Russian Titles Research Articles

AN ESSAY IN COMPARATIVE LITERARY ONOMASTICS BASED ON POLISH AND RUSSIAN BIBLIONYMS

The article deals with some Polish biblionyms which are translations of the titles of works of Russian and world fiction. The article also examines the Polish nominations of some characters of Russian and Western European literature. Polish biblionyms are compared with Russian originals and with equivalent Russian titles of works of foreign literature. The types of transformation that Russian original titles undergo when translating them into Polish, as well as the differences between Polish and Russian biblionyms, which are translations of the titles of the same works of foreign literature, are analyzed. Among the transformations extensions, transpositions, reductions, grammatical, derivational and syntactic transformations are distinguished. Several types of transformations can be represented in one Polish biblionym (for example, transposition and extension of the abbreviation into the phrase in the Polish translation of the title of I. Babel’s Конармия as Armia konna. Transformation may be due to the differences between the compared languages (for example, the usual, with some exeptions, postpositive place of the adjective attribute in Polish, in contrast to the Russian language, requires a transposition in Polish translations of such titles of A.S. Pushkin’s works as Медный всадник - Polish Jeździec miedziany, Каменный гость - Polish Gość kamienny, Пиковая дама - Polish Dama pikowa. The transformation may also depend on the intentions and preferences of the translator (in particular, the choice of one of the synonyms existing in the Polish language - cf. variants Dom z facjatą and Dom z attyką for the title of a story by A.P. Chekhov Дом с мезонином, or options Dół and Wykop for the title of A. Platonov’s work Котлован. In some cases, the Polish biblionyms reflect the translator’s desire to bring them closer to the title of the original (cf. the translation of A.P. Chekhov’s story title Мальчики as Malcy in the presence of a synonym chłopcy or the use of the Polish word identical to the Czech lexeme wojak and not żołnierz in the title of J. Hašek’s novel about the adventures of Schweik. The replacement of the title of the original or its transformation may be associated with the desire to reveal the content of the work (cf. the translation of the title of the play by A.N. Ostrovsky Доходное место as Łapownicy specifying the source of income for a number of characters - bribes) or give the biblionym a more generalized, symbolic character (cf. replacing the prepositional-case construction with the nominative case form in the title of A.P. Chekhov’s В овраге - Polish Wąwóz). Comparison of Polish biblionyms with Russian original and translated titles of literary works shows the need to compile a dictionary of similar biblionyms, focused on Russianspeaking students studying the Polish language.

Russian Publishing Abroad: The New York Public Library Collections in the Longer View

ABSTRACT From the early years of its existence the New York Public Library has systematically acquired Russian titles published outside of Russia. They first included works by Russian authors escaping czarist censorship but soon gave way to publications by authors who could not freely publish their works in the Soviet Union. Russian and other publishers operating outside of Russia/Soviet Union played a vital role in making these works available to a broader public.

RUSSIAN SCHOLARLY JOURNALS INTERNATIONALIZATION: A STRATEGY FOR INCREASING THEIR IMPORTANCE GLOBALLY

In this research we address the issue of Russian scholarly journals being almost isolated from the global research community. We have identified 2 conditions which seem alerting: (1) the authors who publish in Russian journals are mostly Russian and (2) papers in Russian sources are cited mostly by Russian authors. In this paper we provide justification for a more intensive integration of Russian titles into international research process and suggest the most obvious ways to make it happen.

Russian scientific journals in the era of open access to knowledge: problems of adaptation

The advancement of open access to scientific knowledge has become a determining strategy in the sphere of scientific communication. Open access implies, along with a free access to full-text information online, the creation of a legal basis for the results of research to be used fairly by all interested bodies. The Directory of Open Access Journals, DOAJ, as well as other similar institutions, carries the mission of providing and guaranteeing the quality of open access. Russian journals are increasingly become part of this project, which is considered to be a positive trend. Currently, about 163 Russian titles are listed in DOAJ. However, some journals face difficulties in bringing their publication standards in compliance with the DOAJ quality criteria, which has become a reason for suspending 15 Russian titles from this esteemed international database. This article investigates the process of open access advancement inRussia, in particular, the implementation of international quality standards in the sphere of Russian scientific periodicals. Main DOAJ acceptance criteria are analyzed, as well as those problems that Russian titles experience adapting to them.

