Imperial Knowledge: Russian Literature and Colonialism by Ewa M. s> Thompson (review)

Abstract

REVIEWS 515 The last three articles are all comparative. Liudmila Kovnatskaia draws some fairly superficialparallelsbetween Shostakovich and Britten (the latter was convinced that there was an affinitybetween them, or, at least, that they came from common musical stock).Caryl Emerson in a short but substantial essay writes on the Tsvetaeva song cycle, op. I43, placing the poems in the wider context of the, for Russians, eternal and culturally mythologized question of the appropriate life and death for poets; she also makes a comparisonwith Musorgskii'sdiametricallyopposite Songs andDancesofDeath. Emerson draws an intricate web, comparing the despair of Musorgskiiand the tradition of resistingthe tsar, ambiguous in Pushkin,with Tsvetaeva the poet's totally individual attitude to life and death. Her belief in eternity for poetry and concomitant indifference to her own corporeal existence makes her, in Emerson's view, an ideal poet 'to prolong the music' (p. I98). In 'Shostakovichand Chekhov',Bartlettexploresthree aspectsof the composer's attitudeto Chekhov:hisrole asa writerand moralexemplarforShostakovich; thecomposer'screativeexperimentswithChekhov'stexts;and the significance of Shostakovich'sown important and original contribution as a critic to the study of narrative construction in Chekhov, in particular his perception of 'sonata form' in TheBlackMonk.She does, however, concede that 'many of Chekhov's writings, short stories as well as plays, could be interpretedfrom the point of view of sonataform'(p. 2I7). There are a few editorial glitches: the 'simplified'(p. x) transliterationis inconsistent, as is the provision of translations of texts and of titles and citations; worse, note 29 has disappeared from Taruskin's article (p. I6). Nonetheless, thiscollection makesaveryworthwhilecontributionto Shostakovich studies, for the brilliance of some of the contributions, for the new information,and for the excellent photographicillustrations. School ofSlavonic andEastEuropean Studies ARNOLD MCMILLIN University College London Thompson, Ewa M. ImperialKnowledge. RussianLiterature and Colonialism. Contributions to the Study of World Literature, 99. Greenwood Press, Westport,Connecticut, and London, 2000. Viii + 239 pp. Notes. Bibliography .Index. $59.95. EDWARD SAID has well and truly arrived in Russian studies. Several recent books and articles have been devoted to the subject of Russia's appropriation political and (especially)ideological of itsvariouscolonies. Among these studies Ewa M. Thompson's book stands out for being exceptionally hard-hitting. It argues that Russia's colonial adventureswere no less (and if anything, more) violent and destructive of indigenous societies and cultures than those of otherimperialpowers;that theywere given strongand enduring discursivesupport in literature,journalism and scholarship;and that, unlike Westernformercolonialist nations, Russia has to thisday not begun to reflect in earnest on the part it has played in its own painful imperial legacy. The seriousness of these failings, Thompson contends, has been exacerbated by the West's readiness to take Russia at its own estimation as an international 5I6 SEER, 79, 3, 200 I political force. It has been all too widely accepted that Russia's historical destiny requires expansion to the south and east (and even to the west);and the grave abuses committed by Russia as an imperial power have been obscured by its geographical contiguity with its colonies and by the sheer awfulnessof itsown twentieth-centuryhistory(whichhasenabledthe Russians to claim victimhood with some plausibilityand moral impact). Thompson's interestsand sourcesare spreadwidely as she strivesto expose the ideological fictions of Russian Orientalism: she presents material on Russian Romanticism , WarandPeace, Solzhenitsyn,villageprose, Russianhistoricaland literary scholarship,the Nazi-Soviet pact, post-Soviet school textbooks, and contemporary women's writing (with particular reference to Liudmila Petrushevskaia). Anyone familiarwith the political discourseof the two Chechen campaigns of the I990S would find it hard to begrudge Thompson the conviction (even passion)with which she arguesher case. Russia is stilla countrythat struggles to achieve the slightest degree of self-awarenessin assessing its own role in international affairs.And although Thompson seems at times to exaggerate the extent of Western acquiescence in Russian self-aggrandizement, it is certainly true that Russia has pulled off some prodigious (and egregious) discursivefeats. Foremostamong these, surely,is the appallingappropriation of Siberia as an emblem of Russianness (and never mind the appalling oppression -followed latelyby total neglect of the indigenouspeoples). Yet, despite the sympathy one feels for the basic thrust of Thompson's argument and for many of her observations, her book is flawed in several ways...