Russian Romantic Heroes in English or other European Literatu res

[Subhash.Jaireth at AGSO.GOV.AU]

Dear Friends,

Thanks a lot to Troy Clark, Russell Valentino and Thomas Anessi for
interesting ideas on the absence of Slavic/Russian romantic heroes in
English Literature. It seems to be an interesting topic in itself although
my immediate interest was with respect to a review essay which I writing on
John Berger's novels and essays.

Thanks once again.


Subhash

                -----Original Message-----
                From:   clark troy [mailto:mct7 at COLUMBIA.EDU]
                Sent:   Wednesday, 8 March 2000 7:09
                To:     SEELANGS at LISTSERV.CUNY.EDU
                Subject:        Re: Russian Romantic Heroes in English or
other European Literatures

                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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