society

We always get plenty more books to review in Russian Life than we have space for. This fall the flood was so great that I was overcome by publisher guilt, knowing what it takes to produce and flog a book. So, in a fit of review mania, I hunkered down for a week and reviewed some of the finer books that have crossed our threshold (while still maintaining my principle of not wasting time reviewing books that I don’t like at list a little bit).

So, that said, here are the reviews that did not make it into our Nov/Dec 2010 issue. Depending on the flow of titles over the next month, some of these may appear in our Jan/Feb 2011 issue as well.

Summoning the Spirit of General Vlasov, by Gavriil Popov (Vantage Press, $$12.50)

Perhaps it was coincidental that we received a review copy of this book, about Soviet Russia’s most heinous traitor, Andrei Vlasov, written by Gavrill Popov, Yuri Luzhkov’s predecessor as Mayor of Moscow, on the eve of Luzhkov’s very public dismissal. Perhaps not.

Be that as it may, though the title and presentation is a bit off-putting, making the book seem like a political tract, if one delves into it, Popov’s short work raises some very important historical questions, and does it in a not un-entertaining way.

Popov, an economist and one of Russia’s perestroika democrats, is convinced that “the past is hindering the true democratic development of Russia, like a millstone around its neck.” And, as time has led historians and politicians to forgive and “rehabilitate” many who were once designated as traitors (Bukharin, Trotsky, Tuhkachevsky), he wonders “Why not Vlasov as well?” After all, Vlasov had been a hero in the defenses of Moscow and Kiev during World War II.

Vlasov’s “crime” was being captured as a prisoner of war, and then agreeing with the opponents of Hitler to create an anti-Stalin army. Of course he failed at this. But why, Popov wonders, was Vlasov condemned for turning against “his own people” when Stalin’s security forces were doing the same long before he?

It is an inquiry that Popov chooses to conduct through the conceit of a mystical conversation with Vlasov. In it, he focuses not just on Vlasov, but on numerous similar historical betrayals by others since treated as heroes. The result is a fascinating historical excursion with plenty of food for thought.

The Tiger, by John Vaillant (Knopf, $26.95)

“The Amur tiger, it could be said, takes a Stalinist approach to competition. It is also an extraordinarily versatile predator, able to survive in temperatures ranging from fifty below zero Fahrenheit to one hundred above, and to turn virtually any environment to its advantage.”

Half suspense story, half travel essay and another half survey of the tiger’s shrinking place on our planet, this is a book overflowing with rich characters, gripping narrative and sobering information of the human effect upon our environment.

Working, it seems, largely from oral accounts and interviews, Vaillant vividly reconstructs a 1997 tiger hunt in the Russian Far East that followed a series of tiger attacks in which the tiger seemed to be acting out of a calculated vengeance. But this hunt is just a quivering thread through the book, about which Vaillant groups fascinating digressions on everything from Vladimir Arseniev’s Dersu Usala, to tiger conservation and the cultural-historical place of tigers in world cultures, to literature, to the !Kung Bushmen of the Kalahari, with each aside set in motion by thought-provoking introductions like: “If Russia is what we think it is, then tigers should not be possible there. After all, how could a creature so closely associated with stealth and grace and heat survive in a country so heavy-handed, damaged and cold?”

Vaillant is a brilliant writer who tells his story well because he clearly is able to incite his interviewees to recount their own stories in depth, but also because he can deliver cutting observations like, “Sobolonye is the last settlement at the end of a road that, when not buried in snow, can go from choking dust to sucking mud in the space of an hour… The place has the feel of a North American mining town circa 1925, only with fewer straight lines.”

In short, this is a magnificent book about the nuts and bolts of conservation, about hardscrabble life in the Russia beyond the “materik,” about the strength of human character under adversity, and about the almost infinite adaptability of a noble and “extraordinarily versatile predator.”

Hidden and Triumphant, by Irina Yazykova (Paraclete Press, $26.99)

If you have ever wondered about the work of those who struggled to preserve the relics and icons of the Orthodox Church during Soviet rule, or been curious about the history and meaning of icon painting within that church, this book is for you.

