Vopreki vremeni: Izbrannye raboty by Lev Livshits (review)

Abstract

728 SEER, 79, 4, 200I ordertoconsolidate thethesis,thisconclusion becomesaratherunconvincing attemptto compensatefor a somewhatfeebleargumentation (e.g. 'thefact thatthesame(andmore)themesandsymbolsoccurtimeandtime[. ..] must surelyindicatetheoverwhelming importance ofthissubject totheplaywright', p. I85)Bythesametoken,theconclusion, meanttoestablish theauthor's key theme as universalin world literature,is more of a postscript;here an 'intertextual' surveyof the similarities betweenthe explorationof realityin Ostrovsky andinGogol'isatbestunderdeveloped. (Also,thevalueofreferring to thequasi-philosophical NorwegianauthorJosteinGaarderin thiscontext maybedoubted.) It seemstothepresentreviewer thatalthoughRahmansucceedsintracing thepervasiveness oftheelements onwhichshefocuses,shefailstodemonstrate fully'thecentrality ofthethemeof realityto Ostrovsky's works'(p.9),which is heraim.To equatethelocationof specific'reality-related' elementsin the textwiththewriter's ownconcernwiththenatureofreality(p. 67)appears to be oversimplified, as doesthe generalassertionthat'ifyou takea stepback fromthe"thereandthen"andremovethesocialandhistorical context;you are again left with a much more universalreadingof Ostrovsky's work' (p. 104). Thusuniversality mightjustaseasilybe readintosuchwell-known chroniclers ofso-called Russianness asSaltykov, Leskov, Mel'nikov-Pecherskii andChekhov. Ultimately,however, the question remainswhetherthe treatmentof Ostrovsky's unrecognized universality in theWestoughtto be givensucha strongvindicatory slant.Perhaps,on the contrary,an actualrecognitionof Ostrovsky's inaccessible other-/foreigness mightofferamoreinstructive startingpointthanto reiterate'thelastinglegacy'(p. I99) of hisplays,whetherread, studiedor performed.Implicitly,Rahman'sworkraisesimportantissues relatedto the translatability of Russianliterature,cultureor indeed, any cultureassuch. Department ofComparative Literature KNUT ANDREAS GRIMSTAD Norwegian Universitsy ofScience andTechnology Livshits,Lev. Vopreki vremeni. Izbrannye raboty. Zakat,Jerusalem and Khar'kov, I999. Photographs.Notes. Appendix. 400 pp. $28.oo. (Ordersto Tatyana Livshits-Azaz,6 Arazim str., PO Box 864, Mevaseret90805, Israel.) LEV IAKOVLEVICHLIVSHITS was a talented and original scholar whose career was cut short by his early death (in I965 at the age of forty-four)afterearlier disruptionby war and imprisonment -from I94I he served at the front, in 1950 during the 'rootless cosmopolitan' campaign he was given a ten-year sentence for 'anti-Soviet propaganda'. His academic life, as student and teacher, was spent at the University of Khar'kov. Vopreki vremeni, compiled by his daughter Tat'iana Livshits-Azazand one-time collaborator Boris Miliavskii , is a fitting tribute to his memory. The book contains a selection of Livshits'sworks:in pride of place his previously unpublished dissertationon Saltykov-Shchedrin's play Teni, written after his rehabilitation in 1954 (PP.IO-256), important archive-based articles on Babel' (notably Konarmiiia) REVIEWS 729 and the theatrical reviews (written under the name 'L. Zhadanov') which figured as evidence of his anti-sovietism in 1950. In an appendix there are memoirs of him by his daughter, contemporaries, colleagues, and students, and a photo-recordfromthe familyalbum.The whole presentsa livelypicture of a charismaticman and fine scholarwho did much and, had he lived longer, would certainlyhave achieved much more. Except forhis studyof Teni,all Livshits'swritingin thiscollection have been published before. A brief review of this major, unpublished work will be sufficientto indicate the criticalstrengthsof the author. Saltykov's'dramaticsatire'Teni was, likeLivshits'sstudyof it, firstpublished long after the author's death. Written in the early i 86os, it remained in manuscript (a completed first draft and a partial revision) until it was discovered and published by Kranikhfel'din 1914. It is set in St Petersburg around i86I-62 and concerns the fundamentally unchanging nature of the stateadministrationin the period of reform a recurringtheme in Saltykov's sketchesin the i 86os. Bobyrev,an idealisticyoung officialarrivesfrom service in the provinces expecting to servethe cause of reform,but findsthat the new 'liberalizing' bureaucrats are as corrupt and cynical as their predecessors ('shadows' of the past projected on to the present). Bobyrev's light-minded wife is seduced by Klaverov, his former school-fellow and a civil-service 'general': Bobyrev revolts and denounces Klaverov, but his revolt is only a drunkenaberration he makeshis peace and submitsto the existingorder. The basis of Livshits's critical method is 'factuality' (konkretika). He is concerned with the factsof historyand the factsof the text, and avoidswhat is unascertainable by factual reference (regrettable in one respect, since the question of the similarity of Saltykov's own situation disillusioned enlightened bureaucrat,flighty provincial wife to that of Bobyrev's is not explored). First, on the internal evidence of the text Livshits convincingly dates the two manuscriptsto I862-63 and I865. Then, using a broad range of contemporary sources (historical,journalistic, literary),he relates the play to the context of the period. In chapters 2-7 he surveys the general...