Novye materialy o L. N. Tolstom. Iz arkhiva N. N. Guseva by A. A. s> Donskov Z. N. Ivanova , L. D. Gromova (review)

REVIEWS 309 few cases, French)versions of all the extended and most of the shorterprose quotations given in the text. Helfant's monograph shows familiarity with secondary literature in a number of fieldsand has a solid scholarlyapparatus.The chapterson Tolstoi the American and Begichev, which provide interestinginsightson these little known individuals, are particularly useful. However, the merits of the monograph may be outweighedby defects in balance, selection of material, and disparitybetween sub-title and content that arise, one suspects, from the difficultyof transformingthe narrowlyfocused postgraduate dissertation on which the monograph is no doubt based into an altogethermore ambitious project. Department ofRussian Studies DEREK OFFORD University ofBristol Donskov, A. A. (ed.); Ivanova, Z. N. and Gromova, L. D. (comps). Novye materiayo L. N Tolstom. Iz ark/ivaN N Guseva. Tolstoy Series, 4. Slavic Research Group at the University of Ottawa and the L. N. Tolstoy Museum, Moscow, Ottawa and Moscow, 2002. Xii + 282 pp. Illustrations . Notes. Indexes. CAN$24.oo (paperback). THIS volume is the latest in the series of publications, undertakenjointly by the Slavic Research Group of the University of Ottawa, the State Tolstoi Museum in Moscow and the Institute of World Literature of the Russian Academy of Sciences, which focus on Tolstoi towards the end of his life. It is the second to draw exclusively on previously unpublishedmaterialsfrom the vast archiveof N. N. Gusev, bequeathed to the Tolstoi Museum afterhisdeath in I967. Compiled by two outstanding Tolstoi scholarsin Russia, and edited in Ottawa by the foremost Tolstoi specialist in Canada, this latest volume consists of forty-five letters from Gusev to Tolstoi during the period of 1903-19 10 (Tolstoi'sreplieshave alreadybeen published),and eight reminiscences of Tolstoi, two by the same author. Nikolai Gusev, son of an icon painter and grandson of a serf, was Tolstoi's secretary from I907- I909, and subsequently Director of the Tolstoi Museum in Moscow during the late I920s. He is known to Tolstoi scholarsthroughout the world for his lifelong devotion to Tolstoi as biographer, memoirist and editor. Many of the letterspublishedhere were writtenin the remote village of Korepino in the Perm' Province, where he had been exiled for circulating banned writings of Tolstoi. They provide some interesting details of his not too uncomfortable life there, his living conditions and leisure pursuits, his captors and fellow exiles 'fortunatelythere are no intelligentyamong them', he remarked as well as revealing the nature and extent of his reading, and the overwhelming impact on him of Tolstoi's ideas. He welcomed his new situation as an opportunity to serve God. His best friend in captivity, he claimed, was Tolstoi's Cycle ofReadings. WhatIsArt?had rescued him from the baleful influence of Marxistdogma. But some readersmay be embarrassedby Gusev's constant adulation in these letters of his 'unforgettableand priceless teacher and friend', which borders at times on idolatry:Tolstoi's every word, 310 SEER, 8i, 2, 2003 however insignificant,is invaluable;he has taken upon himself the burden of the sinsof the whole world;did he know that he had recentlybeen proclaimed 'the only Christian in the world'? One would like to know more about the later Gusev than can be gleaned from Ivanova's brief biographical introduction . Did he remain unswervingly loyal to Tolstoi's ideals, a conscientious objector, a teetotaller,a vegetarian?Did he ever sufferfor his beliefsin Soviet times? Could he really have been the sanctimonious individual of limited cultural and intellectual interests as described by a woman acquaintance of his to the presentreviewer?A fullerbiographyof thisindefatigablebiographer would be welcome. The reminiscences of Tolstoi which follow Gusev'sletterstake up approximately i 00 pages. The seven contributors come from widely different educational backgrounds:three Iasnaia Poliana employees on the land or in the household; two teachers; one amateur photographer and one recent universitygraduate.Virtuallyall of their accounts referto the period of I889; some were written much later than the events described;at one extreme the peasant Morozov had known Tolstoi for most of his life, while the photographer only met him once. In contrast to Gusev's letters, the focus of attention in these memoirs is Tolstoi the man ratherthan Tolstoi the author. One is constantly made aware of Tolstoi's kindness,considerationfor others, and ability...

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