Nikolai Karamzin: 'Letters of a Russian Traveller'. A Translation, with an Essay on Karamzin's Discourses of Enlightenment by Andrew s> Kahn (review)

Abstract

120 SEER, 83, I, 2005 embryonicPannonian tradition,and here allowsthe editorsto reduce the role of Cyriland Methodius to a one-line walk-offpart. London H. LEEMING Kahn, Andrew.NikolaiKaramzin: 'Letters ofaRussianTraveller'. A Translation, with anEssayonKaramzin's Discourses ofEnlightenment. Studies on Voltaire and the Eighteenth Century, 2003:04. Voltaire Foundation, Oxford, 2003. xi + 582 Pp. Illustrations.Notes. Bibliography.Index. ?69.oo: ?ioo.oo: $ I 20.00 (paperback). THIS volume represents a welcome contribution to the English-language literatureof Russia'seighteenthcentury.Though a seminalworkin the history of Russian literature and culture, Nikolai Karamzin's Lettersof a Russian Traveller has long languished in the shadows of his more famous short prose and highly influential Historyof theRussianState.The only modern English edition, published in I957, was not only heavily abridged but contained numerous errors and mistranslations. In response to this relative neglect, Andrew Kahn has now translatedand publishedthe entire text in Englishfor the first time. The result is a fine work, a fluent rendition of the original Russian that will be appreciatedfor years to come. Of real value as well are the extensive annotations,which Kahn drew in partfrom (and referencedto) the definitiveRussian edition produced by IuriiLotman and BorisUspenskii, but substantivelyupdated, revised and extended. These annotations contain both backgroundinformationon relevantevents, personsand texts as well as thematicanalysis. From the tears of his sentimental farewellrecorded in his firstletter dated I8 May 1789 to his rapturous homecoming in September 1790, Nikolai Karamzin chronicled the experiences, encounters, observationsand impressions garnered during his Grand Tour. Though excerpts were published serially between I789 and 1792, Karamzin continued to revise the work, publishinga partialedition with I 24 lettersin 1797, the firstcomplete version (I58 letters) in I8oI, and various revised editions in I803, I814 and I820. (This translation is based on the I820 edition.) Alongside the requisite pilgrimagesto the holy sitesof European intellect and culture whetherthe graves of Voltaire and Rousseau or the hearths of Herder and Wieland in Weimar are accounts of philosophical disputes, observationson the local economy and national character,personal ruminations,as well as numerous anecdotes and sketches. A visit to Zurich's Tochter Schule thus prompted Karamzin to praise the uncorrupted morals and decency of this city's inhabitants,especiallyits modest women devoted to the proper upbringingof their children and uninterested in theatres, balls, or other such frivolous diversions.A letterfromJuly 1790 was insteaddevoted to exploringLondon's justice system, including visits to its prisons and the infamous madhouse, 'Bedlam'. Although these brief examples can only hint at their rich content, Karamzin's Lettersare most significant for their central place in Russian cultural history, indeed as a landmarkin the development of Russian travel writing,literarylanguage and national identity. REVIEWS I 2 I Framingthe translationis a brief introductionand an extended afterword, which is a scholarlystudyofjust under one hundredpages. The introduction provides useful context on Russia's cultural and political landscape in the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, Karamzin's place in it, and the publicationhistoryof hisLetters. The referencein its subtitleto the 'creationof a readership'seems misplaced, however. Not only are issues of reading and readershipstouched only in passing, Kahn seems content with well-known generalizations about Russia's lack of a public sphere in comparison to the rest of Europe. The afterword, entitled 'Nikolai Karamzin's discourses of Enlightenment', is likewise contradictory. While demonstrating Kahn's erudition regardingeighteenth-centuryliterary,culturaland intellectual life, it also tends to reifysuch abstractconstructionsas Enlightenment,and public and private. Both contain minor factual slips not Catherine II but her husband Peter III emancipated the nobility from mandatory state service duringhisbriefreignfromDecember I76I toJune I762 (p. 9);PeterI died in 1725, not 1724 (p. 546). This admirabletranslationof Karamzin'sLetters ofa RussiaTraveller will be of interest to teachers, students and scholars. Excerpts could be usefully integrated into courses on Russian and European history, especially as the extensive annotations provide the necessary background information and context. Similarly, it provides rich material for scholars working in diverse disciplines, especially the cultural, intellectual and literary history of eighteenth -century Europe, the Enlightenment, and the history of travel writing; these areasare explicitlyaddressedin Kahn's studyof Karamzin's'Discourses of Enlightenment'.Despite some shortcomings,thisis an impressiveworkthat deservesa wide readership. School ofSlavonic andEastEuropean Studies SUSAN MORRISSEY University College London Evdokimova, Svetlana (ed.). Alexander Pushkin...