Evgeny Dobrenko Research Articles

Poliuvannia na Val´dshnepa: Rozsekrechenyi Mykola Khvyl´ovyi (Hunting for "Woodcock": Mykola Khvyl´ovyi Declassified) (review)

Iurii Shapoval, ed., Poliuvannia na Val'dshnepa: Rozsekrechenyi Mykola Khvyl'ovyi (Hunting for Woodcock: Mykola Khvyl'ovyi Declassified), introduction and commentary by Iurii Shapoval and Volodymyr Panchenko. 295 pp. Includes DVD Tsar' i tab khytroshchiv (Tsar and Slave of Wiles). Kyiv: Tempora, 2009. ISBN-13 978-9668201851. The Ukrainian historian Iurii Shapoval's recent volume of previously unpublished documents from the archive of Ukraine's security service, the Sluzhba bezpeky Ukrainy (SBU), attests to the involvement of the secret police in the life of the Soviet Ukrainian writer and Communist Mykola Khvyl'ovyi (1893-1933). The volume includes the majority of documents from file S-183, the State Political Administration (GPU) file on Khvyl'ovyi kept in the archives since the 1930s. Shapoval has worked for a long time to gain access to this file, and the documents are well worth the wait. They both confirm and complicate our understanding of the relationship between artists and officialdom in the early Soviet period. Shapoval's introductory essay and commentary, however, present an analysis of this relationship that I would like in this review to contest. (1) Iurii Shapoval has written extensively on the mechanisms of Soviet rule in Ukraine and published numerous collections of archival documents. This particular volume is of especial value to researchers because it contains material not widely available elsewhere, either in Ukraine or in Russia. While only accessible to family members of the repressed in Russia (or those with privileged access), investigation files (sledstvennye dela) are, in general, open to researchers in Ukraine, whether at the SBU archive (including its local branches) or the central party archive in Kyiv. These files, however, begin only with an arrest warrant and include statements from the arrested, notice of sentencing, and, when applicable, documents on rehabilitation. Nowhere can one read the files that led to these files. The Khvyl'ovyi file is so valuable precisely because it constitutes that extraordinary pre-story: information gathered from local informers, internal memoranda, and other documents that could have led to the printing of an arrest warrant and opening of an investigation file. (2) Shapoval's contribution, then, differs from previous collections of documents relating to Soviet culture and Soviet artist-official relations. Andrei Artizov's and Oleg Naumov's volume of documents (translated and edited for the Annals of Communism series by Katerina Clark and Evgeny Dobrenko) illuminates the relationship between the Soviet party-state and the arts with memoranda and letters from the GPU-People's Commissariat of Internal Affairs (NKVD), the Central Committee, and Stalin himself in order to focus on the party-state's decision making in cultural policy. The file on Khvyl'ovyi, by contrast, illuminates less high-level decision making and more the world in which artists and officials lived and worked. (3) Although this volume centers on only one file, that file belonged to Mykola Khvyl'ovyi, a writer, card-carrying Communist, and figure central to the early years of Soviet Ukraine. Volodymyr Panchenko's background essay gives thorough biographical detail (46-79). Born Nikolai Fitilev in the Sumy region to a teacher's family, the future Mykola Khvyl'ovyi acquired a modicum of education and joined the Russian Imperial Army in 1914. He continued his military service during the Civil War, ended up in the Red Army (from 1917-18 his exact military affiliation is unknown), and found himself demobilized in Kharkiv in 1921. Within several years, he was the leading cultural figure in Soviet Ukraine thanks to his polemical pamphlets and personal magnetism that attracted other writers and party officials. The major cultural figures gathered at his apartment, the journals with which he was involved constituted the major publications, and everyone who was anyone was either his friend or his enemy. …

The Cambridge companion to twentieth-century Russian literature

Evgeny Dobrenko and Marina Balina, eds. The Cambridge Companion to TwentiethCentury Russian Literature. Cambridge Companions to Literature. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011. xxiv, 328 pp. Index. $29.99, paper.The Cambridge Companion to Twentieth-Century Russian Literature is a welcome new addition to Cambridge Companions to Literature series. For Evgeny Dobrenko (University of Sheffield) and Marina Balina (Illinois Wesley an University) this is yet another result of a fruitful long-term scholarly collaboration - they earlier co-edited Endquote: Sots-art Literature and Soviet Grand Style (2000) and Petrified Utopia: Happiness Soviet Style (2009). As editors rightly assert in their introductory article, the twentieth centuiy [in Russian histoiy] was an era of unprecedented, radical transformations - changes in social systems, political regimes, and economic structures (p. xxii). Any serious attempt to justly reflect even a fraction of what has happened in Russian literary process during that turbulent centuiy in a single- volume compendium would present, beyond doubt, challenges to any compiler. The experience and knowledge of many fine contributors to collection under review, however, seem to have made this near impossible task an obvious success.The Cambridge Companion to Twentieth-Century Russian Literature opens with a useful chronology, covering years 1893-2006. Since numerous attempts to succinctly present major hallmarks in evolution of Russian and Soviet literatures have been made in past, any observer will naturally pay more attention to latest additions in this chronological table. With this in mind, current reviewer found coverage of postSoviet literary histoiy extremely well-balanced and, at same time, nuanced enough: from year of establishment of leading journal New Literary Review ( 1 992) and publication of Vladimir Sorokin' s Roman (1994) authors' awareness extends to foundation of National Bestseller prize (2000) and attacks of pro-Putin youth group Moving Together against writers Sorokin and Pelevin two years later. In short, chronology offers a broad contextual picture of final decade of twentieth-century Russian literature and socio-political events around it.Fifteen chapters in this collection cover such diverse topics as poetry, prose, theatre, film, and literary policies and institutions in Russia and former Soviet Union. …

Stalinist Cinema and the Production of History: Museum of the Revolution by Evgeny Dobrenko, Sarah Young

Stalinist Cinema and the Production of History: Museum of the Revolution by Evgeny Dobrenko, Sarah Young

Becoming Mikhail Lermontov: The Ironies of Romantic Individualism in Nicholas I's Russia by David Powelstock (review)

