Slavic Literature Research Articles

Waiting for Pushkin: Russian Fiction in the Reign of Alexander I (1801-1825) by Alessandra Tosi

MLR, I02.4, 2007 I195 Waiting for Pushkin: Russian Fiction in theReign ofAlexander I (I80I-I825). By ALESSANDRATosi. (Studies in Slavic Literature and Poetics, 44) Amsterdam and New York: Rodopi. 2oo6. 429 pp. E85;$io6. ISBN 978-90-420-I829-7. Seeking inher aptly entitledmonograph to filltheapparent void inRussian literature between Karamzin and Pushkin, Alessandra Tosi surveys amass of prose works that have been overshadowed by the richpoetic output of theAlexandrine age. In fact the firstquarter of the nineteenth century was a period of intense literary activity and experimentation in subject-matter, genre, and style.Russian literaturewas becoming increasingly independent of the Western literarymodels thatwere being appropri ated.Moreover, it was in thisage, Tosi claims (though theclaimmay seem overblown to dix-huitiemistes), that imaginative literature acquired its special status inRussia (p. I9) and took on itsdual aesthetic and ethical function (pp. 70-7 ). Adopting a twofold method of classifying her material, Tosi deals both with 'period trends' (e.g. the impact of Karamzin's sentimentalism and European pre Romanticism) and 'generic taxonomy' (the development of the novel, thepovest' or novella, and so forth).She examines thework of individual minor authors such as Be nitskii, Brusilov, fonFerel'ts, Gnedich, Izmailov, Izvekova, Kropotov, Lubianovskii, Shalikov, Pavel Sumarokov, and Volkonskaia. More broadly she is concerned with the genres that these works exemplify or the literarypreoccupations that they re veal, for instance theoriental tale,women's writing, the representation ofwomen in literature, travelwriting, the dialogue between historiography and historical fiction, and the reception ofGothic fiction. She offersparticularly interestingdiscussions of suchmatters as the representation of the female heroine in theanonymous novel The Russian Amazon (pp. 226-40), the juxtaposition of urban society and rural retreat and the injection of irony into sentimentalist prose inBrusilov's novel Poor Leandr (pp. 249-63), and Gnedich's experiment in the tale ofGothic horror,Don Corrado de Guerrera; or,The Spirit ofVengeance and the Barbarity of the Spaniards (pp. 329-42). It is a strength of her book thatTosi takes pains to establish the context inwhich literarycreation and debate took place in this transitional period between the age of Catherine ( 762-96) and the age ofPushkin and Gogol'. On theone hand, she detects in theAlexandrine age thepersistence of an amateur and relatively informal attitude to literature,which remained the leisure activity of a social elite at a timewhen pa tronagewas still important. On theother hand, she notes the emergence of themore professional approach to literaryactivity thatwas tobecome firmlyestablished in the Russia ofNicholas I (I825-I855), when formal literarygroups and the 'thick' jour nals came to play a greater role than the court and the aristocratic salon in shaping cultural life.Nor does Tosi neglect the linguistic and stylistic debate between those Russians, led by Shishkov, who advocated theuse of a literary language imbued with Slavonicisms, and those, inspired byKaramzin and belonging to the societyArzamas, who advocated amore elegant, accessible stylebased on educated speech and drawing on foreignmodels. Tosi's book does retain, though, the feel of a doctoral thesis, the academic genre fromwhich ithas emanated, and itdisplays both theusual merits and possible short comings of the genre. It is built on painstaking research, reveals a very thorough knowledge of the field that it explores, and has an exhaustive bibliography. At the same time it seems somewhat raw and indigestible inplaces. Perhaps it is also much longer than itneeds to be. Readers may have towait too long (until page 120) for their firstclose look at a specimen of prose writing in the age ofAlexander. And is it reallynecessary to reproduce in the footnotes the original Russian versions of all the substantial passages quoted in the text? The book is also marred by some carelessness. There are flaws in transliteration (Lisa, lishnye,neshchastnyi,Rossiskoe, vol'na, and many more) and thename Narezh I I96 Reviews nyi occurs in fourdifferentforms. More seriously, the scholarly apparatus isuntidy.A glance at the section of thebibliography on secondary sources in languages other than Russian, for instance, reveals some repetition of entries (though theentries are not re peated in identical form), typographical errors or omissions that result in misspellings of authors' names (e.g. Botting, Martinsen), and many out-of-place entries (on Aroutunova, Atkinson, Coulet...

The Problems of National-Ethnic, Cultural, and Sexual Minorities in Slavic Literatures after 1989

The article discusses several aspects of minority problems. The author starts with analysing the issue of national-ethnic minorities and a minority's position in relation to a majority organized in a national state. Next, conditions for minority discourse (open or concealed) are examined, whose appearance is always determined by the majority; moreover, the ways of consolidating the identity of the majority are also analysed. Further questions are: minority regarded as otherness, strangeness or hostility, but also as a cognitive value (i.e., “mirror” reflecting the majority). Finally, the article raises the issue of becoming accustomed to the minority and the problems where minority and majority converge as a result of intercultural dialogue. In the second part of the article, the author defines research area, methodology, and - as an instance - refers to some of the analytic writings.

Gender Discourse in Slavic Literature, Literary Criticism and Theory at the Turn of the 21st Century

The paper aims at presenting a comparative review of current Slavic literature (and related fields) as reflecting contemporary gender and feminist issues. In various parts of Slavdom the processes of awakening or revitalizing gender awareness have been taking place with various speed and ‘local colour’: in the former Yugoslavia since the end of the 1970s, in Russia since the second half of the 1980s (one should not speak about ‘former Soviet Union’ in this context, since the ‘feminist revival’ concerned mostly some Moscow circles), with the rest of the Slavic post-communist world responding to them sooner or later after 1989. They have faced a strong backlash everywhere, both from conservative/nationalist/populist discourses, as well as – though in different forms and expressed in different rhetoric – from the liberal/democratic/progressive ones. It is of crucial importance to enhance the mutual awareness of gender issues within the whole post-communist world, as well as exchange information and launch international projects concerning relevant topics.

