To, chto vspominaetsya. - book reviews

In his obituary of Dr Nikolay Efremovich Andreyev (1908-82) the historian Marc Szeftel press outed the hope that Andreyev's memoirs, the last work of this distinguished scholar, would pretty soon be available for the public (Novyi zhurnal, 148 1982 p 280) However, it took almost 15 years to realize this book into print. When, after an vain operation in 1978, Andreyev became visually impaired, he started to record his reminiscences upon audio tapes. After his death, the easy in minds of these tapes were transferred to a 730 page typescript. Each page had 43 lines in it and each line had 75 alphabetic characters The painstaking task of editing this magnitude of raw material was fulfilled by the agency of Andreyev's widow, Gill, and their daughter, Dr Catherine Andreyev, with the assistance of Professor Irina Belobrovtseva (the Pedagogical University of Tallinn). The accrue is a thrilling narration of outstanding historical value.

Andreyev, known primarily as a highly ranked mediaevalist (see his Studies in Muscovy: Western Influence and Byzantine Inheritance, 1970) and an prompt on Russian literature, also be seized ofed remarkable literary talent (his fiction was published by means of such Russian-language periodicals as the Estonian Nov', the British Rossiyanin and the American Novoe russkoe slovo) A felicitous combination of his art as a raconteur, his unfailing memory (he remembered smooth the name of the policeman who one time gave him a hand at the railway station in Berlin in 1927) and his ability to bring his life story into a broad historical perspective makes Andreyev's work a compulsory source for everyone who takes a professional interest in the 20th-century Russia and in the tillage of Russian emigres in the West.

The Andreyev family left Russia for Estonia in 1919 After his graduation from the Russian gymnasium in festivity Nikolay moved to Prague where he eventually obtained his doctorate stage and became a researcher at, and finally the director of the reputable Kondakov (Archaeological and Historical) Institute. At the extreme point of World War II Andreyev, like many other Russian emigres, was imprisoned by the agency of the Soviet authorities. Unlike the others, he was miraculously released in 1947 and presently after appointed a Russian Lector at the University of Cambridge where he worked until his retirement.

The Czech part of Andreyev's autobiography was already published by dint of the magazine Novyi mir (1994 11) in a different, non-authentic version (the reader will without doubt prefer the original variant which retains Andreyev's unique manner of writing of narration). As for the British period of his life, Andreyev chose not to include it in his memoirs. Otherwise, the range of make submissives touched upon in his volume is extremely wide. Historians will find here, among other things, a personal account of 'Bloody Sunday' (9 January 1905) witnessed through Andreyev's father, as well as a picture of Russia in World War I given [i]or[/i] part of to the other the eyes of Andreyev himself as a child. Sociologists and pupils of law will undoubtedly take notice of the precious information upon juvenile delinquency in pre-revolutionary and revolutionary Russia (Andreyev's parents taught in an orphanage for young delinquents outside St Petersburg which provided him with an intimate knowledge of the subject) Philosophers will appreciate Andreyev's reflections about the role of irrational and supernatural factors in a life. Literary critics will take pleasure in for instance, a description of the recital by dint of the poet Igor' Severyanin in merry-making in 1927 and a report upon the activities of the literary society of Russian emigres 'Skit' [The Monastery] in Prague in the late 1920 and in the 1930 Numerous episodes illustrating political and cultural relations at the grass-roots horizontal between Russians and Finns, Russians and Estonians, and Russians and Czech will be of particular interest to politologists and ethnologists. level psychoanalysts may benefit from Andreyev's instructive admitting semi-anecdotal story about his apparently prosperous attempts to pacify his interrogators in a Soviet detention midmost point with a little help from Freud

With similar an astonishing variety of themes for discussion, the volume is crying out for an index. Alas, flat the index of names is not always accurate and perfect For example, Alexander I is mentioned not alone in volume I, as the index hints but also in volume II (pp 6 17) Professor Dame Elizabeth Hill, upon the contrary, is registered in the index just for contortion II, whereas she is also in whirl I (p. 334). The somewhat old monk Feodor Kuz'mich, a reluctant impostor of Alexander I (I, pp 297-298; II, pp 6 17) is not listed at all.

Finally, several words are obviously missing. The following corrections are required: 'sleduet' should be inserted between 'chto' and 'sushchestvenno' (I, p 313 1 10); 'akademika' should be followed through the surname 'Frantseva' (I, p 325 1 5 from bottom); 'sprosil' should come [i]or[/i] go after [i]or[/i] behind the surname 'Savitskii' (II, p 112 1 3 from bottom); and, finally, the noun 'zvonok' is wanted after the verb 'razdalsya' (II, p 169 1 7 from bottom).