The Letters of Alexander Pushkin by J. Thomas Shaw; Alexander PushkinReview by: Georgette DonchinThe Slavonic and East European Review, Vol. 47, No. 109 (Jul., 1969), pp. 536-538Published by: the Modern Humanities Research Association and University College London, School ofSlavonic and East European StudiesStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4206116 .

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536 THE SLAVONIC REVIEW

asserted by a 10-volume collected edition of his work during his lifetime, was a generous reflection indeed of public favour rather than literary

authority. Succeeding audiences, however, found little sympathy for

either the author or his work. Durski's intention is to provide a descriptive account of L. A. Dmuszew-

ski's original dramatic work and to a lesser degree of his other activities in the theatre (as actor, producer, director of the National Theatre in War?

saw). It is conceived as a handbook of literary history and as a companion volume to an earlier study on Dmuszewski: Ludwik Adam Dmuszewski, Warsaw, 1964, published by PIW in its series of monographs on the leading figures in the development of Polish theatre, which amongst other things dealt in more detail with the theatrical history of his plays. It is Durski's aim to avoid a duplication of material.

The book is divided into six chapters. After a review of critical opinion and of the existing sources of reference on Dmuszewski in chapter I, his dramatic work is discussed in the following chapters which correspond chronologically to the development and decline of his writing career during the years 1800-47. ^n chapter VI, which is in the form of a conclusion, the author attempts to define and assess Dmuszewski's contribution to the theatre and his place in literary history.

Durski sees Dmuszewski as a typical writer of a transition period? neither classical nor romantic. While in no way offering a rehabilitation of his work on its literary value he attempts to interpret it as a prepara? tion for the comedies of Fredro and romantic drama.

There is, from this point of view, sufficient reason perhaps for a study of this nature. Its main justification lies in its practical and informative value, and although it merits no special recommendation Durski's material is well enough arranged to be readable. Some passages, especially those

tracing the development and origins of comedy genres, will be of general interest like the bibliography of Dmuszewski's work at the end of the book. London B. W. Mazur

Shaw, J. Thomas (ed. & trans.) The Letters of Alexander Pushkin. Three vols in one. Translated, with preface, introduction, and notes by J. Thomas Shaw. The University of Wisconsin Press, Madison, Milwaukee, and London, 1967. 880 pages. Index. Maps. Illustrations.

This one-volume paperback edition of Professor Shaw's scholarly work is a reprint of the clothbound edition in 3 volumes published in 1963. Some minor inaccuracies and misprints of the original edition have been cor? rected. Its present price of ?3.4.0, however high, compares favourably with the ?10 for the first English edition, and makes it more accessible to the student in this country. This raises the perennial question of the

desirability of such works. Serious students of Pushkin would read his letters in the original; biographers of the poet who know too little Russian should find themselves a more congenial subject; while the general reader would probably be less bewildered and more satisfied with a stricter selection of the letters, whatever their intrinsic interest. Nonetheless, if the

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reviews 537

reading of this volume encourages the student of Russian to turn towards

the original letters, Professor Shaw will be fully vindicated.

The volume under review is by far the largest selection of Pushkin's

letters in any language other than Russian. It contains 674 letters, i.e.

roughly a hundred less than the small Academy edition. The editor's aim was to include all letters 'which have intrinsic interest as letters, and/or which reveal Pushkin the man in his character and biography, Pushkin the man of society, Pushkin the man interested and involved in politics and the government of his time, and Pushkin the man of letters' (p. 6). From a textological point of view, the editor is fully indebted to Soviet

scholarship. He had no access to manuscripts, and used the basic text of the small Academy edition collated against that of the large Academy edition of 1937-49, the standard textual edition of Pushkin's works. Dating and attribution follow the above editions.

As far as annotations are concerned, the editor's work was more diffi? cult. Though relying heavily on the encyclopaedic annotations of the

Modzalevsky three-volume edition of the letters covering the years 1815- 1833, and on the notes of the 'Academia' edition of Pushkin's works edited

by Tsyavlovsky, Professor Shaw had to cater for the needs of the reader of

English. His notes are fairly extensive and generally clear. His commentary to the letters covering the last four years of Pushkin's life is the most extensive to have appeared in print so far (the fourth and final volume of Pushkin's letters, to complete the edition begun by B. L. Modzalevsky in