Slavic Literatures in the Chaos of Postmodern Changes

The present essay is devoted to the various manifestations of transformation in Slavic literatures after 1989, when 300 million Slavs found themselves in the cultural paradigm diametrically opposed to the communist one, but not quite what it was designed to be by the dissidents and opposition members, i.e. advocates of civil society. This comparative panorama of Slavic literatures is presented from the perspective of postmodern culture and philosophy (Lyotard, Bauman, Rorty, Prigogine, Foucault, Derrida among others), legitimizing with its theories pluralism, the understanding of the multi-meaning nature of truth, the polyphony of cultures, and the significance of all minorities for the spiritual development of humankind. On the basis of selected examples from the literatures of West-, East- and South-Slavic countries, the author attempts to identify the crucial elements of transformation of the social and literary self-awareness of different generations in the post-communist Slavic countries over the last fifteen years. In the works of J. Topol, V. Pelevin, T. Rozewicz, D. Ugresic, T. Zabuzhko, or D. Bienkowski she seeks an answer to the question what was realized out of various dreams of a better and braver world of pluralism and democracy. How do the transformationers, the transformed and the self-transforming “inhabitants” of the new reality recognize their social and ethical situation? Who are, in light of literature, the heroes of our time, and what is behind the notion of “new sensitivity”? What does the so-called “realcap” (real capitalism) mean in literature? And also, which spaces of freedom does the democratic system open for writers and minorities, and which new worlds of imagination does it create in a search for metaphysical, mythical, thanatological, religious and esoteric dimensions of human existence, constrained in the past by imposed, top-down atheism.

La 'meravigliosa' Roma di Gogol': la città , gli artisti, la vita culturale nella prima metà dell'Ottocento by Rita Giuliani (review)

REVIEWS 539 several depictions of death), Andreev (who has been called 'the Russian Swedenborg' but, unlike his father Leonid, scarcely belongs in the canon of Russian literature)and Lindenberg(who left Russia when he was sixteen and wrote, apparentlyexclusively,in German).Much more damaging to Kasack's argument is his failure to make any distinction between different kinds of writing:memoirs, letters,poetry and fiction are all cited at length and treated alike. Moreover they are normally taken au pied de la lettreas representing the writer'spersonal experience. Thus he can claim that Sluchevskii's'very concrete pictures'of death as a part of life are 'basedon personalexperiences' (P.322) and complain that (G. Ivanov's)'Lines such as "I rememberyou, my grave, my distant fatherland, where the waters thunder" (I92I) are taken by many readers not so literally as they are meant' (p. 232). Slips are more common than one might expect: for instance, it is not to Aglaia but to Adelaida that Myshkin recommends that she should paint the face of a man about to be executed (p. 99); and Andrei Bolkonskiidoes not die 'before the eyes of his wife and sister'(p. I54). All in all, as befits the author of the renowned Dictionagy of Twentieth-Centugy RussianLiterature, Kasack has made a careful, if incomplete, collection of appositematerials;but his argumentseems to me both tendentiousand faulty, and the purely literarycriticismis, of course, sparse. Department of Central, Eastern andNorthern European Studies C.J. G. TURNER University ofBritishColumbia Giuliani, Rita. La 'meravigliosa' Romadi Gogol': la citta,gli artisti,la vitaculturale nellaprimametadell'Ottocento. Edizioni Studium, Rome, 2002. 286 pp. ?23.50. THE Italian scholar Rita Giuliani has published a new book in Italian, in which her great love for Russian authors is combined with a remarkable knowledge of Rome. ProfessorGiuliani, of 'La Sapienza' Universityin Rome, has devoted much attention over the years to Russo-Italianculturalrelations and the image of Rome in Russian art and literature. She is the author of Obraz Rimav russkoi literature (200I), Vittoria Caldoni Lapchenko (I995) and several articles on Russian artists and intellectualsliving in Rome during the nineteenth century,as well as major studiesof Leonid Andreev (I977) and Mikhail Bulgakov(I98I). Giulianiis also the main editorof all the posthumouspublications of Angelo Maria Ripellino, poet and great scholar of Russian literature, who introduced her to the joys of Slavonic literatures. In her new book Giuliani sets out to shed new light on the many years that Gogol' spent in the Italian capital, on his active participationin the city's intellectualand artistic life, on the role played by the city in his literaryproduction, and on the work that he dedicated to the eternal city, 'Rome: A Fragment'. Incidentally,this neglected and almost forgotten work by Gogol' has recently reappeared in Italianbookshopsin a new editionwith parallelRussianand Italiantexts. Rita Giuliani wrote the introduction and meticulously edited it for the Venetian publisherMarsilio. 540 SEER, 84, 3, JULY 2006 The shortstory'Rome', which firstappearedin print in 1842 in thejournal Moskvitianin (edited by Mikhail Pogodin), was the result of several revisions, having also undergone two changes of title, and remained unfinished. It narratesthe story of a Roman aristocrat,who travelsto Paristo gain a more progressiveand enlightened education, and later returnsto his hometown on his father'sdeath, to find that his opinion on Rome has changed completely. Having previously dismissed it as a backward and dull seat of conservatism where nothing ever happens, the protagonist now looks at Rome with new eyes and begins to appreciate it for its extraordinarilyunspoiled beauty and the authenticityof its inhabitants,even more strikingafter his experiences of the hollow sophistication and the excesses of Paris. This work stands out among the rest of Gogol"s output and seems to contravene many of the author'stypical narrativetechniques, a reason perhapswhy so many scholars have disregarded it. First, Gogol"s usual satirical tone is absent, the main character is simply referred to as 'the prince' and neither his features nor his clothes are described.All that wealth of detailed descriptionsthat Gogol' usuallylavisheson his charactersare here reservedfor the city, the landscapes and the feelingsof the main character,who, unlikethe restof Gogol 'sfamous characters, undergoes a clear development and a sort of spiritual...

