Abstract: REVIEWS 737 feminist theorists as Judith Butler and Elizabeth Grosz), the importance of intergenerational understanding, the ‘obsession’ with the past, and last but not least, tolerance. As telesnost´ forms the basis of Ulitskaia’s humanistic world view (it is ‘the body [that] makes us human’, p. 66) so the ‘families of affinity’ help to keep people and communities together (p. 99). The key image of Ulitskaia’s works, according to Skomp and Sutcliffe, is the Russian intelligent, an intellectual ‘who follows a specific code of moral behavior’ (p. 103). Coming to terms with the traumatic Soviet past is the task of the ‘great literature and moral instruction’ of the intelligentsia (p. 125). The fourth chapter discusses tolerantnost´, a central value in Ulitskaia’s intelligenty, and shows how Ulitskaia has become politically more active as a result of recent developments in Russia and her resistance to Putin’s regime. However, Skomp and Sutcliffe also recognize the limits of Ulitskaia’s tolerance: despite the notion that her depiction of homosexuality is ‘positive and innovative’ (which is exceptional in today’s Russia) it is nevertheless ‘schematic’ (p. 147); and, although Ulitskaia promotes multiculturalism, her ‘image of Muslims presents an even more complicated problem’ (p. 151). While enjoying Skomp’s and Sutcliffe’s eloquent and dense interpretations of Ulitskaia’s works, sometimes the reader would like to take a break and stop to think and read at greater length about a particular work — the strategy of discussing her works thematically might leave the reader lost among the many references to them. Be that as it may, Ludmila Ulitskaya and the Art of Tolerance is a much-needed, long-awaited and essential book for anyone interested in contemporary Russian literature in general and in Ulitskaia in particular. Department of Foreign Languages and Translation Studies Marja Sorvari University of Eastern Finland, Joensuu Blakesley, Rosalind P. and Samu, Margaret (eds). From Realism to the Silver Age: New Studies in Russian Artistic Culture. Essays in Honor of Elizabeth Kridl Valkenier. Studies of the Harriman Institute. Northern Illinois University Press, DeKalb, IL, 2014. xiv + 226 pp. Illustrations. Notes. Bibliography. Index. $40.00 (paperback). Elizabeth Kridl Valkenier’s pioneering scholarship has shaped the field of Russian art since the publication of her first book on the subject in 1977 (Russian Realist Art). Her groundbreaking approach lay in questioning the official Soviet view that the Association of Travelling Art Exhibitions or Peredvizhniki (1870–1923) — the major Russian realist exhibiting society established in the late nineteenth century — were a politically motivated group that served as a precursor to Stalin’s Socialist Realism. This account was crucially underpinned SEER, 94, 4, October 2016 738 by rigorous research carried out in the Soviet Union in the 1970s, making her study a model for future researchers to follow. Yet as Valkenier wrote in the book’s conclusion, ‘a study of several score artists, which covers more than a century, cannot linger over interesting features and details of individual canvases’. This is precisely what Rosalind P. Blakesley and Margaret Samu’s collection of essays has accomplished. Through the prism of the main themes and figures in Valkenier’s scholarship, the book honours her achievements, but chiefly serves as a celebration of the exponential growth in the field of Russian art over the past thirty years and the exciting new avenues scholars in Russia, the United States and the UK have investigated since. The thirteen essays are organized chronologically, beginning with Blakesley’s on the first decades of the Moscow School of Painting and Sculpture (founded in 1843) to John E. Bowlt’s discussion of Marianne Werefkin’s work before the outbreak of the First World War. Realism dominates the first few essays, taking Valkenier’s work on the subject into uncharted territory. These are mostly with reference to single figures (Elena Nesterova on Vladimir and Konstantin Makovskii, Jefferson J. A. Gatrall on Nikolai Ge and Lev Tolstoi, Galina Churak on Il´ia Repin) and individual artworks (Molly Brunson on Repin’s Ivan the Terrible, 1885). Major artists like Ge and the Makovskii brothers have largely been understudied in academia, but here finally receive due attention. Gatrall’s fascinating discussion of Tolstoi’s views on the image...
Publication Year: 2016
Publication Date: 2016-01-01
Language: en
Type: article
Indexed In: ['crossref']
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