Iurii Lotman Research Articles

Dostoevsky by Richard s> Freeborn (review)

REVIEWS 945 Gogol"s longing for a lost harmony. As Holquist puts it: 'The tyranny of difference,the homesicknessthat covets a returnto an all-embracingoneness is the absolutehallmarknot only of Gogol"slife, but of hisworkaswell. There is an alienation built into the very poetics in which he chose his genres, since they all explore the very edges of the forms they purportto be' (pp. I 27-28). It is surelythis homesicknesswhich led to alienation, which led to a quest for wholeness, which constitutesboth the fascination (and modernity -or postmodernism !)of Gogol"swork, aswell as the painfullygrotesquetragedyof his last ten years, and his gruesome death. Also of profound interest, albeit for rather different reasons, is Iurii Lotman's'The TruthasLie', dictatedjust a month beforehe died. This begins and ends in arresting fashion. Its opening sentence is: 'Gogol was a liar' (p. 35), while Lotman concludes with his own last word: 'Gogol was actually not a writer, but a social thinker. He expected from his works by no means only literarysuccess, but, firstand foremost, the transformationof life; this is an essentialtraitof Russian literaturein general. Fromthe early Middle Ages to very recent times [the I99os: JA] the writer tacitly assumed that the transformationof life was the only justification for literary activity' (p. 53). These are weighty words indeed and, more broadly, this is a seriousvolume which deserves to take its place as an importantpoint of reference in Gogol' studies. School ofLanguages JOE ANDREW Keele University Freeborn,Richard.Dostoevsky. Life &Times. Haus Publishing,London, 2003. I64 pp. Illustrations.Notes. Chronology. FurtherReading. Index. ?8.99 (paperback). INDostoevskii studies the concept of 'life and works'has perhaps reached its climax inJoseph Frank'sfive-volumestudy.Although othershave compressed the genre into less space, Richard Freebornhas given us a concise, yet fully adequate account in, what (allowingfor inserts)must be, some one hundred pages. Dostoevskii's life in itself has the quality of a novel: overnight acclaim as genius; arrest and mock execution, followed by penal servitude in Siberia; epilepsy; wandering through Europe; uncontrollable gambling; and final apotheosis at the Pushkin celebrations at the end of his life. Freeborn sees many of these experiences as influencing the writing, and he follows more recent thinkingin suggestingthe death of Dostoevskii'sfather(ofwhich Freud made so much) not as murderby peasants, but a naturaldeath from epilepsy, thus opening up the possibilityof an inheritablecondition. A recurrent motif in Freeborn's critical approach to the writing is the concept of thematic anticipation. In the early story TheDouble(I846) he already sees two featuresthat will markout the later work:the chronological compression of events; and the 'scandal scene' (p. 26), whereas the postSiberian 7he Villageof Stepanchikovo and its Inhabitants (I859) prefigures the ideological interest and plot complexity of the later novels (p. 44). Although 946 SEER, 82, 4, 2004 notspecifically stated,thedivisionofhumanityinto'bulls'and'mice'(p.6o) by theheroofNotesfrom Underground (I 864)seemsto anticipate Raskolnikov's theoryin Crime and Punishment (i866).In Crime and Punishment itself,hepointsto Marmeladov's earlyexpressed viewofGod'suniversal forgiveness andclaims: 'theendingof thenovel,in termsof itsmoral,is anticipated on theveryfirst day'(p. 69).Moretraditionally, of course,artisticintentionsandprojections arederivedfromthewriter's letters,andwithrespectto themesin thenovel TheDevils(I871-72) Freeborn quotesat lengthfroman interesting letterto Apollon Maikov(pp.98-I oo). More controversially, however,given the story'sobviousretrospective idealism(eventhepossibility thatit is complete fiction),Freebornat the beginningof his studyhad identified'the finger coveredin soil' of the eponymouspeasantMarei with the beginningof Dostoevskii's philosophy of'thesoil'(pochvennichestvo) (p. I 3). Asisobvious,dueweightisgiventominorworksandshortstories.Indeed, Freeborn hashighpraiseforthenovellaTheEternal Husband (I870), whichin 'stylisticmaturity',he claims,outshineseven Turgenevand HenryJames (p. 94) high praise,indeed,froman acknowledged experton one and admirer ofboth. Of themajornovels,in TheIdiot (i868) epilepsyis seenas a metaphorfor thehero'sdestiny(p.89),andthereaderhasto accept,asDostoevskii insists, that the novel'smeaningis in the climax(p.86). Ratherdisappointingly, however, Freeborndemotes the strongpulse of humour in the novel to a mere vein of attractive whimsy (p. 9I), and it may be said as a general comment that this studybarely addresseshumour, although it is a characteristicfeature of almost all Dostoevskii'swriting. It is present, for example, throughoutthat otherwise grim novel TheDevils,which according to Freeborn 'can be said to contain some of the most brilliant scenes of quasi-philosophical dialogue Dostoevskiieverwrote' (p. I 02...