Analysis and assessment of the thematic distribution of Russian medical journals in Scopus

Russian medical journals are presented in the Scopus database in a limited number, although demonstrating a significant increase over the past 2 years, featured about 70 journals at the end of 2017 (including those coming from Medline, which are not viewed as indexed by Scopus). This value cannot be considered representative of Russian medical science, particularly in comparison with the total number of medical journals and Russian journals of other subjects in Scopus. Therefore, it seems important to assess the possibility of expanding the presence of Russian medical titles in Scopus, as well as to understand which medical fields or areas are poorly represented or not covered by Russian journals. The Medical Section of the Association of Science Editors and Publishers (ASEP) is currently working to identify the most promising journals and help them to prepare for inclusion in Scopus. To this end, a preliminary selection out of 1000 journals was carried out to reveal 335 titles that, according to the authors, can be classified as major Russian medical scientific journals. These journals are either indexed in Scopus, or seen as good candidates for this database. Subsequently, the selected journals were analysed in terms of their subject classification according to the Scopus All Science Journal Classification Code List (ASJC). The key objectives were (1) to determine the subject classification of those Russian titles that, according to preliminary estimates, can meet the needs of Russian researchers in presenting their results in Scopus and (2) to identify those journals that can fill the gap of certain subject areas under represented by Russian journals. Our study has revealed that Russian titles are not distributed homogeneously among clinical, medical, biological and other related thematic areas. Among the 335 journals, 2/3 represent clinical medicine in 49 categories, with the remaining 82 categories accounting for 1/3 of the titles on related subjects. This data shows that publications on medicine in Russian journals are dispersed across various journals. Along with this, a significant part of related subject area journals is well-represented in Scopus. The journals selected as a result of the research were included in the preliminary list of titles considered as candidates for the State Support Programme that began in 2017.

Анализ переводов романа Дж. Остин "Sense and Sensibility" на русский язык

The purpose of the study is to analyze two Russian titles of J. Austen’s novel Sense and Sensibility translated by Irina G. Gurova (1988) and Alla Yu. Frolova (2013). The meanings of the lexemes sense and sensibility in English (in the 18–19th centuries and nowadays) are compared with the meanings of their corresponding translations in the modern Russian language. The most important meanings of the Russian lexemes are identified by using associative databases: Russian regional associative dictionary-thesaurus EVRAS (Institute of Linguistics, RAS) and Russian regional associative database SIBAS (Institute of Linguistics, RAS; Institute of Philology, SB RAS; Novosibirsk State University). In the conclusion «Разум и чувство» [razum i chuvstvo] (i.e. Reason and Feeling) by Alla Yu. Frolova is argued to be the best relevant translation of the novel title. The author of the article also suggests her own possible Russian versions of the novel title, not only taking into account the opposition of the rational and irrational components, but also reflecting the alliteration that takes place in the English original. The analysis is a part of a larger research based on studying the full-text versions of J. Austen’s novel Sense and Sensibility done by Russian and French translators.

Centaur: The Life and Art of Ernst Neizvestny by Albert s> Leong (review)

