Viacheslav Ivanov: novye materialy by D. Rizzi A. Shishkin (review)

Abstract

REVIEWS 537 Michael Frayn'stranslationof Chaika, prefacedby his own introductionand note on the translation,firstappeared as a Methuen paperbackin 1986. For the most part, his translation is accurate, fluent and eminently speakable, while the introductionis intelligent and well written. Fraynperceives Chaika's ambiguity of tone, where everything is open to interpretation; all the relationshipsin the play are one-sided and unlikelyever to be resolved;art is shown as a distortingand deadening process. Frayn'sachievement has rightly been much admired, and is reproduced unaltered in this new Methuen Student Edition (which strangely omits Chekhov's subtitle for Chaika,'A Comedy in Four Acts'). Disappointingly, various misprints and minor errors remain uncorrected after sixteen years, including brother Georgi (for cousin, p. lxxx), Yavorkskaya (p. lxxxviii), nonetity (p. 28), ExitARKADINA intothehouse (forTRIGORIN, p. 33). The downtrodden Medvedenko requests only 'a horse', not 'any horses' (pp. 49, 51); Shamraev'swords 'kak-to' and 'zastrelil' mean 'once shot', not 'somehow managed to shoot' (p. 59). Frayn'stranslationcontains severalinfelicitiesand omissions, some of which are indicated in Nick Worrall'snotes, which thus servein partas a reasoned critiqueof the translation. Indeed, WVorrall's informative and well-informed commentary and notes provide the mainjustificationforpublishingand purchasingthis 'new' edition of an 'old' translation.In over fiftypages of commentary,Worralltacklesand illuminates such topics as Naturalism and Symbolism, the seagull and the enchanted lake, Konstantin's play-within-the-play,time and memory, youth and age, sleep and dream, art and life, love and destruction, comedy and tragedy. He also considerssome problems of translation,criticalperspectives and significantproductions. Perhaps inevitably, Worrall'svaluable commentary may offer too much material for the average student, but not enough for the Chekhov specialist. He seems undulyharshtowardsNina in Act IV (pp. xviii, xxvii, 8I). Errorsin transliterationincludeBezotsovshchina (p. v), 'bezpriutny'(p. xliv),'Alexsandrinsky ' (p. liv), serebriannyi (p. lxxvii), 'pazbit' (for 'razbit', p. 70), Otsy (p. 79), 'legomyslie'(p. 84). Frayn'stranslation'It'sliketalkingto the gatepost' (p. 52) rendersSorin'swords 'Kakoiupriamets',not Dorn's 'Etolegkomyslie'(p. 84). One assumesthat 'overweaning'(p. xxxvii) is merely a misspelling,and not a punning allusion to Arkadina'smaternal rejection of her infantile dependent soin. Bristol GORDON MCVAY Rizzi, D. and Shishkin, A. (eds). ViacheslavIvanov - novyematerialy.Archivo Russo-Italo, 3. Europa Orientalis, University of Salerno, Salerno, 2001. 574 PP. Illustrations. Notes. Indexes. Price unknown. THE modest concluding chapter of this impeccably indexed and annotated publication 'O rimskom archive Viach. Ivanova' (pp. 541-45) tells a story of devotion in the highest sense: not just of familial devotion to the memory of Viacheslav Ivanov through the difficult post-war years but also of a gentle determination not so much to promote as to share his heritage. Over the years 538 SEER, 8i, 3, 2003 Archivo Russo-Italo (RA) has been responsible for editing, assembling and publishing four volumes of Ivanov's collected works which included the hitherto unpublished epic Svetomir; it has encouraged and enabled the organizationof conferences, the production of monographsand memoirsand scholarly work on the publication of Ivanov's multilingual correspondence with distinguished European contemporaries, men and women who, in the twilightof Christian-humanistculturebetween the 19 I4- I8 and the I939-45 wars, drew strength and comfort from the quiet Russian 'professor's' unshakeableand carefullyreasoned belief in the abidingvalidityand value of theircommon heritage. The curiousthing about RA is that, from the dayswhen Ivanov's daughter Lidia, son Dmitrii, and friend and close cooperator Ol'ga Shor would extend a warm welcome to all those enquiring after the poet's heritage and Shor would, to the wonder even of her own household, extractrelevantdocuments from the domestic disorder of the family flat to the present admirably orderedand systematizedinternationalresearchcentre, the sharingprocessis not losingbut actuallygainingmomentum. The volume underreviewisample proof of the fecundityof RA'scooperation with the Russo-ItalianArchive and Europa Orientalis and two Russian colleagues, N. V. Kotrelev and L. N. Ivanova, frustratedby the non-availabilityto scholarsof the Ivanov holdings of the Russian State Library in Moscow ('it would be easier' they state roundly 'to work on his archive if it were in Polynesia'),warmly advocate the transferof the materialsnot to IRLi, from which their own publication is drawn, but to RA and to Dmitrii Viacheslavich (p. I7). Since writing this review, the Ivanov archivein Moscow has againbecome availableto...