Gøgøl: Exploring Absence. Negativity in 19th-Century Russian Literature by Sven s> Spieker (review)

944 SEER, 82, 4, 2004 Spieker, Sven (ed.). Gogol:Exploring Absence. Negativity in igth-CentuyRussian Literature. Slavica, Bloomington, IN, 1999. 2 I6 Pp. Notes. Bibliography. Index. $24.95 (paperback). ALTHOUGH it is now more than a centuryand a half since the death of Nikolai Gogol', and despite the fact that there are innumerable works on the writer, his life, character, works and thoughts, he remains as much an enigma as when he died. The thirteenessaysin thepresentcollection focus on one aspect of hisbeing, his 'well-documentedobsessionwith absence' (p. 3),but they also shed much light on the writer'slife and worksmore generally. Sven Spieker's'Introduction'(playfullynumberedaschapter'Zero')clearly sets out his project, although it also leaves certain questions unanswered. According to Spieker, as well as to most of the contributorsto this volume, absence is one of the key motifs in Gogol"s life, work and thought. Spieker begins his Introduction by noting that 'for Gogol, "home" was essentially whereverhe was not' (p. 3). This sense of absence found many manifestations in his work, as is generally alreadywell known. Spiekerfurthernotes that the 'number zero and its symbol "o" perhaps best illustrate the way in which Gogol makes absence present' (p. 7), and the very title of the work, with its unusual presentation of the writer'ssurname, is a neat way of reflecting this theme. At the same time, it should also be noted that this Introduction also has its own absence, in that there is never any real explanation of the origins of the volume. A couple of the later essays have a note explaining that they were written especially for the volume, while others point out that there is a longer version available elsewhere. A number are translated, including that by Jurij Lotman, his essay being the last work he composed. In other words, the reader is never quite sure of the principles by which the volume is constituted. This is an importantquestion in a book like this as, all too often, collections allegedly gathered around a unifying theme seldom achieve their aspirations. In this case, Professor Spieker has done a good job of putting together a more orlesscoherentcollection of essays,many of which reflectthe arguments of others in the volume. The thirteen essays are by scholarsfrom a variety of countries.Those thataretranslatedrarelydisplayevidence of not havingbeen writtenin English.They are splitinto three main sections, 'The Un/Sayable', 'Emptiness/Plenitude' and 'Unexpressing'.Most are on general topics, while few areon specificworksby Gogol'.DeadSouls istheworkmost often discussed, while there is little on 7The Overcoat or on 'The St PetersburgStories' more generally.This seemsunfortunate,given thatthesefivetalesperhapssaymore about the absence of value than any of Gogol"sworks. Even so, the articles are of a uniformly high standardand the reader will gain many invaluableinsightsinto the 'enigmaof Gogol', althoughthevolume does not contain any major new revelations. Several of these pieces should, however, be considered major contributions to the field. Perhaps the best thing in the whole work is Michael Holquist's 'The Tyranny of Difference: Gogol and the Sacred', which is an excellent re-reading of the basis for Gogol"ssense of alienationfromthe world, and his consequent religiosity.For Holquist and, indeed, for others, the master concept is 'homesickness', REVIEWS 945 Gogol"s longing for a lost harmony. As Holquist puts it: 'The tyranny of difference,the homesicknessthat covets a returnto an all-embracingoneness is the absolutehallmarknot only of Gogol"slife, but of hisworkaswell. There is an alienation built into the very poetics in which he chose his genres, since they all explore the very edges of the forms they purportto be' (pp. I 27-28). It is surelythis homesicknesswhich led to alienation, which led to a quest for wholeness, which constitutesboth the fascination (and modernity -or postmodernism !)of Gogol"swork, aswell as the painfullygrotesquetragedyof his last ten years, and his gruesome death. Also of profound interest, albeit for rather different reasons, is Iurii Lotman's'The TruthasLie', dictatedjust a month beforehe died. This begins and ends in arresting fashion. Its opening sentence is: 'Gogol was a liar' (p. 35), while Lotman concludes with his own last word: 'Gogol was actually not a writer, but a social thinker. He expected from his works by no means...