REVIEWS 521 historiography (in the form of Leopold von Ranke) to 'Pushkin's openly experimental approach tohistorical writing, his catholic range of sources, and his interest inprivate as well as public dimension of thepast' (p. 122). Mikhail Gronas andWilliam Mills Todd III similarly contribute to the broadening of Pushkin's context by focusing on the 'sub-canonical' genres of letter-writing and literary criticism. In all these essays, Pushkin comes across neither as an unwilling victim of historical forces nor as a lonely genius single-handedly establishing the future course ofRussian letters; rather his agency isbased on a series of interventions in and negotiations with a rapidly evolving social milieu. The four chapters that form the companion's second part are devoted to 'The Pushkinian Tradition'. Perhaps taking a lead fromKahn's claim that 'arguably he became a truly popular writer only in the Soviet period' (p. 6), Pushkin ispresented in a variety of twentieth-century incarnations; by contrast, famous and formative reactions by such nineteenth-century figures as Dostoevskii, Grigor'ev or Pisarev are dealt with only in passing. Boris Gasparov's programmatic piece on 'Pushkin in Music' rightlyshuns discussion of adaptation in terms of fidelity,preferring to see how 'an inherent contradic tion exists between thewords and themusic' (p. 169) and thatmusic may illustratepoetry 'ifonly byway of a negative example' (p. 172). Robert Hughes's summary of Pushkin in the imagination ofRussian emigres between 1924 and 1937 portrays the poet in terms of prophecy and freedom, terms inherited from the Silver Age and in direct opposition to the Soviet canonization of him as a 'national' poet. The Soviet (and post-Soviet) context is examined by Stephanie Sandler (with specific reference to the cinematic tradition) and Evgeny Dobrenko. Where Sandler discusses a phenomenon shaped by 'confidence that an audience in Russia would know Pushkin's works well enough to catch both passing allusions and fully fledged allegory' (p. 188), Dobrenko records a welcome tradition of resistance to the Pushkin myth (as well as a series of more predictable responses, whether on the part of the Soviet state or the literary intelligentsia), beginning with the Futurists and finding a more recent expression in Siniavskii and the conceptualists. A brief appendix gives details of verse forms and mentions English-language respons es to Pushkin by John Stallworthy and Vikram Seth: it is perhaps a shame that the opportunity was not taken to examine traditions of reception in the English-speaking world given, say, issues of translation (particularly acute in the case of Pushkin's lyrics) and the interferingpresence of Chaikovskii's operas. However, this is a minor observation about a book that has been written and edited with rare coherence and intelligence. Wadham College,Oxford Philip Ross Bullock Powelstock, David. Becoming Mikhail Lermontov: The Ironies of Romantic Individual ismin Nicholas Fs Russia. Studies inRussian Literature and Theory. North western University Press, Evanston, IL, 2005. xii + 583 pp. Appendix. Notes. Indexes. $99.96. The trouble with the 'becoming' in this case is thatMikhail Lermontov only narrowly avoids becoming Professor Powelstock, such is the dense interpretive 522 SEER, 86, 3, JULY 2008 focus directed at his work. There is a relentless quality to the approach that virtually suffocates the life out of Lermontov and can leave a reader gasping. Not that this is an unscholarly or in any sense trivial study. It is erudite, well and profoundly researched, copiously annotated (no bibliography, alas), often illuminating and provocative, but themain obstacle to its effectiveness as a valuable contribution to an understanding of Lermontov is an academic pretentiousness manifest chiefly in excessive verbiage and occasional mind-numbing obscurity. On the whole, Lermontov's poetry, rather than his prose or dramaturgy, receives the fullest and most rewarding attention. If a reader can struggle through such lapidary statements as 'Inasmuch as Lermontov's Romantic individualism stakes the entire value ofmeaningful individual existence on this ontological tension between being and representation, it comes as no surprise that death should play such a prominent role in his heroic depictions' (p. 31; a mild instance, ithas tobe said, ofwhat is tobe encountered page afterpage), then the reader in question may be guided successfully through some of the early poems. The...

Evgeny Dobrenko. Aesthetics of Alienation: Reassessment of Early Soviet Cultural Theories. Translated by Jesse M. Savage. Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press, 2005. xviii, 152 pp. $79.95.

Evgeny Dobrenko. Aesthetics of Alienation: Reassessment of Early Soviet Cultural Theories. Translated by Jesse M. Savage. Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press, 2005. xviii, 152 pp. $79.95.

The Political Economy of Socialist Realism. By Evgeny Dobrenko. Trans. Jesse M. Savage. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2007. xi, 386 pp. Notes. Bibliography. Index. $65.00, hard bound.

The Political Economy of Socialist Realism. By Evgeny Dobrenko. Trans. Jesse M. Savage. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2007. xi, 386 pp. Notes. Bibliography. Index. $65.00, hard bound. - Volume 67 Issue 3

Soviet Culture and Power: A History in Documents, 1917-1953. Ed. Katerina Clark and Evgeny Dobrenko, with Andrei Artizov and Oleg Naumov. Documents translated from the Russian by Marian Schwartz. Annals of Communism Series. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2007. xxx, 545 pp. Notes. Glossary. Index. $55.00, hard bound.

Soviet Culture and Power: A History in Documents, 1917-1953. Ed. Katerina Clark and Evgeny Dobrenko, with Andrei Artizov and Oleg Naumov. Documents translated from the Russian by Marian Schwartz. Annals of Communism Series. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2007. xxx, 545 pp. Notes. Glossary. Index. $55.00, hard bound.