REVIEWS 735 works and historical events; abandoned projects and obscure and doubtful works;DSCH the composer's monogram, compositions based on DSCH by other hands and tributes; and finally, an (incomplete) index of Russian titles. The book concludes with indexes of names and compositions. The former is extremely extensive over IOOpages long which gives some indication of the scope of this impressivework. The incompleteness of the Russian titles is a pity, but, in a sense, not vital, since singers, for example, can find the Russian titles of individual items in Shostakovich's song cycles via Grove's Dictionagy or, indeed, the composer's collected works. The incomplete listing of recordings, on the other hand, is inevitable. It is, in fact, bound to be out of date before the book appears,but is valuable for the detail it offers.It mustbe hoped that the authorwill be able to supplyperiodical supplementarybooklets of revisionsand additionsfor many years to come. Derek Hulme's labour of love has turned into an essential reference work for scholars,publishers,performersand, of course, the ever growing number of concert goers whose love of Shostakovich's music goes beyond the superficial.Despite itsveryhigh price, thiscompendium deservesto be bought by libraries,both general and specialist. School ofSlavonic andEastEuropean Studies ARNOLD MCMILLIN University College London Leong, Albert. Centaur. TheLifeandArtofErnst J\/eizvestny. Rowman &Littlefield Publishers,Lanham, MD, and Oxford, 2002. xxi + 35I pp. Chronology. Illustrations.Notes. Bibliography.Index. ?30.95. ALBERT LEONG's biographyof the Soviet Union's most famousdissidentartist Ernst Neizvestnii is the product of ten years of research and constitutes the archetypallabour of love. His detailed, and highly documented account of the numerous twists and turns in Neizvestnii's long, complex and highly diverse artisticcareer to date offerssome fascinatinginsightsinto the problems faced by the monumental sculptor in the latter half of the twentieth century and beyond. It also highlights the political intrigues, cultural prejudices and bureaucraticobstacles that such an artistinevitably faces regardlessof which side of the Iron Curtainhe or she inhabits. Born in Sverdlovskin I 925, Neizvestnii was alreadya talented artistduring his childhood. Still in his teens at the outbreak of the Great Patriotic War, Neizvestnii volunteered for service and in I945 was near fatally wounded when hit by an exploding bullet. After the war the sculptor returned to his studies and, in the earlyyears of the Khrushchevian 'thaw', startedto build a reputation. It was Neizvestnii's encounter with Nikita Khrushchev at the infamous Manezh exhibition of December i962, resulting in the Soviet premier'sscatologicalattackon so-called 'modern'artiststhathas drawnmost attention to the sculptor. More interestingly, however, Leong also charts Neizvestnii's career after this infamous incident, drawing attention to the monumental commissions that the sculptorstill managed to gain even in the wake of this event. Moreover, he suggests the paucity of commissions that 736 SEER, 8i, 4, 2003 Neizvestnii wasableto gainintheWestafterhisexilefromtheSovietUnion in I976. Indeed,it was only afterhis returnto Russiain the dyingdaysof Gorbachev'sperestroika that Neizvestniiwas to returnonce more to the productionof monumentalsculpture.Finally,Leong offersa fascinating accountof Neizvestnii'sI99OS GulagTriangleproject,in whichmonuments to victimsof Stalin'sgulagsystemwereplannedforSverdlovsk, Vorkuta and Magadan. Theauthorendsonanup-beatnotewithNeizvestnii, theinveterate lostsoul evenhissurname, asLeongfrequently reminds us,istranslated as the 'unknown one' findingsolaceandfamilialcomfortin hislatteryears. Astheauthorconcludes,'theodysseyoftheRussiancentaurandhisquestfor theartoffreedomhavebeencompleted' (p. 286). ForLeong,the referenceto Neizvestniias a metaphorical centaur,halfman ,half-beast, underpinsa dualitythathe seesas simultaneously shaping Neizvestnii's personality andwork.The author,forexample,makesmuchof the sculptor'smixedfamilyroots 'In Neizvestnii'sveins also flow both RussianandTatarblood,andhe attributes hispowerfulconstitution to this geneticmix'(p. I5) andhisbirthin Sverdlovsk 'Abastionof diversity and freedom[. . .] wherethe culturesof Eastand Westmet' (p. I5). This dualityis then implied, throughoutthe text, as an explanationfor the complexitiesand contradictions that shapeNeizvestnii'scareer.The other implication hereis thatthe simultaneous deployment of abstractformswith highlyfigurativeelements,so typicalof many of Neizvestnii'sworks,are somehowthe productof thisculturalschizophrenia. At timesthisresultsin too much emphasisbeingplacedupon the individualartisticpersonaand perhapsnot enoughon the widersocio-historical and culturalfactorsthat contributed totheformation ofa style.Neizvestnii,afterall,wasoneofmany Sovietartists whoseworkstrovetochallenge theauthority ofSocialist Realism in the post-Stalinepoch. Similarlythe effectof Westernsupportfor Soviet dissidentartistsaspartof the ColdWarbattleforculturalsupremacy surely playeda biggerrolethanthisaccountcredits.In theend, however,thisis a biographical accountandassuchconforms tothefamiliar, thoughfrequently challenged,notionof individualgeniusovercomingalmostinsurmountable obstacles, including disdainfromaphilistine establishment, togainthecritical plauditsthatwere alwaysits due. The book is well illustrated, thoughthe captionsfail to offer importantinformationsuch as size, materialand whereabouts. However,Leongdoes includea usefuland extensivebibliography ,a listof...