The Structure of What is Beyond the Words: Musico-Poetic Analysis of the Fragment from <i>Scenes from a Novel</i>, op. 19 by György Kurtág

This paper focuses on one fragment from Kurtág's Scenes from a Novel, a vocal cycle for soprano and isntrumental ensemble set to poems by Rimma Dalos. The structuralist analytical method of Iurii Lotman, Russia's foremost semiotician, is used to examine Dalos's text. It considers the phonological, prosodi, graphic, lexical, and grammatical levls of poetic structure. The author examines both vertucal and horizontal dimensions of the musical structure, borrowing the “wedge” idea from Davis Lewin. The incorporate these approaches, this fragment is considered as an independent musical entity, an independent poetic entity, and finalyy as a synthetic musico-poetic symbiosis.

Ghosts in the machine

• This article examines how Russian television's recent assimilation of western genres to its own cultural paradigms has influenced the development of a post-Soviet identity. Informed by W.J.T. Mitchell's theory of the importance of word—image thresholds, and by Iurii Lotman's conception of intercultural dialogue, it is based on light entertainment broadcasts recorded over the period 1999—2001 on the NTV channel. It argues that Russia's traditionally dominant literary culture provides a `translation code' for its reception of western televisual texts and shapes its conceptions of `western-ness' and `New Russian-ness'. The article shows how the globalized imagery of the quiz-show and the talk-show are transformed into generic hybrids reliant on the narrativity and distancing capacities of verbal discourse, whose related capacity for reconciling mutually antagonistic meanings enables Russian television to negotiate between Soviet, pre-Soviet and western identities. •

Aleksandr I by Aleksandr Arkhangel'skii (review)

