REVIEWS I45 Shestov to the optimistic pragmatism of James's 'Will to believe' (Brian Horrowitz); of the exploitation of Jamesian ideas by Gor'kii and, more particularly,by Bogdanov in the exercise of 'god-building' (BarryP. Scherr); and of the revival of interest in post-Soviet Russia (Edith W. Clowes), on to David Joravsky's judicious afterword. Joravsky highlights two significant dismissalsof James, by Lenin in I908 and by Zenkovskiiin I948, the firstof which sets the patternfor Soviet rejectionof 'capitalistpragmatism'while the second warned against interpreting the Orthodox Christian teaching of 'activity in the world' 'in the spirit of that primitive pragmatism which has been expressed with such seductive naivete by William James' (p. 233). James's combination 'of psychological science and philosophical inquiry within the imagination of a romantic writer, each element of the complex union constantlychallenging and provokingthe other' (p. 226) was, nevertheless , tremendouslyappealingto thinkingRussiansof the late nineteenth/early twentieth centuries.Joravsky'safterwordfirmlyre-establishesthe connection with imaginativeliteratureat a time when the linkbetween suchliteratureand psychological science was at its closest and the one learned from the other:as, for example, James learned from Tolstoi and Dostoevski and Konevskoi and Viacheslav Ivanov learned from James. James's interest in psychic research and spiritismprovides a timely reminder of how 'normal', even 'advanced' the practice of seance and table-turning must have seemed to the likes of Valerli Briusov. Florenskii,familiarwith F. W. H. Myers rather than James from Lopatin'slectures at Moscow University, even feared back in 1904 that the State might 'impose' spiritismas a positivist surrogatefor religion, a new way of controllingmen's minds. Likeall good books, thisone leaves the readerhungryformore. There is no mention, for instance, of WilliamJames's brother, Henry. Was he, perhaps, little read in Russia -or is it that he might have merited a companion volume? Department ofRussian Studies AVRIL PYMAN University ofDurham Masalskis, Hans. Das Sprachgenie Georg Saunenein-Eine Biographie. Literaturund Medienwissenschaft, 88. Igel Verlag, Oldenburg, 2003. 448pp. Illustrations.Notes. ?24.00. IT is the phenomenal linguistic ability of Georg Sauerwein (I83 1-I904) that best establisheshis claim to fame, and it is not surprisingthat the author of this new biography has chosen to single it out in the title. He was sometimes described as a Mezzofanti, but his polyglot powers almost certainlyexceeded those of the eponymous cardinal. Nevertheless, he is not as well known as Mezzofanti and might be even lesswell known,were it not forhisworkamong the Prussian Lithuanians and his support for them in their resistance to Germanization. It was originally from this angle that Masalskisapproached his subject. In the parts of Lithuania Minor that in I923 were joined to the young Lithuanian state Sauerwein's name was revered. Masalskis,who was born in this area in I924, recalls that in 1931, to mark the centenary of I46 SEER, 84, I, 2006 Sauerwein'sbirth, a streetin Klaipeda (Memel)was named afterhim, only to be strippedof its name eight years later following the German reoccupation. In I945 Masalskisfound himself in West Germany and decided to settle in Hanover, which he knew to be Sauerwein's birthplace. As his interest in Sauerwein grew, he began to assemble the materials for a biography and to contact otherenthusiasts.He discoveredthat Sauerweinwas alsoremembered with affection among the Sorbs of Lusatia,whom he had also helped to resist Germanization, and in Norway, where he had lived for years and composed poetry in the dialect of Gudbrandsdal.Twenty-fivemilesfrom Hanover in the little town of Gronau, where Sauerwein had lived as a child and which he regardedas his home town, Masalskispersuadedthe directorof the municipal museum to establish a Sauerwein archive and in I990 Gronau held the first internationalSauerweinsymposium. Sauerweinwas not an academic linguist,though in his youth he came close to becoming one. His only publication that might be regardedeven remotely as a contribution to philology was his Pocket Dictionary oftheEnglishandTurkish Languages (London, i855). He enjoyed hobnobbing with linguistic scholars, however, and found a kindredspiritinJan Baudouin de Courtenay. Though they met only once (in I877), they corresponded for sixteen years and Sauerwein'smultilingualismwas the inspirationforone of Baudouin'sarticles. There is also a Britishangle to Sauerwein's story. Born in i 83I, he was a subject of King Wilhelm of Hanover...