Dmitri Shostakovich: A Catalogue, Bibliography and Discography by Derek C. s> Hulme (review)

734 SEER, 8i, 4, 2003 figures include Trigorin (still fishing) and the menacing entrepreneur, Lopakhin, imported from Vishnevyi sad. The mood of this atmospheric but forgettable play is appropriately wistful and trancelike, culminating in Konstantin'slittle stagerisinginto the air and flyingaway above the lake. Throughout her trilogy, Reza de Wet shows a sensitive awareness of the nuances of Chekhovian drama. However, her unfamiliaritywith the Russian language leads to such deformations as Masha Sergeyevna (pp. 35, 82) and even the mistakenMashaAndreyevna(pp. 34-36), NatashaIvanovna(pp. 55, 76-78), Sonya Alexandrevna (p. 97), Baryana (forBarynya, pp. 3I, 32), and Basmanyana (for Basmannaya, pp. 73, 8o, 87). Kulygin is variouslygiven as Koolyeegin (p. 17), Koolyghin (p. 27), Koolygin (p. 3i) and Koolyhegin (pp. 36, 37). Lopakhin(pp. I83, I94) appearsonce as Lophakin(p. I85), and Vanya should be Yelena (p. 124, line i). Among English errors, apostrophes are frequently misplaced, and some thirty other misprints include 'twelves' (p. g Chekhov wrote this of Act IV, not Act III), 'It'sis' (p. 22), 'There're are' (p. 33), 'completley' (p. 84), 'room' (for 'moon', p. i i8), 'powered' (for 'powdered',p. I92). While there is no intrinsicneed for any variationson Chekhov'splays, the Russian master's ardent admirers will doubtless proffer numerous further sequels. Bristol GORDON MCVAY Hulme, Derek C. DmitriShostakovich. A Catalogue, Bibliography andDiscography. Third edition. With an introduction by Irina Shostakovich. Scarecrow Press,Lanham, MD, 2002. XV+ 70I pp. Appendices. Indexes. $85.00. SHOSTAKOVICH'S continuing great popularityamplyjustifiesthe third and, as is suggested (p. xi), last edition of Derek Hulme's valuable compendium. The first edition of this important reference work appeared almost as a samizdat publication in I982 and was takenup by Oxford University Pressfora second edition in i99i. The presentpublicationdiffersfromitsimmediatepredecessor by very many changes, revisions and expansions, particularlyin the Recordings section. The dating of performances has been greatly improved, as has the cross-referencingbetween, for instance,worksand the suitesderived from them. Whilst almost all the changes are additions or corrections, changing technology and fashions are reflected in the deletion of a five-page list of cassettesof Shostakovich'smusic. The main bulk of the book comprises the Catalogue (pp. 9-482) which givesforeach of Shostakovich'sworkssome or allof the followinginformation: after the opus number and title, the work's form, date of composition, dedication, premieres, arrangements,music (thatis, manuscriptsand printed editions), durations, films, and recordings. The Bibliography is judiciously annotated, as is the interestingchronicle of BBC Broadcasts. There are seven appendices in all: collections of Shostakovich'smusic and addressesof music publishers;television and theatreproductions;information on the history of recording, four special USSR recordings, the composer on records, and samplersof Shostakovich'smusic;a chronological chart of main REVIEWS 735 works and historical events; abandoned projects and obscure and doubtful works;DSCH the composer's monogram, compositions based on DSCH by other hands and tributes; and finally, an (incomplete) index of Russian titles. The book concludes with indexes of names and compositions. The former is extremely extensive over IOOpages long which gives some indication of the scope of this impressivework. The incompleteness of the Russian titles is a pity, but, in a sense, not vital, since singers, for example, can find the Russian titles of individual items in Shostakovich's song cycles via Grove's Dictionagy or, indeed, the composer's collected works. The incomplete listing of recordings, on the other hand, is inevitable. It is, in fact, bound to be out of date before the book appears,but is valuable for the detail it offers.It mustbe hoped that the authorwill be able to supplyperiodical supplementarybooklets of revisionsand additionsfor many years to come. Derek Hulme's labour of love has turned into an essential reference work for scholars,publishers,performersand, of course, the ever growing number of concert goers whose love of Shostakovich's music goes beyond the superficial.Despite itsveryhigh price, thiscompendium deservesto be bought by libraries,both general and specialist. School ofSlavonic andEastEuropean Studies ARNOLD MCMILLIN University College London Leong, Albert. Centaur. TheLifeandArtofErnst J\/eizvestny. Rowman &Littlefield Publishers,Lanham, MD, and Oxford, 2002. xxi + 35I pp. Chronology. Illustrations.Notes. Bibliography.Index. ?30.95. ALBERT LEONG's biographyof the Soviet Union's most famousdissidentartist Ernst Neizvestnii is the product...

