Gender and National Identity in Twentieth-Century Russian Culture by Helena Goscilo , Andrea Lanoux (review)

Abstract

REVIEWS 723 more explicit narrative causation', which in turn sheds light on Tarkovskii's choice of scenes to be excluded from the second edit (p. 35). Hence, for example, the disappearance of a number of Andrei's flashbacks and visions, which had given the film a more complex and ambiguous narrative point of view. Reading thisbook, one is impressed by its refreshing openness and avoid ance of closed interpretations ofwhatever ideological hue. In achieving this, Bird both respects Tarkovskii's own dislike of 'completedness' and communi cates to the viewer something of the spirit inwhich Tarkovskii's filmscan be best appreciated. UCL SSEES Chiara Mayer-Rieckh Goscilo, Helena and Lanoux, Andrea (eds). Gender andNational Identity in Twentieth-Century Russian Culture. Northern Illinois University Press, DeKalb, IL, 2006. x + 257 pp. Illustrations.Notes. Bibliographies. Index. $22.50 (paperback). In thisvolume, an analysis of the traditional association ofwomen with nation and men with state helps to contextualize the interplay between gender and national identity ? as well as the gendering of national identityand its implications for the population as a whole ? against the backdrop of the major events of the twentieth century in Soviet and post-Soviet Russia. The ten articles in the collection cover a wide variety of disciplines, including anthropology, history, literature, linguistics, film studies and music history. In their introduction, Goscilo and Lanoux argue that '[c]ultural memory has preserved a corresponding arsenal of gendered representations of Russianness for the rhetorical needs of the moment' (p. 24). Valentina Zaitseva explores theways inwhich language impacts identity and at once unifies and divides men and women. Grammatical gender, according to Zaitseva, influences 'cultural imagery', including metaphors and personifica tions in folklore, poetry, and everyday language use' (p. 31). Focusing on the key female concepts of baba and rodina-mat' and their respective negative and positive associations, Zaitseva analyses the resultant implications for a reading of Russian national identity. In the second chapter, Helena Goscilo argues that 'Russia's habit of troping national identity as female has rendered Russian widowhood an infinitely richer, more complex, and more rhetoric-swathed genre than in the West' (p. 56). Goscilo identifies and analyses several variations on individual and collective widowhood, including the widow as a 'shadow' of her dead husband and the widow as curator and publicity agent, with special attention to Nadezhda Mandel'shtam as recognizing and expanding the possibilities of widowhood. Goscilo's analysis focuses on women without men but defined in relation to them; Elizabeth Jones Hemenway's chapter, meanwhile, highlights mother-martyr revolutionary figures who have separated themselves from their biological families in the interest of serving the Great Family. The 724 SEER, 86, 4, OCTOBER 2008 memorial literature commemorating these women may be read as a modern variant of Orthodox saints' lives, and its subjects are depicted according to several conventions of the genre, including the denial of private life, the rhetoric of self-sacrifice, and an emphasis on themoral superiority of women. While the preceding chapters discuss women separated frommen, Lilya Kaganovsky evaluates the converse in her essay on the depiction of Soviet masculinity inNikolai Ekk's 1931filmThe Road toLife, a 'narrative of conver sion' that addresses the problem of bezprizorshchina in hindsight. Kaganovsky asserts that 'bodily discipline and linguistic control' are presented in the film as the true path toNew Soviet Manhood in a male collective society devoid ofwomen (p. 96). In the fifthchapter, Suzanne Ament argues that the songs ofWorld War Two 'played a significant role in stabilizing identities in a time of crisis' (p. 115).These songs tended to reinforce existing gender roles and valorize feminine passivity despite changing roles in society, ultimately supplying 'a balance between projected ideals and the daily realities of life' (p. 127). By the time of the Brezhnev era, Elena Prokhorova states, therewas a need to 'reestablish masculinity' by idealizing the past. She examines two types of Brezhnev-era mini-series, the spy thriller/detektiv and thehistorical melodrama, stating that 'both are engaged in theprocess of rearticulating Soviet national mythology by linking it to complementary aspects of representations ofmas culinity' (p. 135).Although male heroes exemplified Soviet achievements on a larger level, they were to a certain degree rendered impotent by 'the...