Der russische Symbolismus: System und Enfaltung der poetichen Motive. II. Band: Mythopoetischer Symbolismus: I. Kosmische Symbolik by Aage A. s> Hansen-L�ve (review)

Abstract

506 SEER, 79, 3, 2001 The last part of the book is an exploration of the reception of Heidegger in the Soviet Union since the I96os. This part would be of interest to a closer circle of specialists on Soviet and post-Soviet philosophy. It is very good that here Dennes has decided to include the work of Russian emigre philosophers, especially that of Semen Frank. One wonders why she chose not to implement the same principle when discussing Husserl's reception; one cannot, after all, seriously address the Russian appropriation of Husserl without taking into account the idiosyncratic writings of Shestov (Dennes lists his articles in the bibliography, but does not say anything about them), all the more so since some of his emigre work on Husserl in French ('Memento mori', 1926) was first published in Russian in Russia (I9I7). A French scholar's picture of Husserl's Russian reception may also have benefited from a few lines on the 1928 French translation of the LogischeUntersuchungen undertaken by Gurvich, one of a host of emigre philosophers, Kojeve and Koyre being the most distinguished among them who, coming from Russia, made a significant contribution to French culture. Department ofEuropeanLanguagesand Cultures GALIN TIHANOV LancasterUniversity Hansen-Love, Aage A. Derrussische Symbolismus: System undEnfaltung derpoetichen Alotive.I. Band.Mythopoetischer Symbolismus. I. Kosmische Symbolik. Verlag der osterreichischen Akademie der Wissenchaften, Wien, I998. 787 pp. Bibliography. Index. AM 789.oo. THIS book forms part two of the three-volume ongoing study of Russian Symbolism. The firstvolume Derrussiche Symbolismus: System andEnfaltung der poetichen MVotive. I. Band.Diabolischer Symbolismus appeared in I989 and dealt with the early phase of Russian Symbolist writing defined by Hansen-Love as 'Diabolic symbolism'. Hansen-Lo,ve aspires to analyse all the available symbolist poetic texts, in order to establish some common features between them, focusing on the paradigmatic discussion of the texts under investigation. To this end, the scholar insists that his research is not merely a catalogue of the common motifs in Russian Symbolist poetry. Extending the methodology of the Tartu school and Moscow schools of semiotics, and incorporating Jungian notion of collective memory, Hansen-Love creates paradigms which combine mythopoetical, anthropological and folklore approaches. The theoretical framework includes many sources written in English, Russian, German and French languages. The book will be of interest to linguists, specialists in Slavic studies, students of semiotics and European modernism. The volume under consideration here comprises eleven parts with numerous chapters. Each part has valuable notes, which reinforce the truly encyclopaedic nature of Hansen-Love's study. Part one is devoted to symbolist cosmology; part two deals with Moon and Sun images; part three analyses dawn and sunset motifs; part four talks about images of stars; part five discusses images of fire; part six deals with motifs of light; part seven examines day and night imagery; part eight talks about the representations of sky in Russian symbolist poetry (including detailed discussions of the shades of blue REVIEWS 507 in various symbolist texts); part nine offers an overview of references to the Mother-Earth image; part ten investigates references to flowers in Russian symbolist poetry; and part eleven studies water imagery. All Russian text quotations are reproduced in Russian. With the enormous bulk of illustrations (both verbal and visual), which are accompanied by short analysis or commentary, Hansen-Love's study can be seen as a reference guide to the language of Russian Symbolist poetry. Yet it is not clear how the references to the original texts and to secondary literature have been organized. If this study is designed for postgraduate courses, for example, then it would help to have a more systematic selection of texts and theoretical approaches to them. Although the scope of the book is large, covering the texts of major and minor representatives of Russian Symbolism Konevskoy, Bely, Bal'mont, Briusov, Solov'ev, Annensky, and Blok, to name just a few, it does not offer a homogenous interpretation of the Symbolist world view. The discussion of the Christian connotations and allusions is overshadowed by a focus on dualism and synthesis of antagonizing tendencies in Russian Symbolism considered by Hansen-Love as a movement which gradually abandoned its preoccupation with diabolical...