Up from Bondage: The Literatures of Russian and African American Soul by Dale E. s> Peterson (review)

Abstract

5I4 SEER, 8o, 3, 2002 'Razgovor v Trianone', and also examines linksbetween 'Poema bez geroia' and 'Zovet nas zhizn". Tomas Venclova's article deals with Tsvetaeva's response to Pavlova: this is a vast subject that will need furtherexploration, and to which the authormakesa substantialcontribution.A similarprocedure is adoptedby Lehrmanin hisessayon Pavlovain Bulgakov'sMaster iMargarita: in this,his second contributionto thiscollection, Lehrmanhighlightsthematic affinitiesbetween the novel and such poems as 'Razgovor v Trianone'. The tragic fate of the woman author is a theme in all these studies, and Pavlova tends to obtain the status of the unrecognized woman poet perse. Priscilla Meyer's comparison of the lives of Pavlova and Louise Colet supports this supposition. The remainingessaysdeal with individualaspectsof Pavlova'swork.Fusso brilliantlyquestionsconventionsofliteraryhistorywhen interpretingPavlova's 'Kadril" as a female variant of the stereotypical, gender-related features of Russian Romanticism. Loss as a source of poetic strengthis the conclusion of Stephanie Sandler's and Judith Vowles's convincing and original re-reading of the myth of the abandoned woman as it figures in the meditative poems writtenby Pavlovaunderthe influenceof her separationfromMickiewiczand Utin. Olga Brikertracesthe conflictingpurposesof the travellerand the exile in her careful analysisof the cycle 'Fantasmagorii'.Lehrman'sfirstessay, an incisivestudyof Pavlova'spoetics, providesa fittingkeynoteforthe collection. Finally, two essays deal with biographical aspects of Pavlova's persona. Mikhail Fainshteinexplores the significanceof music and painting in her life, while FrankGopfertgivesvaluableinsightsinto the Germanperiod of herlife. EssaysonKarolina Pavlova considerablyadvancesourknowledgeof thishighly talented yet neglected author and her time, and it will hopefully stimulate furtherresearch. Department ofRussian U. STOHLER University ofExeter Peterson,Dale E. UpfromBondage. TheLiteratures ofRussianandAfrican American Soul. Duke University Press, Durham, NC, and London, 2000. Xi + 249 PP.Notes. Select bibliography.Index. ?37.??; ?I 2.95. IN I925, the prominent African-American scholar, Alain LeRoy Locke, published a volume of essays entitled TheNewNegro.In it, he called for the liberation of 'authenticNegro speech' (p. 2), and likened his people's search for an independent voice to the experience of Russian artists,who strove to createa 'universallyresoundingandtechnicallydistinctivemode ofexpression' from the 'neglected speech and song of a denigratedpeasantry'(p. 3). At this stage in the history of Black American culture, the work of Russian writers and thinkerswas barely known, but with the increased availabilityof many Russian works in translation, African-Americans soon began to assert and utilize the factors they perceived to be common to these two geographically distantcultures.Ralph Ellison,forexample,wasthefirstto note the similarities between Richard Wright'sBlackBoy(I945) and the life and work of Maksimn Gor'kii.He also cited Dostoevskii as one of Wright's'literaryguides' (p. 125). REVIEWS 5I5 More recently,the poetics of Bakhtinhave made a considerableimpact on the critical awareness of 'double-voicedness' in African-American fiction. Dale Peterson, in this lucid, authoritativeand superblybalanced study, offersnew perspectiveson the literaturesof bondage in both cultures,elucidatingpoints of contact and divergence, and establishingthematic links that connect texts acrossbarriersof space and time. The volume opens with an exploration of the responsesof two nineteenthcentury radicalculturalnationalists,Ivan Kireevskiiand W. E. B. DuBois, to their mentors the first'racial "civilizationists"'(p. 38) Peter Chaadaev andAlexanderCrummell.This leadsinto Peterson'sfirstcomparativeanalysis of African-American and Russian literature, which examines the parallels between DuBois's TheSoulsofBlackFolk(I903), and Dostoevskii'sNotesfrom the Houseof theDead(i862). Peterson argues that DuBois demonstrates a 'deep affinity'(p. 6o) with Dostoevskii, an affinitywhich goes beyond each man's experience of bondage. Farfrom being pieces merely of polemical invective, the textsare complex and evasive, chaotic and ambivalent,andyet ultimately, against all expectations, positive in their respective acknowledgement of the transcendentalpotential of a sharedethnic spirituality. As the rest of the book demonstrates,however, the notion that a distinctive culturalidentity is both identifiableand definitiveis highly problematic. Key to this is the factor of resistancethat plays such an importantpart in the way members of each ethnic group perceive themselves in terms of community and individuality,and the conflicts inherent in their desire for emancipation. The intelligence of Peterson's commentary lies in his ability to isolate and expose the ever-shifting and often paradoxical elements of these parallel literatureswhilstnever losing sightof the social, culturaland historicalfactors that underpin them. What also emerges is the importance of the continuing dialogue each literature has with itself and its past, the extent to which...