Russian Diary Research Articles

Теодор Драйзер в Ленинграде. Новые материалы

Theodorе Dreiser was invited to the USSR to take part in the celebration of the tenth anniversary of the October Revolution. His visit to the Soviet Union that lasted over two months (November 4, 1926 — January 13, 1928) has been documented and studied quite well: Dreiser's Russian diary that he kept during his travel was published almost 30 years ago, and four years ago its Russian translation appeared. Another source is Ruth Epperson Kennell’s book Theodore Dreiser and the USSR. A First- Hand Chronicle (1969). A number of studies and scholarly publications are devoted to Dreiser’s trip; however, new materials and documents that contribute to more detailed reconstruction of Dreiser’s Russian journey still are being found in the archives. New documents from the funds of the All-Union Society for Cultural Relations with Foreign Countries (VOKS) that highlight Dreiser’s stay in Leningrad (November 26 — December 2, 1927) are published in the Addendum to the article: a report submitted to VOKS by Sergei Trivas, officer for Anglo-American countries, who accompanied Dreiser as a guide and interpreter, and a letter of gratitude from Dreiser to Nikolai Derzhavin, VOKS representative in Leningrad.

At the Onset of P.A. Sorokin’s Sociology Gaining International Recognition: Commentary on the Publication of his Correspondence with the Publisher G. Salomon-Delatour (1925–1932)

The published correspondence reveals the professional ties of the RussianAmerican sociologist P.A. Sorokin (1889–1968) and the German publisher and sociologist Salomon (1892–1964, Salomon-Delatour since 1947). It substantially complements the knowledge about Sorokin’s priorities in professional contacts and scientific interests. In addition to the most complete version of Sorokin’s article “Russian Sociology in the Twentieth Century” (1926), published in the Yearbook of Sociology released by Salomon, the accompanying correspondence introduces Sorokin’s plans to participate in the preparation of the German editions of the books Leaves from a Russian Diary (1924), The Sociology of Revolution (1925), Social Mobility (1925), Modern Sociological Theories (1928, the German edition came out in 1932), Principles of Rural and Urban Sociology (1929) and Readers on Rural Sociology (1930–1932). Sorokin’s plans and articles on the study of genius and leadership, the role of the intelligentsia in society, and issues of book review are discussed. The letters are a testament to Sorokin’s sociology starting to receive actual international recognition. The correspondence tells of the impact of the Great Depression (1929–1939) on sociologists’ contacts.

Birth of the Russian Patient: Somatic Modes of Attention and the Embodied Self in a Mid-Eighteenth-Century Russian Diary

Summary Research into the history of doctor–patient relations or into the sick person’s perspective on treatment and prophylaxis never ceases to enrich or even undermine existing theoretical approaches to the experience of illness. Ego-documents created by ‘sick-men’ in early modern Europe demonstrate complex patient behaviour that resembled neither the active ‘patient–consumer’ of the post-war period nor the ideal type of the passive ‘patient–sufferer’ of the nineteenth century. This article contributes to the scholarly discussion on illness experience, the history of the body and subjectivity by analysing unique eighteenth-century sources from the Russian archives. A comparative analysis of the self-account of a sick-person during the early period of the dissemination of learned medicine in imperial Russia reveals both expertise and personal reflection, and the role both ego-documents and printed calendars play in shaping self-observation skills.

Precepts of youth by Pitirim Sorokin. To the 100th anniversary of his speech at the solemn meeting on the day of the 103rd anniversary of St Petersburg University (February 21, 1922)

The article is devoted to the analysis of the text of P.A. Sorokin’s speech on the occasion of the 103rd anniversary of St Petersburg University on February 21, 1922, which at one time caused a wide resonance and discussion. The purpose of this article, firstly, is to recall this important event in the life of an outstanding social thinker and sociologist and the ideas that he expressed when addressing students. Secondly, to pay attention to the very contradictory history of his life and his personality. Sorokin himself attached great importance to his speech. In his speech, he expressed a sharp rejection of the events that took place in Russia in the 1920s and named the milestones that young people should follow. He developed the main ideas of this speech later in the book “Leaves from a Russian Diary” and in other works. It is noted that Sorokin’s political and ideological position was aggravated by his characterological traits — a commitment to prophecy, broadcasting and catastrophicity, which, as the researchers of his work pointed out, interfered with the impartiality of his ideas. The perception of speech by his colleague, a well-known lawyer, sociologist N.A.Gredeskul, is presented. The author of the article, one of those who took an active part in the “return” of Sorokin to his homeland, considers it necessary to seriously study not only his legacy, but also the dynamics of his worldview, value orientations at different stages of life, without criticism and idealization. It is shown that the content of the speech of P.A. Sorokin and his opponent N.A.Gredeskul has not lost its significance, since the issues discussed are extremely relevant both for modern youth and for our science.

