History of the Literary Cultures of East-Central Europe: Junctures and Disjunctures in the 19th and 20th Centuries. Vol. 1 by M. Cornis-Pope J. Neubauer (review)

Abstract

522 SEER, 83, 3, 2005 Vygotskii'sview of the concretizationof psychologicalactivityas a mechanism for creating new symbols and meanings capable of being incorporated into the culturalstock. Vladislav Khodasevich was certainlyrightto pinpoint that Tsvetaeva's memoirs were only partly autobiographical because they foregrounded a psychological pattern linked to the formation of speech and creativeself. School ofLanguages andCultures ALEXANDRA SMITH University ofCanterbugy, NewZealand Cornis-Pope, M. and Neubauer, J. (eds).History oftheLiteragy Cultures ofEastCentral Europe. Junctures andDisjunctures in theigth and20th Centuries. Vol.I. A ComparativeHistory of Literaturesin EuropeanLanguages, i 9. John Benjamins Publishing Company, Amsterdam and Philadelphia, PA, 2004. xx+ 647pp.Works cited.Index. 1i98.00: $238.oo. How or even whetherit ispossibleto presenta literaryhistoryof East-Central Europe is a question with which the editors of this volume grapple.After all, we have to do here with literaturewrittenin some twentylanguages, and over a geographicalspacestretchingin arelativelynarrowarcfromtheMediterranean to the Baltic Sea. What is more, the taskneeds to be accomplishedduring a time of unprecedented geo-political upheaval when the entire concept of 'EasternEurope' (invented, as LarryWolffhas shown so convincingly, in the eighteenth centuryand perpetuateduntil very recently by the divide between the so-called capitalist and Communist worlds) is up for grabs. And finally, this all needs to be done at a time when the standard models for writing literaryhistoryhave been called into questionby innovativeworkssuch as the NewHistogy ofFrench Literature (Cambridge,MA, 1994), editedby Denis Hollier. Fromthe beginning, the book's editorsinsistthat theirliteraryhistoryhas a purpose beyond that of a normal scholarlybook. It is written not so much to provide informationabout the literatureand cultureof the region (althoughit certainlyprovidesmuch of that),asto forceEast-CentralEuropeansand other interested observersto recognize that transnationalconnections rather than separate national existences are and have always been the norm for this region. 'The primaryinspirationfor our project is thus an ethical imperative ratherthan an epistemologicallonging [... .]A literaryhistoryof East-Central Europe will make sense if it furthers, on however small a scale, the communicationbetween the peoples of the region' (pp. 15- I6). On the whole, the success of this volume is decidedly mixed. The most serious problem is that of methodology -the book does not have one but presents rather a grab bag of approaches ranging from very traditional to contemporary.Thus, the firstsection is organized, a la Hollier, into 'nodes of time', focusing in reverse chronological order on key dates in the region's history(I989, I956/68, 1948, 1945, I9I8, I876/78/8I, I848, and I776/89). Each section begins with an introductionmeant to set the scene historically, and is generally followed by individual essays of varying lengths and quality on the situation in particularcountries. Forthe most part, these essaysmake REVIEWS 523 little or no attempt at transnationalcomparison,which is provided implicitly as a resultof the heading underwhich they appear. The nodal approach,however, is followed only forhalfof thevolume. After this,we switchto a section called 'Historiesof LiteraryForm'.This portion of the book considers in turn 'Shifting Periods and Trends', 'Shifting Genres', 'The HistoricalNovel', and 'Historiesof Multimedia Constructions'.As with the nodal essays, some of these contributions (the best ones in my view) are themselves comparative. I would note particularly Guido Snel's article on fictionalizedautobiographyin East-CentralEurope,GalinTihanov's essayon the birth of modern literary theory in East-Central Europe, and Dina lordanova's overview of East-CentralEuropean cinema and literaryhistory. But most of the essaysare neither comparativenor particularlyenlightening: rather,they focus on individualauthorsor literarymovements in a traditional literaryhistoricalmanner. There is one other serious problem with this volume, and it concerns the role of Russian culture in the region. Following the lead of 'East-Central European'intellectuals,thevolume'seditorshave almostcompletelyexcluded Russian literaturefrom consideration.To be sure, it would be a seriouserror to view East-Central European literature through an exclusively Russian prism. That being said, it is hard to see how one could write such a history without takinginto considerationthe specialrole that Russianliterarymodels played during,say, the modernistor Communistperiods. To be fairto the book's editors,I should note that thisbook, large as it is, is one of fourprojectedfor this serieson East-CentralEurope.Volume two is to focuson the shiftingtopographiesof literarycultures,volume threeto consider literaryinstitutions,andvolume fourto examine the makingofliteraryfigures. I hope that the publisherwill assignto futurevolumes a proofreadercapable of catching the significantnumber of...