Yazykova (translated by Paul Grenier) relates the history of the church’s survival against monumental odds, the stories of the individuals who kept on painting icons, those who toiled to minimize damage to churches, and those who took their faith abroad. And all this is recounted within the wider historical context of church history and iconography. An invaluable work of history that ends with a description of where iconography is going into the future, and who are its leading artists. Includes about a dozen beautiful color plates.

Other Animals, by Jane Costlow and Amy Nelson, eds. (Pittsburgh Press, $27.95)

This collection of scholarly essays surveys the amazingly complex human-animal relationships that pervade Russian culture, history and society and offers interesting insights into those relationships.

From the iconic bear, to a provincial dispute over a pig, to wolves, ferrets and horses, each essay offers an in-depth into one aspect of the anthro-animalia interface, as it were – usually one animal at a time. Among other things, we learn how the wolf came to be detested, why you should not throw a pig at a noblewoman, that Mayakovsky felt a particular kinship with animals, and what motivated noted animal trainer Vladimir Durov. This is a marvelous collection of academic essays that are accessible and of value to the general reader.

Cinematic Cold War, by Tony Shaw and Denise Youngblood (Kansas, $34.95)

The reason (thankfully) that the Cold War was cold was its battles were fought by surrogates or waged in unconventional ways, through propaganda, sports, espionage and cultural warfare. Olympic games, chess tournaments and ballet tours took on political and diplomatic significance far out of proportion to reality. So it was with film. In fact, the Cold War may have played out more fiercely on this cultural front than on any other, because film lends itself so well to propagandizing, and because film peaked as a media of influence in the post WWII era.

Shaw and Youngblood (who sits on our magazine’s Editorial  Advisory Board) have published the first full account of how the Cold War played out on American and Soviet silver screens. They show, through chronological essays and comparative case studies, that both film industries colluded with their respective states to churn out films that mixed entertainment and propaganda, yet were always in step with the reigning diplomatic mood. Only rarely did filmmakers dare to step outside the bounds of political correctness or ideological purity to make an independent statement.

The downside of this book is its frustration factor: so many fascinating films are mentioned, and so few of them are readily available through movie rental outlets, Netflix or elsewhere. But the fine plot summaries, especially in the comparative section, helps make up for this, and we can learn about such seminal Soviet movies as Spring on Zarechnaya Street, Incident at Map Grid 36-80, Nine Days in one Year, and Officers.

A bit of trivia to put in your back pocket for a future cocktail party. The current Hollywood release, Never Let Me Go, based on Kazuo Ishiguro’s novel of the same name, actually had namesake twin: Never Let Me Go (1953), starring Clark Gable, about an American journalist who falls in love with a Soviet ballerina.

The Diaries of Sofia Tolstoy, Translated by Cathy Porter (Harper, $16.99)

March 13, 1902: For a genius one has to create a peaceful, cheerful, comfortable home. A genius must be fed, washed and dressed, must have his works copied out innumerable times, must be loved and spared all cause for jealousy, so he can be calm. Then one must feed and educate the innumerable children fathered by this genius, whom he cannot be bothered to care for himself, as he has to commune with all the Epictetuses, Socrateses and Buddhas, and aspire to be like them himself.

I have served a genius for almost forty years. Hundreds of times I have felt my intellectual energy stir within me, and all sorts of desires – a longing for education, a love of music and the arts… And time and again I have crushed and smothered these longings, and now and to the end of my life I shall somehow continue to serve my genius.

The struggle between Lev and Sophia Tolstoy over the writer’s life and legacy has been known to historians for a hundred years.  But it has been dug up and brought to center stage in recent years, with the release of the film based on Jay Parini’s fine novel, The Last Station, the publication of a fine collection of Sofia’s photography in A Song Without Words.

