Abstracts for Fall 2001 (Volume 60, Number 3)
Stephanie
Sandler, "Scared into Selfhood: The Poetry of Inna Lisnianskaia, Elena
Shvarts, Ol'ga Sedakova
Sandler
analyzes the poetry of three contemporary Russian women poets, focusing on one
poem by each poet from the late Soviet period. Using psychoanalytical theory
and philosophical theories of the sublime, she assesses how fear creates a
sense of self for each poet. In all the texts examined, the poet's self is
shattered in order to be built up again. Poetic identity means a writer's identity,
particularly to Sedakova and Lisnianskaia, and all three poets find a sense of
self by resisting some conventional notions of the woman poet.
Nadya L.
Peterson, "The Private 'I' in the Works of Nina Berberova"
This
article aims to identify prevalent concerns and anxieties informing Berberova's
works, whether designated as fiction, biography, fictionalized history, or
autobiography; to observe what is hidden behind the public facade of the
autobiographical self; and to determine how the fictional and the
autobiographical are connected in the writer's narratives. Berberova's
autobiography, as well as her fictional and biographical writings, provide a
fertile ground for investigating the author's frame of reference from the point
of view of her gender. A close look at the nature of autobiography, with its
careful construction of a public self, offers insight into the way Berberova
wants others to see her. Paying attention to the struggle for physical and
spiritual survival, the focus of Berberova's writing in general, affords an
understanding of what the author deems necessary in order to overcome the
hardships of emigration, the challenges of failed relationships, and the
hazards of being a woman writer. Berberova's connections with men and women in
her life--described by herself, seen by others, reflected in her fiction--all
point to a pivotal concern with the strengths and weaknesses of her own gender.
Greta N.
Slobin, "The 'Homecoming' of the First Wave Diaspora and Its Cultural
Legacy"
The return
of the first wave émigrés' cultural legacy at a critical juncture of
postcommunist transformation in 1990s Russia presents a case study of a
dialogue between the diaspora and the homeland. The belated encounter of shared
national traditions reveals a history of competing cultural monopolies,
incongruous resemblances, and matching nostalgias. Contemporary diaspora and
postcolonial studies in the west have addressed such key issues as diaspora's
self-definition in relation to the homeland, its strategies of resistance and
accommodation, and transnational networks. The first part of the article
presents a brief survey of Russia Abroad, its internal discourse concerning its
legacy and the dream of return after Iosif Stalin's death. The second part
considers the emerging field of diaspora studies in Russia, focusing on the
dynamics of its reception, appropriation, and domestication. The range of
partisan responses to the ‚migr‚ legacy is considered a touchstone for the
current debates concerning Russian national and cultural identity.
Roumen
Daskalov, "Modern Bulgarian Society and Culture through the Mirror of Bai
Ganio"
This
article deals with the fictional character Bai Ganio, who was created by the
Bulgarian writer Aleko Konstantinov at the end of the nineteenth century and
who has become a sort of national symbol in Bulgarian society and culture.
Daskalov presents the various interpretations of Bai Ganio, explores their
assumptions and implicit meanings, and then employs the character to illuminate
some of the major problems and concerns within Bulgarian society.
Metaphorically one might say that the various interpretations of Bai Ganio
serve as a mirror for a modernizing Bulgaria or, even better, that Bai Ganio
and Bulgaria mutually reflect each other. Yet although the mirror retains the
trace of the mirrored object, it obfuscates and distorts it.
David L.
Ransel, William G. Wagner, Willard Sunderland, Steven L. Hoch, and Boris
Mironov, Forum on Boris Mironov's "Sotsial'naia istoriia Rossii"
A forum on
Boris Mironov's Russian and English editions of The Social History of Imperial
Russia, 1700-1917 (2000) offers the comments of four scholars on different
aspects of Mironov's work. David L. Ransel introduces the forum with a
consideration of whether Russian and western historical scholarship has been or
should be converging, and he reviews the Russian-language response to Mironov's
book. William G. Wagner discusses Mironov's key conclusions: that the imperial
period was marked by the development of a more individualistic personality, the
democratic nuclear family, civil society, and a state order based on the rule
of law. He questions, however, the validity of the modernization paradigm as an
adequate tool for analyzing these developments. Willard Sunderland comments on
the use of the concept of empire in Mironov's book, calling attention to the
assertion that imperial Russia was a "normal" European state and that
it was not a "true colonial state." The focus of the book, he argues,
remains Russian society within the space of the empire, not the society of the
empire as a whole. Steven L. Hoch considers Mironov's chapter on demographic
processes, criticizing the use of demographic theory and its application to
problems such as fertility and mortality. He also argues that Mironov accepts
too uncritically the utility of the statistical data at hand. Boris Mironov
responds to Wagner, Sunderland, and Hoch in turn.