Aesthetics of Alienation: Reassessment of Early Soviet Cultural Theories by Evgeny Dobrenko

612 Reviews intentmay have a polemical element, but her writing and argumentation aremea sured and underpinned by a secure and detailed grasp of her material. This book is an important contribution toTsvetaeva studies, and its examination of an over looked aspect of thepoet's work should provoke many readers to return to the texts itdiscusses, open tonew insight and wary of categorical judgements. UNIVERSITY OF EXETER KATHARINE HODGSON Aesthetics ofAlienation: Reassessment ofEarly Soviet Cultural Theories. By EVGENY DOBRENKO. (Northwestern University Press Studies inRussian Literature and Theory) Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press. 2005. XX+I52 pp. $79.95. ISBN 978-0-8IOI-2025-9. Aesthetics ofAlienation is offered to the English-speaking audience as a sequel to Evgeny Dobrenko's two larger studies of early Soviet culture, The Making of the State Reader and TheMakingof theState Writer (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, I997, 2000). In the introduction the author himself describes the trajectory connecting his earlier work to this latest volume: after considering the formation of Socialist Realism firstfrom the side of the consumer, then from the side of the pro ducer, one more side remains to complete the triangle of the literary process. The 'missing link' is thatof literary theory and criticism,whose 'sociology' Dobrenko sets out toexplicate. 'Without it,the sociology of literaturecannot be considered complete: between thewriter and the reader exists amost significant cultural institution,which under Soviet conditions had itsown specifics. In fact, the idea for thisbook was born out of necessity to determine the social parameters of theaesthetic debates' (p. xiii). Neat as this sequential progression appears, Aesthetics ofAlienation stands as an odd piece among Dobrenko's publications. Those familiarwith theRussian textof TheMaking of the State Writer will realize immediately that theauthor's newest book is a translation of the long firstchapter of Formovka sovetskogopisatelia (Moscow: Akademicheskii proekt, I999). Excluded from the 2000 English edition, thischapter (originally entitled 'Utopii tvorchestva' [Utopias of creativity]) iswhat now appears as a separate volume under the title Aesthetics of Alienation. Since thebook will appeal toSlavists, some ofwhom are likely tobe familiarwith Formovka sovetskogopisatelia, it remains amystery why the text's actual origin isnever acknowledged. This oddity aside, thebook does hold as an independent, ifshort,monograph, struc tured in a logical and comprehensive way. Each of itsmain chapters examines one of themajor literary-artistic groupings of the I920S (Proletkult, RAPP, LEF, Pereval) and theirplatforms. In each, theauthor traces a development he considers essential for understanding post-Revolutionary culture and itskinship with theculture of Socialist Realism: the eclipse of the 'creative personality' and the freedoms traditionally asso ciated with artisticwork. Dobrenko sees thisprocess unfolding on twodistinct levels: the socio-political, where a new class of literaryproducers aspires to replace the old artistic intelligentsia; and the ideological, where thenew elites' claim tocultural hege mony iscodified inaesthetic theories and artistic projects. The relation between these two levels isnot unlike the relation between base and superstructure in the cliched Marxist scheme: primary and ultimately determinative is thepolitical struggle,while aesthetic thought does littlemore than justify and rationalize the base (sic) drive to power. Beneath the imaginative constructs and radical projections of thevarious liter ary theories,Dobrenko unveils a rather 'prosaic' predicament: theirauthors' inability tocompete with theclassics, the subconsciously feltimpotence when confronted with the traditional norms of artistic value. This impotence comes first,and only then, as a sort of defence mechanism against it, there appear Proletkult's projects forcollective MLR, I02.2, 2007 6I3 writing, the 'life-building' of LEF, RAPP's imperative of 'restraint', etc. Dobrenko asks again and again thatwe look past the utopian content of these ideas and see, instead, theirquite pragmatic function: to rewrite the rules of artistic practice, so that theybe advantageous to the class of lumpen-literati promoted by theRevolution. Dobrenko navigates effortlessly through thevarious currents of cultural theory of the I920S, tracing them to theirconfluence (and extinction) in the 'petrifiedutopia' Stalinist Socialist Realism. His knowledge of primary material is, as always, im pressive, ifoften counterbalanced by a penchant for quotations, whose frequency threatens the conceptual cohesion of thewhole. Conceptually, the study's main vul nerability is its adherence to pre-critical convictions about 'genuine' art-the tacit background against which the 'ersatz art' of theproletarian writers and the...

The Landscape of Stalinism: The Art of Ideology of Soviet Space ed. by Evgeny Dobrenko, Eric Naiman (review)

541 Ab Imperio, 3/2006 mism, the Russian Orthodox Church may still be able to creatively engage the realities of the post-imperial early twenty-first century. Not every aspect of religious life can be quantified. The children of pious professionals (and they do exist) in ten or twenty years’ time may well have an impact on church life far beyond their present numbers. The quality and quantity of publications on religion (Mitrokhin analyzes only those published directly by the Church) is greater than he suggests . And, depending on how it is handled, re-establishing communion with the Russian Orthodox Church Outside Russia may bring a breath of freer air to Moscow. Whichever course the Russian Orthodox Church chooses to follow, however, it should take a long look at the problems Mitrokhin describes. And anyone interested in the present and future of the Russian Orthodox Church should do the same. Serhy YEKELCHYK Evgeny Dobrenko and Eric Naiman (Eds.), The Landscape of Stalinism: The Art of Ideology of Soviet Space (Seattle, WA: University of Washington Press, 2003). xviii+315 pp., ill. Notes, Bibliography , Index. ISBN: 0-295-98333-7 (hardback edition). The authors and editors of this collection have taken an unorthodox approach to Stalinist culture. There is very little in the book on Socialist Realism, the Zhdanovshchina, or the close ideological supervision of the intelligentsia by Stalin and the party – topics the reader would expect to be covered here. Instead of taking this traditional route, Evgeny Dobrenko and Eric Naiman have brought together a collection of essays examining the notion of space in Stalinist culture, meaning both social and discursive space. There are many ways to approach the spatial dimension of Stalinism: as the actual physical transformation of nature in Stalin’s time, as the utilization of space in Stalinist art, and as the “imaginary geography” of socialism reflected in ideology, art, and everyday life. The authors are primarily concerned with art and ideology, but the reader soon realizes that these three notions of space are analytical categories that may be convenient for later researchers but 542 Рецензии/Reviews are barely distinguishable from each other in Stalinist culture. Portraying, imagining, and building socialism were all parts of the same highly ideological process. In the Introduction Naiman attempts to answer the question editors of all collections find challenging : what do the articles have in common? Certainly not a uniform theoretical or methodological approach , as would have been expected in Stalin’s time, but perhaps the overcoming of disciplinary boundaries and attention to the discursive production of space. Naiman finds a good term for this; he calls the essays “studies of ideological poetics” dealing with “ideology’s attempt to climb into another dimension and transcend the distinction between landscape and space” (P. xiii). Less successful, in my opinion, is the use of Bakhtin’s theory of “chronotope” (a concept of space common to a certain historical period) as a theoretical framework for the book. Only a minority of authors follow Naiman in evoking this theory, and those who do both understand it differently and have diverging opinions on its usefulness . A less fanciful theoretical model – that of relations between the center and the periphery as represented in Stalinist culture – would provide a common ground for most contributors, but the trouble is that they disagree in principle on what this relationship was. Naiman writes, “Nearly all the contributors emphasize the paradoxical centrality of the periphery in the Stalinist landscape” (P. xv), but I beg to differ.Yes, many authors do refer to the periphery’s importance in the imaginary landscape of Stalinism – importance as the center’s “other” or “clean slate” ideal for building the society of the future – yet the majority agrees that the “central” discursive position in Stalinist cultural geography clearly belongs to Moscow. Of course, it would have been surprising, indeed troubling, if the thirteen authors coming from diverse disciplines and living in different countries were to agree on a single theoretical model. The collection’s value lies precisely in the dissimilarity of methodological approaches and theoretical interpretations of the notion of space in Stalinist culture. I also see in a positive light the difficulties the editors apparently had in dividing...