1926, is due to be published in the Soviet Union in the near future). The 3 2-page introduction gives an excellent general evaluation of Pushkin's

epistolary heritage. The translation on the whole is done intelligently, despite the many

not unexpected flaws. The translator's claim to have conveyed in English Pushkin's 'rhythms, tonalities, and styles' is grossly exaggerated. In par? ticular, the attempt to retain Pushkin's 'constant word-play, including puns, allusions, parodies' etc. was foreseeably doomed to fail. Some care? lessness could have been avoided. Some renderings are too literal: 'Pyotr Ivanych [Bulgarin's novel Pyotr Ivanych Vyzhigin] priplyl i v Moskvu' is translated: 'Pyotr Ivanych has swum to Moscow' (letter no. 356); 'V Tsarskom Sele okazalas' dorogovizna' becomes 'high prices have turned

up in Tsarskoe Selo' (no. 370); even more clumsy is 'you won't receive

my picture any time soon' (no. 370) for 'ne poluchish' ty skoro i moyego obraza'. Some renderings fall quite flat: the colourful 'zdes' takaya kasha, chto khuzhe ovsyanogo kiselya' is thinly reflected by 'Here things are

really in a mess' (no. 17), and 'You can't imagine how much fun it is to

go dashing off from one's fiancee and then to settle down to writing verses'

(no. 313) doesn't bring out the verve of Pushkin's 'Ty ne mozhesh' voobrazit', kak veselo udrat' ot nevesty, da i zasest' stikhi pisat". Some expressions are heavy and downright ugly: 'Chto druzhba ? lyogkiy pyl pokhmerya...' becomes 'What is Friendship? The Light Flame of a Hangover'; 'Ya

preneschastnoye zhivotnoye' is rendered by the unfortunate 'I am a most unhappy critter' (no. 318). There are also some errors and inaccu? racies: 'povestka' is simply a note, and certainly not the diminutive of

16

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53^ THE SLAVONIC REVIEW

'povest" (no. 116). 'Del'nyye pis'ma' in the context of no. 381 should not

be translated by 'sensible letters'. 'Tsar' . . . otkryl mne arkhivy, s tem, chtob ya rylsya tam' is awkwardly rendered by 'so that I may hole up there' (no. 381). Equally awkward is the non-idiomatic phrase 'Here it has

already been five days that I haven't had any news' (no. 495 and passim). Terms of endearment, difficult to translate in any language, don't come out too well either. There are too many 'my dear fellow', 'my lad' etc. 'Dusha moya', 'moy milyy', and 'moy angel' are not differentiated. Pushkin's characteristic shifting from Russian to French and vice versa is lost. These criticisms, however, should not obscure the merits of Professor Shaw's painstaking, and essentially honest labour of love. London Georgette Donchin

Magarshack, David. Pushkin: a Biography. Chapman & Hall, London,

1967. 320 pages. Plates. Bibliography. Index.

Mr Magarshack is an experienced biographer, and should have realised

by now the pitfalls he is prone to fall into when presenting the life of a Rus? sian writer to the general English reader. His technique follows that used in the case of his former subjects: he pieces together various accounts and reminiscences of Pushkin's contemporaries and draws heavily on Pushkin's

correspondence. Though the picture is by no means complete, the effect is overcrowded: the story seems to tell itself in innumerable quotations strung together by a scanty and unilluminating commentary. Pushkin's life of course is rich in dramatic detail, and Mr Magarshack's own translation of the extracts quoted is lively and colloquial. Nonetheless, the overall picture lacks depth and vision. Despite the claim on the blurb, the turbulent events of Pushkin's life are not satisfactorily related to his

writing. Pushkin the man lives in his work. Mr Magarshack practically ignores it.

His reliance on Pushkin's letters doesn't really help him. However

delightful some of them may be, they contain mainly biographical detail, information on Pushkin's material circumstances and his reaction to them. We learn from them relatively little of Pushkin's own views about his works, we hardly find in them a clue to his creative process. When self-revelation

occasionally emerges, it is implicit rather than explicit. The character? istic of Pushkin's letters is the characteristic of his prose?experience is

presented in concrete terms, in action, not in analysis. Just as Pushkin does not linger on the feelings of his characters, he hardly ever lingers on his own. This explains to some extent why the man is elusive if judged merely by his letters. As Mr Magarshack doesn't choose to spend much time on Pushkin's work, we lose the perspective needed to understand the whole human being. We are merely left with the externals of Pushkin's bio?

graphy. From time to time we get some cursory information of the circum?

stances in which a work was written, and some very superficial cliche-laden criticism. About The Fountain of Bakhchisaray we learn that 'the en? tertainment value of the poem is much greater than that of The Caucasian

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