Russian Literature, Modernism and the Visual Arts by Catriona s> Kelly Stephen Lovell (review)

Abstract

328 SEER, 8o, 2, 2002 the Czechwriter'spoetrycollectionsmightperhapshavebeen discussedin thebroadercontextofgayliterature assuch. To be sure,thequestionasto whetherLishaugen's readingof homosexual thematics should(orshouldnot)beaccompanied byaso-called 'gaysensibility' is of littlerelevancehere;one canalwaysarguethata gaytextis one which lendsitselfto thehypothesis of a gayreading,regardless of theauthor'sown sexual preferences.Karaisek is a major poet of East CentralEuropean modernism, whosevoicecertainly deserves tobere-explored asablyasisdone byLishaugen, throughthelensofgenderandsexuality. Department ofComparative Literature KNUT ANDREAS GRIMSTAD Norwegian University ofScience andTechnology Kelly, Catriona, and Lovell, Stephen (eds).Russian Literature, Modernism andthe VisualArts. CambridgeStudiesin RussianLiterature.CambridgeUniversityPress ,Cambridge, 2000. Illustrations.Notes. Index. ?40?.O. INtheir introduction, the editors stress an 'extraordinaryenergy' in Russian modernism and a dynamic interaction between different artistic media, especiallybetween literatureand the 'spectacular'art forms.All ten essays,as well as sketching historical and ideological backgrounds, offer concrete and energetic discussion of particular artists, most of whom belong to the modernist period. This various but harmonious collection is arrangedin two parts:first,'The ArtsReflected in Literature'and second althoughthe final six words apply equally well to Part One 'Adaptations,Collaborations, Disputes and Rapprochements: Russian Literature, Visual Arts and Performance'. The volume opens with a very fine essay by Konstantin Barsht,presenting a new aspect of Dostoevskii (whom many modernistssaw as theirforerunner): 'Defining the Face'. Barsht discusses, first, Dostoevskii's obsession with the human face and the importance of (theicon-like)portraitsin his novels, and, secondly, Dostoevskii's own notebook drawings of faces through which he would 'fix' an idea, freeing the word from 'alien meaning' (p. 52). We are afforded a marvellous glimpse of the interaction between a writer's writing and his own artistic work in another medium: an intensely concentrated statement of thiswhole book's theme. Discussion of faces and portraitscomes again in Catriona Kelly's 'Painting and Autobiography', a highly original excursuson the significanceof apoet'sphysicalappearanceand of the reader's acquaintance with it. The essay, however, is mainly a presentationof the poet Anna Prismanova, much of whose work Kelly has herself translated and published. Deftly comparing her (to her moral advantage) with Akhmatova, she focuses on her allusionsto painting and her abilityto learn from that art. Many of Prismanova'spoems are about her native Balticcoast and in relation to this Kelly offers a historical survey of representationsof sea and shore in Russianliterature,folkloreand painting. Jane Grayson'sessayisa thoroughaccount of theworkofAndrei Siniavskii, who is linked to modernism through his career-longmission to correct Soviet misrepresentations of it, as well as through his adoption of the modernist REVIEWS 329 idiom in his own creative writings inferior though his talent was to the talents of that age (see p. 97). 'Modernism became for him the language of dissidence' (p. 88), Grayson argues. The essay well evokes the colourful brightness of 'the forbidden world of the Russian avantgarde' (p. 96), and recreates some splendid visual images importantto Siniavskii,especially that of gigantic hands in a palaeolithic cave. Meanwhile, the indubitable talent of Zoshchenko is given an operatic dimension by Alexander Zholkovskywho, with detailed analyses of parallels,proves RuslanandLudmila and DonGiovanni to be the 'shadow operas' inhering in, respectively, Zoshchenko's Electrician (I 926), and Elvira(I 943) and enabling him to express his neurotic 'fearof his environment' (p. I 20). Zholkovskyargues (as he has done in earlier studies), that thisfearunitesall Zoshchenko'swork,whethercomic or serious,and that Zoshchenkois 'aclassicof the Soviet eranot so much as a satiristof communal apartment mores but rather as a poet of a mistrustfuland hopeless quest for calm, protection, law, and order'. Barbara Henry's short history of anti-theatricalattitudes in Russia introduces her study, based on unpublished scripts and scenarios, of Nikolai Evreinov (i 9 I0- I8), director of the St Petersburg cabaret-theatre 'Krivoe zerkalo', and of his retrievalof teatral'nost. His productions included the I9 I 2 parodic Revizor -Act One of Gogol"s play as directed by five different, though all self-important, directors an experiment 'legitimising a muchmaligned art'sclaim to autonomy' (p. I65). This piece on avant gardetheatre is complemented by Cynthia Marsh's fascinating study of the collaboration between Chekhov and his stage designerViktor Simov, whose innovations (in contrastto Evreinov's)were 'withinthe context of demands for verisimilitude' (p. i8o). Chekhov's four major plays are analysed in the...