakin and Yulia Valieva, at the European University—Georgy Levinton, at the University of Tartu—Maria Borovikova. Good mentors are a great happiness but at the same time, a great responsibility. It means that you have no right to a mistake because you represent not only your work but also theirs. A responsibility before your thesis supervisor has always kept me up. I owe all the best things in my research to these four people.
I was lucky with my thesis supervisors for another reason as well: they are not only amazing researchers but also wonderful people. I have never experienced a bad attitude from them, only support, respect and help. Now, I myself cannot do otherwise—perhaps, this is why I supervised nine graduate thesis students this year...
Now that I listed all the local reference points, let's talk about global ones. I am truly inspired by the writer and researcher Polina Barskova. She reminds me that a scientist must look hard, speak difficult and ask inconvenient questions. She does it in some kind of fantastic combination. It is not easy to read Barskova's works: her language is not that simple but this is what I like. Sometimes, I want to get closer to it, though, due to my nature, I can hardly master it.
Another important reference for me is the Slavic studies specialist Irina Paperno. A philologist who went far beyond philology. Her book 'Soviet Era in Memoirs, Diaries and Dreams' is an absolutely amazing work: it shows that one can think freely to the highest degree, without limiting oneself in anything and at the same time make powerful statements. I want to explore dreams without Freud—why not, I want to study diaries—you're welcome. That's the courage, that's the swing!
Sources of inspiration
The main inspiration for me is people. This is why I love conferences so much: when there are ideas in full swing around you, it is much easier to soak them. In communication, a scientist grows faster. In the end, science is made not only in a closed room in front of a computer. Behind any article, there is great social work. That is why friends, students and colleagues are the basis that begins it all.
I find inspiration and energy in different sources. I get energy from things which start when I turn off my computer. This is what helps me not to drown in the bookish world I've chosen.
Sometimes, I joke that my most unconditional love is to music. I am a melomaniac and an eternal happy listener. Though I have three favourite musical directions: Siberian punk rock, all extreme kinds of metal music and baroque music of the late 16th and early 17th centuries, I am particularly fond of Henry Purcell. The music itself is narrative, it is similar in this with philology. This is where the phenomena of a conceptual album and bands focused on lyrics come from. For instance, 'Grazhdanskaya Oborona'—we love this band not for their music, don't we?
In addition, I collect perfumes. Now, I have around two hundred bottles. Perfumes are different from everything I usually face. When you work with culture or texts, you deal with something tangible. A text is fixed, a cultural practice exists but a scent is something ultimately non-existent. Any scent disappears in a matter of minutes. Today, you feel it one way, and tomorrow—another. Thinking about a non-existent thing is a fantastic feeling.
Sometimes, we can track how a certain scent has been changing. For instance, I have several bottles of my favourite perfume 'Mitsouko Guerlain'—of different times and different concentrations. It is curious to watch how one story has been changing based on a decade and which changes in the society it reflects. In the 1970s, people liked to smell like heath, fog descending on it, leaves and grass. In the 1980s, it was quite the opposite—the fashion for bright and screaming perfumes came. The same 'Mitsouko' became more peachy and feminine. Such changes are interesting to notice but, unfortunately, perfumes are a lost history in many ways.
There is an interesting anthropological book about scents—'Smells: A Cultural History of Odours in Early Modern Times' by Robert Muchembled. It shows how global events influenced the ideas of a good scent. When people didn't wash themselves, they stifled their scent with vibrant animal aromas. As soon as daily washing became available, the idea of fresh perfume appeared as well as cologne. You can pour some cologne on yourself and smell like you are just out of the shower. This is how perfumery helps to reach an understanding of deeper and more global processes. That's what's so great about humanitarian research: it helps us see many aspects of culture.
The main thing for a scientist
I think it's courage. First, you need it to choose science. Then, to opt for an unexplored or overstudied topic. Later, you'll need courage to convince others you are right, and then, even more courage is needed to abandon your hypothesis. Of course, you need courage to do what you want. Don't give in to fashion, the interests of your thesis supervisor or some aesthetic or ethical criteria. At some point, you have to say: 'I will be studying this topic despite everything'.
This quality entails another which can be called 'intolerance'. You have to be intolerant to everything which can stand in your way. To shoddy work, ignorance, attempts to silence or limit something. These are standards you set yourself but it's impossible to abandon them.
It seems to me that a good scientist is an unpleasant person because they are quite brave, decisive, irreconcilable, angry and stubborn. I wouldn't like to live with such a person in one room but I live in one body. Recently, I was proofreading, I had to check one word because it was weirdly positioned in a phrase. I could finish the thought myself: I have enough skills to understand what it was in fact. But I didn't. I went to a library, ordered a book and double-checked. And that's it. Otherwise, it is not science but entertainment, and we will never find the truth.
Considerations like 'What is the truth?' do not work for me as well. I have always been thinking about the work of a scientist as a battle. Every good scientist fights with ignorance and misunderstanding, underthinking and underdescribing, and on the other hand—oblivion. After all, everything gets forgotten. What can you, a small human, oppose to time and oblivion? That's why we have to ask inconvenient questions and be attentive to every word. Otherwise, time will consume everything, and we will be left with nothing. Without a clear understanding of the past, the present is impossible, and the future is completely excluded.
Alexandra Pakhomova delivers courses in the Bachelor's programme 'Philology' and the Master's programme 'Russian Literature in Cross-cultural and Intermedial Perspective'. You can apply for bachelor's degree via the applicant's personal online account, and for the master's degree—via the link.