Aesthetics of Alienation: Reassessment of Early Soviet Cultural Theories. By Evgeny Dobrenko. Trans. Jesse M. Savage. Studies in Russian Literature and Theory. Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 2005. xviii, 155 pp. Notes. Bibliography. Index. $79.95, hard bound.

Aesthetics of Alienation: Reassessment of Early Soviet Cultural Theories. By Evgeny Dobrenko. Trans. Jesse M. Savage. Studies in Russian Literature and Theory. Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 2005. xviii, 155 pp. Notes. Bibliography. Index. $79.95, hard bound. - Volume 65 Issue 3

Evgeny Dobrenko. The Making of the State Writer: Social and Aesthetic Origins of Soviet Literary Culture. Translated by Jesse M. Savage. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2001. xxi, 484 pp. $75.00.

Evgeny Dobrenko. The Making of the State Writer: Social and Aesthetic Origins of Soviet Literary Culture. Translated by Jesse M. Savage. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2001. xxi, 484 pp. $75.00.

Dodin and the Maly Drama Theatre: Process to Performance by Maria Shevtsova

920 Reviews In an excellent article on musical film comedies of the I930S, Evgeny Dobrenko explores comparable dynamics in the development of Soviet satirical comedy and of its implicit purpose to provide 'an image of what isannounced today by the state as being of "yesterday"'. Taking as his examples TheJolly Fellows (I 934), Volga- Volga ( 936), and A Musical Comedy (I940), Dobrenko shows exactly how, over this compressed time-span, Soviet citizens were enjoined through film to shift their loyalties (and musical abilities) from one genre to another, from anarchic jazz to once-vilified opera. On the topic of the anekdot, Milne's volume suggests apleasing internal progression (or regression) of its own. While Efim Kurganov's article on Gogol 'as a narrator of anecdotes' illustrates very vividly a cultural milieu where jokes were all in the telling, and still capable of causing a scandal, Seth Graham's analysis of the late Soviet anekdot evokes the jaded irony of the Brezhnev years and the spectre of 'postmodernism in one country' as a response to official discourse. Here, to judge from Seth's overview, joke-telling can begin to resemble a conceptualist novel by Vladimir Sorokin, with numbers and rituals threatening the domains of words and feelings. WOLFSON COLLEGE, OXFORD OLIVER READY Dodin and theMaly Drama Theatre: Process toPerformance. By MARIA SHEVTSOVA. London:Routledge. 2004. XiV+23Ipp. /75(pbk/25). ISBNO-4I5-3346i-6 (pbk 0-4 I 5-3 3462-4). In the era of Soviet state sponsorship, many theatre directors could not only hope for but actually achieve apermanent 'theatrical home' and a company of actors with whom to work consistently. Such ensemble companies were one of the greatest strengths of twentieth-century Russian theatre. Today the only truly viable one is the Maly Theatre of St Petersburg, directed by Lev Dodin, and this illuminating account is the first full-length study of their work. After a foreword and a preface, the book divides essentially into two sections. The first, Parts I and II (Chapters 1-5), deals directly with the work of the ensemble; the second, Part III (Chapters 6 and 7), with Dodin's work on opera. Though links are made where appropriate, each chapter is largely self-contained and there is no common pattern. The first traces the evolution of the company from i983 through the I99Os, describing Dodin's establishment of an acting school, and his determination, in a politically and financially turbulent new Russia, to secure a 'theatrical home'. Here and throughout Shevtsova points to the importance internationally of his work, noting that the sheer size of the company on tour contributes to the perception of its productions as epoch-making cultural events. But she also asserts correctly thatDodin often mirrors his milieu, and in this opening chapter firmly grounds the development of the company in a specifically Russian context. She discusses the impact on theatre of changing government policy, its new role in post-Soviet society, and the challenges it faces for financial survival. Chapter 2 discusses Dodin's working methods and how the ensemble functions. For him training and performing are not discrete activities; his actors move from his school into the company, where training isongoing through rehcarsal and pcrformancc. This continuity is essential to a theatre whose productions are the 'tip of the iceberg' of work that is researched, improvised, and created by its performers. Dodin uses various techniques but follows no explicit methodology in this process, the strands of which, applying her own terminology to his methods, Shevtsova clearly separates out. She discusses the necessity for the ensemble to develop a common language, and Dodin's principle that art and life are fused as an organic, collective, and holistic experience, but rightly rejects any 'New Ageism' in this; such a charge would be belied by the MLR, I0I.3, 2oo6 92I disciplined rigour of training, research, and rehearsals and the sheer brilliance of its results in performance. The three chapters of Part II consider specific productions: those adapted from prose, those of the student ensemble, and Dodin's fascinating interpretations of Chekhov. Not all are given equal weight, nor are they discussed in chronological order, and though Shevtsova offers plausible...