A New Word on 'The Brothers Karamazov' by Robert Louis Jackson

MLR, IOI .2, 2oo6 6I5 banter in the poem and injects something of the disjointedness of reverie which is so effective. In the context of a series investigating the breadth and nature of Pushkin's legacy, it is fitting that the final section should be dedicated to a study of his impact abroad. David Baguley investigates the relationship between Pushkin and Prosper Merimee and points out the similarities in style and choice of subject between the two men. In his chapter on Pushkin and Henry James, Neil Cornwell instances the mechanics of appropriation whereby core aspects of theme and structure in 'The Queen of Spades' are reformulated by his American successor. Finally, in a neat link to the professional affiliation of the two editors of this series, Samantha T. Johnson reveals the little-known episode of Grand Duke Mikhail and Countess Torby's te nancy (she being Pushkin's granddaughter) at Keele Hall in Staffordshire between I90I and I9IO. Two Hundred Years of Pushkin is ambitious in both the number and the variety of angles from which the essays contained therein approach the work and legacy of Alexander Pushkin. And in very large part, itmeets its own aims. This is an impressive and highly informative collection of essays which offers much, not simply to the scholar of Pushkin, but also to the reader interested inRussian and European literature on a broader scale. It stands as a testament to the wealth and importance of the monument of Pushkin and itself becomes an important contribution to Pushkin studies. UNIVERSITY OF ST ANDREWS CLAIRE WHITEHEAD A New Word on 'TheBrothers Karamazov'. Ed. by ROBERTLouis JACKSON. (North western University Press Studies in Russian Literature and Theory) Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press. 2004. Xii+26i pp. $79.95. ISBN o-8ioi I949-8. A New Word on 'The Brothers Karamazov' came together from the proceedings of the last of the Yale Conferences in Slavic Literatures and Cultures in I999, a series inaugurated by Robert Louis Jackson, the editor. The volume pays tribute to the influence of Jackson, one of the most revered of today's Dostoevsky scholars, as the majority of the contributors have cause to refer to his seminal studies, Dostoevsky's Questfor Form (I966; 2nd edn [Bloomington, IN]: Physsardt, I978) and The Art of Dostoevsky: Deliriums and Nocturnes (Princeton: Princeton University Press, I98 I). There are sixteen essays in all, the final one a closing overview by William Mills Todd III. Here, Todd reinforces Jackson's prefatory image of The Brothers Karama zov as a literary Chartres Cathedral, unable to be seen fully from a single point of view, as he acknowledges the wide range of genres and discourses in terms of which the contributors approach the novel. The essays are indeed diverse in their treatments, but there is a cohesion in the volume as awhole that is achieved by an openness in its parts and by the fact that many of the essays complement and illuminate each other. It would be too great a task to discuss all sixteen contributions here, but I hope to show with a few examples how the authors together unveil the multi-faceted yet organically whole nature of The Brothers Karamazov. Lee Johnson offers an original perspective on Smerdiakov as 'would-be saint' (p. 74), discussing the suppressed presence in Smerdiakov of higher spiritual ele ments. For example, he interprets the young boy's question to Grigorii about the origin of light at the Creation not asmockery of the biblical word, forwhich Grigorii unjustly punishes him, but as an intuition of the divine light of God, a crucial factor in the Eastern Orthodox conception of theosis. He argues that Smerdiakov's uncon scious struggles for a closer relationship with the divine, despite his conscious efforts 6i6 Reviews to embrace the doctrine of 'all is permitted'. Following this isVladimir Golstein's article on 'accidental families and surrogate fathers' (p. 90), where he continues the discussion of Grigorii and Smerdiakov, highlighting the former's failures as a father through examples of lack of compassion, dogmatism, and closed-mindedness. Thus he attributes toGrigorii a share of the responsibility for themurder of Fedor Karama zov.Horst-Jurgen Gerigk later completes the...

Analysieren als Deuten: Wolf Schmid zum 60. Geburtstag by Lazar Fleishman, Christine Gölz, Aage A. Hansen-Löve

MLR, IOI.4, 2oo6 I I9I named at least twice by the 54 respondents. Heinrich Mann, Ernst Jiinger, and En zensberger, three of the book's six individual subjects, figure nowhere in these lists, and Christa Wolf is named just once. Of the six, only Grass and Brecht are among the top ten authors and top thirty titles. It is particularly when the Enzensberger chapter, by Karel Hupperetz, informs us that its subject 'hat seit den fiinfziger Jahren wie kaum ein anderer Autor das Bild, das man sich im niederlandischen Sprachraum von der deutschen Literatur gemacht hat, mitgepragt' (p. I43), or when, later, an equivalent claim ismade forWolf, that hilarity sets in. There are certainly sources of interest among these pieces, even if they are not al ways the authors' conclusions. Prangel's essay ends by lamenting modern-day Dutch ignorance of German literature, but his results point to a higher level of know ledge than any other non-German readership would possess. They even suggest that modern Dutch readers know more of German literature than of French (though not of English). Other essays in the volume indicate the much greater immediacy Ger man literature and thought had for the Dutch before World War II. The amusing description in Sjaak Onderdelinden's purposeful article of a flopped production of Mother Courage inRotterdam five years after the Occupation, when aGerman direc tor imposed by Brecht clashed with resentful Dutch actors, suggests how and why the relationship changed. Nevertheless, one is struck by the indications even in accounts of modern reception that non-academic Dutch reviewers and readers are aware of contemporary debates within Germany, and are influenced in their preferences by the attitudes tomodern Germany that particular writers express. It is hard to ima gine that British readers of German texts, such as they are, are affected like this. What ismost interesting with Dutch (and/or Flemish) reception of German liter ary and other writing is how writers and readers were moulded by it.The substantial if ambivalent preoccupation with German culture of the Forum group and its leader Menno ter Braak, themost influential Dutch critic of the inter-war years, is signalled in passing at various points in the book. How the pervasively nihilistic post-war ge neration of Dutch novelists-Hermans, Reve, Mulisch, Wolkers-was able to interact with the irrationalist tradition of German thought, when itwas taboo formost of their German contemporaries, does not emerge, apart from a reference toMulisch's ex pressions of interest inErnst Jiinger. The possibility that Hugo Claus's Het verdriet van Belgie~ (The Sorrow of Belgium), the seminal novel of modern Flemish identity, is predicated on Grass's Blechtrommel is introduced, and then we are told there is no space now to discuss it. And there are other such frustrations. To my mind, a much more productive project would have been an account (probably inDutch for a Dutch readership) of how major twentieth-century figures and cultural groupings in the Low Countries were conditioned by their German reading, rather than the pre sent disparate collection of source-oriented overviews of some often unremarkable receptions. But that would have been a different book. UNIVERSITYOF SHEFFIELD MICHAEL PERRAUDIN Analysieren als Deuten: Wolf Schmid zum 6o. Geburtstag. Ed. by LAZAR FLEISH MAN, CHRISTINE GOLz, and AAGE A. HANSEN-L6VE. Hamburg: University Press. 2004. 74I pp. ?30. ISBN 3-9808985-6-3. This enormous Festschrift has been published in honour of Dr Wolf Schmid, Pro fessor of Slavic Literatures at Hamburg University. As erstwhile honorary member of academic departments inDenmark, Australia, Canada, and the US, his reputation has been founded upon research into Russian and Czech literatures. His multiple ad dresses and interests are perhaps most prominently linked by decades of scrupulous I 192 Reviews investigation into the finer points of narratology. This bridging aspect of Professor Schmid's labours iswhat unifies the thirty-six essays inGerman, English, and Rus sian. The oft-obituarial overtones of a Festschrift are here, mercifully, a cheerful celebra tion of the scholar's sixtieth birthday, which creates something of a dilemma for any reviewer. Being asked to review a birthday Festschrift is like asking a restaurant critic to review a party...