REVIEWS 753 recent decades: Mezin builds on the works of such as Lortholary and Mohrenschildt, and numerousRussian commentators. But the topic retainsa perennial fascination, and not just for France: hard on the heels of Mezin comes A. G. Cross's British counterpart, PetertheGreatThrough BritishEyes (Cambridge, 2000). Peter was particularlyimportant for eighteenth-century European debates on the natureof civilized society:togetherwith Henri IV of France, he became for many an icon of enlightened law-giving and government . With the FrenchRevolution, the rise of new values and a new military hero (Bonaparte),Peter's 'cult of personality' began to fade (the comparison with Stalin is one cited by Mezin, too, n. 107, p. 98) and in the nineteenth century Peter became if anything a symbol of Russian despotism. Mezin's book, a welcome addition to the production of Russian provincial presses which are becoming increasinglyimportant and accessible, divides his topic into six chapters. The story begins with Peter's I717 visit to France (chapter one) and the emergence of the Petrine theme in French public discourse (chapter two); chapters three and four deal with Voltaire'sdepictions of the tsar and the controversieswhich swirled around them. Chapters five and six treat the later eighteenth century and the 'Testament of Peter I' (the latter's entire text is presented, in Russian, pp. I57-62), and contemporary French historiesof Russia,principallythatof P.-Ch. Levesque.A two-page conclusion addresses briefly the significance for both French and Russian society of Frenchfascinationwith the Petrinetheme. Overall,Mezin adoptsan approach of hard-nosed empiricism;he places his charactersand theirworksin context and gives a measured summary and shrewd critical evaluation of their contents. He is well-read in the Western as well as the Russian literature, though not fully up to date with the former, and not afraid to contradict established authorities or to passjudgement on his principal characters, the philosophes their belief in progress, he remarkson p. 104, was like a naive religion, with saints (PeterI) and miracles (the creation of the 'new' Russia). He addressesboth familiarmajorfiguresand unexpected minor ones, though in the space available exhaustive coverage is not to be expected. Mezin's approach is somewhat old-fashioned, in some of the values espoused '[Levesque] sees the deep historical rightness of Peter I's foreign policy' (P. 194) and in its determined eschewing of theory. The preface offers a footnote reference to Lev Kopelev's recent discussionsof 'otherness',and the conclusion a gesture towards Iurii Lotman on the dialogue of cultures, but otherwise issues of national identity, culturaltransferor historicalperception are kept strictlyfactual.Altogether, nevertheless,this is a very usefuladdition to the literatureon a perenniallytopical and absorbingtheme. School ofSlavonic andEastEuropean Studies ROGER BARTLETT University College London Arkhangel'skii,Aleksandr. Aleksandr I. Izdatel'stvo Vagrius, Moscow, 2000. 508 pp. Notes. Illustrations.Bibliography.Index. I05 Roubles. THIs book is interesting as the first full-length biography to have been published in Russia since the collapse of the Soviet regime, indeed since the 754 SEER, 79, 4, 200I works of Grand Duke Nikolai Mikhailovich in the first decade of the last century. The author has consulted all the major studies of Alexandr I in Russian, and has carefully and objectively examined all the evidence he could find. However, his bibliography lists only three works published outside Russia (Gruinwald, Olivierand Paleologue)and no Englishsources.This isregrettable and representsan obvious weakness. Another is the author's somewhat turgid style. The book does not make entirely easy reading, but he has conscientiously attempted to deal as thoroughly as possible with the most enigmatic of all the tsars. His text is punctuated throughout by relevant quotations from official records dating from December 1777 to September I825 and these undoubtedly add to the value of this studyas a whole. More valuable still are the author'sanalysesof Alexandr'sreligiosity,his interestin the Bible Societies, and his relationswith leading dignitaries of the Church, particularly Mitropolit Serafim and Archbishop(then)Fotii.There is nothing startlinglynew here, but the author's detailed documentation is commendable. The role of Prince Golitsyn is investigatedwith equal care. The same can be said of the author'sexamination of all the other notables of the reign ranging from La Harpe to Speransky and Arakcheyev. His account...

Kritika. Dramaturgiia. Teatr. Iz dokladov, predstavlennykh na I-IV Chteniiakh molodykh uchenykh pamiati L. Ia. Livshitsa by E. A. Andrushchenko (review)