Seas, Cities and Dreams: The Paintings of Ivan Aivazovsky by Gianni Caffiero Ivan Samarine Ivan Aivazovsky (review)

548 SEER, 8i, 3, 2003 a bibliographywhich gives, where appropriate,the Russian titles followed by their Germanversions;and indexes of names and works. Although based mainly on previouslypublishedRussianmaterials,some of considerableantiquity,this is a timely and most welcome book. If the present reviewer may be allowed to make a practical suggestion to those not yet acquainted with the work of Aleksandr Lokshin, the Seventh Symphony (1972), incorporating settings of thirteenth-century Japanese poetry, is a characteristicand very rewardingexample of his music. Thanksare due to ErnstKuhn foranotherhighlyworthwhileinitiative,and congratulationsto both the editorsfor a fascinatingcompilation. School ofSlavonic andEastEuropeani Studies ARNOLD MCMILLIN UTniversity College London Caffiero, Gianni and Samarine, Ivan. Seas,CitiesandDreams. 7hePaintings of IvanAivazovsky. Alexandria Press, London, in association with Laurence King, 2000. 323 pp. Illustrations.SelectedBibliography.Notes. Appendices . Index. ?6o.oo. IN I833, the sixteen-year-oldartistIvan Aivazovskiitravelledfrom his native Crimea to St Petersburg to begin a six-year scholarship at the Imperial Academy of Arts.Just two years later, Nicholas I paid a thousand rubles for one of Aivazovskii'spaintings and ordered the young artistto accompany his son, Grand Duke Konstantin Nikolaevich, on naval exerciseswith the Baltic fleet.This imperialorderprovedseminal,launchingAivazovskiias a maritime painter xvhowould win commissions from Turkishsultansas well as Russian tsars. Seas,CitiesandDreamsis the first account in English of his remarkable career,tracingAivazovskii'sascent fromhis rootsin Theodosia to his position as a painter of international renown who himself hosted receptions for the familyof the tsar. Today, paintings by Aivazovskiiare subject to highly competitive bidding in WVestern auction houses, and Seas,CitiesandDreamsis clearly written with collectors' and dealers' interests in mind. It is a beautifullyproduced book, with over two hundred colour plates, many of them taking up a whole page. The text in comparison is relatively short and is divided into two parts, the firstof which focuses on Aivazovskii'slife, while the second consists of brief paragraphs under titles such as 'Shipwreck' and 'Blue Pictures' which introduceorganizationalcategoriesfor the plateswhich follow. The biographical section includes no detailed readings of the nature or impact of Aivazovskii'sart. Instead, possible influences on the artistand his method of working are discussedin two short chapters (five and seven pages respectively)on 'Originsof Aivazovsky'sArt'and 'Aivazovsky's Technique'. A short section on Aivazovskii'spatrons and the nature of his appeal is also set apartfromthe main body of the text, appearingin Appendix i. This structure gives the book a fragmented feel and involves a certain amount of repetitionl. Nor does it allow for detailed discussion of artistic concepts fundamental to an understanding of Aivazovskii's work, such as the picturesque and the sublime, or of the Orientalist debates surrounding Aivazovskii's rare paintings of genire REVIEWS 549 scenes in Constantinople, beautifullyreproduced on pages I84-85. There is, however, a brief but interesting section in Appendix i on 'Fakes' -a notorious problem surrounding Aivazovskii's work- which will engage collectorsand connoisseurs. The book's main strength is its inclusion of excerpts from the memoirs of Aivazovskii'sgrandson,'Fromthe FarDistant Past'.This primarysource,now in the hands of Aivazovskii'sgreat-great-grandsonin London, has never been published and is quoted from at length. It is particularly informative on Aivazovskii's final years in Theodosia, where his philanthropy and civic involvement played a major part in the development of the town. Such was his influence that, 'He was much feared in the town and when his coach with its pair of greysappeared in the street,a murmurwent around "Aivazovskyis coming", and everybodypulled themselvestogether' (p. 74). The manuscript came to London afterthe Revolution and has been inaccessibleto Soviet and Russian scholars, so its introduction here offers a vital new first-hand perspectiveon Aivazovskii'scareer. Sadly there is little mention of other key sources the extensive commentaries on Aivazovskiiin nineteenth-centuryperiodicals, for example, or the documents pertainingto his time at the ImperialAcademy of Arts.His remarkablecollaboration with the great Russian Realist Il'ia Repin on the painting Pushkin BidsFarewell totheBlackSeapasseswithout comment. There is also a notable absence of paintings from provincial Russian galleries, despite the inclusion in an appendix of Nikolai Barsamov's list of paintings by Aivazovskii in Soviet museums, first published in I962. While Barsamov's list includes 437 dated paintingsalone in dozens of Soviet museumsand galleries, the...