The Overcoming of History in 'War and Peace' by Jeff s> Love (review)

322 SEER, 83, 2, 2005 illuminate Fet's poetry through a series of often strikinglyperceptive close readingsof individualpoems. Klenin's third and longest chapter is devoted to verse form and language. Here she meticulouslysurveysthe metresof both Fet'soriginalpoetry and his translationsagainstthe context of contemporaryRussianand to a lesserextent German verse. And although sometimes the level of detail given is not always commensuratewith the degree to which it ispossibleto correlatemetricaland thematic meaning, this is more than made up for by, for example, the incisivenessof Klenin's analysisof Fet'stranslationof Goethe's 'Aufdem See'. This isset alongsideversionsof the samepoem by SergeiAksakovandApollon Grigor'ev to show how Fet manages to convey the effect of the metrical peculiarities of the original using slightly different,but parallel techniques in ways not thought of by the other translators. The sections on rhyme and stanza structureare particularlylucidly focused on the relationshipbetween form and content. Here again Klenin's close readings are full of insights, as, to give one example in the context of poetic closure, when she readsthe verse epistle to A. L. Brzheskaia,'Dalekii drug, poimi moi rydan'ia',in the context of contemporary letter-writing manuals (p. 314). One theme that runs through all the chapters of the book relates to the periodization of Fet'spoetry. Klenin persuasivelyarguesthat in his earlyverse he persistently introduced features that, while common in the German tradition,were adventurousand even radicalin the context of contemporary poetry in Russian. During the I85os, Fet allowed himself to be persuaded by his Russianeditors,especiallyTurgenev, to alignhispoetrymuch more closely with Russian expectations, but continued to use a much higher level of experimentation in his translations.When he returnedto poetry in the I88os after two decades of silence in the wake of adverse positivist criticism, he revertedto a large extent to the poetic practice of his youth. Notwithstanding all that has been writtenabout Fet's'dualism',Klenin arguesfor an essentially unifiedpoetic vision covering his whole career. In doing so she highlightsthe great complexity and subtlety of Fet's writing, and demonstrates to a new generation of scholarsthe cardinalimportanceof thisextraordinarypoet. Curtin University ofTechnology, Perth DAVID N. WELLS Love, Jeff. The Overcoming of Histogyin 'Warand Peace'.Studies in Slavic Literature and Poetics, 42. Rodopi, Amsterdam and New York, 2004. Vii + 21 1 pp. Notes. Bibliography.Index. ?45.oo: $56.oo (paperback). THis study of what may be called Tolstoi's theory of historyin WarandPeace, examined by many scholars previously, though never so deeply or in such detail as here, has a provocative, argumentative manner that stimulates reconsiderationbut provides few, if any, answers.It bewildersin many ways. This reviewer cannot pretend to have understood exactly how history has been overcome in WarandPeaceafter having tried to penetrate the meaning of an argument largely obscured by a manner of exposition as densely and wilfullyvague asone mightfindin a novel by HenryJames. Take,forinstance, REVIEWS 323 the following passage, relevant to the hunt scene, which the author describes as: a recognition of the vitality of the subject, that subjectivitycannot be eliminated, cannot be subsumed into the whole without dire consequences either a mechanical objectivity, an overwhelming sameness, or a plunge into the silence of pure feeling. And this is merely anotherway of characterizingthe centralconflictin WarandPeaceas one between subjectiveautonomy, the privilege of the moment, of undivided experience, and objective determinacy, the basic factors that limit and thus tie together individualsin a world. If we look at the most significantstructural traits of the novel I have discussed, they indeed all reveal a variant of this central conflict between subject and object understood as an underlying conflict between immediate undivided experience which is somehow 'mine' and constructed,hence, mediate, experience that belongs to all and none. (p. I 20) If this is 'anotherway of characterizingthe central conflict', then it hardly encompasses the theoretical conflict between subject and object as Tolstoi so variously and complexly poses the issue, let alone the historical conflict as most readerswould understandit frompondering both the 'essay'sections (as Love calls them) or the argument in the second Epilogue. The novelty of Love'sapproachseemsbest appreciatedby recognizingthathe hastrodwhere angels fear to tread in dealing with Tolstoi's theorizing. He has treated it as seriousand valuable in its own right, something that not all commentatorson...

Two Hundred Years of Pushkin. Ed. Robert Reid and Joe Andrew. Vol. 3, Pushkin's Legacy. Studies in Slavic Literature and Poetics, vol. 40. Amsterdam: Editions Rodopi, 2004. x, 228 pp. Notes. Index. Photographs. Tables. Musical Examples. $62.00, paper.