508 SEER, 79, 3, 200I Andrushchenko,E. A. (ed.). Kritika. Dramaturgiia. Teatr. Iz dokladov, predstavlennykhna I-IV Chteniiakh molodykh uchenykh pamiatiL. Ia. Livshitsa. Sbornik nauchnykhstatei.Viktoriia,Kharkov, I999. I50 pp. Priceunknown. THIS slim volume consists of fifteen short essays, three of which are in Ukrainian, and is divided into three sections Criticism, Dramaturgy, Theatre all dedicated to the memory of the literary and theatrical critic, Lev Iakovlevich Livshits (I920-I965). Rendered a permanent invalid as a resultof war service, Livshitswas rewardedwith a ten-yearprison sentence in 1950, rescindedin 1954, and spent the last ten yearsof his life teaching at the Universityof Kharkov.Here he establisheda reputationboth as a literaryand theatre critic, and achieved special distinction for his work on Babel' and Saltykov-Shchedrin. This collection is a heterogeneous one and, whilst it does contain an essay on Babel',it has nothing on Saltykov-Shchedrin.Rather,it runsa gamut from Iurii Lotman, Kornei Chukovskii, Andrei Bitov, Nikolai Grech and the Ukrainian theatre critic, Gnat Khotevich, to essays on the function of stage directions in contemporary drama, the influence of Schiller on the historical dramas of A. K. Tolstoi, the 'chuzhoe slovo' in losif Brodksii'splay Mramor, Vladimir Dal"s apparent obsession with Griboedov's Goreot uma,the early dramatic experiments of V. A. Zhukovskii,recent productions of Chekhov's Chaika, and problems of the actor's 'presence'as defined in the workof Gilles Deleuze. The volume is rounded off by two essays, in Ukrainian, on M. F. Sumtsovand Romain Rolland's People'sTheatre. The essay on Lotman considersthe morphology of the poetic text from the standpoint of semiotic theory in a style of limpid clarity which defines the verbal elements of a work as containing its 'genetic code' and supports its analysis with reference to works by Blok, Mandel'shtam, Tsvetaeva and Akhmatova. The essay on Chukovskiiconsiders him as a literaryportraitist with a giftforsynoptic 'caricature'(withoutderogatoryimplications)and cites his laconic and epitomizing characterizations of a whole range of Russian writersand artistsfrom Repin, Merezhkovskiiand Gippiusto Blok,Andreev, Tynianov and Maiakovskii. The piece on Bitov points to the significanceof 'metatekstual'nyidialog' in Pushkinskii dom,to its intertextualrelationshipwith Geroi nashego vremeni, and to parallels between Odoevtsev and Pechorin, Faina and Vera, Albina and PrincessMary. In her examination of the artisticworld of Babel"sKonarmiia, E. M. Sventsitskaiapointsto the self-conscioussenseof dramaand theatricality in many of the stories, in which the overall theme is seen to be 'the creative masteryof death and destruction,as a resultof which these become part of a total artisticunity'(pp. 45-46). The essay on Nikolai Grech homes in on his novel Chernaia zhenshchina and, whilst concluding that Grech does not belong to the highest ranks of nineteenth-centuryRussianwritersand acknowledgingthevalidityof Chernyshevskii 'sratherironic view of the novel, seeksto recuperatethe reputationof his contemporary, 0. I. Senkovskii,as a literarycritic of the firstorder. The essay on Schiller and A. K. Tolstoi is a reminder of how influentiala figure Schillerwas in nineteenth-centuryRussia andjust how widely he was read, as REVIEWS 509 is made clear by the number of times his work was re-issued in translation. The dramaswhich seem to have had the most powerful influence on Tolstoi are the two Wallenstein plays and ThePiccolomini. If the 'chuzhoe slovo' in Brodskii'splay, Mramor, is seen to be self-distorting and self-parodyingin the spiritof absurdisttheatre,V. I. Dal' appearsto have been haunted throughout his life by the words and phrases of Goreot uma, which are shown constantly to resurface in his fiction, in his collections of proverbsand in his four-volumedictionaryof the 'LivingRussian Language', published during the i86os. Zhukovskii's interest in eighteenth-century sentimental drama, Kotzebue, and Frenchneo-classicial drama (a good deal of which he translated)is shown to have influenced his own practice between I805 and I8ii, whilst his translation of Schiller's TheMaid of Orleans, it is suggested,paved the way forthe dramaticachievementsof Pushkin. The contributionon recent productions of Chekhov arguesthat the lyrical traditionof Soviet Chekhovhasbeen replacedby a postmodern,experimental approach in venues as disparate as Vologda, Riga and Magnitogorsk and with, on the face of it, extremely interesting results as these affect radically innovative re-interpretations,of Chaika in particular.Lastly, one of the most taxing, as well as...

