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Literature, History and Identity in Post-Soviet Russia, 1991–2006 by Rosalind Marsh

2010; Modern Humanities Research Association; Volume: 105; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1353/mlr.2010.0346

2222-4319

Oliver Ready,

Eastern European Communism and Reforms

MLR, 105.1, 2010 309 Nabokov and his characters had gone?to make sure it was doable, to live through the experiences of his books' (p. 25).) ForWestern readers, however, thisbook isof doubtful value, offering tired cliches of Russia and its culture and limited insights intoNabokov and his art. University of Nottingham Siggy Frank Literature, History and Identity in Post-Soviet Russia, 1991-2006. By Rosalind Marsh. Bern: Peter Lang. 2007. 594 pp. ?57. ISBN 978-3-03911-069-8. Trie title of Rosalind Marsh's new volume suggests a Herculean endeavour, for there are few aspects of literary life in Russia in the past two decades which it leaves untouched. History, in one way or another, has been the primary concern ofmost writers of artistic prose' (khudozhestvennaia proza) since the fall of the Soviet Union, especially in the 1990s, when contemporary themes were largely surrendered to genre fiction (and to the satiristViktor Pelevin). Itwas the capi talist present, not the Soviet past, that remained a foreign country tomost in the intelligentsia. The contrast with the literary climate of the 1920s, another decade of ideological and economic upheaval, could not have been more striking. Unravelling the complexities of this stubborn and profound engagement with a vanished civilization will be a task for many scholars. The current book is,asMarsh acknowledges early on, 'highly selective' (p. 25) in its scope. It takes the reader up to the time ofwriting and may best be viewed as literaryhistory's firstdraft.The open ing chapters provide a helpful survey of the various pressures and controversies attending Russian literature since 1991, while in later sections a generally coherent picture emerges of the shiftfrom the realistic historical narratives of theperestroika era, with their emphasis on exposure, to the 'historical metafiction' (p. 245) that came to dominate in the work of Vladimir Sharov, Dmitrii Bykov, and others. Marsh gives well-informed accounts of the debates occasioned by some important novels of the period, such as Georgii Vladimov's General i ego armiia [TheGeneral and his Army] (1994), which focuses on the incompetence of Soviet military com manders and on the quantity of Soviet citizens 'prepared to take up arms against their own country, or to collaborate with theGermans' (p. 218). Marsh is also tobe commended fordiscussing at length not only the handful of contemporary Russian writers who can claim global fame, but also thework of less glamorous authors, such asMikhail Kuraev, Viacheslav P'etsukh, and Valerii Zalotukha. Due attention ispaid to the cultural and political background throughout the period. The book's flaws, however, are numerous and serious, beginning with its ex cessive length and its unfocused structure, which an abundance of subheadings does nothing to hide. Itwould be hard to give a sequential description ofMarsh's arguments and topics, for the chapters in the central section are often hard to distinguish one from another. There is considerable repetition, which gives the book a cyclical feel (rather like some of the novels itdiscusses), and unnecessary padding. Certain words, such as 'ironically' and 'nationalist', appear with obsessive 3io Reviews frequency in lieu ofmeaningful analysis. The 'Two Case Studies' examined in the third and final section (representations of Stalin inpost-Soviet fiction; 'Russia and theWest') could have been dealt with in far fewerwords, making space for less familiar topics. Marsh writes plainly, but not always clearly or reliably. It is confusing, for ex ample, to associate Pyotr Chaadaev's use of thephrase vne vremeni (outside time') inhis 'FirstPhilosophical Letter (1829) with the Utopian assertion' thatRussia can Teap into the future' (p. 391); misleading to assert thatVladimir Sharov established 'a vein ofmagical realism' (p. 463); and incorrect to gloss the Christian name of Pelevin's hero Vavilen Tatarsky as a 'mixture of Evtushenko's 'Babyi Yar' and Lenin' (p. 383; it is in fact a combination ofVasilii Aksyonov and V. I. Lenin). Cultural movements and tendencies peculiar to the late Soviet cultural underground (such as sots-art and styob) would need to be introduced much more clearly in order to prove illuminating when transferred to the post-Soviet literary context. Such shortcomings diminish the book's usefulness in its current form, although they could be rectified in a shorter,more...