Two Hundred Years of Pushkin. Ed. Robert Reid and Joe Andrew. Vol. 3, Pushkin's Legacy. Studies in Slavic Literature and Poetics, vol. 40. Amsterdam: Editions Rodopi, 2004. x, 228 pp. Notes. Index. Photographs. Tables. Musical Examples. $62.00, paper. - Volume 64 Issue 1

The Overcoming of History in "War and Peace." By Jeff Love. Studies in Slavic Literature and Poetics, vol. 42. Amsterdam: Editions Rodopi, 2004. vii, 211 pp. Notes. Bibliography. Index. $56.00, paper.

The Overcoming of History in "War and Peace." By Jeff Love. Studies in Slavic Literature and Poetics, vol. 42. Amsterdam: Editions Rodopi, 2004. vii, 211 pp. Notes. Bibliography. Index. $56.00, paper. - Volume 64 Issue 4

Two Hundred Years of Pushkin. Ed. Joe Andrew and Robert Reid. Vol. 1, “Pushkin's Secret”: Russian Writers Reread and Reunite Pushkin. Studies in Slavic Literature and Poetics, vol. 37. Amsterdam: Editions Rodopi, 2003. xi, 213 pp. Notes. Index. Illustrations. $45.00, paper.

Two Hundred Years of Pushkin. Ed. Joe Andrew and Robert Reid. Vol. 1, “Pushkin's Secret”: Russian Writers Reread and Reunite Pushkin. Studies in Slavic Literature and Poetics, vol. 37. Amsterdam: Editions Rodopi, 2003. xi, 213 pp. Notes. Index. Illustrations. $45.00, paper. - Volume 64 Issue 1

Mirko Kovač - Überlegungen zu Literatur und Sprache

Not only in the case of Ivo Andric, the sole Yugoslav winner of the Noble Prize, was an exclusive classification and profession to one of the literatures earlier denoted as Yugoslavian demanded and carried out after 1990/91, even if this connection could never be clear-cut or, indeed, was hardly possible. The issue of affiliation to one of the southern Slavic literatures is just as relevant for Mirko Kovac, born in 1938 in eastern Hercegovina. Kovac had lived in Belgrade until 1991 and written his works in the variation of his mother tongue spoken in Serbia. After resetting in Croatia, Kovac not only exclusively used the variant spoken in Croatia in his new texts, but he also undertook alterations to his already published works in terms of language, content and thematic motifs. The present article traces these interventions and seeks to clarify Kovac's own standpoint on his affiliation to one of the southern Slavic language and cultural communities.

Two Hundred Years of Pushkin. Volume 3: Pushkin's Legacy by J. Andrew R. Reid (review)

942 SEER, 82, 4, 2004 half of the eighteenthcentury,as well as into ideasaroundcreativityand originality intheperiodbeforeRomanticism. Fraanjealso deals extensivelythroughoutwith issuesof influence.The primary modelsforhiswriters wereRousseau's LaNouvelle Heloise andGoethe's Werther. The fact alonethat the formertext was a majorsourcefor Onegin makesFraanje's studyworthwhile. Theroleof Werther inRussian literature led to a scandalousevent: 'The most remarkable thing about "The Russian Werther" [... .] is thefactthatonlyweeksafterit waswrittenits i6-yearold author, Mikhail Sushkov,killed himself in much the same way as his protagonistdoes' (p.93). This work too was an importantprecursorfor Oneginand,evenmoreso,Pechorin, whilethelegacyoftheepistolary novel moregenerallyextendedwellintothenineteenthcentury,mostfamously, of course,inPoor Folk, acleardescendant ofErnest and Doravra. Thisbook,asis acknowledged, isbasedon theauthor'sPhD,andattimes this shows. Equally, it is often apparent in small ways that English is not the author'sfirstlanguage. Occasionally, though, this does lead to some unfortunate solecisms. The most strikingof these is his use of 'romanesque' for the Russian 'romanischeskii'on numerous occasions. It also seems odd to find transliterationwhere cyrilliccould be used. These small quibbles should not, however, detractfromthe book's overallachievement. There is much to learn in thisvolume and, although othersmight find the neo-Marxism irritating,or even quaintly old-fashioned in a post-modern world, this reader found the overall approach stimulatingand illuminating.It is to be hoped, indeed, that the workwill arouseinterestto suchan extent that some at leastof thesenovels will be republished. School ofLanguages JOE ANDREW Keele University Andrew,J. and Reid, R. (eds). TwoHundred Years ofPushkin. Volume 3. Pushkin's Legag).Studies in Slavic Literature and Poetics, 40. Editions Rodopi, Amsterdam and New York, 2004. x + 228 pp. Illustrations. Musical extracts.Notes. Index. E52.00: $62.00 (paperback). THISis the last of three volumes generated by the Neo-Formalist conference held in i999 to mark the bicentenary of Pushkin'sbirth. Unlike the earlier volumes (reviewed in SEER, 82, 2004, 3), this volume is divided into four parts: 'Defining Pushkin', 'Poetics of the Text', 'Pushkin in Music' and 'Pushkin Abroad', a total of thirteen papers. They are preceded by an invaluableintroduction,writtenjointly by the indefatigableeditorsof all three volumes, Robert Reid and Joe Andrew. The introduction provides a useful commentary, particularlyto Willem G. Westeijn's 'Pushkinbetween Classicism , Romanticism and Realism', Olga Sedakova's appraisal of Pushkin's Christianityand J. Douglas Clayton's study of word order in EvgeniiOnegin. Commenting on one contribution, a collective analysis of 'Winter Road', organized by Olga Sobolev and Robin Milner-Gulland, the editors, noting the long and distinguishedhistoryof thisformof exercisein the Neo-Formalist circle, observe that it is 'close reading,broadlybased on Formalisttechnique'. REVIEWS 943 The phrase 'broadly based' might apply to the whole book, which covers a wide critical spectrum. At the formalist end are the five papers (including studiesby Eric de Haard, on prosimetrumin Pushkin,and Maria Langleben, on Journey toArzrum) in the 'Poetics of the Text' section; in the middle come more traditional critical studies, such as Richard Freeborn's survey of Belinskii'sarticles on Pushkin and Neil Cornwell's comparative study of the TheQueen ofSpades and Henry James's 7heAspern Papers and TheFigurein the Carpet. At the non-formalist end come the studies, by Gabrielle Hima and ArnoldMcMillin, of musicaladaptationsof Pushkin,and two pieces of literary history(agenre to which Sobolev and Milner-Gullandsternlydeny themselves entry); David Baguley's study of Pushkin and Merimee and, appropriately ending a trilogy to which Keele University has made an enormous contribution , Samantha T. Johnson's account of the sojournof Grand Duke Michael and his family at Keele Hall I90I - I0. This article does raise the question as to how many children great-grandchildrenof Pushkin the Grand Duke had. Three is the number given on page 211, while over the page, the caption accompanying one of several archive photographs gives the number as four. Such slips are rare: Ken Wood House should be Kenwood House (p. 217), and it seems unlikely that Pushkin ever maintained that poetry should take second place to music, as Gabrielle Hima appears to suggest on page I44. There are other minor flaws: 'utoplennik' misspelled (p. I30) and Maria Petrovykhmistransliterated(p. 42 and in the index, where her name is also misplaced), while the identity of Nadezhda von Meck almost disappears behind the literaltranscription'N. fon Mekk'(p. I44). Overall, however, there...