Russia's Dangerous Texts: Politics between the Lines by Kathleen s> Parthé (review)

126 SEER, 84, I, 2006 Carleton's insistence that we should allow for more 'latitude' in our considerationof thiswriteris refreshing. The articlesby Evgeny Dobrenko andJohn Dunn, in particular,revealthe benefit of broadening this study of Russian humour out from the restricted fieldof literature.Dobrenko givesavibrantaccount of theportrayalof musical heritage in Soviet musical comedies of the 1930s and 1940S. Employing 7The Jolly Fellows(I934), VolgaVolga (I938) and A MusicalStory (I940) as evidence, the article focuses on the changing 'image of the masses in the eyes of state power' (p. 13I) and revealshow, duringthisperiod, the classicwas integrated into high Soviet culture after silencing the former opposition. In the final article in the collection, Dunn uses examples of television comedy from KVN to Kalambur to argue that 'the most important distinctive feature of Russian TV humour is its political orientation and the major role played by satire' (P. I9I). This collection of essays constitutes a welcome addition to the body of critical writing on humour in Russian culture. Its extended historical focus and analysisof various means of culturalcommunication ensures that it will be of considerablevalue to a wide readership. Department ofRussian CLAIRE WHITEHEAD University ofStAndrews Parthe, Kathleen. Russia'sDangerousTexts. Politics Betweenthe Lines. Yale University Press, New Haven, CT and London, 2004. xix + 283 pp. Notes. Index. C27.50. THEauthor's stated aim in her present book is 'to furtherclarifythe writer/ statenexusby distillingthe most common assumptionsaboutthisrelationship, and then looking at it from new angles to see if this changes our sense of how the paradigm worked, what happened when it ceased to function, and what analysing all of this tells us about Russia and Russianness, past, present and future'(p. xvi). ProfessorParthethen offersten 'common beliefs' (p. 2) about the connection between literature and politics in Russia e.g. that 'i) Russiansreadmore than otherpeople', 'iv)in Russiapoets get shot and v) but manuscriptsdon't burn', and so on. She examines these notions against the broad backdropof Russian literatureand historyfrom Avvakumto Abramov and beyond, identifyingdangeroustexts that frequentlytakeon a paraliterary function in that their words become less important than the fact of their existence and the polemics they arouse: 'The drama of the text easily outweighed the drama in the text' (p. 53). She argues that the last genuinely 'dangeroustext from the past' (p. i86) is Solzhenitsyn's T7he Gulag Archipelago, as published in Russia in I990, characterizing it as part of the one-text phenomenon, wherebythe intelligentsiafindsitselfengaged in discussionsof a singleworkto the exclusion of all others(untilthe next one comes along). She feels that this one-text paradigm changes with the publication in Russia of Gulag,for by now Russian readers were spoilt for choice and Solzhenitsyn's monumental expose of Stalinism (and Leninism) produced 'relatively little effect'(p. i86). REVIEWS I27 The author is attempting a freshlook at the relationshipbetween literature and politics in Russia and the resultis a studythat is rewarding,well-written, uniformlylucid and at times even entertaining. Partheis at pains to point up the positive and aesthetic strengthsof the village prose writers,on whom she haswrittenauthorativelyand, asbest she can, to distancethem from the more unsavoury aspects of Russian nationalism. The passages on Abramov, Rasputin, Shukshin and Tendriakov arejudicious, while the examination of Russian chauvinismand russkost' is conducted with wit, if not a sortof chilling glee. With the break-up of the Soviet Union, the analysis of conservative literary commentators 'was at times a rather predictable exercise in blood typing, with Russian-Jewishwriters and critics inevitably failing the test of Russianness unless they made themselves useful by criticizing other Russian Jewish writers' (p. IO9). Then there is the delightful story of one Andrei Cherkashin, a war invalid, who spent forty years compiling a genealogy of Pushkin which took in a thousand years of Russian history and some five thousand names without noting a 'single "money-grubber, rogue, careerist, traitor, coward, scoundrel or libertine" in the lot' (p. iii). Contemporary writerssuch as Tolstaia and Voinovich were quick to offer a counterblastto the more ludicrousextremesof Russian chauvinism. Its qualities notwithstanding,one might have reservationsabout this book. Though we have a lot of contemporaryand near-contemporarymaterial, set skilfullyin the broad context of Russian literaryhistory, the analysis overall strikes one as old wine in new skins. Might...

