American Association of Teachers of Slavic and East European Languages Solzhenitsyn and Dostoevsky. A Study in the Polyphonic Novel by Vladislav Krasnov Review by: James M. Curtis The Slavic and East European Journal, Vol. 24, No. 4 (Winter, 1980), pp. 433-434 Published by: American Association of Teachers of Slavic and East European Languages Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/306960 . Accessed: 12/06/2014 21:37 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at . http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp . JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact
[email protected]. . American Association of Teachers of Slavic and East European Languages is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to The Slavic and East European Journal. http://www.jstor.org This content downloaded from 62.122.79.78 on Thu, 12 Jun 2014 21:37:42 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=aatseel http://www.jstor.org/stable/306960?origin=JSTOR-pdf http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp Reviews 433 Essentially, then, it is his first-hand acquaintance with his subject and his imaginative treatment rather than new facts which permit Gladkov to clarify the turning points of Mejerxol'd's early life. Thus his account of Mejerxol'd's youthful radical background shows the director's adherence to Communism to be by no means opportunistic. In a final chapter devoted to Cexov, Gladkov assigns to Russia's greatest dramatist a decisive role in the making of Mejerxol'd. He avers that Treplev, the part Mejerxol'd created in the first Art Theater production of The Sea Gull, meant more to him than just a character in a play. The biographer quotes both Nemirovi&-Danienko and Gor'kij to imply that Cexov sides with Treplev's advocacy of "new forms," that is, Symbolism. Gladkov infers from this: "Not Vjabeslav Ivanov and not Georgij Culkov introduced Mejerxol'd to Symbolism: Cexov and Treplev did this much earlier. Leafing through Mejerxol'd's diaries, notebooks and letters, we shall not find in him before The Sea Gull, before Cexov, before Treplev any 'toski po novym formam.' The young actor is enthusiastic about Stanislavskij as a director who was still under the Meiningen influence. . . . But after The Sea Gull Mejerxol'd is a different person. Treplev brought him liberation from the temptation to imitate... : he gave him the greatest respon- sibility of all in art-to be himself" (114-15). Beyond previous biographers, then, Gladkov greatly illumines Mejerxol'd's life, though only the early years. Beside the scholarly care and sympathetic concretion with which he has shown the young actor, could he have mustered, as well, the critical attitude essential to evalua- tion of his revered master? In default of the projected two further parts on the directorial career the question must remain unanswered. Gladkov did publish-partly in a rare periodical-say- ings of Mejerxol'd of axiomatic interest, and one wishes that these might have been included as an appendix to this so promising partial biography. Marjorie L. Hoover, New York City Vladislav Krasnov, Solzhenitsyn and Dostoevsky. A Study in the Polyphonic Novel. Athens: The University of Georgia Press, 1980. $17.50. Imagine for a moment that Solienicyn were to return, as he hopes to do, to a free Russia which had resulted from, say, a palace revolution; then ask yourself, "What would Russian criticism of his work be like?" Vladislav Krasnov's Solzhenitsyn and Dostoevsky offers one possible answer to this question because it comprises a fine example of an identifiably Russian kind of criticism. As the subtitle suggests, Krasnov uses Solienicyn's well known remark about his preference for the polyphonic novel as a means of explicating The First Circle. (He also includes one chapter each on Cancer Ward and August 1914.) Krasnov begins his book with a perceptive discussion of the use of the term by Mixail Baxtin, to whom Solienicyn was implicitly referring, and then applies Baxtin's concepts in various ways. He rightly emphasizes Dostoevskij's impor- tance for the three principal characters of The First Circle, relating Rubin to Ivan Karamazov, Sologdin to Stavrogin, and Nerzhin to Alyosha Karamazov. Krasnov writes at his best, I think, in explicating the way Solienicyn follows Dostoevskij in using charactonyms, or "telling names." Probably only a native speaker would have sensed all these nuances in Lev Rubin's name: "Besides the red color of his Communist convictions, it suggests the butchering function (from rubit') of the Damascene sword he wanted to be, the brilliance, if not the depth, of his jewellike intellect, and perhaps the "cosmopolitanism" of a Jew, since it is a typically Jewish name encountered in many countries" (42). Likewise, Krasnov remarks that "Perhaps the name of Sologdin suggests the self-centered hero's emphasis on solo action"; (57) as for Nerzhin: ". .. Gleb may be read as alluding to his saintly qualities of self-abnegation and readiness for self-sacrifice in the spirit of his patron saint; Nerzhin may be read as suggesting This content downloaded from 62.122.79.78 on Thu, 12 Jun 2014 21:37:42 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp 434 Slavic and East European Journal that the tradition of Russian sainthood is not subject to corrosion and decay (a negative from rzha: rzhavchina, meaning "rust"). . ." (68). Yet two aspects of Solzhenitsyn and Dostoevsky may seem questionable