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The Editors and Board of Trustees of the Russian Review

Review: [untitled]Author(s): Vahan D. BarooshianSource: Russian Review, Vol. 40, No. 2 (Apr., 1981), pp. 227-228Published by: Blackwell Publishing on behalf of The Editors and Board of Trustees of the Russian ReviewStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/129247

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Book Reviewsook Reviews(Univ. of S. Illinois, 1971). (4) Articlesby George Ivask (Novyi zhurnal,1970, no. 99), H. Brzozaon the musical structureof Mitias Love, (Zagad-nienarodzajow iterackich[Lodz, Poland], 1972, no. 2), and N. Volynskaiaon The Life of Arsen'ev,(Filologicheskienauki,1966,no. 1). ROBERT OWIEMiamiUniversity,OhioDOUGLAS, CHARLOTTE. Swans of Other Worlds: Kazimir Malevich and theOrigins of Abstraction n Russia. Ann Arbor, MI: UMI Research Press,1979. x, 147pp. $23.95.

This study is an interesting account of Russian avant-gardeartistic ac-tivities and movements from 1908 to 1915, and of the diverse theoreticaloriginsof KazimirMalevich's dea of Suprematism.ProfessorDouglas pointsout the importanceof NikolaiKulbin'spublicationsand exhibits of Impres-sionist painters, including the exhibits of VladimirIzdebskii,among others,in the general formationof avant-gardeprinciples: the "search for essenceand the effective use in art of the human psyche," and also the role of the"irrationaland the absurd."Avant-gardeartists were primarilyoriented topsychological mpactand "sensation."They believed that new artisticforms,with emphasison the alogicaland the grotesquewould arouse a "futuristic"consciousness.Art would reveal the new possibilitiesof man'spsychologicalconquestof the universe.Professor Douglas discusses the highly fruitful cooperation betweenMalevich and Kruchenykh,who emerges as a major figurein the book. Itappearsthat Kruchenykh's otion of "transrationalanguage"had a decisiveinfluence on Malevich, who extended that notion to painting. ProfessorDouglas devotes a chapter, perhaps the best in the book, to their opera,Victory Over the Sun, for which Malevichdesigned the sets and costumesand Kruchenykhwrote the libretto. Professor Douglas observes that theoperawas "anattemptto shockeveryone,even the Futurists hemselves,intoa new consciousness.VictoryOverthe Sun swampedthe senses and saturatedthe intellect with irreducibleobjects in order to stimulate the viewer toanother evel of intuitiveandemotionalunderstanding f reality."The last two chaptersconcernthe various influenceson Malevich'sart andtheory of Suprematism. Professor Douglas regards the Italian Futurists(Severini and Boccioni), Henri Bergson, Matiushin and Kulbin, amongothers, as the majorinfluences on Malevich. I found these chaptersto beproblematicand often unconvincing.For example, the similaritiesbetweenSeverini'sand Malevich'spaintingsdo not necessarilyindicate the influenceof the formeron the latter. ProfessorDouglasremarks hatsome of Malevich's"drawings . . were closely related to Italian Futuristwork and were theexperimentswhichprovided Malevichwith essential conceptsand the visualvocabulary or an eventualentry into abstraction." hat Malevich"mayhaveseen"Severini'swork does not imply direct influence.The same can be saidforHenriBergson,whomMalevichapparentlyneverread, althoughhis majorworkshad been translated nto Russianby the middle of 1914. But, as Pro-fessor Douglas indicates, Bergson'snotion of "intuitionand analysis, time

(Univ. of S. Illinois, 1971). (4) Articlesby George Ivask (Novyi zhurnal,1970, no. 99), H. Brzozaon the musical structureof Mitias Love, (Zagad-nienarodzajow iterackich[Lodz, Poland], 1972, no. 2), and N. Volynskaiaon The Life of Arsen'ev,(Filologicheskienauki,1966,no. 1). ROBERT OWIEMiamiUniversity,OhioDOUGLAS, CHARLOTTE. Swans of Other Worlds: Kazimir Malevich and theOrigins of Abstraction n Russia. Ann Arbor, MI: UMI Research Press,1979. x, 147pp. $23.95.

