Endquote: Sots-Art Literature and Soviet Grand Style by Marina s> Balina Nancy Condee , Evgeny Dobrenko (review)

Abstract

REVIEWS 335 diasporic literature was being produced freely beyond the ethnic borders of the homeland, thus creating a dvokoliinyi protses ('two railsprocess').Ukrainian literature, therefore, possesses its own thematic and ideological dimensions. Drawing on a vast range of bibliographical sources, Lanovyk contributes an erudite and comprehensive study, covering in three chapters Tarnawsky's biography,poetry and prose. In spite of their delayed publication in Ukraine, these two volumes deserve the attention of Slavists,particularlythose dealing with Ukrainian studiesand literatureas well as comparativestudiesand diasporicliterature. Department ofModern Languages andCultural Studies M. I. SOROKA University ofAlberta Balina, Marina; Condee, Nancy, and Dobrenko, Evgeny (eds).Endquote. SotsArt Literature and SovietGrandStyle.Studies in Russian Literature and Theory. Northwestern University Press, Evanston, IL, 2000. XX+ 241 pp. Notes. Bibliographicalreferences.Illustrations.$24.95. SOTS-ART, lucidly described in Nancy Condee's Introduction, 'Sots-Art, Conceptualism, and Russian Postmodernism',as 'the mock use of the Soviet ideological cliches of mass culture' (p. vii), undoubtedly had 'a profound influence on contemporary Russian literature,figuringboth as distinct texts and as a range of citational devices within larger,more diverseworks'(p. vii). Also true, however, is that 'thisvolume offerslittle agreementon the historical or aesthetic boundaries of sots-art'(p. viii). This is, indeed, a strikingfeature of the variousarticles'approaches. The book is divided into three parts:'Sots-Art:Between Socialist Realism and Postmodernism';'Sots-Art and Poetry';and 'Sots-Artand Prose'. In the first, four articles tackle general aspects of sots-art: Mikhail Epstein's 'Postmodernism,Communism and Sots-Art'fallsinto twoparts,'Postmodernism and Communism' and 'Socialist Realism and Sots-Art'; in the first he offers a series of postmodern parametersof communism which, he considers could be describedas the communist elements of postmodernism,such as, for instance, the creation of hyperreality, determinism and reductionism, and ideological eclecticism. This strategylinked to the author's characteristically lucid style makes this a valuable contribution to our understanding of a complex phenomenon. Boris Groys's 'Text as a Ready-Made Object' is mainly concerned with Moscow conceptualism. Less illuminating, to the present reviewer at least, is Viktor Lettsev's 'The Reading, Understanding, and Discursive Genres of Conceptualism'which stressesthe reader'selement of choice in conceptualist texts. Finally, in the first section, Marina Balina's 'PlayingAbsolute Time: Chronotypes of Sots-Art'discussesmainly accelerating absolute time (Prigov)and the retardationof absolute time (Rubinshtein, Kibirov, Pelevin). Some of the writersdiscussedin Balina are also featuredin the four articles of PartTwo, 'Sots-Artand Poetry'.In the first,Evgeny Dobrenko, under the title 'Socialist Realism, a Postscriptum: Dmitrii Prigov and the Aesthetic Limits of Sots-Art', gives a well grounded assessment of Prigov as a 'classic' 336 SEER, 8o, 2, 2002 writer,no longerpartof the currentartisticprocess,who continues to produce texts at a phenomenal rate. GeraldJanecek writes interestinglyon the early conceptualism of Lev Rubinshtein's Programmes of Works. Another writerwho may be a classic outside the current mainstream is the subject of Gregory Freidin's'Transfigurationsof Kitsch Timur Kibirov's Sentiments, which he regardsas a farewellelegy for Soviet civilization.The lastarticlein thissection is Vitaly Chernetsky's'losif Vissarionovich Pushkin,or Sots-Artand the New Russian Poetry'. Here, as elsewhere in the volume, the abundant verse quotationslose considerablyin translation. Part Three, 'Sots-Art and Prose' begins with Mark Lipovetsky'salready familiar 'Vladimir Sorokin's "Theatre of Cruelty"', which begins with an attack on the views of other critics, including the use of the term postmodernism for sots-art by such 'postmodernist "gurus" as Boris Groys, Mikhail Epstein and Aleksandr Genis' (p. I67), noting that 'sots-artists themselves prefer to be regarded as conceptualists' (p. I67). Marina Kanevskayaanalysesa centralworkby a well-knowncomic writerin "'The Diary of a Writerfrom Teplyi Stan": TheBeautifulness ofLifeby Evgenii Popov'. Larisa Rudova offersa thoroughreadingof SashaSokolov'smostrecent (last?)novel, 'Reading Palisandria:Of Menippean Satire and Sots-Art', although this reviewer's name is misspelt on p. 21 I. The final article, by Gerald McCausland , 'Viktor Pelevin and the End of Sots-Art' is rather discursive and unfocused. Pelevin himself might well take it equitably, but a spurious bilingualtitle in the article, Chapaev andPustota, reflectsa more generallaxity. Forthe most part, however, thisis an enterprising,stimulatingand thought provoking book, particularly in its first two-thirds. In places it breaks new critical ground...