Biology, Semiosis, and Cultural Difference in Lotman's Semiosphere

EN IURII LOTMAN, the leading figure of the Moscow-Tartu school of semiotics, assembled his Selected Essays shortly before he died in 1993, he opened the first volume with On the Semiosphere (O semiosfere, 1984).' This essay, which functions as a prolegomenon to the entire rich collection, and which has the most ambitious theoretical reach of anything he wrote, distills decades of his research on a wide variety of topics in literary and cultural theory, semiotics, and Russian literature and culture. It also makes several innovative moves to naturalize human culture by suggesting links and analogies to such scientific phenomena as biogeochemistry, the structure of the brain, and molecular symmetry. Lotman's aim is to propose a model of how culture works everywhere around the globe. The breadth, boldness, and eclecticism of Lotman's model are appealing. But closer scrutiny reveals that it needs to be refined or modified because a number of his central arguments appear to be flawed. In the first place, the link between biological and semiotic phenomena is undermined by fundamental differences between them. Second, despite the variety of issues over which Lotman casts his conceptual net, his understanding of culture and selfhood is predicated on a few basic assumptions. When these are considered from the perspective of the emerging discipline of cultural psychology, they reveal a specifically Western cultural

Iurii Lotman's Pushkiniana

Iurii Lotman authored nearly forty books and articles about Aleksandr Pushkin's works, life, and personality; there is little doubt, therefore, that the poet was central to Lotman's scholarly interests. Nonetheless, Lotman turned to Pushkin's legacy relatively late in his scholarly career: while his first article was published in 1949, his first article on Pushkin appeared only in 1960. Both Lotman's kandidatskaia and doktorskaia dissertations were devoted to far more marginal figures and issues of Russian literary development: the former to Aleksandr Radishchev and Nikolai Karamzin, and the latter to early nineteenth-century literature.

Emerald Thrones and Living Statues: Theater and Theatricality on the Russian Estate

From the reign of Catherine to the emancipation of 1861, serf theater, on estates and in provincial towns, was a major source of entertainment for rural Russia. Estate theater, moreover, markedly differentiated the Russian estate from its European model and, for that matter, from the plantation life of the American South. Large estates became famous for troupes of highly trained actors, musicians, and dancers, while even minor pomeshchiki prided themselves on being able to field a violinist or two for guests. Life on the estate also involved master and serf in theatrical rituals or elaborate displays. Some of these rituals were related to gentry hospitality, and thus might be considered an exaggerated form of the entertainment and display of wealth which was an important part of estate life elsewhere in Europe.1 But others took the form of overt role-playing for private ends: the estate owner masquerading as autocrat, or simply creating a fantasy world for his own pleasure. The theatrical continuum observable on the Russian estate encompassed serf theater performances, theatrical displays connected with hospitality, theatricality in the material culture of the estate, and the theatricalization or ritualization of private life. Iurii Lotman's important essays on the semiotics of Russian culture

Chernyshevsky and the Age of Realism: A Study in the Semiotics of Behavior (review)

