Slavonic Journeys across Two Hemispheres: Festschrift in Honour of Arnold McMillin. New Zealand Slavonic Journal, 37, 2003 by Irene Zohrab (review)

Abstract

528 SEER, 83, 3, 2005 symbolism, specific lexicon and realia (such as national flags) that recur in variousformsin many of the poems. The anthology'ssingletheme as treatedin the poems featuredhereis broad enough to make a satisfying entity, and the present reviewer, barred by convention from quoting examples, can only recommend the volume warmly as an admirablebilingualintroductionto contemporaryBelarusianpoetry.As the translatorexclaims,withanappropriatepun attheend ofherIntroduction: 'Chaj zyvie svaboda! Chaj zyvie Bielarus!' (Long live liberty! Long live Belarus!)(p. I2). School ofSlavonic andEastEuropean Studies ARNOLD MCMILLIN University College London Zo)hrab,Irene (ed.). Slavonic Journeys AcrossTwoHemispheres: Festschrift inHonour of ArnoldMcMillin. New ZealandSlavonicJournal, 37, 2003. Victoria University of Wellington and the University of Otago, New Zealand, 2003. xiv + 332 pp. Illustrations. Notes. NZ$5o.oo (paperback subscription). THIS is the second volume of NZSJ dedicated to ProfessorArnold McMillin. The first,publishedin 2002, was so overwhelmedwith proposalsthata second was required. There can be no one in Slavonic Studies who would argue against the need for such a wealth of material, and no one would surely begrudge two Festschriften for such an internationally distinguished and popularscholar.Contributionsare not only fromhis formerstudents,but also fromsome very respectedfriendsand colleaguesfromaroundthe globe. The volume's contents not only reflectand complement ProfessorMcMillin 's own teaching and researchinterests(articleson Dostoevskii, Belarusian literatureand Russianmusic),but alsoprovide insightsinto otherareaswhere Slavonic Studies has developed in recent years, such as film and literary postmodernism.There are also contributionsthat reflectthe traditionsof the journal (Russian-Australasianaffinities),and a major translation of correspondence between PrinceMeshcherskiiand GrandDuke NikolaiAlekseevich I863-64, with facsimilereproductions. Of the two dozen contributions, the following stand out as being of particularmerit. Zina Gimpelevich on Aleksei Skaldin (I889-1943) offersa fascinatingaccount of a writerwho is known to have written nine novels and a number of shortstories,of which only one novel has survived(therestwere confiscated during his several arrests, and are now assumed to be lost or destroyed). Donald Rayfield's fittingly uncompromising condemnation of Stalin's 'poet and hangman' Viacheslav Menzhinskii is never less than riveting, and the final judgement damning: 'Though never celebrated, Viacheslav Menzhinsky has never been disgraced. It is high time he was. Among all the heads of the Cheka-NKVD he was the most educated and most privileged and the least traumatised,and for him there can be no mitigation' (p. Io8). Alexandra Smith's essay on Tsvetaeva's 'female dandyism' and her relationship to the theatre is a well-researchedcontribution to the currently REVIEWS 529 expanding research on that poet. Ewa Thompson provides a thoughtprovoking study of the post-Soviet 'master narrative of history', where 'in Russia, memories are still grievances calling for action against the Other, ratherthan being signalsto commemorate the eventsof thepast'(p. I63), thus offeringa highly productive theoretical frameworkfor the study of literature and particularlyfilmafter I99I. A minor irritant remains on the level of copy-editing. There is a high incidence of typosand misprintsthathave been allowed to creep throughinto the publishedtexts, aswell as errorsof punctuation.That quibbleaside, a final word should be reserved for the piece by Professor McMillin himself, on musical renditions of Gogol' by Shostakovichand Shnittke,distinguishedby itscharacteristicwit and elegance, aswell asitssheererudition.The Festschrift is a most fittingtributeto a man of many talents. Department ofEuropean Studies andModem Languages DAVID GILLESPIE University ofBath King, Charles. TheBlackSea:A Histogy. Oxford University Press, Oxford and New York,2004. xxi + 276 pp. Maps. Illustrations.Notes. Bibliography and furtherreading.Index. C20.00. THIS is a fine book. The quotation from Orlando Figes on thejacket is both testimony to this and yet, it is more than merely a 'masterfulaccount of the ever-changingtradebetween thepeoples andpowersof thiscrucialwaterway'. 7heBlackSeagoes beyond trade and embraces the various realms of culture, politics, society, war, geography and the environment, as well as, of course, creating an integrated history of a region that is both a region and not a region, as such. Charles King perhaps indicates as much at the end of the book, when he looksat the experience of the BlackSea Economic Community, created in the I99os, following an initiative by the Turkish government. Although that body had developed by the startof the twenty-firstcentury to have a permanent organization and parliamentaryassociation, its only real achievement otherwise concerned shared study, concern and approaches to the environmentalissuesthat had...