Vytoki i hiniezis biełaruskaha ramantyzmu XIX stahodździa by K. I. Lećka (review)

Abstract

720 SEER, 82, 3, 2004 Lecka,K. I. Vytoki i hiniezis bietaruskaha ramantyzmu XIXstahodzdzia. Hrodzienski DziarzauinyUniviersitet, Hrodna, 2003. 37I pp. Notes. Bibliography. Priceunknown. THE Romantic movement, to whose originsthis monograph is devoted, came to Belarus at a time when the tsaristgovernment had placed an almost total ban on publishing in the Belarusian language. Thus, much of the material discussed was either in Polish or published clandestinely and/or outside the country. False places of publication and dating were common, as was the confiscation of literaryworks.Partlyfor this reason, BelarusianRomanticism has been relativelylittleresearchedhithertoand the word 'romantic'hasbeen more frequentlyused with reference to the end ratherthan the beginning of the nineteenth century. The same, of course, is not uncommon with writers like Gor'kiiand Korolenko in Russian literature,and is taken for granted in thediscussionofnineteenth-centurymusic.KsienafontLecka'scomprehensive study is the firstmonograph ever to be devoted to BelarusianRomanticism. As such, thisgroundbreakingworkis to be warmlywelcomed. Afteran Introductionoutliningearlierworkand the reasonsforthe subject's relative neglect, the book falls into six main parts: theoretical aspects and methodological principlesof studyingBelarusiannineteenth-centuryRomanticism ; the preconditions for the rise of the Romantic movement in Europe; the folkloricoriginsand birthof Belarusiannineteenth-centuryRomanticism; its religious sources; the roots of nineteenth-century Romanticism in Old Belarusianliterature;and the roots of Romanticism in Belarusianeighteenthcenturyliterature .Most interestingfor Westernreaders,undoubtedly,will be the thirdto the sixth sections. Of the latter, section three contains five subdivisions:the first shoots of Romantic thinking;popular fairytales;legends and stories;folkloricballads; and popular lyrical songs. The fourth section is divided in two: the biblical origins of BelarusianRomanticism and problems of theirreception in fiction; and Belarusianspiritualpoetry in the light of Romantic aestheticsand poetics. Section fivehas threeparts:generic Romantic tendencies;a typologicalaspect of Belarusianliteratureof the Middle Ages (eleventh-fifteenth centuries);and consonant Romantic moods in Belarusianliterature of the sixteenth-seventeenth centuries. The last section is divided in two: the baroque and the formation of Romantic aesthetics and poetics; and the Enlightenment as a genetic forerunnerof the Romantic movement in the nineteenth century. This is a densely written and very thoroughly researched study with a bibliography containing nearly six hundred items. Dr Lecka shows an extensive knowledge of Belarusian written folk materials, prose and verse alike, which he is able to bring to bear on the main nineteenth-century Belarusian literary texts (an ever-expanding corpus, due to the political conditions referredto at the startof this notice), and the book is all the more valuable for the quantityof hithertolittle-knownor lost texts that he bringsto his argument.The authoralso showsan easy command of religiousmaterials, from the Psalms, the Gospels and other books of the Bible to popular chapbooksand similarreligioustextswidespreadin the Belarusianterritories, particularlythose of the Suprasl'-Hrodna region during the eighteenth and REVIEWS 72I nineteenth centuries. The section on the Middle Ages is also rich in detailed examples, from the earliest sermons and other homiletic writings to the religious polemics which brought discord to this period but also produced a number of textsthat arefascinatingnot only as historicalevidence, but also as literature. This pioneering book makes a very considerable contribution to our knowledge of Belarusian literature of the Romantic period, and of the folkloric,religious and other sourcesfor it, as well as offeringa new typology of Slav Romanticism in general. The annotation is economical rather than optimally convenient, referringas it does to the items from the bibliography by number alone. This may partlybe due to constraintsof space, as also may the regrettable absence of an index. None the less, Dr Lecka must be congratulatedon a monographthatisbound to become a fundamentalsource for the furtherstudyof Belarusianliteraturein the nineteenth century. School ofSlavonic andEastEuropean Studies ARNOLD MCMILLIN University College London Knapp, L. and Mandelker, A. (eds). Approaches to TeachingTolstoy'sAnna Karenina'. Approaches to Teaching World Literature. The Modern LanguageAssociationofAmerica,New York,2003. ix + 226 pp. Illustrations . Figures.Tables. Notes. Bibliography.Index. $I8.50 (paperback). THIScollection of essays is the latest in a serieswhose stated aim is 'to collect [.. .] differentpoints of view on teaching a specificliterarywork [... .] widely taught at undergraduate level' (p. vii). The volume consists of twenty-six essayswritten by leading American specialistsin Russian literature,and was prepared by 'solicitingresponsesto a questionnairefrom facultymembers at various [North American] institutions'(p. ix). Since this questionnaireplayed such a significantpart in the book's...