This study is an interesting account of Russian avant-gardeartistic ac-tivities and movements from 1908 to 1915, and of the diverse theoreticaloriginsof KazimirMalevich's dea of Suprematism.ProfessorDouglas pointsout the importanceof NikolaiKulbin'spublicationsand exhibits of Impres-sionist painters, including the exhibits of VladimirIzdebskii,among others,in the general formationof avant-gardeprinciples: the "search for essenceand the effective use in art of the human psyche," and also the role of the"irrationaland the absurd."Avant-gardeartists were primarilyoriented topsychological mpactand "sensation."They believed that new artisticforms,with emphasison the alogicaland the grotesquewould arouse a "futuristic"consciousness.Art would reveal the new possibilitiesof man'spsychologicalconquestof the universe.Professor Douglas discusses the highly fruitful cooperation betweenMalevich and Kruchenykh,who emerges as a major figurein the book. Itappearsthat Kruchenykh's otion of "transrationalanguage"had a decisiveinfluence on Malevich, who extended that notion to painting. ProfessorDouglas devotes a chapter, perhaps the best in the book, to their opera,Victory Over the Sun, for which Malevichdesigned the sets and costumesand Kruchenykhwrote the libretto. Professor Douglas observes that theoperawas "anattemptto shockeveryone,even the Futurists hemselves,intoa new consciousness.VictoryOverthe Sun swampedthe senses and saturatedthe intellect with irreducibleobjects in order to stimulate the viewer toanother evel of intuitiveandemotionalunderstanding f reality."The last two chaptersconcernthe various influenceson Malevich'sart andtheory of Suprematism. Professor Douglas regards the Italian Futurists(Severini and Boccioni), Henri Bergson, Matiushin and Kulbin, amongothers, as the majorinfluences on Malevich. I found these chaptersto beproblematicand often unconvincing.For example, the similaritiesbetweenSeverini'sand Malevich'spaintingsdo not necessarilyindicate the influenceof the formeron the latter. ProfessorDouglasremarks hatsome of Malevich's"drawings . . were closely related to Italian Futuristwork and were theexperimentswhichprovided Malevichwith essential conceptsand the visualvocabulary or an eventualentry into abstraction." hat Malevich"mayhaveseen"Severini'swork does not imply direct influence.The same can be saidforHenriBergson,whomMalevichapparentlyneverread, althoughhis majorworkshad been translated nto Russianby the middle of 1914. But, as Pro-fessor Douglas indicates, Bergson'snotion of "intuitionand analysis, time

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228 The RussianReviewand duration" ould have influencedMalevichthrough the ItalianFuturists,whose theoriesandpaintingreflectedBergson'sdeas.

These mootquestions,however,do not detractfromthe value of this book.It is an informative and illuminating study of Malevich'sartistic evolution.VAHAN . BARoosHLANWellsCollege

GARFIELD, E., ed. TransliteratedDictionaryof the RussianLanguage.Phila-delphia:ISI Press,1979.xi, 382 pp. $25.00, cloth;$14.95, paper.The philosophyon which the TDRL is based seems quite reasonable:dif-ferences in alphabetscreatebarriers o communication; y providinga trans-literation system for Russianwords and a look-up in Roman alphabeticalorder these barrierscan be lowered. But this idea raises several questions:how high is the barrier o begin with?How muchhelp can a Russian-Englishdictionary,transliteratedor otherwise,provide someone who does not knowRussiangrammar?How effective s the TDRLas a dictionary?The differencesand misleading similaritiesbetween Roman and Cyrillicpresentnaggingdifficulties vento dedicated earnersof the Russian anguage,For example, beginningstudentstend to misreadand miswriteCyrillicchar-actersthroughout he first severalmonths of study. Moreover,as is correctly

