Vjačeslav Ivanov: poesia e sacra scrittura. Europa Orientalis, 21, 2002, 1: 2 by Andrei Shishkin (review)

Abstract

748 SEER, 84, 4, 2006 sometimes ambiguous. By contrast,in tales about adult males the Baba Iaga is sometimes a helpful figure who mediates between the hero and a female figure,but the adult female,just as in girls'tales, only encountersa villainous or ambiguous figure. The psychological analysis seeks to explain these differences by focusing on the features and actions of the various types of Baba laga in relation to these four kinds of character, relating them with considerablesuccess to gender expectations in traditionalpeasant society. Apart from a full bibliographythe book contains a valuable list of variants and Englishtranslationsof key texts. If it has problems,these are with exposition rather than argument. The need to locate a thesis firmly in a mass of informationand evidence does not alwaysmake for an easy read. In the first chapter the survey of current views does not guide the reader sufficiently, while in the main analysisof the roles of the Baba laga the readermay flounder in the detail of the variants. It is worth persisting,however, for this is a solid work of scholarship, yielding new insights (even to those sceptical of Freudianapproaches)and as such it is a valuablecontributionto the literature on that most grotesque and hideous of fairy tale witches, the Baba laga. School of Slavonic andEastEuropean Studies FAITH WIGZELL University College London Shishkin,Andrei (ed.) Vjaceslav Ivanov: poesiaesacrascrittura. Europa Orientalis, 2I, 2002, I: 2. Dipartimento di Studi Linguisticiet Letterari,UniversitAdi Salerno, Avellino, 2004. 413 and 398 pp. Illustrations.Tables. Notes. Appendices. Indices. Price unknown. THESE two volumes featurethe proceedings of the Eighth InternationalConference organized by the Viacheslav Ivanov Consortium,now sadly depleted by the loss not only of the last representativeof Ivanov'simmediatefamilybut of the author of the opening articleof Volume One, Sergei Averintsev.Based largelyon archivalresearchin St Petersburg,Moscow, Bakuand in the exceptionally reader-friendlyconditions of the last Ivanov home in Rome, the articlesrange over a wide spectrumof the poet's involvementwith European ChristianHumanism and with the Ur-text of the last two millenniumsof our culture, the Bible. It is impossible to do justice to all twenty-six individual authors, articles and publications. Since it is the reviewer's prime duty to inform readers of what may interest them in a compendium of this kind, I shall attempt to encapsulatethe content ratherthan the value of each contribution . It should neverthelessbe clearlysaid that the standardis of the highest , the editing and polygraphyexcellent and that the two volumes contribute to our knowledge of Ivanov's relationshipwith the Roman Catholic Church and with contemporary Christianjournals as well as of his sources and his abilityto transformpagan myth and legend into Christianliteraryconstructs. The languages are Russian, Italian and English but for the sake of uniformityI have translatedthe titles of papers into English. Averintsev's'The strategyof quotationin ViacheslavIvanov'spoetry'demonstrates how Ivanov implements his holistic world view through the use REVIEWS 749 of traditionallyhallowed words and phrases in classical, pre-Christian and modern, secular contexts, obviating the need for discursive argument. The poet, Averintsevpoints out, uses his awarenessthat everythingworth saying has, in a sense, already been said to create an echo-chamber of reference which gives a positive sense of depths, thus avoiding the self-conscious intertextualityso often deployed by postmodernism. Ivan Golub's 'Holy Writ and Ivanov's poetry: man as the Image of God' stressesthe distinctionbetween Word and Language, the play of singularand plural in the biblical account of Creation and the importance, in a poetry focused on the divinization of Man and the Incarnation of God, of enracinement in mother-earthand mother-tongue. AndreiArkhipov,in 'ViacheslavIvanov as commentatorof the New Testament ;preliminarythoughts',presentsa clear and detailed account of Ivanov's commission from the Papal Institute for the Affairs of the Eastern Church (probablyhis most widely read, albeit anonymous work) and the differences between his commentary, that of his German model Konstantin Rosch and the I980 republicationrevisedby FatherAlexander Men'. Vincenzo Poggi's 'Ivanov in Rome' gives a full factual account of the Russianpoet's relationshipwith the PontificeInstituteOrientale (Russicum)in the years afterhis retirementfrom his teaching-postin the Collegio Borromeo in Pavia, when his advanced years and non-partystatusprevented a possible new appointmentat the Universityof Florence. Russicum not only employed Ivanov as part...