Ideological Ballast and New Directions in Soviet History

Ideological Ballast and New Directions in Soviet History David L. Hoffmann (bio) While reading the preceding commentaries, I became aware that the commentators misunderstood the basic purpose of my article. I would like to take this opportunity not to refute their statements or engage in polemics but rather to clarify the article's purpose and suggest a more productive approach to the study of Soviet history. My intention was not to argue whether or not the Soviet system was "socialist." Such an assessment would depend on one's definition of socialism; and as I pointed out, there have been other socialist projects that bore little resemblance to the Soviet system. (I certainly do not believe that, to quote Matthew Lenoe's attempt to paraphrase my argument, "if Stalin calls it socialism, it must be socialism" [725].) The purpose of my article was to re-examine one of the ways that Stalinism has been conceptualized and periodized—namely, that Stalinism (at least from 1934 on, according to Timasheff) marked a conscious ideological retreat by Soviet leaders. I rejected this view and argued that the striking changes in Stalinist culture of the mid-1930s resulted instead from Soviet leaders' proclamation at the 17th Party Congress that they had built socialism and reached a new stage in world history. Scholars may disagree as to whether or not Stalin and his fellow leaders actually believed their ideological proclamations, and it is on this point that the commentators and I differ. Evgeny Dobrenko states that "for the Bolsheviks, and above all for Stalin, ideology was only a tool" (675). Jeffrey Brooks asks skeptically, "did Stalin and his inner circle actually wish 'to transform human nature,' and if so, one may ask from what to what?" (718). Lenoe also doubts "the continued seriousness of the socialist project under Stalin" (726), in particular the Soviet authorities' commitment to the creation of the New Soviet Person. My research in former party archives has convinced me that Soviet leaders indeed took ideology seriously and that they endeavored, albeit unsuccessfully, to create the New Soviet Person—a person whose values and ways of thinking were to be qualitatively different from those who [End Page 731] lived under capitalism, a person free of egotism who was ready to sacrifice personal interests for the sake of the collective. To argue that ideology was more than a tool to Soviet leaders is not to pass judgment on whether the Soviet system was in any ideal sense "socialist." We may demonstrate that Soviet leaders' worldview was informed by Marxist-Leninist ideology; that their categories of class analysis derived from Marxism; and that their policies, from the collectivization of agriculture to the outlawing of free trade and the establishment of a state-run economy, were consciously anti-capitalist and yet still refrain from proclaiming the Soviet system "socialist." Depending on one's definition of socialism, one could just as easily see the Soviet system's inequality as evidence that it was not "socialist." In short, I believe that ideology is crucial to understanding Soviet leaders and their policies, but I do not feel a need to rehash Cold War debates over whether the Soviet system was in fact "socialist." A reconceptualization of Soviet history in the post-Cold War era requires that we move beyond debates that reified socialism. It also requires that we set aside models such as Timasheff's that portray Stalinism as a return to traditional Russian ways. The approach that I have proposed sees the Soviet system as one particular response to the ambitions and challenges of the modern era.1 In countries throughout modern Europe, political leaders and social reformers aspired to solve social problems and rationalize everyday life through the inculcation of new cultural norms. Soviet norms of efficiency, hygiene, sobriety, and literacy all reflected this more general ambition to establish a rationalized and aestheticized social order. Soviet norms regarding reproduction and the family similarly reflected the need of modern states to foster large, healthy populations for industrial labor and mass warfare. Stalinist culture also resembled the culture of other European states in the interwar period in that it incorporated elements of folklore and traditional symbols—not to revive...

The Making of the State Writer: Social and Aesthetic Origins of Soviet Literary Culture

Book Review| June 01 2004 The Making of the State Writer: Social and Aesthetic Origins of Soviet Literary Culture The Making of the State Writer: Social and Aesthetic Origins of Soviet Literary Culture. By Evgeny Dobrenko. Translated by Jesse M. Savage. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2001. xxi + 484 pp. Wilson T. Bell; Wilson T. Bell Search for other works by this author on: This Site Google Thomas Lahusen Thomas Lahusen Search for other works by this author on: This Site Google Modern Language Quarterly (2004) 65 (2): 293–297. https://doi.org/10.1215/00267929-65-2-293 Cite Icon Cite Share Icon Share Facebook Twitter LinkedIn MailTo Permissions Search Site Citation Wilson T. Bell, Thomas Lahusen; The Making of the State Writer: Social and Aesthetic Origins of Soviet Literary Culture. Modern Language Quarterly 1 June 2004; 65 (2): 293–297. doi: https://doi.org/10.1215/00267929-65-2-293 Download citation file: Zotero Reference Manager EasyBib Bookends Mendeley Papers EndNote RefWorks BibTex toolbar search Search Dropdown Menu toolbar search search input Search input auto suggest filter your search Books & JournalsAll JournalsModern Language Quarterly Search Advanced Search The text of this article is only available as a PDF. © 2004 University of Washington2004 Article PDF first page preview Close Modal You do not currently have access to this content.

The Making of the State Writer: Social and Aesthetic Origins of Soviet Literary Culture. By Evgeny Dobrenko. Trans. Jesse M. Savage. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2001. xxi, 484 pp. Notes. Bibliography. Index. $75.00, hard bound.

The Making of the State Writer: Social and Aesthetic Origins of Soviet Literary Culture. By Evgeny Dobrenko. Trans. Jesse M. Savage. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2001. xxi, 484 pp. Notes. Bibliography. Index. $75.00, hard bound. - Volume 63 Issue 2

The Landscape of Stalinism: The Art and Ideology of Soviet Space. Ed. Evgeny Dobrenko and Eric Naiman. Studies in Modernity and National Identity. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2003. xxx, 315 pp. Notes. Index. Illustrations. Photographs. $50.00, hard bound.

The Landscape of Stalinism: The Art and Ideology of Soviet Space. Ed. Evgeny Dobrenko and Eric Naiman. Studies in Modernity and National Identity. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2003. xxx, 315 pp. Notes. Index. Illustrations. Photographs. $50.00, hard bound.

Sexualität und Emotionalität in der vor modernen Ehe by Rüdiger Schnell (review)