pointedout in the introduction o the TDRL, the differences n alphabeticalorderbetween Romanand Cyrillicpresent another seriousproblem. On theother hand,when Russianis seen in transliterated orm, a numberof other-wise "invisible"cognates between Russian and other European languagesemerges. Moreover,by listing the words in Romanalphabeticalorder, theirdefinitionsbecome readily accessible. In principle,then, a transliterateddic-tionaryof Russian shouldbe at least informativeand might prove useful tosomeone who has contact with Russian but who doesn't have the time re-quiredto learn he alphabet.How useful can such a dictionarybe? The TDRL employs a transliterationsystem based on that of the BritishStandards nstitute. It employs digraphs,ts, kh,sh, et al., and no diacritics; hus the distinctionsbetween ts andts e ande, and i-kratkoeand i are lost. However,as long as one does not try to recodethe transliteratedword back into Cyrillic,these distinctionsare not crucial.Thus the system,while somewhatclumsy, s adequatefor the Russian-Englishsection. Howeverin the English-Russianhalf the reader cannotalways tellwhatCyrillic orma giventransliterated ntrywill take.The next problem confronting he user of the TDRL is to deduce the dic-tionaryform, i.e., the nominativesingularof nouns, positive degree of ad-jectives, and the infinitive of verbs, from the form of the word cited in thetext. In most cases there are few problemsbut, assumingthat a person whodoes not knowCyrillicdoes not know Russiangrammar, he following mightarise: imeni (gen., dat., loc. sing.) seems more likely to be associatedwithimenie 'estate' than with imya (rendered according o the TDRL system).Similarlyzhizhe (comparativeof zhidkii) is closer to zhizn' than zhidkii inform.Likewise,otopruand voz'muwill not be readilyassociatedwith otperet'and vzyat', respectively.Nevertheless,as notedabove, these failuresof directgrammatical orrespondence re not common nRussian.

228 The RussianReviewand duration" ould have influencedMalevichthrough the ItalianFuturists,whose theoriesandpaintingreflectedBergson'sdeas.

These mootquestions,however,do not detractfromthe value of this book.It is an informative and illuminating study of Malevich'sartistic evolution.VAHAN . BARoosHLANWellsCollege

GARFIELD, E., ed. TransliteratedDictionaryof the RussianLanguage.Phila-delphia:ISI Press,1979.xi, 382 pp. $25.00, cloth;$14.95, paper.The philosophyon which the TDRL is based seems quite reasonable:dif-ferences in alphabetscreatebarriers o communication; y providinga trans-literation system for Russianwords and a look-up in Roman alphabeticalorder these barrierscan be lowered. But this idea raises several questions:how high is the barrier o begin with?How muchhelp can a Russian-Englishdictionary,transliteratedor otherwise,provide someone who does not knowRussiangrammar?How effective s the TDRLas a dictionary?The differencesand misleading similaritiesbetween Roman and Cyrillicpresentnaggingdifficulties vento dedicated earnersof the Russian anguage,For example, beginningstudentstend to misreadand miswriteCyrillicchar-actersthroughout he first severalmonths of study. Moreover,as is correctly

pointedout in the introduction o the TDRL, the differences n alphabeticalorderbetween Romanand Cyrillicpresent another seriousproblem. On theother hand,when Russianis seen in transliterated orm, a numberof other-wise "invisible"cognates between Russian and other European languagesemerges. Moreover,by listing the words in Romanalphabeticalorder, theirdefinitionsbecome readily accessible. In principle,then, a transliterateddic-tionaryof Russian shouldbe at least informativeand might prove useful tosomeone who has contact with Russian but who doesn't have the time re-quiredto learn he alphabet.How useful can such a dictionarybe? The TDRL employs a transliterationsystem based on that of the BritishStandards nstitute. It employs digraphs,ts, kh,sh, et al., and no diacritics; hus the distinctionsbetween ts andts e ande, and i-kratkoeand i are lost. However,as long as one does not try to recodethe transliteratedword back into Cyrillic,these distinctionsare not crucial.Thus the system,while somewhatclumsy, s adequatefor the Russian-Englishsection. Howeverin the English-Russianhalf the reader cannotalways tellwhatCyrillic orma giventransliterated ntrywill take.The next problem confronting he user of the TDRL is to deduce the dic-tionaryform, i.e., the nominativesingularof nouns, positive degree of ad-jectives, and the infinitive of verbs, from the form of the word cited in thetext. In most cases there are few problemsbut, assumingthat a person whodoes not knowCyrillicdoes not know Russiangrammar, he following mightarise: imeni (gen., dat., loc. sing.) seems more likely to be associatedwithimenie 'estate' than with imya (rendered according o the TDRL system).Similarlyzhizhe (comparativeof zhidkii) is closer to zhizn' than zhidkii inform.Likewise,otopruand voz'muwill not be readilyassociatedwith otperet'and vzyat', respectively.Nevertheless,as notedabove, these failuresof directgrammatical orrespondence re not common nRussian.