to the Western critic. Since his implied reader, to use Iser's term, is a well-educated Russian, Krasnov does not bother to demonstrate Sologdin's affinity to Stavrogin by citing relevant passages from The Devils. As a matter of fact, he quotes Dostoevskij only six times in the whole book. More seriously, Krasnov resembles Russian critics of varying political persuasions in asserting that he knows how the author feels about his characters. He repeatedly makes such statements as, "It is clear that Nerzhin rather than Rubin reflects Solzhenitsyn's own attitude toward Sologdin" (51). The intentional fallacy is alive and well here, as it is in so much Russian criticism. Solzhenitsyn and Dostoevsky shares one shortcoming, not just with Russian criticism, but with all previous Solienicyn criticism; now that Solienicyn has published the definitive text of The First Circle, which includes some new chapters, and some completely rewritten chapters, certain of Krasnov's specific comments have become obsolete. Nevertheless, Solzhenitsyn and Dostoevsky remains an essential work, one whose perspicacity and intuitive feel for the material is exemplary. No one who has read Krasnov's book can think of Solienicyn simply as a Tolsto- jan writer. Thanks to Krasnov, we now understand that the matter is more complicated than that. In conclusion, I wish to congratulate the University of Georgia Press on the tasteful design of this beautiful book. The dustjacket reproduces David Levine's witty caricature of Solienicyn; the book cover itself is silver with lettering in blue, a blue which reappears on the endpapers. The text is printed on excellent paper in clear, easily readable type. This is, in short, a book in which both the author and the press alike can take equal pride. James M. Curtis, University of Missouri-Columbia BHe POCCHH. AHTO1OImrI 3MHrpaHTCKOfl nO33HH, 1917-1975. Ed. H. W. Tjalsma. (Centrifuga: Rus- sian Reprintings and Printings, 37.) Miinchen: Wilhelm Fink, 1978. xiv, 188, DM 28. (paper). Lovers of Russian poetry will welcome this new anthology of "poetry written by Russian poets in emigration," the sixth such work since 1936. Edited with great care and affection by H. W. Tjalsma, the volume is introduced by George Ivask, himself a poet and the editor of an earlier anthology of Russian poetry abroad, who succeeds in brilliantly characterizing each poet in succinct paragraphs, rich in perceptive ideas and suggestions. Vne Rossii was meant to gather what the editor saw as the best and most representative pieces by the poets included. There was no effort to be different, to include other poems, "something else"; or, conversely, there was no reluctance to reprint already established "anthology pieces." The basic principle of selection appears to have been quality, and, in- evitably and unabashedly, personal taste. Such personal preferences are noticeable in the amount of space allotted to favorites. Among the "classics," in Part I (the book is divided into four parts, roughly corresponding to four generations) XodaseviE and Cvetaeva botf receive about 14 pages each whereas Vjabeslav Ivanov and Gippius are given only five, although this can be also explained by the fact that a significant part of the activities of the latter two took place inside Russia. In Part III, among the so-called "young generation" of the first emigration, there are some surprising decisions. Antonin Ladinskij is alloted as much space as Poplavskij (both eight pages, ten versus eight poems) and Nabokov fares even better with nine pages (three longer poems), while others like Smolenskij or Knut are accorded two to three pages (one or two poems), Ginger and Prismanova four to five. Part IV, covering the Russian poets of the Americas, is, like Part I, closer to the heart of the editor. Five of the poets here (Cinnov, This content downloaded from 62.122.79.78 on Thu, 12 Jun 2014 21:37:42 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp Article Contents p. 433 p. 434 Issue Table of Contents The Slavic and East European Journal, Vol. 24, No. 4 (Winter, 1980), pp. 333-466 Volume Information Front Matter Irony in Povest' o Gore i Zločastii [pp. 333-348] The Author as Editor: Leskov's "The Musk-Ox" [pp. 349-361] Axmatova's Macbeth [pp. 362-368] Lef and the Development of Early Soviet Prose [pp. 369-386] Russian Borrowing of English [ae] [pp. 387-399] Teaching Russian to Scientists: A Single Skill Approach [pp. 400-411] Rita Rajt-Kovaleva's Vonnegut: A Review Article [pp. 412-419] Reviews Review: untitled [pp. 420-422] Review: untitled [pp. 422] Review: untitled [pp. 423-424] Review: untitled [pp. 425-426] Review: untitled [pp. 426-427] Review: untitled [pp. 427-428] Review: untitled [pp. 428-430] Review: untitled [pp. 430-432] Review: untitled [pp. 432-433] Review: untitled [pp. 433-434] Review: untitled [pp. 434-435] Review: untitled [pp. 435-436] Review: untitled [pp. 437-438] Review: untitled [pp. 438-439] Review: untitled [pp. 440-441] Review: untitled [pp. 441-442] Review: untitled [pp. 442-443] Review: untitled [pp. 444-445] Review: untitled [pp. 445-447] Review: untitled [pp. 447-448] Review: untitled [pp. 448-449] Review: untitled [pp. 449-450] Review: untitled [pp. 451-452] Review: untitled [pp. 452-454] Review: untitled [pp. 454-456] Review: untitled [pp. 456-457] Review: untitled [pp. 457-458] Review: untitled [pp. 458-459] Review: untitled [pp. 459-460] Books Received [pp. 460-463] News and Notes [pp. 464-466] Back Matter