Living in Translation: Polish Writers in America. Ed. Halina Stephan. Studies in Slavic Literature and Poetics, vol. 38. Amsterdam: Editions Rodopi, 2003. 382 pp. Notes. $93.00, paper.

Living in Translation: Polish Writers in America. Ed. Halina Stephan. Studies in Slavic Literature and Poetics, vol. 38. Amsterdam: Editions Rodopi, 2003. 382 pp. Notes. $93.00, paper. - Volume 63 Issue 4

Sakrale Grundlagen slavischer Literaturen by Hans Rothe (review)

274 Reviews general for their camera movement, and secondly, that Arsenal contains one of the most extraordinary tracking shots in the history of Soviet cinema (the sequence in which the Bolshevik soldiers take their dead comrade back to his village on galloping horses). The assertion that Pudovkin's career in the 1930s became more conventional (p. 60) ignores Dezertir (The Deserter, 1932), an innovative and experimental soundfilm . Gillespie's critical stance in relation to the films made by these avant-garde directors in the 1930s and 1940s is undeniably warranted, but the complexities of the period in terms of its cultural politics are treated only superficially. Typical of this problem is the reference in his book to the celebrated argument between two prisoners in Solzhenitsyn's Odin den Ivana Denisovicha (A Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich, 1962) about the artistic merits of Ivan Groznyi (Ivan the Terrible, 1944-45) (P- 57)It would have been helpful here if Gillespie had indicated that the conversation as presented in this novella could not for historical reasons have taken place: Tsezar', the character allegedly modelled on Lev Grossman, refers in his argument to the 'Dance of the Oprichniki'?yet this sequence appears in the second, banned part of the film (released only in 1958), and for this reason could not have been seen by the characters concerned. Sadly, this undermines Solzhenitsyn's (and thus Gillespie's) point entirely. There are also a number of unfortunate factual errors. Space precludes a detailed presentation of these, but the following might be taken as representative: the still from Oktiabr' (October, 1927) on the front cover is the wrong way round; Oleg Frelikh, not Esfir Shub', directed Prostitutka (The Prostitute, 1926) (p. 9); the director Iakov Protazanov did not make a 'star' of Ivan Mozzhukhinin 1916 (p. 10)?he was already famous fromthe filmsmade with the Khanzhonkovstudio; Aleksandr Rodchenko did not design the sets for Aelita (1924) (p. 11), these were created by Isaak Rabinovich on the basis of sketches produced by Aleksandra Ekster (neither, incidentally, does the film boast a cast of 'thousands', as claimed by Gillespie (p. 10)?it is probably about one hundred at most); it is a bull, not a cow, which is poisoned by kulaks in the second half of Staroe i novoe (p. 52); Zvenigora was released in 1927, not 1928 (p. 83); and Vasil', the hero of Zemlia (Earth, 1930), dances in the early morning, not in moonlight (p. 89)?whatever the indications in the screenplay, this is clear from the quality of the light. School of Slavonic and East European Studies, London Philip Cavendish Sakrale Grundlagen slavischer Literaturen. Ed. by Hans Rothe. (Vortrage und Abhandlungen zur Slavistik, 43) Munich: Sagner. 2002. viii+133 pp. ?14. ISBN 3-87690-802-7. This volume contains five separate studies based on contributions to the German Slavists' Convention in Potsdam in 2001. They have been written by members ofthe Section of the Patristic Commission at the North-Rhine-Westphalian Academy of Science (Bonn). What is presented to the reader here are the results of philologically based fundamental research on translated sacral source texts,which have been mostly ignored in the literary histories of the Slavic Middle Ages although?according to what has been handed down to us?they represent the basis of medieval literatures and have always held a clearly dominant position in the body of manuscripts. These are liturgical books (hymnography), biblical texts, and non-liturgical religious chants. In his thoroughly researched introductory study ('Sakrale Grundlagen der slavischen Literaturen', pp. 1-26) Hans Rothe expounds in great detail the manuscript tradition of the Church Slavonic and Latin texts presented in this volume, from the Orthodox East and South Slavs respectively, of the Latin Slavs from the CyriloMethodian period well into the modern age, a subject frequently complicated by the MLR, 99.1, 2004 275 difficultquestion of the sources' reliability. Rothe then describes the differences in the development of these basic texts, their mutual influence in various Slavic countries, and finally the impact of the sacral corpus on vernacular writings. His chapter ends with a daring general conclusion, that all Slavic literatures from the beginning until the early nineteenth century were...