Chersonèse dans l’Antiquité tardive : état des recherches et bibliographie

The author of this paper, professor of Christian archaeology at the University of Warsaw, offers an updated survey of the late antique buildings of Chersonesus in the Crimea. After a quick history of the city from its origins up to the Middle Ages, she provides a detailed bibliography (Russian titles are transliterated into Latin character and translated into French) and a plan of each building.

The Constructivist Engaged Spectator: A Politics of Reception

As Edward Said has observed, culture is a potential battleground or where various political and ideological causes engage one another. 1 After the 1917 revolution in Russia, this battleground was literally found in the theater. The call to use the theater as a tool of political enlightenment and education for the new way of life is well-rehearsed, and can be traced in the pronouncements of both cultural activists and politicians such as Lunacharsk and Lenin, among others.2 What has been less explicated is the extent to which a seemingly abstract or nonobjective form of stage design, created by artists who initially had rejected the theater as another fine with little relevance to real life, did, in fact, carry social and political meaning, and did so in a manner which was destabilizing and subversive through its process more than its content. While we easily recognize as one goal of constructivist architecture the efficacious construction of forms for a new life, we less readily recognize the reciprocal thinking which shaped both constructivist stage design and architecture. The narratives of constructivism in theater and in architecture revolved around a narrative of the new human being in a new world, a narrative which ostensibly conformed to that of the state. But the constructivist narrative posits the new person as an individual, capable of participating in an individualized way in the process of change. This marks a significant departure from the soviet narrative of a new person who is interchangeable with the collective, a collective which serves as a metaphor for the monumentality of the state. Another discrepancy with the state narrative lies in the focus of change. Whereas the prevailing soviet narrative centralized the individual as this focus (if the individual equals the state, then changing the individual will change the state), the constructivist narrative, again in both theater and architecture, centralized the environment, believing that a new life would be learned in a new environment. Despite the overtones of Skinnerian psychology, the constructivist conceptualization of the human being was that of a person who would evaluate new models of living and, accordingly, remake the world through an act of will. To this end, architecture, as the material environment of real life, not only became the true material of the theater, but provided a metaphor for a new type of theatrical production: one which would actively engage the audience in the mental process of constructing The author has followed the Library of Congress transliteration system for Russian titles and names. She has also adhered to the tendency not to include the publisher's name for Russian sources, a tendency which presumably reflects the fact that publishing was a state enterprise. Generally, most books on Russian art have the imprint of Sovetskii Khudozhnik or Iskusstvo (Soviet Artist, Art) and technical/architectural books have that of Nauki (Sciences). Some publishers' names are the names of the city and the word for publisher truncated and attached to the city name. The term fond refers to a personal or organizational collection. Unless otherwise noted, all fonds were located in the Russian State Archives of Literature and Art (RGALI)