This new edition of Sofia’s diary, edited down by translator Porter to about half its original length (it nonetheless still weighs in at 600 pages), offers the sort of unvarnished, first-person insight into life inside this tumultuous family (see Russian Life, Jan/Feb 2010) as encapsulated in the biting extract above.

But of course it is much more than that. Mixed in with prosaic reports of children’s fights and stomach aches, there are offhand remarks about the weather, about political events that, with the hindsight of a hundred years, cast an eerie and ominous pall over Sophie’s account. We know there is a horrific storm coming, and it is fascinating to hear the rumbling between the pages, to see the history of the country through the expressive, often intense writings of this intelligent observer.

The Russian Countess, by Edith Sollohub (Impress, $15.95)

The cover photo on this amazing autobiography shows a half dozen men standing over the carcass of a bear, sprawled on a snow-covered forest floor. Standing at their center is a teenaged girl in a greatcoat, born Edith Fyodorovich Martens. There is a deep intelligence evident in her almost mischievous gaze, one still very present in the last photo included in the book, of Edith at the age of 62, now a citizen of Great Britain, and looking rather weary.

What happens between those images is the story of an intensely full and eventful life, one played out against the backdrop of revolution and war. It is a gripping chronicle, writ through one woman’s life, of the replacement of Russia’s leading class by a vicious dictatorship.

Separated from her family in Petrograd in 1918, Edith must use guile, cunning and the fruits of her cultured noble upbringing (thank God for those violin lessons!) to escape a Soviet Russia that sought to annihilate all that her class owned and stood for. Assuming multiple identities, enduring prison, hunger and poverty (and making good use of having been taught to hunt as a girl), she makes her way out through Poland in an escape that is as daring and unlikely as it is vividly told.

Indeed, what is remarkable about this dense, well-paced memoir is the astounding detail of Sollohub’s memories – of conversations, people or places – making this work of immense value as a historical document accessible to a wide reading public. This autobiography (pieced together by the author’s son and daughter-in-law from notes and writings left behind on Edith’s death in 1965) brings to life the day-to-day existence of life in Russia before, during and after the revolution, and is not to be missed.

Let Our Fame Be Great, by Oliver Bullough (Basic Books, $28.95)

Over the years, we have reviewed several fine books on the Caucasus. This new work by Bullough joins the ranks of Babchenko’s One Soldier’s War in Chechnya and Seierstad’s moving The Angel of Grozny as a work that is both essential and good.

The difference with Bullough’s work, however, is that he takes on all of the Caucasus, not just Chechnya. He is a journalist who has been there, on the ground, in Chechen refugee camps, at the Beslan massacre, walking around villages of resettled Balkars. His goal is to track down and retell the stories of peoples displaced (and sometimes replaced) by wars and deportations. The Circassians, Balkars, Nogais, Ingush, Karachais and others all have their voices heard here. And he tells the stories by traveling there, by meeting people and relating to us first-hand what he sees, what the air smells like, how people’s lives – upended generations ago – are still unsettled and unjust.

Of course, to support all this, Bullough paints in plenty of back-story, on the history of each nation’s majesty or tragedy, on how things have gotten to where they are. But it is never dry or boring, because Bullough writes as if he is there, learning everything right alongside us. The result is a very intimate, effective, contemporary history of a part of the world that is little understood and now rarely traveled to. Invaluable.

Diaghilev: A Life, by Sjeng Scheijen (Oxford, $39.95)

This oversized volume appears in a format befitting the impresario that was larger than life. And Scheijen delivers a biography of Diaghilev that reads like fiction for its vivid detail, rich cast of characters and fulsome collection of fascinating historical incidents and vignettes.

Diaghilev’s contention with Russian authorities, his hot and cold relationship with Benois, the rise of Mir Iskusstvo, Diaghilev’s rise to stardom in France and all the personalities (from Prokofiev and Blok to Nijinsky and Bakst) swirling about these events are brought to life with extraordinary detail. Scheijen made great use of little known archives, unearthing a rich trove of personal correspondences that illuminate the artistic conflicts and personal affairs that shaped the world of art in the early twentieth century.