Bulgaria in old Serbian accounts of pilgrimage

A rather small portion of old Slavonic literatures is thematically linked with the journey to the Holy Land. Of many Serbian pilgrims over the centuries only three left more detailed descriptions of Bulgarian places and parts: patriarch Arsenije III, Jerotej of Raca and Silvestar Popovic. They described, each in his own way, some of the places and areas along the road to Istanbul or Salonika. Their vivid depiction of encounters with people and observations about the places they saw on their way reveal only a fragment of life in the seventeenth- and eighteenth-century Ottoman empire. In a seemingly ordinary way, they incorporate into their own epoch the legends heard from the people they met. The descriptions of Bulgarian parts in the Serbian accounts of pilgrimage have all the appeal that generally characterizes travel literature. Although their literary value is modest they belong among the works characterized by the simplicity and immediacy of experience. Rather than being the result of a strong literary ambition, they are witness to the need to speak about the great journey, quite an adventurous enterprise at the time.

Ciało. Płeć. Literatura. Prace ofiarowane Profesorowi Germanowi Ritzowi w pięćdziesiÄ tÄ rocznicę urodzin by Tadeusz Korsak (review)

REVIEWS 97 the prosodyis often uneven, at timesthe stylebecomes patchy and the rhythm stumbleson sporadicinternalrhymes.The poetic impulsehere remainsnaked and defenceless;it seems to be too intense to be fullyintegratedinto a faultless form. The emphasis is placed on the original vision and concept that are developed in a restrainedand nonchalant manner. One should not look for perfection in Bart's poems, but perhaps envisage them as growing crystals, captured at the most unexpected moments: as one of his contemporariesput it 'it is not an easy task to read Bart [ ...] but we cannot put him aside, we cannot help the feelingthat he is the truepoet' (p. 26). LanguageCentre, RussianStudies 0. Yu. SOBOLEV London School ofEconomics Korsak, Tadeusz et al. (eds). Ciabo. Ptec.Literatura. Praceofiarowane Profesorowi Germanowi Ritzowi w pi,edziesiqtq roczniccurodzin.Wiedza powszechna, Warsaw, 2001. XXiV + 727 pp. Illustrations. Notes. Bibliography. Index. Priceunknown. GERMAN RITZ, Professorof Slavic literatures,is perhaps best known outside his native Switzerlandas an eminent contributorto the field of PolishStudies. His two principallines of enquiryarethe interrelationshipbetween Polishand German culture, and gender and sexualitiesas reflectedin literature;sufficeit here to mention his ground-breakingwork on male writers such as Jerzy Andrzejewski,Tadeusz Breza, Witold Gombrowicz,Jaroslaw Iwaszkiewicz, and Wilhelm Mach. Largely responsible for the expansion of Slavic literary studies at the University of Zurich, his base since I987, he is also highly esteemed as lecturer,teacher, and supervisor. This Festschrift, published on the occasion of Ritz's fiftieth birthday, is in many ways a model of the genre. In addition to an opening tributewrittenby his Doktorvater Peter Brang, an introductory biographical 'scholarly profile' and an extensive bibliographywhich begins with Ritz's thesis on the Russian translations of Heinrich Heine (i 982), there are thirty-one articles on literature, philosophy and art, written by accomplished authors from four differentcountries. The editors' chronological organization takes the reader through three main divisions, all of which demonstratethat gender (pec')and the body (ciabo) in Slavicliteraturesandculturesis avalid, distinctand complex subject. Following Grzegorz Strumyk'slaudatoryjuxtaposition of the writer-poet's creativitywith that of the writer-scholarRitz, Rolf Fieguthopens the nineteen essays on Polish literature splendidly with 'The Borders of Irony in Juliusz Slowacki's Kordian'('Granice ironii w Kordianie Juliusza Slowackiego'). Emphasizing the eponymous Romantic hero's continual moral and spiritual vacillations, the author proposes to treat this play (I833) not only in a onesidedlyironic light but also in termsof a Great Drama, human, individual,on the one hand, nationaland universal,on the other.MikolajSokolowskifollows suitby lookingat the linguisticriddlesin Slowacki'sunfinishedKing-Spirit (KrolDuch ,I847), whilst Kazimiera Szczuka examines the role of femininity in his poem In Switzerland (W Szwajcarii,I839). Anton Sergl, in his intricate but 98 SEER, 82, I, 2004 fascinating article on Zygmunt Krasifiski's UndivineComedy(Nie-Boskakomedia, I833), addresses the gender trouble in the celebrated play by the most 'Hegelian' of the Polish Romantics. A final piece on nineteenth-century literature is offered byjaroslaw Topolewski, who examines the 'Biedermeyerian ' self-stylization ofJadwiga Luszczewska (aka Deotyma, I 834- I 908). A sizeable group of essays on pre-Second World War writers comprises Bozena Choluj on Stanislaw Przybyszewski's (anti-)Nietzschean utopia of love and Krystyna Klosifiska on the dark force of the male libido in Stefan Grabifiski's psycho-fantastic 'Szamota's Mistress' ('Kochanka Szamoty', I 9 I 9). Anna Nasilowska discusses 'feminist' modernity in the writings of Zofia Kossak-Szczucka, Hanna Malewska and Zofia Starowieyska-Morstinowa; Barbara Smolefi traces thanatic femininity in Zofia Nalkowska's novel The ImpatientOnes(Niecierpliwi,1939); Agata Araszkiewicz considers the question of gendered tendentiousness in Irena Krzywicka's early novels. Aleksander Fiut, in As If From Behind a Window. The Portrait of the Ukrainian in the Prose of Jaroslaw Iwaszkiewicz' (jak za szyba. Portret Ukraifica w prozie Jaroslawa Iwaskiewicza'), argues effectively that the writer's representation of Poland's Eastern neighbours must be described as xenophobically prejudiced, youthfully erratic at best. Another piece on Iwaszkiewicz is offered by Gra2yna Borkowska, who discusses the integrated nature of his verbal artistry, while Ewa Graczyk writes refreshingly on the heroes of Witold Gombrowicz's blatantly homoerotic Possessed (Opftani, 1939), whose minds are straddled between the Freudian understanding of trauma as the source of obsessive repetition and the metaphysical concept of evil characteristic...