Jewish Stereotyping: Vasily Rozanov and Jewish Menace

Vasily Rozanov and Jewish Menace . Jewish Stereotyping: Vasily Rozanov and Jewish Menace Brian Horowitz Brian Horowitz is Assistant Professor ofRussian and Judaic Studies at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. He has recently published a book on Russian modernism, The Myth of A. S. Pushkin in Russia's Silver Age (Northwestern University Press) and is presently preparing a monograph on the Society for the Promotion of Culture among the Jews of Russia. 85 Vasily Vasily Rozanov (1856-1919) is unanimously considered one ofRussia's fmest prose writers of the modernist period. Author of twelve books, numerous essays, and countless newspaper articles, Rozanov was a religious thinker and social critic in addition to a creative writer. In addition to the many articles and books'in which the Jews appear in passing, Rozanov devoted five monographs and three articles exclusively to the subject of the Jews: "The Place of ChrIstianity in History" (1899), "The Ancient Jews' Feeling for the Sun and the Tree" (1903), "Judaism" (1903), Biblical Poetry (1912), Europe and the Jews (1912), Jehovah's Jewish Angel (The Sources o/Israel) (1914), The Jews' Sensual and Tactile Attitude toward Blood (1914), and Close to Sodom (1914).1 The large number of books and articles concerning the Jews reveals an excessive interest which challenges any critic attempting a comprehensive analysis ofhis work to treat the theme ofthe Jews with the same seriousness as did. Rozanov himself. As a critic of the "Jewish character," Rozanov occupies a place in intellectual history beside Fyodor Dostoevsky, Friedrich Nietzsche, and Otto Weininger. Just as did these others, Rozanov linked the Jews with the negative aspects of civilization: economic competition, concupiscence, and cosmopolitanism. If not for the Jews, these thinkers hold, there could arise an ideal community characterized by intellectual strength, physical health, and national purity. Imbibing the poisons of this antisemitic tradition, nevertheless Rozanov treated the Jews idiosyncratically in the context of his own literary interests. Encountering philosophical contradictions developing from his analysis of Christianity, artistic creativity, and the Russian character, Rozanov lAB translations are my own unless otherwise indicated. Russian titles: "Mesto khristianstva v istorii" (1899), "Chuvstvo solntsa i dereva u drevnikh evreev" (1903), "Iudaism" (1903), Bibleiskaia poeziia (1912), Evropa i Evrei (1912), Angel Iegovy u Evreev (istochniki Izrailia) (1914), Oboniatel'noe i osiazatel'noe otnoshenie evreev k krovi (1914), and Vsosedstve Sodoma (1914). 86 SHOFAR Fall 1997 Vol. 16, No.1 employed the Jews in the solution to these problems. Although he also ends up belligerently condemning the Jews, he is different from the others in that in his reflections on Russia and Russians he vigorously articulates (in accordance with his own thinking) the Jews' positive attributes. He presents a towering image of Jewish physical and spiritual strength which stimulates Rozanov's perspective on Russians. This study ofRozanov's antisemitism represents an attempt to resolve the enigma of what the Jews symbolize for him, since the answers offered so far have been unsatisfying.2 Although Rozanov was "remarkably contradictory," I maintain that beneath the overt confusion there is a single, constant paradigm. Rozanov uses the Jews as a foil for creating his philosophical ideas. In every case Rozanov defmes Christianity and the Russian Church, people, and state by making a contrast with the Jews. To put it in another way, Rozanov's philosophical thinking cannot be viewed in absolute terms, but always comparatively; it emerges in opposition to a Jewish "Other." Furthermore, I intend to demonstrate how the image of the Jews arises as a result of Rozanov's ideological needs and does not reflect actual Jews or the Jewish religion. In Rozanov's biography his modest origins underscore his enormous success. Born in 1856 in the small town of Vetluga in southeastern Russia, he came from a large impoverished family. His father abandoned the family when he was young, and Rozanov, as the only boy, was smothered by womanly affection. Despite his selfacknowledged lack of interest in school, Rozanov did make it to Moscow University, where he studied philosophy and history. Upon graduation, he served as an unhappy teacher in provincial high schools. In 1890 the influential critic Nikolai Strakhov, impressed by Rozanov's second book, The Legend o/the Grand Inquisitor, asked the...

The Research Value of Siberia Content Monographs in Polar Collections of the University of Alaska-Fairbanks

This assessment of the Siberia content monographs in polar collections of the Rasmuson Library of the University of Alaska at Fairbanks identifies language holdings and collection strengths, evaluates research potential and compares holdings with selected Pacific Rim libraries. Data indicate that Russian language titles outnumber English titles seven to one and other languages for to one. Two LC classes, science and history, comprise 44% of the holdings, while the four largest classes constitute 60% of the collection. The Siberiana collection can support research in selected subjects: history, anthropology/physical geography, Eskimo linguistics, agriculture, permafrost, and geology. The collection is about half the size of those at the University of Hawaii and Hokkaido University. It contains nearly as many Siberiana titles as do the Slavic ccollections of the University of California, Berkeley, and is a third larger than holdings in the collections of the University of Washington, Seattle, and several ti...