Reviews433 from under feminism. A skeptical awareness of die historicity of "women" can prevent feminism from repeating, inadvertently, repressive definitions of that term. RUey gives us a timely reminder diat categories are notiiing more than diat: no-one is ever a name. Any experience ofbeing a gender as distinct from having a gender can only be intermittent. In her view such intermittence is merciful: if an aU-pervasive awareness of gender were possible, it would be unendurably daustrophobic. (Here RUey parts company with certain feminist celebrations of "being" a woman.) Yet RUey is nothing if not pragmatic, and she does not propose giving up strategic uses of die term "women": "I'd argue diat it is compatible to suggest that 'women' don't exist—whUe maintaining a politics of 'as if they existed'—since die world behaves as if they unambiguously did" (p. 1 12). RUey caUs for "speed, foxiness, versatUity" (p. 1 14) as feminist tactics. The wUy anti-essentialism RUey proposes can enliven not only feminism, but also critiques of masculinity and gay and lesbian studies—the entire field of gender dieories. Indeed, RUey's view ofgenderas necessarily fluctuatingand incoherent is the most valuable insight in her book. WhUe the first and final chapters, in which RUey oudines and consolidates her position, are effective, the three chapters that provide an historical survey do little more tiian iUustrate what the opening and closing chapters say. To have been more than mere exemplification, diose central chapters would have had to draw on a much wider range of discourses on "women." Nevertheless, "Am I That Name?" makes it impossible to take the term "women" for granted again. And diat alone is a remarkable feat of defamUiarization. University of Southern CaliforniaMichael du Plessis Chernyshevsky and tL· Age ofRealism: A Study in tL· Semiotics ofBehavior, by Irina Paperno; vi & 305 pp. Stanford : Stanford University Press, 1988, $35.00. As she teUs us in her introduction, Irina Paperno's point of departure for her treatment of What Is to Be Done? was from studies such as those by Lidia Ginzburg and Iurii Lotman in the semiotics of behavior: that is, attempts to elucidate aspects of human conduct, especiaUy in the area of culture, which are, so to speak, encoded in literary texts. However, as weU as considering the impact of Chernyshevsky's novel on human behavior—and it almost certainly qualifies as the most influential fictional work published in Russia in the whole 434Philosophy and Literature of the nineteendi century—she also examines the ways in which its audior's individual psychological experiences and reactions contributed to the composition and structure of his novel. Thus, in the first part of the book, she attempts to probe Chernyshevsky's psyche, mainly by using his diaries. In particular she analyzes his liaisons with women and his experiences (or, more precisely, "experiments") in marital relations , as he tried to apply the principle that men and women should interact on the basis of equality. Then, in the second part, she focuses her attention on the actual text of the novel, convincingly demonstrating that Chernyshevsky's scientific positivist message is actuaUy conveyed through a subtle and sometimes not-so-subtle use of Christian formulae. My initial impression of the book was less than favorable, especiaUy when confronted with the revelation (p. 3) that "Culture is the result of human activity"! But my doubts were quickly dispersed as I read on and, by the time I reached the thorough and penetrating analysis of the novel itself, I was acknowledging diat Professor Paperno had produced an outstanding piece of work. Soviet literary historians, impressed by Chernyshevsky's record as radical thinker and political martyr to die tsarist regime, have often been inclined to lavish unduly fulsome praise on WhatIs to BeDone?—its sociopolitical importance making them consciously or unconsciously close their eyes to its obvious weaknesses as a piece of fictional writing. Correspondingly, critics outside the Soviet Union, their attention generaUy focused on matters more aesthetic, have nearly always rated it very low on their scale ofliterary values. I recaU Ronald Hingley facetiously referring to it as the worst novel in the universe, while claiming to be the only human being who...

Semiotics in Russia

Judging from the publication within one year of the four books under review and of a special issue of Russian Literature devoted to Iurii Lotman (1977, no. 1), one is tempted to conclude that a phase has ended in the history of the Moscow-Tartu school of Russian semiotics. This impression is strengthened by the publication in Tartu during the previous year of an anthology concerning formalism in its widest sense1 and by the creation in Great Britain of the Neo-Formalist Circle. All of this would seem to indicate a certain consolidation. This impression is probably erroneous. The factors that have brought it about are not interdependent. Those who remain in the Soviet Union publish not less than before, and if no issue of Semeiotike has appeared since 1975 this probably is not for lack of copy.2 The publication of retrospective material has been a constant feature of the Semeiotike series. There is no doubt that the losses due to emigration (Segal, Piatigorskii, Ogibenin) have been considerable, the more so as the movement was very much a group, in the sense that mutual stimulation