Efmov , Mikhail Smit , Dzheral'd Sviatopolk-Mirskii (review)

Abstract

SEER, 99, 3, JULY 2021 554 in the Modernist Novel’; and Violeta Sotirova, ‘Petersburg and the Problem of Consciousness in Modernist Fiction’. The question remains, as so often with publications of collections which, of necessity, lack a single authorial ‘voice’: who is the potential ‘reader’ of this Guide? The answer, most probably, depends on whether we are to understand the title as promising a ‘companion volume’ to a difficult and fascinating book for a reader not particularly well-versed in Russian language and literature or as a collection of specialist articles designed to facilitate the teaching of a university course on a hitherto somewhat neglected classic? As a teaching aid, I would recommend the book unreservedly. As a ‘companion volume’, I regretted the absence of the map of St Petersburg, an internet reference to which is given by the editor, and, perhaps, some other visual material, and found Part Two more reader-friendly than Part One, perhaps because the apt and insightful contributions tend to be more tightly interwoven with Belyi’s enchanting text. Part One, with its greater emphasis on general background and what Belyi read when, though useful and scholarly, provides information rather than involves the reader in a voyage of discovery, though contributions by Lange, Fink and Bethea provide agreeable exceptions. These reservations notwithstanding, this ‘Reader’s Guide’ is to be heartily recommended to all serious students and teachers of European modernism and should be available in every university library. Department of Russian Avril Pyman University of Durham Efimov, Mikhail and Smit, Dzheral´d [Smith, Gerald]. Sviatopolk-Mirskii. Zhizn´ zamechatel´nykh liudei, vol. 2025 (1825). Molodaia gvardiia, Moscow, 2021. 701 pp. Illustrations. Notes. Bibliography. R792.00. Prince Dmitrii (occasionally Dimitrii, but Dim to his close family and friends) Sviatopolk-Mirskii is best known for two reasons. The first is his History of Russian Literature, especially the 1949 edition, which is regarded by more than a few specialists as still the best introduction in English to the splendours of Russian poetry and prose fiction (see pp. 324–36). The second reason is his return to Russia (apparently on a single, not return, ticket) in 1932, a year after taking Soviet citizenship and joining the CPGB. He was just 42. (Could he have been thinking of Prince Petr Kropotkin, who went back to Russia in May 1917?) Mirskii was arrested in 1937 on suspicion of working for British intelligence and died in a camp near Magadan in 1939, aged 48. It may be naive or pointless to ask ‘Why did he give up a steady job at the London School of Slavonic Studies and the chance to publish regularly in The REVIEWS 555 Slavonic Review?’ For your reviewer, however, the attempt to find answers to this question gives a unity to a very long book and makes it well worth reading in full, whether or not the mystery is either answered or answerable. It’s tempting to plan a better, if rather boring, future for the Prince: he becomes a Professor, retires some time between 1955 and 1960, and, like Sir Dimitri Obolensky in Oxford, is offered a knighthood, but in his own case politely declines. (On his time at the School see, i.a., pp. 144, 515, 518 and 520–39.) But Mirskii preferred to risk an early death to slowly rotting away (p. 416). Perhaps he was an incarnation of Dostoevskii’s fictional Prince Myshkin, one of innumerable twentieth-century too-clever-by-half and allegedly Useful Idiots, of whom there are still so many today, but currently praising Putin rather than Stalin? Even wise men sometimes stumble. Sceptics might ask whether it was worth writing and whether it is worth reading a 701-page volume about an extraordinary man who made one, literally fatal, mistake. The answer is a resounding ‘yes’, especially for those who are interested in modern, including contemporary, Russian history or, for that matter, in ‘eternal Russia’ (some things never change). I was constantly reminded of Catherine Belton’s recent long book about Putin’s People, some of whom, especially a few of Russian heritage, are as deluded by Putin as Mirskii was by Lenin and Stalin. Jean Goutchkov, for instance, in Belton...