«Дорогой ТД»: переписка Рут Эпперсон-Кеннел c Теодором Драйзером (1928-1929)

During his travel to the Soviet Union (November 4, 1927 — January 13, 1928) and on his return to the USA Theodore Dreiser was keeping in touch and dealing with Soviet literary institutions, periodicals and his Russian acquaints — publishers, editors, critics, etc. Ruth Epperson Kennell (1889 –1977) played an important role in making and maintaining these contacts in late 1920s-early 1930s. Ruth Kennell, who spent almost ten years in the Soviet Union, was a reference librarian (1925 –1927) in the Comintern Library in Moscow. On November 4, 1927 she got acquainted with Dreiser and was hired by him to serve as his secretary and guide as he toured the Soviet Union. Her role as a “Russian secretary”, personal assistant and friend is depicted in Dreiser’s Russian Diary and Kennell’s memoir Theodore Dreiser and the Soviet Union (1969) as well as in their correspondence that lasted till Dreiser’s death. Kennell continued to take part in Dreiser’s life and creative work in the USA, especially during the years that immediately followed their return from the USSR. The paper dwells at some length on Kennell’s biography, her role in publishing Dreiser’s work in the Soviet Union and USA, her work as an editor, critic and reviewer. Kennel had a long and varied writing career, and Dreiser helped her to start write and publish fiction. Their correspondence portrays Dreiser as a patron taking care of a young author and promoting her work. Kennell’s letters to Dreiser (1928 –1929) stored in the Manusсript Division of A.M. Gorky Institute of World Literature are published in the addendum together with the Russian translation of several Dreiser’s letters to Kennell included in Theodore Dreiser: Letters to Women. New Letters (2009).

АВТОГЕОГРАФИЯ ТЕОДОРА ДРАЙЗЕРА: ТРИ ТРАВЕЛОГА О ЧЕТЫРЕХ МИРАХ

The article provides a comparative analysis of the three travel books by Theodore Dreiser: A Traveler at Forty (1913), A Hoosier Holiday (1916), and Dreiser Looks at Russia (1928). The last one is also correlated with the publication of Theodore Dreiser’s Russian Diary by the University of Pennsylvania in 1996. The history of writing the book about the USSR and publishing it in Russia has been studied and commented on in sufficient detail by modern researchers. This article is the first attempt in literary criticism to compare the three books. The study presents not only a comparative but also a textual analysis of these travelogues, discovers patterns linking the books both chronologically and stylistically and turning them into a kind of autobiographical trilogy. For Dreiser, the study of three worlds (European, American and Soviet) is inseparable from the study of the fourth world – the world of his own consciousness. The analysis of the three travel books is provided in a biographical context, which allows a deeper and more thorough analysis of their factual and emotional content. The focus of the study is the problem of Theodore Dreiser’s self-identification as a writer and as American, which formed being influenced by travel impressions received during trips to European countries, including Germany – Dreiser’s historical homeland, America, including his native state Indiana, and across Soviet Russia on the eve of the so-called ‘great turning point’. Based on the study conducted, there are expressed some theoretical considerations regarding the interaction between the concepts of stereotype and reality in the space of literary text, and also the correlation between documentary and artistic principles in a travelogue. The article presents excerpts from A Traveler at Forty and A Hoosier Holiday translated into Russian. These travelogues have never been translated and published in Russia.

