Russian Romantic Heroes in English or other European Literatures

[clark troy]

Dear Seelangers,

I'd like to add a couple of thoughts on the subject of Russian romantic
heros in the Western novelistic tradition to those of Russell Valentino.
As background to this question, it's worth having a peak at Larry Wolf's
1994 book "Inventing Eastern Europe" (I think that's the precise title),
which argues that 18th century Western Europe creates a libidinalized
vision of a wild and irrational East against which to constitute itself as
the locus of reason.  This image applied more or less equally to all Slavs
and seeming Slavs, be they Russians, Poles, or even Livonians.

If all Slavs have roughly the same semiotic valence in the 19th century,
then such romantic types as George Eliot's Will Ladislaw, from
"Middlemarch," must be considered.   Ladislaw, whose name seems to devolve
from Vladislav, is initially rumored to be Polish, and in the end he
proves to be Jewish.   The initial rumor, however, is important, for he
certainly behaves in a novelistically "Slavic" way.  That is, he's a
superfluous man through and through, flitting from one realm of activity
to another in search of meaning, focusing his energies on a non-conformist
woman.  It's worth noting that an English translation of Turgenev's "A
Nest of Gentry" (done by a friend of Eliot's) appeared two years before
"Middlemarch" was published.  Similarly, in Fontane's "Effi Briest," the
heroine's illicit lover, Major Crampas, is characterized by her husband as
"one of those half-Poles," and plays the role of the wild and spontaneous
Slav to a tee.

Running counter to type we might note Wolmar, in Rousseau's "La Nouvelle
Heloise," who maintains an entirely rational and avuncular presence,
almost in spite of his Russianness.

But by and large, the dashing Russian lover is probably an underdeveloped
type.  There's little surprise in that, though.  Northern Europe as a
whole has produced relatively few Romeos for mass consumption.  The common
mythical traits of these lovers are typically the fire of southern blood
and/or extraordinary cosmopolitanism, neither of which were prominent
attributes of Russia's public image abroad until hunky and soulful ballet
stars started to emigrate in the 1970s.  America was a similarly poor
breeding ground for compelling male lovers, for similar reasons.r

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