REVIEWS 329 This concern is compounded by another problem: the approach used in relation to Pisarev'stexts and writingsby other authors is largely descriptive rather than analytical, and the potentially enlightening triple prism, of a textual analysis of an analysis of a text, remains unexplored. Frequently lengthy reports of the content of essays replace critical interrogation of the texts, and in the absence of textual analysis, the dependence on biographical proofs becomes all the more acute. However, as these are introduced on a somewhat insecurepremise, they are not sufficientin themselvesto sustainthe argument. This is a pity, as the focus on Pisarev'stexts this is by no means a biography, in spite of its preoccupation with biography invites an interestinginterdisciplinaryapproachcombining culturaland criticalanalysis, which in the end is not fulfilled. 7The NihilistImagination representsa sound and useful introduction for literary and social historians of the Russian radical intelligentsiaand Pisarev'swriting, but promises far more than it deliversfor studentsof literature. Department ofRussian andSlavonic Studies SARAH J. YOUNG University ofNottingham Wozniuk, Vladimir (ed., trans.). TheHeartofReality:EssaysonBeauty,Loveand EthicsbyV.S. Soloviev. University of Notre Dame Press,Notre Dame, IN, 2003. xviii + 244 pp. Appendices. Notes. Indexes. $45.00. IT is striking how many books and articles by the philosopher Vladimir Solov'ev are now becoming available in English translation either completely new translations, such as those by Boris Jakim and Vladimir Wozniuk, or newly reissued translations, such as those which appeared in Semyon Frank'sA Solovyov Anthology in I950 and were reissuedin 200I by the London-based Catholic publisherThe Saint Austin Press. TheHeartofRealityfollows an earlierbook of translations(New Haven, CT, 2000) by Wozniuk, which contains a representative sample of Solov'ev's writings on politics, law and Christianity. In the second volume Wozniuk bringstogether eight worksof varyinglength, including his TheMeaning ofLove (a work which was reissued by an Edinburgh-basedpublisher in I985, that being Thomas R. Beyer's revised version of Jane Marshall's translation of I945), Three Addresses in Memoiyof Dostoevsk,the essay Beautyin Natureand essays on Pushkin and Lermontov, each of which, in their day, struck Solov'ev'sreadersas unduly criticalandjudgmental. These last two essaysare offset by an extremely positive assessment of the moral stature of Adam Mickiewicz. Wozniukprovidesaveryilluminatingten-page Introductionand immensely informativenotes, which include the original Russian version, transliterated, of allpoems cited in the main body of the text. The book offersthe firstEnglish translation, as far as I am aware, of Three Addresses in Mernogy of Dostoevsky. Readers will see how Solov'ev sought, above all, to explain the nature of Dostoevskii's Christianvision; in effect, he endorsed and reinforced the then increasinglywidely accepted view of the novelist as a religious prophet. The addressescan also be seen as a cipher for Solov'ev'sunderstandingof his own 330 SEER, 82, 2, 2004 calling in Russian society, a point taken up in some detail by Marina Kostalevsky in her recent excellent book Dostoevsky and Soloviev:7The Art of Integral Vision (New Haven, CT, I997). For an understanding of Solov'ev's Christian-rooted aesthetics the essay BeautyinNature (i 889) is especially important. Solov'ev has long and quite misleadingly been saddledwith the image of a religiousphilosopherwholly immersed in contemplation of the Divine realm, a quasi-Gnosticscorningor, ignoring as far as possible, realities of the material world. His essay Beautyin Natureprovides a clear corrective to that image: with its detailed analysis employing specific visual and acoustic examples of aesthetically appealing phenomena in nature, this is manifestlya workwrittenby a Christianthinker who 'takes matter seriously'. In the choice of other writings on aesthetics Wozniuk has been very discerning, for the essays included in the collection show Solov'ev'sattitudeboth to utilitariantheoriesof art, so prominent in his day, and to argumentsin favourof 'artfor art'ssake'.His attitudetowardsthe latter arguments is far more critical than one might have expected to find (PP. 137 and 140). The three general essaysBeauty inArt,TheUniversal Meaning of Art and A First Steptowardsa PositiveAesthetic (of I889, I890 and I894 respectively)express many of Solov'ev's dominant preoccupations:the inner coherence or All-Unity of existence, the discrepancybetween 'that which is' and 'that which ought to be', human creativity, the transformative and essentially'prophetic'role of art. Even the subjectof historyis never farfrom Solov'ev...