122 SEER, 87, I, JANUARY 200g simple terms and a transparent conversational tone. Reading Woman with a Movie Camera is much like listening toGoldovskaia telling stories. She includes anecdotes, complete with detailed accounts of conversations. Most amusing are Goldovskaia's political jokes ? the humorous residue of a horrifying Soviet past. Many of the jokes came from Goldovskaia's father, who was among the few survivors of the torturous interrogations at Lubianka. The memoirs include unique visual and reference materials. There are three insertswith stillsfromGoldovskaia's films,as well as photographs from her personal life.These include Louis Lumiere's autographed photograph to her father and her recent pictures with one of the fathers of direct cinema, Richard Leacock. The Appendix, 'Notable Figures in Soviet Filmmaking and Other Arts', introduces the Western reader to many Russo-Soviet cultural producers with whom the author worked over the course of her career. Gold ovskaia's book is an invaluable source of information and insights for anyone trying to understand late Soviet culture and the role of cinema and television in it.The volume would provide a unique gendered perspective on Russian visual culture in a film course, a women's studies seminar or in a class dealing with the issues of history and memory. Department ofSlavic Languages andLiteratures Erin Alpert Universityof Pittsburgh Department of Modern Languages andLiteratures Alexander Prokhorov College of William and Mary Kuhn, Ernst (ed., trans.).AnatoliLjadow: ^ugange zu Leben und Werk:Monographien Schrifien Verzeichnisse . musik konkret:Quellentexte und Abhandlungen zur russichenMusik des 19. und 20. Jahrhunderts. Ernst Kuhn, Berlin, 2006. xi + 285 pp. Musical extracts. Illustrations. Notes. List of works. Bibliography. Biography. Index. 49.95 (paperback). If Anatolii Liadov (1855-1914) is at all known as a composer today, it is usually for his brilliant orchestral miniatures, Baba-Iaga, Volshebnoeozero and Kikimora. Like so many members associated with the so-called Beliaev circle, he is often written off as an epigone who illustrates the depths to which Russian national music had sunk at the turn of the century. According to this historiographical interpretation, only with Stravinskii and Prokof'ev was Russian music to re-establish itselfat the forefront of European modernism: thatLiadov had been Diaghilev's firstchoice as composer of^har-ptitsa for the Ballets russesonly compounds the apparent veracity of this observation (to which must be added the composer's reputation for indolence). Ernst Kuhn seeks to revive interest inLiadov by publishing this collection of memoirs and essays. There is, apparently, much unpublished material relating to Liadov's life and work in various archives, and Kuhn will be rewarded ifthis isbrought to light.For the time being, however, we must rely on volumes such as this. Most of the contributions in it are taken from a 1916 volume ? An. K. Liadov: Zfiizn' -portret tvorchesto . Izpisem ? edited by REVIEWS 123 Viktor Val'ter (Walter), and the appearance of a number of essays from this volume in an easily available German translation ought to do much to bring the composer to the attention of a variety of scholars and music lovers. The volume includes Val'ter's own biography of the composer, as well as brief accounts of Liadov's vocal works and folksong arrangements, and further memoirs by Val'ter (ofLiadov as a teacher) and theAcmeist poet turned Soviet opera librettist,Sergei Gorodetskii. There is an account of Liadov's piano music by the Soviet critic,Aleksandr Alekseev, and a newly commis sioned survey of the orchestral music by SigfridNeef. By far themost interest ing and important of the individual sections is a set of extracts fromLiadov's own letters, which record his reactions to contemporary cultural events and illustrate the breadth of his reading, from his enthusiastic response to Chekhov's Tri sestry and various stories, to his distaste for the utilitarianism of Gor'kii and Tolstoi's Chto takoe iskusstvo? His reading also encompassed Dickens, Wilde, d'Annunzio, Huysmans, Hamsun and the Kalevala, as well as Andreev and Merezhkovskii. As a guide to one creative individual's reading at the turnof the century, thispart of the collection will be of interest tomore than justmusicologists. The volume concludes with a list of Liadov's compositions and a biblio graphy...