The Second Front: A Russian Diary

The Second Front: A Russian Diary

"Русский дневник" П. Паскаля: Война и революция глазами французского военного специалиста

Vladimir Babintzev, a professor at Ural Federal University, well-known for translating numerous French, scholarly works into Russian (Jacques Le Hoffe and Emmanuel Le Roi Ladurie among others), will offer a new translation. This new translation will be of a primary source, instead of a scholarly work: i.e., the 1st volume of Russian Diary written by Pierre Pascal, a member of French military mission in Russia during the First World War. In a talk with Konstantin Bugrov, a researcher in the laboratory for studying primary sources at Ural Federal University, Babintzev discusses different aspects of Pascal’s diary, the 1st volume of which covers years 1916 and 1917. What did Pierre Pascal think of war, discipline and revolution? What was his interest in religion and in the ‘mysterious Russian soul’: a riddle he sought to solve for 17 years, until he left the Soviet Union for France in 1933. And although he gained a reputation for being a ‘leftist’ in France, the 1st volume of his Russian Diary deals much more with religion and national identity. Indeed Vladimir Soloviev is mentioned much more often than Vladimir Lenin. All these aspects surely make this a pioneering translation of Pascal’s work, which will attract the interest of a broad range of Russian readers.

An Introduction to Jere Abbott's Russian Diary, 1927–1928

In 1978, in its seventh issue, October published the travel diaries written by Alfred H. Barr, Jr., who would go on to become the founding director of the Museum of Modern Art, during his two-month sojourn in Russia in 1927–28. They were accompanied by a note from Barr's wife, Margaret Scolari Barr, who had made the documents available, and an introduction written by Jere Abbott, an art historian and former director of the Smith College Museum of Art who had returned to his family's textile business in Maine. Abbott and Barr had made the journey together, traveling from London in October 1927 to Holland and Germany (including a four-day visit to the Bauhaus) and then, on Christmas Day 1927, over the border into Soviet Russia. Abbott, as Margaret Barr had noted, kept his own journal on the trip. Abbott's, if anything, was more detailed and expansive in documenting its author's observations and perceptions of Soviet cultural life at this pivotal moment; and his perspective offers both a complement and counterpoint to Barr's. Russia after the revolution was largely uncharted territory for Anglophone cultural commentary: This, in combination with the two men's deep interest in and knowledge of contemporary art, makes their journals rare documents of the Soviet cultural terrain in the late 1920s. We present Abbott's diaries here, thirty-five years after the publication of Barr's, with thanks to the generous cooperation of the Smith College Museum of Art, where they are now held.

Me, the Madman - Writing the Self in Russian Diary Fiction

The article discusses the evolution of diary fiction in Russian literature focussing on the “notes/diaries of madmen”. Madness is conceived here as a cultural construct which may be invested with different meanings and connotations in different contexts. The examination of varying manifestations of madness in Russian fictional diaries is connected to the investigation of diary fiction as a literary genre, concentrating on some typical characteristics ascribed to fictional diaries, such as the position of the narrator-protagonist towards his self-reflective writing, writing as a theme, and the role of the written word in the construction of the self. The paper provides also a brief typology of mad diarists by exemplifying the evolution of Russian diary fiction through five works representing different historical periods, namely Gogol'?????'s Zapiski sumassedsego, Dostoevskij's Zapiski iz podpol'ja, Venedikt Erofeev's Zapiski psichopata, Makanin's Andegraund, ili Geroj nasego vremeni, and Bujda's Scina. Sumassedsie zapiski o dejanijach Boziich, soversennych literaturnym zitelem po imeni Ju Ve. The types of “madness” the diarists exhibit imply changes in the meanings and functions embedded in the notion of insanity in literature from the 1830s to the beginning of the 21st century.

Dreiser's Russian diary

Dreiser's Russian diary

Russian Diary 1927-28

Russian Diary 1927-28

Journal de Russie d'Albert Thomas

Journal de Russie (April 22-June 19, 1917), by Albert Thomas, an unpublished document edited by I. Sinanoglou. Of the many Western socialist missions to Russia in spring 1917 that of Albert Thomas stands out as the most important. He combined extensive experience in the international socialist movement with a passionate zeal for the Allied cause. Endowed by his government with extraordinary powers to determine French policy in the new Russia, Thomas had also to convince the more sceptical Russian socialists that the cause of European socialism and democracy and the defence of revolutionary Russia's newly-won liberty could be promoted only by a vigorous military effort against the Central Powers. In his Russian diary, Thomas records his intimate contacts with the leaders of the Provisional Government and the Petrograd soviet. He attempted, without success, to convince his governement that the Allies would have to accept the revision of their war aims and participate in an international socialist conference in order to win revolutionary Russia to the cause of the Entente.

