Kleberg, Lars and Semenenko, Aleksei (eds) Aksenov and the Environs (review)

Abstract

REVIEWS 731 Levitan’s approving comments on Chekhov’s verbal landscapes. Thus the story ‘The Grasshopper’ (chapter 6) is extensively analysed as a reflection of Levitan’s affair with one of their mutual friends Sophia Kuvshinnikova. The Seagull is explored less (pp. 146–56; & passim): focus is on reference to the extra-marital pregnancy of another friend, Lidiia Mizinova (Lika), Levitan’s involvement with both a mother and daughter, the Turchaninovs, and his attempted suicide. Significantly enough, Gregory finds it difficult to trace Chekhov in Levitan’s painting, and relies on comment from Levitan’s letters. The attempt leads to his prime differentiation between the two artists: Gregory points to Chekhov as ‘an artist with a penetrating cold heart’ (p. 218) which enabled him to remain at a distance, while Levitan was ever responsive, concerned, often angry or judgemental, and frequently in despair over his own abilities. They both eventually found nature indifferent to human affairs but reacted differently. For Levitan, nature’s indifference emphasized his isolation, feeding into bouts of depression but forming his more troubled landscapes; for Chekhov, it cemented his personal detachment in his creative work. There is rich material in this study. Gregory was right to unpick this relationship. From the point of view of Chekhov studies, Levitan is too often neglected. From the point of view of Levitan studies, this is an artist whose position astride the two most significant movements in Russian painting of the late nineteenth century, ‘The Itinerants’ and the World of Art, is ripe for investigation and appreciation. Gregory is perhaps too modest in his ambitions. A full biography of Levitan and catalogue of his works in English would cement this artist’s international reputation. They would build on the key foundation provided by the Soviet scholar, A. A. Fedorov-Davydov (Moscow, 1976; in English, Leningrad, 1981) and complement the solid work done in English by Averil King (Woodbridge, 2011). Department of Russian and Slavonic Studies Cynthia Marsh University of Nottingham Kleberg, Lars and Semenenko, Aleksei (eds). Aksenov and the Environs. Södertörn Academic Studies, 52. Södertörns högskola, Huddinge, 2012. 242 pp. Illustrations. Notes. Bibliographies. SK195.00 (paperback). Aksenov and the Environs, edited by Lars Kleberg and Aleksei Semenenko, originated from a major international conference held in Sweden in 2008. The volumefocusesonthesomewhatlesser-knownRussianavant-gardepersonality, Ivan Aleksandrovich Aksenov (1884–1935), an experimental Russian poet and prominent critic who was also active as a translator, and who worked both in SEER, 94, 4, October 2016 732 the theatre and in the early Soviet cultural administration. He was born into a family of high Russian gentry and trained as a junior military officer in Kiev and St Petersburg, but eventually was forced to quit the service. In 1910 he was a groom at Gumilev and Akhmatova’s ‘solemn’ marriage ceremony in Kiev. He made a brief but critical acquaintance with Pablo Picasso in Paris during his travels to France during 1915 and his book, entitled Picasso and the Environs, published in Moscow by Tsentrifuga in 1917, is here used as an intertextual source for the playful name of Kleberg and Semenenko’s volume. Aksenov’s book was one of the first theoretical studies dedicated to Picasso, being also an analytical rumination on Cubism as a ground-breaking artistic movement. Vladimir Markov’s colleague, Victor Terras, would later define this work as ‘an original and insightful book of criticism’. It was printed in an edition of 1,000 copies with an original cover design by a prominent Russian avant-garde ‘Amazon’, Aleksandra Ekster. Aksenov was among the founding members of the Tsentrifuga (semi-Futurist) publishing project, overseeing the 1917 printing of Boris Pasternak’s seminal collection, Over the Barriers, which contained the poet’s early verses dating from 1914–16. During the First World War, Aksenov served as a Russian imperial officer. In 1917, he was arrested by the Romanian authorities and turned over to the Red Army, and eventually ended up collaborating with early Soviet military institutions, including the infamous Cheka. His cooperation with the Reds culminated in his obtaining a high administrative post at the Commissariat of Education (Narkompros), and then the deanship at Vsevolod Meierkhol´d’s directing...