Victor Serge 1

Ultimate token of power: a nightmare provoked by a writer.

            To come upon this remarkable author so late in the piece has been a great surprise. Written in the early thirties, Conquered City was proving as gripping as The Case of Comrade Tulayev, the last of Victor Serge’s works.

            In less than 200 pages, this earlier novel of Petrograd during the Civil War delivers a riveting picture of the upheaval. Presenting the startling brutality was far from the book’s chief strength; but it delivers that too. 

The execution scene that prompted the nightmare harkened back to mid seventeenth century practice, the character relating the episode reflects. On both sides prisoners were routinely executed. Prior to execution the Whites stripped their victims, because clothing was in short supply. This element was retained in the dream.

            In the relevant passage the naked prisoner stands tied to a stake, calmly expecting a bullet. The gathered crowd expects the same. Instead of which the rope that is produced is used to bind the man’s cranium. At the twisting his violent resistance almost has him break free of his tether. With the aid of an axe handle, the tightening rope—slowed to draw out the agony—sears away the top of the victim’s head. Screeching from the women panic the horses; apart from the horse of the drunk chief perpetrator, who retained complete command.

            Much of this Civil War seems familiar from the stories of Tito’s Partizans fighting the Royalists as much as the invader up in the Montenegrin hills during WWII. The complex, intricate argument of the novel, the various conflicting forces and dramatic action, very much resonating. No doubt a large part of its power for this reader.  

            A Montenegrin hillside then, in a kind of bleached colouration. Recently the matter of colour in dreams had been raised in some other context. In conclusion the thought had been that finally dreams were colourless. This instance prompted by Serge proved the contrary.

            A steepling mountain-side seen from some kilometer away. The fall here is not perpendicular: this seemed to come to notice before the action commenced.

           From the remove the only colours apparent browns and tinges of green, as well as light flesh tones. Looking from the sides in Montenegro, particularly within the mountains, this was often the full colour spectrum.

            The scream high up, improbably carrying across the wide expanse. 

Up near the top of the peak some movement was detected, rather than distinct figures. In the scramble the flesh tone emerged.

           A naked man quickly bundled off the mountain side, the form caught in relief as he flew though the air in a seated kind of position—knees bent, straight spine, right side up.

          The velocity of the fall into the abyss soundless and breathtaking. 

Beyond the lower half of the hill the victim was lost from sight. The question of a landing in the water unresolved before an abrupt waking.

            It was not outright horror of this form that was the distinguishing mark of Victor Serge. Serge’s provocations are far, far larger.