The Frenetic Metamorphosis of a City
Reviewed:
by Victor Serge
Translated by Richard Greeman
NYRB Classics, 224 pp., $18.95 (paper)
Publication Date: 1/11/11
Known then as Petrograd, St. Petersburg is not merely the setting of Victor Serge’s revolutionary novel Conquered City, but a symbol of conquest and ceaseless cultural upheaval itself. Calling upon the city’s hopeful origins and casting his gaze into its shadowy depths, Serge blends fiction with his firsthand accounts of a city in the throes of fiery transformation. Rooted in a polyphonic narrative that’s complemented by evocative prose, Conquered City personifies the tumult and instability of an entire city.
The novel primarily follows Parfenov, a young revolutionary who begins by extolling Peter the Great’s vision of transforming the drab marshlands into a modern metropolis. His idealizations draw clear parallels to the current aspirations of the Bolsheviks, who have assumed control following the February Revolution. He optimistically remarks: “How happy men will be in a hundred years! Sometimes it makes me dizzy to think of it. In fifty years, in twenty years, maybe in ten years... yes! Give us ten years and you'll see! The cold, the night, everything...everything will be conquered.”Parfenov and his fellow Bolshevik, Professor Lyatev, coddle themselves with hopeless illusions throughout the story, while other loyal comrades, like Ksenia, reassure themselves of their commitment to fight until the very end: “Very well, I’ll perish, I’m ready.”
Serge, a Marxist revolutionary himself, dispels any ideological sympathy by casting a blinding light on the hypocrisy and misery that engulf the city: “We have conquered everything and everything has slipped out of our grasp. We have conquered bread, and there is famine. We have declared peace to a war-weary world, and war has moved into every house.” Throughout the work, Serge’s economical prose fuses dramatic imagery with persuasive argument. One of the most compelling scenes depicts a workers' protest at a factory, where they demand bread and vehemently reject empty rhetoric. Despite their collective outrage at the conditions, they remain voiceless and powerless: “A thousand men and not one voice! So much suffering, so much revolt and not one voice!” The uproar is ultimately quelled by Antonov, a smooth-talking demagogue who promises incoming boxcars of food and warns that resistance will only delay their salvation.
At times, the work can feel slightly disconnected due to its fragmented composition, but his lyrical, vivid language pulls readers' hearts deep into the story. Serge’s ability to penetrate the heart of the conflict and draw upon the architecture of the city is simply superb: “They didn't topple the tall silhouette of Empress Catherine in court dress holding the scepter; but some idiot had scaled the bronze figures and attached a red rag on the scepter—a red rag which was now blackened to the color of old blood, the true color of their red.” Terror across the city continues through accounts of brutal executions by the White Army and the ambitions of Zvereva, who is willing to add any name to the Party’s list of enemies.
Conquered City remains a neglected, harrowing novel that blends Serge's personal account with fictionalized narratives of a city in turmoil. Empires collapse, cities crumble, and the flames of revolution continue to burn, turning the old world to ashes in order to bring about a new, idealized world in the name of the faceless collective. But, as Serge predicts and history has shown, the new world is often far bleaker than promised, and the ideology turns out to “love men too much, men and things, and Man too little.”
