Ioffe, Dennis G. and White, Frederick H. (eds). The Russian Avant-Garde and Radical Modernism: An Introductory Reader (review)

Abstract

REVIEWS 757 Ioffe, Dennis G. and White, Frederick H. (eds). The Russian Avant-Garde and Radical Modernism: An Introductory Reader. Cultural Syllabus. Academic Studies Press, Boston, MA, 2012. 486 pp. Illustrations. Notes. Bibliography. $59.00 (paperback). To write a comprehensive introduction to one of the most provocative, experimental and richest periods of cultural history — the Russian avantgarde — is not a simple task. The editors of this volume do not make it easier by adding the term Radical Modernism to its title, obliging themselves to begin the book with a general discussion of the idea of modernism — this widely used but rarely clearly defined concept. However, unlike those who have covered similar topics over the past decades — including some authors who have contributed to the current volume — in books such as Laboratory of Dreams: The Russian Avant-Garde and Cultural Experiment (Stanford, CA, 1997), Russian Modernism: The Transfiguration of the Everyday (Cambridge, 1997), Russian Literature, Modernism and the Visual Arts (Cambridge, 2000), Dennis G. Ioffe and Frederick H. White give, perhaps, one of the most general definitions of modernism as a ‘totality of numerous aesthetic theories’. Such a resumptive approach is dictated by the volume’s initial goal — to provide ‘a general overview of the main currents that constituted the final stage of modernist creative history — the Russian avant-garde described from a historical perspective’. Taking into account the fact that this volume is designed ‘for a student audience’, this particular task is fulfilled almost perfectly. The Russian Avant-Garde and Radical Modernism represents a collection of essays by leading scholars in the field, including Christina Lodder, Boris Groys and John E. Bowlt, as well as several primary texts translated by John E. Bowlt, which altogether are intended to offer ‘the most suitable and accessible information on the issue in question’. However, if the main part of the book deals with this task in a very comprehensive and indeed accessible way, the additional selection of the primary texts might pose some questions. First of all, these texts are spread unevenly across six chapters, with eleven texts in the chapter on ‘Russian Futurism and Related Currents’, only three in ‘Russian Suprematism and Constructivism’, and none in the remaining four chapters. Secondly, their selection does not entirely correspond with the idea of selecting the ‘most suitable and accessible’ texts on the topic to give the broadest sense of modernism. While some of the texts, like Alexei Gan’s Constructivism (1922) or Vassilii’s Kandinskii’s Content and Form (1910) are a must for any avantgarde readership, others — although highly innovative and which, as Evgeny Dobrenko argues, ‘[bring] back a sense of freshness, power and fearlessness of Russian art in its heyday’ — might not necessarily be considered the first point of reference. On the other hand, such a selective and at times biased approach to primary material is balanced by extensive quotes from Russian avant-garde SEER, 92, 4, OCTOBER 2014 758 classics in individual chapters. There are, after all, several reference volumes of translated Russian avant-garde texts and manifestos which offer a broader picture of the topic, including John E. Bowlt’s Russian Art of the Avant-Garde: Theory and Criticism, 1902–34 (London, 1988) and Catriona Kelly’s Utopias: Russian Modernist Texts 1905–1940 (London, 1999). The main body of the volume, which consists of fifteen individual essays — some republished, some specially commissioned — is also hard to criticize. Gracefully written by some of the best scholars in contemporary Russian and modernism studies, the essays are simple, precise, filled with detail and will capture the interest of anyone attracted to this period of Russian culture. What, perhaps, gives some grounds for criticism is the selection of the topics covered and the methodology of presentation. The editors decided to focus on three particular movements — Futurism, Suprematism and Constructivism — their approach ‘illustrative’ rather than exhaustive. For example, in his fresh and dynamic essay, Willem G. Weststeijn presents Vladimir Maiakovskii, the major figure of Russian Futurism, as a ‘rebel’ who ‘hated bourgeois society’, and considers him both as a literary critic and ‘an excellent editor’. On the other hand, the radical movement that went hand-in-hand with the Russian avant-garde — Formalism — is almost...