Ivan Turgenevs Ökonomien. Eine Schriftstellerexistenz zwischen Aristokratie, Künstlertum und Kommerz by Anton Seljak Andreas Guski , Heiko Haumann (review)

Abstract

REVIEWS 139 Seljak, Anton. Ivan TurgenevsOkonomien. Eine Schriftstellerexistenz Zwischen Arastokratie, Kiinstlertum undKommerz. Edited by Andreas Guski und Heiko Haumann. BaslerStudien zur KulturgeschichteOsteuropas,6. Uni Basel and Pano Verlag, Zurich, 2004. 520 pp. Illustrations.Notes. Appendices. Bibliographies.Indexes. E37.oo. ANTON SELJAK has produced an interesting and unusual study of Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev's life and works. This substantialmonograph contains information on the writer's life and times, some of which are unknown. Seljak's findings are primarily taken from Turgenev's extensive correspondence and his works insofar as they are relevant to the theme, given in the title: 'Turgenev's economies. A writer'slife between aristocracy,art and commerce.' The materialis arrangedin three chaptersand numerous sectionscovering 476 pages. I20-odd of Turgenev's works are discussedor cited, followed by a twenty-pagebibliographyand an inordinateamount of footnotes. The volume concludeswith ten appendices.All quotationsare given in the language of the original -Russian, French, German. For reasonsunknownthere is no name index. Turgenev and his worksare here examined from a standpointunfamiliarto many literaryscholars.Proponentsof (literary)economics view poems, novels, etc. not as worksof art,but as marketableproducts,echoing the radicaltheses of Dmitri Pisarevand Bazarov,hero of Turgenev'scelebratednovel Ottsy i deti. The concept and term 'economics' (Okonomien) are here used in their original Greek meaning running/managing a household, an estate, a business.It is sometimes used as a descriptionof a life, a way of life. Seljakpostulatesthat money is the dominant factorin all spheresof life, an approach which he takes as a given. He is right in the sense that Turgenev's monetary situation was based on the irregularincome from his estates and, from the early I840s onwards, on his earnings from writing. But it was the large inheritance bequeathed to them by their mother in i850 that gave the Turgenev brothersfinancialsecurity,and as such was of major importancein shaping the writer's life. But his professed lack of interest in money and wealth, his extravagant lifestyle, an impulsive generosity and indifferenceto the running of his estates meant that by I876 his financial straitswere grave enough for him to consider selling Spasskoe. The appendices demonstrateSeljak'sdiligence in gatheringinformationon a varietyof topics, interestingper se, and of some relevancefor Turgenev and his life. We learn that in I840 the price of a serfwas ioo roubles in assignatsii, a two-wheeled horse-drawncarriagecost 6oo silverroubles,a hunting gun I00 silver roubles, the weekly rent of a London flat 50 francs.The exchange rate of the rouble, royaltiesand the writer's'marketvalue' are listed, togetherwith information on the growing value of Turgenev's royalties. In I849 he had received 5o roubles per printed sheet from Sovremennik, rising by I870 to 400 silver roubles (Russkii vestnik). In I882, JNiva paid him i,ooo silver roubles per printed sheet. A considerable part of the monograph is focused on 'Turgenev as landowner'. One section is devoted to Nikita Kishinskii, Turgenev's estate 140 SEER, 85, I, 2007 manager from i868 to I877.InitiallyTurgenev was impressedby him, trusted him and, as their correspondenceshows, was for severalyears deferentialand even submissiveto him. But Kishinskiiwas a scoundrel,duringwhose rule the estates came close to ruin. The anonymous letter, with its graphic account of the new manager'sdishonesty and mismanagement, is given its due. Printing it twice (pp. 226-27 and Appendix D) overstates the significance of this episode. This volume is not an easy read. Many sentences are long and densely written, containing a statement, counterstatement and a few subordinate clauses. 'Deckung, "Ent-Deckung"und Nichtdeckung ...', the title of one of the sections, is a piece of Gelehrtendeutsch that defies comprehension.All would have been well if a list of ecolit newspeak terms had been provided. The following gives a glimpse of the term 'capital' used by Seljak: 'Lavishly endowed with economic and cultural capital, [Turgenev] succeeded in occupying a dominant place in Russian literature[ ...] which he consolidated by the permanent accumulation of symbolic capital' (p. 453). One also finds 'economic' capital, 'real' capital and 'life text', 'art text', etc. Ironically,in the 'Deckung. . .' section there is a partialreturnto the values and methods of traditionalliterarycriticism analysisof content, form and style, the development of the narrative,characterportraitsand so forth. An example of this avangardistretreat is...