Byzantium Endures

Michael Moorcock Byzantium Endures

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DRAMATIS PERSONAE

Maxim Arturovitch Pyatnitski  (Dimitri Mitrofanovitch Kryscheff)  -  Narrator

Yelisaveta Filipovna   -   His mother

Captain Brown   -   A Scottish engineer

Esmé Loukianoff   -   A friend

Zoyea  -   A gypsy girl

Professor Lustgarten   -  A schoolmaster

Frau Lustgarten   -   His wife

Sarkis Mihailovitch Kouyoumdjian   -  An Armenian engineer

Alexander (‘Shura’)  -   Maxim’s cousin

Evgenia Mihailovna (Aunt Genia)   -   Maxim’s great-aunt

Wanda   -   Her poor relation

Semyon Josefovitch (Uncle Semya)   -   Maxim’s great-uncle

Esau  -   Slobodka tavern-keeper

Misha the Jap   -   Slobodka gangster

Victor the Fiddler

Isaac Jacobovitch

Little Grania          -   Denizens of Esau’s tavern

Boris  - The Accountant

Lyova

M. Savitsky   -   A drug-trafficker

Katya  -   A young whore

Katya’s mother  -   A whore

H. Cornelius   -   A dentist

Honoria Cornelius   -   An English adventuress

‘So-So’  -   A Georgian revolutionary

Nikita the Greek   -   Maxim’s friend

Mr Finch  -   An Irish sailor

Sergei Andreyovitch Tsipliakov (‘Seryozha’)   -   A ballet dancer

Marya Varvorovna Vorotinsky   -  A student

Miss Buchanan   -   Her ‘nanyana’

Mr Green   -  Uncle Semya’s agent in St Petersburg

Mr Parrot   -   His assistant

Madame Zinovieff   -  Maxim’s landlady in St Petersburg

Olga and Vera   -   Her daughters

Dr Matzneff   -  Tutor at the Petersburg Polytechnic Institute

Professor Merkuloff    -  Another tutor

Hippolyte   -  A catamite

Count Nicholai Feodorovitch Petroff (‘Kolya’)  -  A Petersburg bohemian

Lunarcharsky   -  A Bolshevik

Mayakovski   -  A poet

‘Lolly’ Leonovna Petroff   -   Kolya’s cousin

Alexei Leonovitch Petroff   -   Her brother

Elena Andreyovna Vlasenkova (‘Lena’)   -   Marya’s flat-mate

Professor Vorsin   -  Head of the Polytechnic

Hetman Pavlo Skoropadskya   -  A puppet dictator

Ataman Semyon Petlyura   -  Effective leader of Ukrainian Nationalists

General Konovalets   -  Commander of the ‘Sich Riflemen’

Vinnichenko   -  Ukrainian Nationalist leader

Potoaki   -  Ukrainian Bolshevik

Marusia Kirillovna   -   Ukrainian Bolshevik

Sotnik (Captain) Grishenko   -  Hrihorieff officer (Cossack)

Sotnik (Captain) Yermeloff   -   The same

Stoichko   -  Cossack officer

Brodmann   -   Socialist ‘liaison officer’

Nestor Makhno    -  Anarchist leader

Captain Kulomsin    -  A White infantry officer

Captain Wallace   -  Australian tank commander

Major Perezharoff   -  A White commander

     A Jewish journalist  In Arcadia

Madame Zoyea   -   An hotelier

Captain Yosetroff   -   White Intelligence officer

Major Soldatoff   -   Maxim’s CO

Chief Engineer of the Rio Cruz  -   A fellow spirit

OTHER CHARACTERS INCLUDE

Korylenko (a postman); Captain Bikadorov (a Cossack); whores and entertainers in Odessa; whores, entertainers and artists in St Petersburg; revolutionaries in St Petersburg; Cossacks (Red, Black, White); policemen, Chekists, naval officers, army officers, ‘Haidamaki’ soldiers, beggars, a drunken couple, the Jews of a shtetl near Hulyai-Polye, the inhabitants of a village in the Ukrainian steppe, and, off-stage, Leon Trotsky, Deniken, Krassnoff, Ulyanski, Prince Lvov, Kerenski, Putilov, Josef Stalin, Stolypin, Lenin, Antonov, sikorski, savinkoff, catherine cornelius, H. G. wells.

INTRODUCTION

THE MAN WHO was known for years in the Portobello Road area as ‘Colonel Pyat’ or sometimes simply as ‘the old Pole’, and who, in the 60s and 70s, was Mrs Cornelius’s regular evening consort at The Blenheim Arms, The Portobello Castle and The Elgin (her favourite public houses), collapsed during the August 1977 Notting Hill Carnival when a group of black boys and girls collecting for Help The Aged in Caribbean fancy dress entered his shop (one of the few open) and demanded a contribution. His heart had failed him. He died at St Charles Hospital some hours later. He had no next of kin. Eventually, following a great deal of unpleasant publicity, I inherited his papers.