Pushkin's 'The Bronze Horseman' by Andrew s> Kahn (review)

324 SEER, 8o, 2, 2002 It may be thought that such a broad topic might have benefited from a multi-authored treatment, but Lauer's overall perspective brings its own rewardsand reflectshis broad reading of primaryand secondarytexts, as well as a deep understanding of the socio-historical background to his subject. Especially valuable is his outlining of the latter: the reader is constantly informed about the historical and social conditions under which Russian literature came into existence, emphasizing particularly the mechanism of controls and processes of evaluation which were particularlyimportantin the twentieth century. Reinhard Lauer's book benefits greatly from its lack of schematicism and the great sympathyhe clearlyfeels for his subject.It is immensely convenient to use as an up-to-date reference work, both for general topics and for individualwriters,whilst its great readabilityalso lends it something of the air of a historicalnovel in which the hero is Russianliteratureitself. UniversityofMuinster HOLGER GEMBA Kahn, Andrew. Pushkin's'7The BronzeHorseman'. Critical Studies in Russian Literature. Bristol Classical Press, London, I998. iX p I49 pP.Notes. Bibliography.?7.95 (paperback). THIS volume follows the pattern established by its predecessors in this now quite extensive series.Unlike all the other volumes so far, however, it lacksan index, an omission which raisesa more general point. According to the blurb on the back cover of each volume, the series is 'accessibleto the generalreaderaswell as to studentsand teachersof Russian'. The term 'students' is notoriously elastic, but presumably includes undergraduates at all levels. There are some grounds for concern here, since this volume makes few concessions to this section of its target readership. For example, not only arequotationsfromPushkin'snarrativepoem not translated (despite claims to the contraryin the blurb),they are given in transliteration, which, if anything, hinders rather than helps comprehension. To compound the problem, there are at least eight slips in the transliteration(for example: pokyrlis', p. 44; bestviia, p. 47; optyny, p. 70; sumashedshiji, p. 8i) It is to be hoped that Bristol Classical Press, which has done so much to keep the study of Russian literature alive, will overcome its reluctance, or will acquire the necessary technology, to include cyrillicin its texts. The fact that this volume is a scholarly monograph rather than an aid to undergraduatestudents (and indeed the fact that the whole series may be in danger of moving in this direction)is probablyyet another deleteriousconsequence of the misbegotten Research Assessment Exercise, which rates monographs highly and downgrades anything which might be construed as a 'teaching aid'. It is worth recording that the BCP editions of Russian texts, which run in parallelto this 'criticalstudies'series,attractminimal ratingfrom the RAE. Judged as a scholarlymonograph, this is an excellent study.In the firstpart Andrew Kahn achieves the considerable feat of compressingthe vast amount of literature on the subject into the space of some twenty pages. Part two focuses on the text, most of it given over to a detailed and insightful REVIEWS 325 commentary. Kahn is particularly strong on the 'sound orchestration' and versificationof the poem. Partthree introducesKahn's own reading of the poem. The emphasisis on the textual echoes of other works, notably Mickiewicz's Forefathers' Eve,and, less expectedly, A Midsummer JVight's Dreamand 7The Aeneid.Unfortunately, space restrictionsdo not allowthe authorto develop the Shakespeareantheme at greaterlength here.At presentthisis clearlya fertileareaof Pushkinstudies, hinted at most recently by J. Douglas Clayton in his Wave andStone (Ottawa, 2000) where the Shakespeareanreferences in EvgeniiOnegin are explored. In addition to Shakespeare and Virgil (and many others), the translatorof 7The Iliad,Nikolai Gnedich, through his poem Rybaki, clearly influenced Pushkin. It is therefore appropriatethat a section of the bibliography,which overall is of the same high standard that one has come to expect from this series, is devoted to intertextuality. In addition to English-language and Russianlanguage items, books and articlesin Frenchand German are included. The only omissions are D. M. Thomas's translationof the poema(London, I982) and Neil Cornwell's Reference Guide toRussian Literature (London and Chicago, I998) which has a usefularticleon Mednyi vsadnik by MarilynMinto. There are a number of minor mistakes:the author of the notes on the I824 flood is variously V. N. Berg and V. N. Berkh (p. 58...

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