Literaturnyye manifesty. Ot simvolizmak Oktyabryu, Vol. I by K. Eimermacher; Texte derrussischen Formalisten, Vol. 1 by J. StriedterReview by: Georgette DonchinThe Slavonic and East European Review, Vol. 48, No. 111 (Apr., 1970), pp. 296-297Published by: the Modern Humanities Research Association and University College London, School ofSlavonic and East European StudiesStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4206212 .

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296 SLAVONIC REVIEW

Bely, and throws a unique light not only on their uneven and tense

relations, but also on the general atmosphere in the early years of this

century. Orlov's introduction has by now become a classic of its kind. Reprinted

in the Soviet Union in 1963 in a collection of his essays, Puti i sud'by, it is of considerable value to any historian of the Symbolist movement. Its re? issue once again reminds us of the existence of important archive material on the Symbolist movement in general, and on Bely and Blok in particular. When will the recollections of Blok's wife be published at last ? After how

many years does a personal relationship become respectable ? London Georgette Donchin

Eimermacher, K. (ed.) Literaturnyye manifesty. Ot simvolizmakOktyabryu,vol. I. Slavische Propylaen, no. 64. Wilhelm Fink Verlag, Munich, 1969. ix+ 297 pp.

Striedter, J. (ed.) Texte der russischen Formalisten, vol. 1. Theorie und Geschichte der Literatur und der schonen Kiinste, 6/1. Wilhelm Fink Verlag, Munich, 1969. lxxxiii + 500 pp. Indices.

O f the two publications under review, the first is part 1 of a collection of

literary manifestoes covering roughly the period from 1890 to 1932. This first volume derives its title from, and is a reprint of, the 2nd edition of the classic anthology compiled by N. L. Brodsky, N. P. Sidorov and V.

L'vov-Rogachevsky. Published originally in 1929, in 4,000 copies, it differed substantially from the ist edition which appeared in 1924 (3,000 copies) under the title Ot simvolizma do "Oktyabrya" and was compiled by Brodsky and Sidorov. The 2nd edition omitted a number of manifestoes by pre-revolutionary literary groups, excluded the least representative avant-

garde cliques of the 1920s (with such exotic names as biokosmizm, lyuminizm, nichevoki, form-librizm, fuizm, etc.), and considerably enlarged its final section devoted to the proletarian writers.

The second volume of the Fink Verlag anthology will comprise material included in the ist but omitted from the 2nd edition, and will have a

supplementary section edited by Karl Eimermacher consisting of mani? festoes not included by Brodsky in either 1924 or 1929, and additionally extending the coverage up to 1932.

The material thus gathered is not merely a useful short-cut to the study of the various more or less organised literary groups that proliferated like mushrooms in Russia in the first decades of this century. Whereas the stream of manifestoes and artes poeticae by the Symbolists was primarily due to their need to intellectualise the act of the artist, the later declara?

tions, proclamations and professions de foi seemed often to spring up merely for novelty's sake and out of opposition to each other. It is an almost

impossible task to find them, scattered as they are in journals and even

newspapers many of which were ephemeral, and most of which are difficult to locate. When complete, the present collection will prove indispensable to the student of the period.

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reviews 297

The collection of formalist texts which comes from the same publishers in

a different series gives both the original Russian and a German trans?

lation. Vol 1 contains formalist writings devoted to the theory of prose, vol 2 will deal with poetics. Only complete critical works are presented, and the emphasis in vol 1 is on two characteristic features: the parody and the skaz*

The importance of the vigorous and stimulating essays by Shklovsky, Tynyanov and Eykhenbaum does not have to be reiterated. Whatever

their exaggerations and excesses, the Formalists contributed to new ways of thinking and methods of inquiry. It may seem ungrateful to question the

usefulness of a collection of their most illuminating pronouncements, but

surely it is regrettable that duplication with recently reprinted works has not been avoided. Out of the twelve essays included in the present

anthology, at least six are readily available (cf. Eykhenbaum's Skvoz' literaturu reprinted by Mouton in 1962, and especially Tynyanov's Arkhaisty i novatory reprinted by Fink Verlag in the Slavische Propylaen series in 1967).

Professor Striedter's judicious and lucid introduction concentrates on formalist method rather than on the historical background, and reviews in

particular the place and the relevance of the reprinted essays in the evolution of formalist doctrine.

The volume has a most useful subject-index (the references are to the

translation, not to the original) and an index of names with brief bio?

graphical notes on the lesser known people mentioned. A bibliography of Russian Formalism is to be included in the second volume. London Georgette Donchin

Slonim, Marc. Soviet Russian Literature. Writers and Problems. Oxford

University Press, London, 1967. viii-j-373 pp. Bibliography of translations. Index.

For the paper-back edition of his history of Soviet literature Mr Slonim has added a few more pages to bring the story further up-to-date. The main virtues and defects of the book remain otherwise unchanged. The authors with whom he deals are predominantly prose-writers: of the poets only Yesenin, Mayakovsky and Pasternak receive a whole chapter to themselves. Yet, as Mr Slonim recognises at one point, it is for its poetry rather than for its prose that Russian literature of the last fifty years is

likely to be remembered. Partly as a result of this the decent literature seems to be swamped in a flood of hackwork.

Mr Slonim's method is to concentrate on individual authors, breaking up the sequence with chapters on the political and social background. This is probably the most satisfactory approach, but the need to compress so much information into a few pages has often resulted in a confusion of the

chronology, which could seriously mislead inexperienced readers. The number of writers chosen for this treatment leaves little room for more than a character-sketch, and a brief account of the major works, often just retelling the story. Some authors naturally catch his sympathy more than

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