ESPECIFICACIONES DE SEGURIDAD A NIVEL DE SERVICIO

The travellers eventually succeed in leaving Akademgorodok and its facades (except for Qvietone who is enthused by the research opportunities) and discover in their further errings two different minority communities in Siberia who seem to be successfully eschewing state integration policies and maintaining their own culture identity and lifestyle which the new Soviet empire seeks to replace. Most of the secondary literature on the

Passade finds in these episodes an attitude of optimism towards the performative dimension o f nation. Braunbeck recognises in them elements o f fantasy and utopia, but fails to consider the implications o f these in her overall analysis. In her account, Monikovà’s novel depicts the nation as “a complex tradition of shared historical ecperience and cultural production” in which the people “can and will participate actively, albeit subversively” (498). A careful reading reveals, however, that the leader o f the eskimo people (the Evenks) who cure Maltzahn’s toothache only participates in traditional ceranonies “damit die A ltai sich freuen” (363) and that he carefully attaids state directives concerning which areas are still 'free’ for herding reindea and is reliant on cattle breeding for his revenue. The eskimos, therefore, do nothing to challenge or disrupt the Soviet empire, but are ra th a seen to be gradually assimilating to the Soviet model. In Podol’s view, they are no more subversive than the collective farm members who won a visit to Friedland as a reward for being such model citizens.

The all-female nomadic community w h ae the travellers stay while Orten convalesces from the effects of the ‘Turga’ (a particularly hostile snowstorm), on the o th a hand, do participate in subversive activities. W hai state officials try to compel them to conform, the women change them into reindeers. Elueneh, the community leada, shows Orten one of the victims who had wanted to include h a people in a caisus: “D iesa Gaffer ist d a Koordinator von d a letztai Volkszahlungskommission. Ich wamte ihn noch, Genosse, bei

uns gibt’s nicht zu zâhlen [...]. Sieht eigentlich ganz vemünftig aus, nicht? Du hâttest ihn vorher sehen müssen” (380). Those who come to destroy the environment are dealt with in a similar manner: Elueneh explains, **Ehe ich zulasse, daB diese Stamper die Elusse umlenken, hier weitere Bâume fôllen und die Tiere tôten, vermehre ich lieber meine Herde*" (380). The introduction o f fantasy into the narrative differentiates this utopia from the more realistic, albeit humorous depiction of Akademgorodok, in which the narrator’s concessions to Soviet achievements in the fields of architecture and classical music are the only mitigations of an otherwise critical and generally realistic depiction. The change in narrative tone to the fantastic seems to me to be crucial for making sense o f the traveller’s penultimate station o f their Siberian journey (they also s p ^ d time in Irkutsk before boarding a train to Moscow). The depiction of the community is utopian and extravagant: women can influence the sex o f their babies and give birth to girls only, and their herbs give Orten the power of flying and an insatiable sexual appetite. The fact that t h ^ are not included in official statistics seems to confirm that we are not dealing with a community for whose existence there is any evidence. The travellers have twice lost their bearings before Orten is found by the women; once in the snowstorm which interrupted their flight out o f Novosibirsk and a second time when they are chased by members of the communist youth league when t h g leave the eskimo settlement. Thus, Elueneh and her people appear to exist not only outside of the Soviet state (which begs the question o f how their cultural paibrmances can “inform[ ] the nation’s narrative address”^ ) , but also beyond the novel’s reality.

The fact that the community obviously does not exist to the same extent at least, that the Evaiks and Akademgorodok do (anyone who would question this need only think of the reindea*) can be assessed and positioned in relation to the novel’s overall concern with the contradictions internal to the ideological homogeneous nation in the following way: instead of conflating this utopia with optimism, it could be argued that Monikovà finds no possibility for the expression o f conflict and difference which could disable the state’s will to power and instead o f bemoaning her conclusion, chooses to reverse it. By rejecting patriarchal pow a structures and a culture based on inhabiting a particular place, the female community topples the most entrenched characteristics o f European society and provides a space of respite from an otherwise gloomy black comedy. Thus Monikova opens up a utopian space as a space for reflection, but ultimately rejects it. Orten’s unsuccessful attempt to capture Eleundi’s likeness on the facade when he arrives back at Friedland suggests that the female nomads can have no impact on an official or widely

accessible national culture. Much like Jana's suspiciousness towards M ara's colony in

Eine Schâdigm g, the narrator o f Die Passade cannot envisage any productive role for a separatist female community in the fashioning o f a nation. A reading of this episode which stresses its political ineffectualness aids an understanding o f the novel as a whole, since the letter's dominant message is that, in the end, a nation is a more valid option than disunity despite its exclusions. The heroes' ultimate allegiance to the nation is made explicit in the novel’s third and concluding section in which they return to their work despite (or indeed because of) their acute dissatisfaction with the abuse the facade has suffered in their absence.