Our own Russian Diary

No calenders in Russia so we decided to make our own. This began as a rough, informal means 10 check the days, but as time passed this chart grew in importance, and we filled the days with small drawings characterizing the important happenings of the day. The “checking off” of another day became almost ceremonious toward the end of our visit. (See front cover)—R.P.

Our Own Russian Diary

Our Own Russian Diary

Taxonomy of Flowering Plants . C. L. Porter. Freeman, San Francisco, 1959. xii + 452 pp. Illus. $6.75.

<i>Taxonomy of Flowering Plants</i> . C. L. Porter. Freeman, San Francisco, 1959. xii + 452 pp. Illus. $6.75.

Russian Diary. Gaylord P. Harnwell. University of Pennsylvania Press, Philadelphia, 1959. 125 pp. Plates. $3.75.italic

<i>Russian Diary.</i> Gaylord P. Harnwell. University of Pennsylvania Press, Philadelphia, 1959. 125 pp. Plates. $3.75.italic

Russian Diary. Gaylord P. Harnwell. University of Pennsylvania Press, Philadelphia, 1959. 125 pp. Plates. $3.75.italic

<i>Russian Diary.</i> Gaylord P. Harnwell. University of Pennsylvania Press, Philadelphia, 1959. 125 pp. Plates. $3.75.italic

Further excerpts from a Russian diary

Sunday. We had a most amazing tour of the Kremlin today. None of our interpreters had ever been inside the Kremlin walls before, although it is possible to get tickets which allow Russians to go inside. But such tickets do not permit anyone into the buildings and rooms we visited. The normal visitor can only walk in certain places, and look inside the churches. We started our tour by entering the northeast gate under the famous clock tower, the Big Ben of Russia. We watched the changing of the guard at the Lenin-Stalin mausoleum at 10 AM and followed the men as they goose-stepped their way to the northeast gate of the Kremlin. We were taken to the large building where Lenin lived and worked. We passed down a long corridor, which reminded me of the corridor outside the Chiefs of Staff offices in the Pentagon Building. I translated one of the names on the impressive big doors as Mikoyan. We were surprised to find one of the offices open and noticed maps of Russia hanging on the wall. We soon found out, when we were taken inside, that this had been Lenin's private office where he did all his work. The office was arranged exactly as it was when he left. (He was sick for several months in 1923 and died in the spring of 1924.) This room is one of the sacred shrines of Communism and our interpreters were absolutely bug-eyed to find themselves there. Lenin worked at a small desk, sitting in a straight chair. The desk butted up against a felt covered table surrounded by large stuffed leather easy chairs. The table and chairs were for the visitors and government officials who came to talk with him. The room was roughly square and about twenty or twenty-five feet on a side. The wall behind Lenin's chair was covered with bookshelves which were filled with books in Russian, French, German, and English. Lenin read all these languages and was apparently a rather scholarly man. His private apartment, just down the hall, also was filled with books—the guide said there were 20 000 books in Lenin's private study and 2000 in his office. We walked around the room and examined the various objects on the tables. I had the feeling that Lenin might show up at any minute—the room was in such a natural state. There was a large oil painting of Karl Marx on the wall, facing Lenin as he sat at his desk. The maps had been marked by Lenin, and the calendars on the desk and on the wall were opened to a day in 1923.

Excerpts from a Russian diary

I left Los Angeles at midnight on Friday the 11th of May. I was the second through passenger by Scandinavian Airlines (SAS) over the polar route direct to Moscow. Murray Gell-Mann, who attended the conference, was the first such passenger and had his picture taken boarding the plane the day before. We first landed at Winnipeg and then flew over Hudson Bay and Baffin Island and landed in western Greenland, at South Stromfjord, just above the Arctic Circle. (From here on, I'll take it directly from my diary.)