1072 Reviews that there is practically no reference to the huge?above all Western?literature on Eisenstein's film). Despite that, Perrie's book undoubtedly represents an important contribution to the growing area of research on the cultural history of the Stalin era. University of Nottingham Evgeny Dobrenko SexualitdtundEmotionalitdtin der vormodernenEhe. By Rudiger Schnell. Cologne: Bohlau. 2002. x + 595pp. ?59. ISBN 3-412-16001-6. This lengthy,richly informative, and impressive work contests the conventional view that before the eighteenth century love and marriage had little to do with each other. Schnell concedes that there are voices in the Middle Ages that categorically deny any such connection, but argues that it is wrong in principle to regard them as the only,or even the dominant, view in the Middle Ages. The subject of this book is therefore the presence of marital love before the modern period, and it polemicizes against the idea that the centuries before this were unrelievedly misogynous and misogamous. The author bases his argument almost entirely on pragmatic literature, devoting only his last chapter to what court literature of the twelfthand thirteenth centuries has to say. The opening chapter is a lengthy foundation for what follows. The author points out that marital affection could result from years of living together, so that love could arise in the course of marriage, which in itself qualifies any sweepingly negative view of medieval marriage. Especially valuable is what is said about the relationship of gender to nature and nurture, and, following this, the long critical survey of various positions adopted over the last fifty years on the question of sex and gender. Chapter 11deals with texts in which sex and marriage are treated in negative terms. In these texts (theological discourses) the body, equated with flesh, was seen as the site of sexual sinfulness, the loss of control by ratio over the body. In view of the recurrent equation of the body with woman (as opposed to that of the mind with man), the disobedience of the flesh could be seen, in a way repugnant to patriarchal society, as tantamount to the rule of woman over man. With Chapter 111we come to texts in which sympathy and friendly affection take the place of sexual love. The theological concept maritalis ajfectus therefore implies a moral disposition to help in all emergencies, a union of hearts for which Mary and Joseph act as a model and from which sexual longing is kept apart. Unlike the authors of vernacular literature, theologians for the most part saw no connection between loving feelings and sexuality (in drastic terms, why commit adultery if a wife was available?). One valuable collateral result of this chapter, however, is the suggestion that the doctrine of consensus prescribed by the Church from the twelfth century opened the door for the possibility of love in marriage. The argument changes tack in Chapter iv: texts which deal with emotional af? fection within the bonds of marriage. The wide range covered by marital amicitia in the Middle Ages suggests that, contrary to what has been long suggested, companionship in marriage was a reality long before the sixteenth century. To establish how faramicitia included emotional features, the semantics of this word, going back to Cicero , are studied; particular value attaches to the way in which this concept, originally denoting friendship among men, is applied to marriage (here Schnell could have derived assistance from Gerald A. Bond, The Loving Subject (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1995), not mentioned in his otherwise rich bibliography). Chapter v is concerned with the positive emotional dependence of a married couple on their sexual relationship, contradicting the opinion that,before 1600, love and sexu? ality were kept separate by theologians. This chapter argues its case by examples from theological texts, whereas the concluding chapter looks at earlier evidence in court MLRy 98.4, 2003 1073 narrative literature. Of interest is the suggestion that the theologians' secundae causae of marriage recur elsewhere as causae amoris, thus implying a possible combination of marriage with love. That this was feasible is seen as a concession by some clerics to the reality of laymen's experience. In Chapter vi Schnell confronts the question who...

Endquote: Sots-Art Literature and Soviet Grand Style by Marina s> Balina Nancy Condee , Evgeny Dobrenko (review)

REVIEWS 335 diasporic literature was being produced freely beyond the ethnic borders of the homeland, thus creating a dvokoliinyi protses ('two railsprocess').Ukrainian literature, therefore, possesses its own thematic and ideological dimensions. Drawing on a vast range of bibliographical sources, Lanovyk contributes an erudite and comprehensive study, covering in three chapters Tarnawsky's biography,poetry and prose. In spite of their delayed publication in Ukraine, these two volumes deserve the attention of Slavists,particularlythose dealing with Ukrainian studiesand literatureas well as comparativestudiesand diasporicliterature. Department ofModern Languages andCultural Studies M. I. SOROKA University ofAlberta Balina, Marina; Condee, Nancy, and Dobrenko, Evgeny (eds).Endquote. SotsArt Literature and SovietGrandStyle.Studies in Russian Literature and Theory. Northwestern University Press, Evanston, IL, 2000. XX+ 241 pp. Notes. Bibliographicalreferences.Illustrations.$24.95. SOTS-ART, lucidly described in Nancy Condee's Introduction, 'Sots-Art, Conceptualism, and Russian Postmodernism',as 'the mock use of the Soviet ideological cliches of mass culture' (p. vii), undoubtedly had 'a profound influence on contemporary Russian literature,figuringboth as distinct texts and as a range of citational devices within larger,more diverseworks'(p. vii). Also true, however, is that 'thisvolume offerslittle agreementon the historical or aesthetic boundaries of sots-art'(p. viii). This is, indeed, a strikingfeature of the variousarticles'approaches. The book is divided into three parts:'Sots-Art:Between Socialist Realism and Postmodernism';'Sots-Art and Poetry';and 'Sots-Artand Prose'. In the first, four articles tackle general aspects of sots-art: Mikhail Epstein's 'Postmodernism,Communism and Sots-Art'fallsinto twoparts,'Postmodernism and Communism' and 'Socialist Realism and Sots-Art'; in the first he offers a series of postmodern parametersof communism which, he considers could be describedas the communist elements of postmodernism,such as, for instance, the creation of hyperreality, determinism and reductionism, and ideological eclecticism. This strategylinked to the author's characteristically lucid style makes this a valuable contribution to our understanding of a complex phenomenon. Boris Groys's 'Text as a Ready-Made Object' is mainly concerned with Moscow conceptualism. Less illuminating, to the present reviewer at least, is Viktor Lettsev's 'The Reading, Understanding, and Discursive Genres of Conceptualism'which stressesthe reader'selement of choice in conceptualist texts. Finally, in the first section, Marina Balina's 'PlayingAbsolute Time: Chronotypes of Sots-Art'discussesmainly accelerating absolute time (Prigov)and the retardationof absolute time (Rubinshtein, Kibirov, Pelevin). Some of the writersdiscussedin Balina are also featuredin the four articles of PartTwo, 'Sots-Artand Poetry'.In the first,Evgeny Dobrenko, under the title 'Socialist Realism, a Postscriptum: Dmitrii Prigov and the Aesthetic Limits of Sots-Art', gives a well grounded assessment of Prigov as a 'classic' 336 SEER, 8o, 2, 2002 writer,no longerpartof the currentartisticprocess,who continues to produce texts at a phenomenal rate. GeraldJanecek writes interestinglyon the early conceptualism of Lev Rubinshtein's Programmes of Works. Another writerwho may be a classic outside the current mainstream is the subject of Gregory Freidin's'Transfigurationsof Kitsch Timur Kibirov's Sentiments, which he regardsas a farewellelegy for Soviet civilization.The lastarticlein thissection is Vitaly Chernetsky's'losif Vissarionovich Pushkin,or Sots-Artand the New Russian Poetry'. Here, as elsewhere in the volume, the abundant verse quotationslose considerablyin translation. Part Three, 'Sots-Art and Prose' begins with Mark Lipovetsky'salready familiar 'Vladimir Sorokin's "Theatre of Cruelty"', which begins with an attack on the views of other critics, including the use of the term postmodernism for sots-art by such 'postmodernist "gurus" as Boris Groys, Mikhail Epstein and Aleksandr Genis' (p. I67), noting that 'sots-artists themselves prefer to be regarded as conceptualists' (p. I67). Marina Kanevskayaanalysesa centralworkby a well-knowncomic writerin "'The Diary of a Writerfrom Teplyi Stan": TheBeautifulness ofLifeby Evgenii Popov'. Larisa Rudova offersa thoroughreadingof SashaSokolov'smostrecent (last?)novel, 'Reading Palisandria:Of Menippean Satire and Sots-Art', although this reviewer's name is misspelt on p. 21 I. The final article, by Gerald McCausland , 'Viktor Pelevin and the End of Sots-Art' is rather discursive and unfocused. Pelevin himself might well take it equitably, but a spurious bilingualtitle in the article, Chapaev andPustota, reflectsa more generallaxity. Forthe most part, however, thisis an enterprising,stimulatingand thought provoking book, particularly in its first two-thirds. In places it breaks new critical ground...

