896 Reviews The afterword, 'Inscribing Otherness: Polish-American Writers after the Great Divide', is ambitious in its scope but rather superficial in its conceptualization of the emigre discourse. Gasyna's mechanical transfer of Edward Said's thoughts on Orientalism to the Polish-American scene is not convincing since from 1956 Poles (unlike Oriental intellectuals) spoke for themselves and their own culture through limited publications in English (the most prominent authors being Kridl, Milosz, Krzyzanowski, and Zamoyski). However, the richness of this afterword lies in the information it provides regarding emigre presses, publishers, on-line resources, pub? lications, and academic centres documenting Polish emigre culture and founded on the American continent. Overall, the volume presents a valuable source for students, scholars, and readers interested in (intellectual) emigration. It is a highly recommended addition to the reading lists for courses on Central and Eastern European culture. University of Glasgow Elwira M. Grossman Moscow and Petersburg: The City in Russian Culture. Ed. by Ian K. Lilly. Notting? ham: Astra Press. 2002. x+120 pp. ?16. ISBN 0-946134-67-7. The six essays ofthis volume explore the existing myths and representations ofthe two rival Russian capitals, Moscow and Petersburg. The firsttwo focus on Moscow and the Moscow text. In her essay 'Representing Moscow in 1812: Sentimentalist Echoes in Accounts of the Napoleonic Occupation', Sara Dickinson reconfirms the myth of Moscow as the centre of 'sincere, intimate and familial, patriarchal, comfortable' Russia in the light of Napoleon's attack on Moscow in 1812, drawing on a great variety of letters, poems, and prose of the period. Continuing the theme of Moscow as a warm and convivial place in his 'Female Sexuality in the Pre-Revolutionary "Moscow Text" of Russian Literature', Ian K. Lilly examines Moscow's 'femini? nity' in various literary sources. The metaphors of the fertile 'Mother Moscow' and 'the stay-at-home matron' are extended by the analysis of female characters, ranging from the bereaved bride to the femmefatale. Moscow's femininity comes out in contrast to the cult of the transvestite Ksenia Petrova in the Petersburg text, which is explored by George E. Munro in 'The Petersburg of Catherine II: Official Enlightenment versus Popular Cults'. The myth of the 'enlightened' capital is challenged by the fact that the city also became home to the self-castrators, skoptsy. In 'The Poetics of the Street in Blok and Guro' Milica Banjanin parallels the re? presentation of St Petersburg in Blok's poetry and Guro's poetic prose, observing a movement from the 'hazy symbolist vision of the street to the seemingly disjointed, fragmented world of the 20th century' (p. 66). In the following essay, ' "Looking Back in Extreme Anguish": St Petersburg in the Autobiographic and Collective Memory of the 1920s', Ekaterina Yudina investigates the portrayal of a 'death' of Petersburg in the refusal to admit to the changing reality in the 1920s. This anguished depiction of Petersburg is challenged by Emily Johnson's reading of Nikolay Antsiferov's in? terpretation of Petersburg as a symbol of 'eternal beauty' in the final contribution to the volume, 'Transcendence and the City: Nikolai Antsiferov's Dusha Peterburga as an Aesthetic Utopia'. University of Surrey Natalia Rulyova ...