Ol'ga Freidenberg's Works and Days by Nina Perlina (review)

Abstract

848 Reviews OVga Freidenberg's Works and Days. By Nina Perlina. Bloomington, IN: Slavica. 2002. vi + 288pp. $24.95. ISBN 0-89357-304-3. Nina Perlina's new book on the life and scholarship of the Soviet scholar Ol'ga M. Freidenberg builds on her earlier works devoted to various aspects of Freidenberg's academic activity in the fields of mythology, folklore, literary and cultural history, and philosophical aesthetics. The monograph does not only synthesize the author's extensive research, but also serves as metaspace fora philological symposium between Freidenberg and her hypothetical 'like-minded colleagues and interlocutors', whose lack in the scholar's real life prevented Freidenberg's innovative ideas from achieving a proper understanding and appreciation. Furthermore, even in present-day research Freidenberg's unusual biography and academic career have been repeatedly misinterpreted , while her original ideas remain largely underestimated. By providingthe forum for Freidenberg's dialogue with other thinkers, Perlina seeks to re-establish the intellectual biography of this academic, whose distinct voice was for far too long muffledin and by its 'Soviet context'. One of the strongest assets of the book is its constant reference to Freidenberg's own 'meta-critical and meta-biographical texts, such as her unpublished memoirs and her correspondence with Boris Pasternak' (p. 2). If the correspondence is avail? able in English translation, the multi-volume diary Probeg zhizni (The Race of Life), which Freidenberg kept forthe major part of her life,was published only in extracts, and presents a unique personal account of Soviet history. The reader cannot help feeling grateful to Perlina for letting him/her listen to Freidenberg's own voice, re? constructing a vivid and honest reality of the everyday life,the atmosphere within the humanities, interpersonal and professional relations in Soviet society under Stalinism . Freidenberg's memoirs have a multilevel structure, where allusions to antiquity and mythological parallels are used to analyse the official Soviet myth and to create her own alternative vision of contemporary historical background. Perlina's book comprises seven parts, six of which describe important stages in Freidenberg's evolution as a personality and a scholar, and emphasize those spiritual and intellectual 'elective affinities' which profoundly affected Freidenberg's views and persuasions. From their childhood Freidenberg's famous cousin Boris Pasternak remained one of her few most faithful listeners and 'brothers in spirit', whose art and personal loyalty provided Freidenberg with support and endurance. The author follows Freidenberg's scholarly career from her apprenticeship at the Department of Classical Studies of St Petersburg University, where she was one of the firstfemale students, through nearly ten years of research and administrative work at various linguistic institutions in Leningrad, culminating at the most dramatic period of the scholar's life and career as the head of the newly reopened Department of Classical Languages at Leningrad University from 1932 until 1950, when she was forced to resign her chair and retire during the 'anti-Marrist campaign'. Freidenberg's association with Marr's palaeontological framework of research has probably been the main reason why the scholar's conceptions ofthe history of literary forms and cultural history in general did not receive the rightattention. In her attempt to restate Freidenberg's intellectual originality, Perlina convincingly demonstrates how the scholar elaborated her innovative research methods prior to her acquaintance with Marr's semantic palaeontology, while examining the Christian apocrypha and establishing their morphological similarity to the Greek erotic novel. Like her colleague and intimate friend Izrail' G. Frank-Kamenetskii, Freidenberg assimilated the ideas of Ernst Cassirer, which allowed her to advance her genetic approach to cultural phenomena, avoiding Marr's arbitrariness and reductionism. Perlina argues that Freidenberg was, in fact, 'a Cassirer scholar in Marrist garb' and follows the pro? gressive development of Freidenberg's thought through her numerous articles and MLR, 99.3, 2004 849 the two major works, The Poetics ofPlot and Genre and Image and Concept. Providing a detailed analysis of Freidenberg's writings, the author remains faithful to her goal of creating a forum foran exchange of ideas. She juxtaposes Freidenberg's palaeontological approach to folklore with Petr Bogatyrev's formalism or Viktor Zhirmunskii's sociological conception, analyses the evolution of the literary system within Freiden...