The Galosh and Other Stories by Mikhail s> Zoshchenko Jeremy Hicks (review)

332 SEER, 8o, 2, 2002 based.Certainly thebookconstitutes anexcellentintroduction to Zamiatin's novelandwillaidgreatlyinunderstanding oneofthemostcomplicated texts ofRussiantwentieth-century literature. University ofN\ottingham PETER CARTWRIGHT and EVGENY DOBRENKO Zoshchenko, Mikhail. TheGaloshand Other Stories. Translated and edited by Jeremy Hicks.Angel Books,London, 2000. 2I3 pp. Notes. Bibliography. Glossary.?9.95 (paperback). As any reader familiar with Mikhail Zoshchenko's works will remember, dialect, slang, and skazare all notable elements of the speech employed by characters in his texts. The substandardnarratorialspeech is a particularly important yet particularlydifficult aspect of the texts to convey. This figures as the primary challenge in producing a translation of Zoshchenko's short stories;in 7he Galosh andOther Stories, the most comprehensive arrayof these texts in English,Jeremy Hicks has conscientiously attempted to avoid the pitfalls of previous translators. Though Hicks's tendency towards late twentieth-centuryBritishslang (as he notes) might at times seem awkwardor unnaturalto a North American reader,his effortsatlanguage which is neither culturally nor temporally specific are generally successful; however, it is unlikelythatpermanency is a realisticgoal for any translation.Hicks identifies 'misconceived approaches to the language of Zoshchenko's narrator'as the most significantflawsin earliertranslations,explaining that the present-tense narration has, in past translation efforts, often led to reading some of the stories as slapstick(p. 20). On the other hand, this complicating quality gives Zoshchenko'stexts theirimmediacy. This book provides a much more thorough introduction to Zoshchenko's short storiesthan any previousedition;however, his workis stillnot as widely known outside the formerSoviet Union as within it. Comic shortstories,most of which were written in the I920S, comprise most of the chronologically arrangedvolume. Almost halfof the sixty-fivestoriesin thevolume have never before been translatedinto English. In his introduction to the volume, Hicks provides a social and literary backdropfor the texts and theirwry assessmentof Soviet life in the I920s and 1930S. Though critics of satire deemed it unnecessary after 'the Soviet state had set up the proper legal procedures for uncovering and eradicating social ills',Sovietcitizenssurelydisagreed:Zoshchenkomaintainedthata substantial amount of his source materialconsistedof newspaperarticlesand lettersfrom readers(p. 9). The volume's academic introductionand selected bibliographyindicate an orientation towardsthe specialistreader. However, the presence of a glossary seems to indicate accommodation of the non-specialistreader as well. At the end of the volume, a glossaryis provided, along with a list of source texts and suggestionsforfurtherreading.Though Zoshchenko'sprestigeand readership have increased in the post-Thaw period, there is a lack of contemporary translations of his work. This volume contributes material of interest to academics and recreationalreadersalike. Specialistswill be interestedto note REVIEWS 333 that the stories 'A Bathhouse' and 'A Dogged Sense of Smell' appear as translationsof the originaltextspublishedin Begemot and Smekhach respectively rather than the more common book-published versions. Hicks admits his subjectivity in the selection of variant source texts, which is of course the translator'sprerogative. 'Galosh' presumably has been selected as the title story because it exemplifiesthe tragicomicfrustrationsof Soviet life. That said, any numberof the storiesin the volume would have servedjust as well. As Hicks comments, the stories demonstrate 'one of the greatest feats of the peoples of the Soviet Union: their gallows humour, their laughterin the face of absurdityand evil. The tragedyof the Soviet Union has universalrepercussions,and itsportrayal as tragicomedyhas universalrelevance' (p. I8). A quality translation, of course, aims to preserve both meaning and style. In the past, attempting a Zoshchenko translation free of lost meaning or nuance often proved to be an exercise in futility. It is difficultto judge the durabilityof this volume, but as Hicks reminds us, 'Translationis always an attempt to minimize losses, and to fail better' (p. 22). Hicks should be commended for his efforts:he has produced translationsevokingearly Sovietera speech and Zoshchenko's verbal intricacies while resonating with the twenty-firstcenturyreader. School ofSlavonic andEastEuropean Studies ELIZABETH SKOMP University College London Tarnawsky,Ostap. Vidome ipozavidome. Ukrainskamoderna literatura.Chas, Kyiv, I999. 584 pp. Notes. Index. Priceunknown. Lanovyk, Zoriana. OstapTarnawsky. Missionar, L'viv, I998. I8o pp. Illustrations . Notes. Bibliography.Price unknown. OSTAP TARNAWSKY (I9 I7-I 992) belongs to the category of writerswho, due to the expansion of the Soviet totalitarian regime, was forced to leave his homeland in WesternUkraine duringWorldWarII and emigrateto theWest. His tragedy, like that of the majority...