A Woman of Words: Pagan Ol'ga in the Mirror of Germanic Europe

The pagan (and future saint) Ol'ga's revenge on the Derevlians as described in thePovest' vremennykh lethas intrigued generations of readers of early East Slavic literature. Using evidence from roughly contemporary Germanic sources, Francis Butler argues that Ol'ga uses intelligence and verbal dexterity to achieve good ends (the protection of her son and the defense of her people) without violating the strictures placed on women by her society. The early East Slavs seem to have disliked the idea of women as warriors but not to have seen women as intellectually inferior to men. Moreover, they regarded women's use of intelligence praiseworthy if it benefited their people, as Ol'ga's did. Ol'ga's gender prevented the chroniclers from portraying her as a warrior-ruler, thereby forcing them to create one of the most striking depictions in thePovest'.

Literary Activities and Attitudes in the Stanislavian Age in Poland (1764-1795): A Social System? by Jan IJ. van der Meer (review)

7I8 SEER, 8i, 4, 2003 manuscripts,though tantalizinglythe early exampleshave not yet been satisfactorily deciphered.They have been discussedin relationto Church SlavonicpoetrybyJakobsonandothers,andhavea significant bearingonthe elusivequestionofthedistinctive configuration ofoldRussianculture. So indeeddo manyof the interesting points too numerousto mention evenin an extensivereview in thisverywell-stocked book.Nobodycould claimit asa quickread,butitwouldbe apityifitweretobe usedonlyasan encyclopaedicreference-work: argumentsare developed (e.g. from the conceptthat'bookswerea Christian monopoly') thatdeserveto be followed through.Franklinlightenshis texturethroughhis gift for antitheticallystructured one-liners ('Thewritingofmeaningisonlyone ofthemeaningsof writing', p. 255)aswellasotherstylistic devices,someofwhich(e.g.insistence on aninternalhyphenin 'com-poser' and'equi-valent') willdoubtless drivea few readersto distraction. The bookis nicelyproduced,well-indexed, with foot-of-pagenotes;thereare some illustrations (we could have done with more)anda verybasicmap;savefora garbledGermancitationon p. 86 it seemsfreeofmisprints. Finally,onemustmentionafeatureofthevolumethat maysurprise ordisappoint itsreaders: thevirtualabsenceofanydiscussion of 'literariness' (e.g. the interactionbetweenthe oral and writtenrealmsof literature, orliteraryqualitiesingeneral).Franklin, acknowledging this,hints thathe maygiveus anothervolumetacklingthisvasttopic.Letus hopeso: together bothbookswillconstitute a splendid diptych. University ofSussex R. R. MILNER -GULLAND Meer, Jan U. van der. Literagy Activities andAttitudes in theStanislavian Agein Poland(I764-I795).- A SocialSystem? Studies in Slavic Literature and Poetics, 36. Editions Rodopi, Amsterdam and New York, 2002. 339 pp. Notes. Tables. Figures.Bibliography.?65.oo: $65.00 (paperback). IN the last three decades before partition,literarylife in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth came of age. Whereas prior to the mid-eighteenth century much if not most literary output circulated in manuscript, the Church(es) controlled the printing presses and nothing we might recognize as literary criticism existed, by the 178os, the printed word had assumed a dominant role, the book trade had become a lucrative business led by laymen, and diverse views on literature were expressed in both theoretical treatises and periodicals. This was reflected in the development of older genres, and the appearance of new ones- notably the Polish novel. Literary patronage remained important, and only a miserable life could be eked out by a writer without it, but a growing number of semi-independent authorswrote firstand foremostforthe public (theword 'publicum'or 'publicznosc'began to be used in its modern sense as a tribunal of opinion, as well as its older sense of the common good). The lion's share of this literary activity took place in the mushrooming city of Warsaw, which had about ioo,ooo inhabitants by the end of the decade, of whom about a third could read. The reading bug was caught by a stillwider public duringthe Great Sejm of I788-1792. However, as it did so, literature underwent intense politicization, and much of the REVIEWS 719 diversity of literarylife was lost. As one contemporary observed: 'romances, poetry and other light works of Frenchwritersand scribes stood untouched, while even dandies and women were carried away by the general tide, and went about with politics and the new constitutionin theirheads' (p. I05). The production of newspaperstripled,the massivedemand forpoliticalpamphlets enriched booksellers,and theatre-goersflockedto applaudpolitical plays, but sales of novels plummeted and literarycriticismbecame superfluous.In these regards,the PolishRevolution had a similareffectto its Frenchcounterpart. These, in outline, are the findingsof Polishliteraryscholarship,that, forthe first time in English, are made available by Jan IJ. van der Meer. He has mined over two hundred bibliographies, dictionaries, monographs and articles, supplementing them by careful use of contemporary memoirs, in order to construct a coherent interpretation, enhanced by his own research on particular questions. He integrates the literature of the confederacies of Radom and Bar (I767-72), which has often been marginalized, into the broader picture, and draws linksbetween the didacticJesuit comedies of the 175os and 176os and those written duringthe revolutionaryyears (I 788-94). The section on the scant reading societies and the numerous political clubs callsinto questionaspectsofJurgen Habermas'stheoryof thepublic sphere probably its first application to Stanislavian Poland. The author draws judicious conclusions from statisticalanalyses. But, questionably, he devotes much more attention to novels and plays than to poetry. The reader will search in vain for the longer poetical works that made Ignacy Krasicki's reputation.As Teresa Kostkiewiczowa (Polskiwieks'wiatet, Wroclaw, 2002) has reiterated, poetry kept its leading place in the literary culture of this period. Van der Meer surprisingly ignores Elzbieta Aleksandrowska'sprominent article in Pami4tnik Literacki (i99i). She demonstrates that the king wrote...

Bibliography of Slavic Literature

Nisula covers materials published in the United States and abroad since 1989 covering Slavic literature from the medieval period to the end of the twentieth century. The three main sections are meticulously structured to cover all the dimensions of geographical space, literary genres, topics, authors and time. The first section examines general works on Slavic literature-namely Slavic bibliographies, journals, and library holdings. The second one frames the bibliographic sources within the Slavic geographic perimeter: East, Central and South Europe, while the final section considers regional and national literature. One of the richest European cultures reveals itself in the pages of this book and all those who want to understand the multiple aspects of Slavic literature can find in this an essential guide.