Diego Marani - The Last of the Vostyachs

‘ Tyonya? Miwa tyonya? ’ she would ask, frowning.

She would draw a wolf in the notebook, make a circle around it and hand the pencil to Ivan, who would make deep marks on the white paper, then go over them with his fingertips.

Ivan felt strangely peaceful in her presence. Sometimes her affectionate face would appear to him in dreams of when he’d been a child, living in the yurt. But then she had a different smile, and a more fragile look, which somehow frightened him. She looked like the cork masks hanging from the walls. On snowy afternoons, while she was going through her notes, seated at a table in the inn — which would be empty, except for the odd snoozing drunkard, propped up against the wall — Ivan would settle down on a skin next to the stove, and wait for her to finish. He listened to the crackle of the flames, the sounds of her writing and rubbing out, the whirring of the black box as it unleashed his words into the empty room, exactly as he had spoken them to her. Only in her presence would he feel his muscles relax, feel again that melting sense of utter security which he had had as a child, curled up in front of the fire, watching his father making arrows for hunting coot. The fair-haired woman was deeply engrossed in her writing, sometimes pausing to gaze into the empty air. But every so often she would also cast a glance in Ivan’s direction, a look so tender and protective that it almost hurt, from which he could not look away. That unknown woman was the only being in the world who wished him well, who, by calling him by name, also caused him to exist. As he did with his wolves. Ivan sensed this, and it amazed him. He explored the feeling in his heart, both fascinated and horrified at the knowledge that one day it would be taken from him.

Professor Jaarmo Aurtova crossed the floor of his study, making the parquet creak. He stopped in front of his desk, between the portrait of Marshal Mannerheim in full-dress uniform and an old map by the Arab geographer Ibn Al-Idrisi. He cleared his throat, lifted his chin and embarked, not for the first time, on the concluding speech he was to deliver at the XXIst Congress of Finno-Ugric, trying to keep his eyes from the typescript he was holding in his hand.

‘My warmest and most respectful greetings to you all — to the minister, the rector, the mayor, to my distinguished colleagues, my illustrious guests, ladies and gentlemen. It is a great honour for me to present my report to this XXIst congress of Finno-Ugric languages which, after so many years, is finally being held here in Helsinki. Essentially, our city is the capital of the Finno-Ugric World, the symbol of the political and economic success of this culture of ours which has for too long remained unjustly little known. It is Finland which has brought homo finnicus into Europe, no longer as a slave but as a free citizen. Furthermore, the arrival in Finland of such an illustrious body of scientists is confirmation of the high standard of our university research and our country’s dominant position in a science which has always been particularly dear to us — perhaps more so than to any of our linguistic cousins. Now at least we are no longer alone in this corner of Europe, because Estonian is at last being spoken and taught again in Tallinn. And every Finno-Ugric language which is saved from extinction is tantamount to a promise of eternity for our whole culture.’

(Probable applause), his secretary had written in brackets in the margin, marking the spot with an asterisk.

‘It’s true that we are glad that the Gulf of Finland is there to separate us from our Estonian friends and shield us from all their “tuds” and “tabs”. But perhaps with time, as we get to know each other better, we shall at least be able to convince them that “stopp” can also be written with one “p”, without in any way dishonouring the rule of the doubled consonant!’

(Wait for probable end of laughter), also in brackets, also with an asterisk.

‘As we shall see over the course of the next three days, the study of Finno-Ugric languages has made great progress over recent years. The opening of frontiers that were once impassable, together with great advances in science, has enabled us to know more and more about our languages and the history of the peoples who speak them. Today, it is increasingly clear that the Ugro-Finns were by no means a pack of hunter-gatherers lacking in all civilization, as one school of thought continues to maintain, against all the evidence. As early as the Bronze Age, the Ugro-Finns had reached a level of development equivalent, if not superior, to that of the Mediterranean peoples. They practised advanced forms of agriculture and cattle-rearing. Furthermore, as we now know, thanks to the much milder climate of the time, our ancestors were also able to cultivate the vine. Who knows, had it not been for the glaciation of the Neolithic Period, today the finest “millesimes” might be maturing in the cellars of Uusimaa, and Laplanders might be quaffing champagne. So, long live the greenhouse effect! With good use of our saunas we could heat the entire planet! In a hundred years, what today is regarded as the chilly outer edge of Europe might be transformed into the garden of Eden, and our language might have become what it should rightfully always have been: the Latin of the Baltic!’

(Further laughter and applause), as suggested by an asterisk.

‘As to the question of our earliest ethnic origins, recent studies have been conclusive. Faced with new evidence, even our Russian colleagues will be obliged to think again in connection with a well-established falsehood to which they have clung desperately over the years, and which has been made use of by an ideology which died away much more speedily than our languages: for what was once mere supposition is now a certainty. Recent archaeological discoveries in Ingria and Scania, corroborated by carbon 14 dating, confirm that the Ugro-Finnic civilisation did indeed develop beyond the Urals, but they also prove that it migrated towards Europe very early on, reaching the lands where it is found today at the same period as the Indo-European peoples, and many centuries before the Slavs. So that the alleged kinship between the Ugro-Finnic and the Ural-Altaic branches, from which the Mongols and Eskimos descend, is to be excluded once and for all. The so-called Eskimo-Aleutian hypothesis has been proved to be baseless. Recent discoveries in this field prove that the Uralic linguistic melting-pot was more extensive than had originally been thought, and indeed cast doubt upon the very concept of Indo-European languages. Indo-Europeans should more properly be referred to as Indo-Iranians, and it is they who are the true Asiatics of Europe, not us. Right from the dawn of history we have belonged geographically to the continent of Europe, indeed we might say that we are the first Europeans, we, the Finnic peoples, and that Finnish is Europe’s oldest language!’

Whenever he reached this part of the speech, Aurtova would always become flustered. He would imagine the inscrutable faces of the Russian linguists, that of Juknov in particular, always in the front row, dressed in black, the headphones with the simultaneous translation clapped firmly to his ears, his unforgiving gaze obscured behind his glasses. Then he would see Olga Pavlovna’s mocking smile, her know-it-all expression. He knew that she would enjoy discomfiting him by quoting his old articles, written with her when she was still an unknown researcher, burning with idealism. This made him jumpy, he would start to strike the wrong tone, mumbling his words, rather than pronouncing them clearly, one by one, in expectation of the effect they would have on the wizened faces of his adversaries.

Professor Aurtova turned off the lamp, stuffed his typescript into a drawer and struck a match to light the table-candlestick. He liked the smell of wax, the flickering of the candles in the darkness. He slipped a hand behind the big Finnish dictionary and pulled out a bottle of cognac and a crystal glass. He poured himself a drink and walked over to the large French window. Below, the cathedral square was covered with snow, the street lamps were all lit and the windows of the houses were festooned with strips of little lights. The trams slid by noiselessly, sending out showers of blue sparks. It was the harshest winter for decades. The temperature had gone down to minus 30, and the whole bay of Helsinki was frozen up, all the way out as far as the lighthouse at Harmaja. This year perhaps we might be able to go on foot all the way to Tallinn, he thought to himself. He enjoyed the feel of the biting air as it whipped his face, the grandiose vista of his city, the white vastness that lit up the northern night. Snow always has a sense of wildness about it, and the footsteps of the passers-by on the flight of steps outside the cathedral gave the professor a pleasing feeling of mystery, as though they were unknown spoors met with in some wild wood.