The Cambridge Companion to Tolstoy by Donna Tussing s> Orwin (review)

Abstract

REVIEWS 725 melodrama could be used to polemicize with and ultimately undermine Stalinistvalues by comparing two family melodramas from differentperiods of Soviet history, AleksandrStolper'swartime melodrama WaitforMe (I943) and Mikhail Kalatozov's TheCranes areFlying(1957), one of the key cultural events of Krushchev's Thaw. Finally, Joan Neuberger's essay brings the reader closer to the present and argues for a reassessment of Nikita Mikhalkov's early film SlaveofLove(I976). Neuberger attempts to persuade her reader that farfrom being, in the commonly held view, 'a light-weightbit of "retro-chic" or romantic nostalgia', Mikhalkov's film is in fact 'deeply ambivalent' (p. 262) for, she concludes, while it 'valorizes and defends the right to a private life, SlaveofLovedoes not let us forget that private fulfilment has its costs and that those costs are moral and political' (p. 28 I). Helena Goscilo's essay, which closes the collection, returns the reader briefly to the pre-Revolutionary period as she considers the melodramatic qualitiesof the funeralof Vera Kholodnaia (i 893-1919), undisputed 'Queen' of the pre-Revolutionary screen, before exploring in the same way Stalin's funeral and recent post-Soviet funerals held in honour of prominent 'New Russians',among others. All the essays on cinema are illustratedby black and white stills from the films they discuss. It is disappointing, however, that the quality of most is so poor. Not only are they reproduced in an extremely small format, but also many are blurred and out of focus. These are relatively minor quibbles, however, and are not intended to detractfrom the overallmeritsof this book. Readers interested in melodrama in general, as well as those whose area of interest is the art, culture, politics, society or history of Russia in particular will findmuch of value and interestin this challenging and thought-provoking collection of essays. School ofSlavonic andEastEuropean Studies RACHEL MORLEY University College London Tussing Orwin, Donna (ed.) 77ieCambridge Companion to Tolstoy. Cambridge Companions to Literature. Cambridge University Press, 2002. XV + 271 PP. Chronology. Tables. Notes. Further Reading. Indexes. ?I4.95: $22.00 (paperback). IN many Britishuniversities,studentsof Russian literatureare probablymore likelyto studyTat'ianaTolstaia,who is modern, female and short,ratherthan Lev Tolstoi who is none of the above. It isperhapsa signof the times that only two of the contributors,Richard Freebornand GarethJones, are British.The remaining nine contributors, as well as the editor, work in North America, where the study of the great Russian classicsis evidently thriving. This is the latest in the Cambridge series of Companions, which now runs to some eighty volumes. Two of these have dealt with Russian culture and this is the thirdto dealwith an individualRussianauthor,followingvolumes on Chekhov(edited by Vera Gottlieb and Paul Allain) and Dostoevskii (edited by W. J. Leatherbarrow). 726 SEER, 8i, 4, 2003 Any reader believing that the word 'companion' implies 'reference book' may be somewhat disappointed. This book bears scant resemblance to such invaluable aids to scholarship as V. A. Manuilov's incomparable Lermontov Encyclopaedia (Lermontovskia entsiklopediia) (Moscow, I98 I) and the variousLetopsi zhitni i tvorchestva which were published in both Soviet and post-Soviet times. Notable among these was N. N. Gusev'stwo-volume chronicle of Tolstoi'slife and works (Moscow, I958, I960), due acknowledgement to which is paid by Donna Tussing Orwin at the end of her own chronology (compiled with the help of Megan Swift) of Tolstoi's life and work, which opens this book. It begins, rather shakily,with the name of Tolstoi's mother being given in the first entry as 'Marya Nikolaevich Volkonskaia',but recovers to become the most complete chronology of Tolstoi's life and work yet to be published in English. Otherwise this book, like the other books in the series, is a 'companion' only in the sense that any work of secondary literature accompanies readers in their study of an author's primary texts. It is, the chronology apart, a collection of essays, albeit, according to the blurb, 'specially commissioned' essays. Leaving aside the question as to what other sortof essaysthere might be, it must be said that these are, without exception, very good essays. Indeed, the first three, written by Gary Saul Morson, BarbaraLonnqvist and Hugh McClean and dealing with WarandPeace, Anna...