MLR, 96. I, 200I MLR, 96. I, 200I Ruder notes Ivan Chukhin's 'meticulous attention to the details of the project' and that other memoirs have substantiated it. And then one begins to question whether she understandswhat she is saying or whether she is merely incompetent. If, as she acknowledges, Chukhin is so meticulous, how has he bypassed 'the cultural, literary, and manifestly historical issues that the Belomor construction projectraises'(p. 38)? Chukhin does indeed address these issues. This police lieutenant-colonel condemnsthe writersof the historyin no uncertainterms,accusingthem of'consciously pervertingthe truth'(p. 2I14).The writershave, he asserts,violated the traditionsof Russian literature. The whole tone of Chukhin's well-written book represents a prolonged rebuttalof Ruder's approach. Chukhin condemns Stalin, Stalinism,the OGPU/NKVD, the writersand the camp administration.As forthe much-vaunted perekovka, he can find no 'objective corroboration,since', as he puts it, 'the greater partof theprisonerswere not criminals,andneeded no reforging'(p. 21 ). Ruder is somewhat cavalierwith mere factsand accuracy. Forexample, she tells us that the OGPU was the forerunner of the KGB (the NKVD as was) and the KGB, contraryto what Ruder writes, no longer exists. It was replaced by the FSB. (Aphoto reproducedon page 33 shows the lettersNKVD on a barrack-roomdoor. What is quite likelythe firstletterof the OGPU acronymis visible aswell). On page 55 there is a reprint taken from the Belomor camp paper. Ruder tells us that the face on the frontpage is that of Yagoda.Beneath a caption 'Leninon Competition', there is a face with a suspiciousresemblanceto somebody called Lenin. Konstantin Simonov's TheLiving andtheDeadwas writtenbetween 1959and 196I, not 197I, and Days and Nights, though based on his experience as a war correspondent at Stalingrad,is not part of any Stalingradtrilogy.And why 'Konstantine' instead of 'Konstantin'? Ruder's translationsand transliterationsraise some ratherinteresting questions aboutaccuracyaswell. Zaitsyarehares,not rabbits;magistral istranslated,strangely, as magistrate, when it should be highway; trassais translatedas worksite,when it should be path, course or road; Put'v kazarmu, as 'The Road to Caserma', where kazarma should be correctlytranslatedas barracks;and kontslager' is a concentration camp, not a mere prison. Finally, one must note the recurring error of Ruder's taking'to beg a question' asbeing the same thing as 'to raisea question'.To beg the questionisto committhefallacyofpetitioprincipii, thefallacy,on which, appropriately enough, so many of Ruder'sargumentsand intellectualmasters,rest. By the end of this book, we are none the wiser as to the many new truthswhich shepromisesto reveal. Certainly,thereis no 'deeperunderstanding'.Stalin'swords, when seeing the Canal for the firsttime, sum this book up quite well: 'shallowand narrow'. Those who took part in propagandizing slave labour both in the Soviet Union and especially the West are guilty as charged. Nearly seventy years on, slavery is still slavery and all Ruder's prodigious and evasive talk about 'texts', 'employment', '(f)acts', '(hi)story'and 'contexts'cannot hide the brute,ugly facts. UNIVERSITY OF LEEDS N.J. ELLIS Boris Pasternak:a LiteraryBiography. By CHRISTOPHER BARNES. 2 vols. Cambridge, New York,and Melbourne: CambridgeUniversity Press. 1990-I998. Vol. II: I928-g96o. xviii + 491 pp. ?50. Afteran intervalof nine years,we arenow fortunateto have the concludingvolume of Christopher Barnes's monumental biography of Boris Pasternak (VolumeI, covering 1890-I928, was reviewedin 'CentennialPublicationson Pasternak',MLR, Ruder notes Ivan Chukhin's 'meticulous attention to the details of the project' and that other memoirs have substantiated it. And then one begins to question whether she understandswhat she is saying or whether she is merely incompetent. If, as she acknowledges, Chukhin is so meticulous, how has he bypassed 'the cultural, literary, and manifestly historical issues that the Belomor construction projectraises'(p. 38)? Chukhin does indeed address these issues. This police lieutenant-colonel condemnsthe writersof the historyin no uncertainterms,accusingthem of'consciously pervertingthe truth'(p. 2I14).The writershave, he asserts,violated the traditionsof Russian literature. The whole tone of Chukhin's well-written book represents a prolonged rebuttalof Ruder's approach. Chukhin condemns Stalin, Stalinism,the OGPU/NKVD, the writersand the camp administration.As forthe much-vaunted perekovka, he can find no 'objective corroboration,since', as he puts it, 'the greater partof theprisonerswere not criminals,andneeded no reforging'(p. 21 ). Ruder is somewhat...