Tolstoy between War and Peace. by Waclaw LednickiReview by: Louis J. SheinSlavic Review, Vol. 25, No. 2 (Jun., 1966), pp. 359-360Published by:Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2492806 .

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REVIEWS 359

... a dreadful, life-killing middle way, a cosmic mediocrity" (pages 168-69)-is seen by Setchkarev in the "strange comedy" of The Inspector General. These qualities are to be found in Gogol's other plays as well, and they also characterize his "narrative epic in prose," Dead Souls, which Gogol began in 1835 as a sort of picaresque, ad- venture novel. He later tried to expand the book along the lines of Dante's Divine Comedy. Such a forcing of material into an inappropriate mold had to fail artistically, although the surviving parts are quite well realized. Setchkarev spends a good deal of time on Dead Souls, pointing out the author's chief stylistic devices of absurdity, hyperbole, and "baroque flourishes." But he is somewhat frustrated in any attempt at close linguistic analysis by the policy (probably the publisher's) of not quoting the original Russian. Gogol's skillful creation of the illusion of reality is also mentioned, and he is quoted as saying that he "never endeavored ... to reflect reality just as it surrounds us" (page 187). Romanticism, Setchkarev effectively argues, is a side of Gogol which should not be forgotten.

"The Overcoat," published in 1842 after several years of revision, is analyzed here as combining its author's highest literary skills. In Setchkarev's opinion (with which we concur), this story shows Gogol's ironic, gentle misanthropy and not at all the "social sympathy" theme initiated by Belinskii. Unlike the latter, Setchkarev sees some worthwhile points even in the Selected Correspondence with Friends (1847).

The volume lacks footnotes, and the English bibliography is unnecessarily short. Two or three pages might well have been added, to give basic works in other languages as well as some of the most important Russian sources. Still, although Setchkarev modestly claims no originality, the present volume is now the best book on Gogol in English, clearly superior to the previous studies by Lavrin, Nabokov, and Magar- schack.

University of Virginia ROBERT L. STRONG, JR.

WACLAW LEDNICKI, Tolstoy between War and Peace. London, The Hague, and Paris: Mouton, 1965. Pages 169. 25 Dutch guilders. "Slavistic Printings and Reprintings," Volume LII.

The book under review deals specifically with Tolstoi's attitude toward the Russo- Polish "Problem." Dr. Lednicki devoted many years of research to this vexing prob- lem, as is evinced by his works (for example, Pouchkine et la Pologne and Russia, Poland and the West). He has, of course, a thorough knowledge of Tolstoi's works. The present volume is the culmination of many years of careful research. The origin of the book dates back to 1926, when the author was asked to write a preface for a Polish centennial edition of Tolstoi's works. This enabled him to collect all references in Tolstoi's works to Poles and Poland. In 1935 Dr. Lednicki delivered two lectures at the Sorbonne dealing with Tolstoi's attitude toward Poles and Poland. These lectures were based on his French book Quelques aspects du nationalisme et du christianisme chez Tolstoi (les variations Tolstoiennes a l'dgard de la Pologne), which was being published at the time in Krak6w. The present English edition contains substantially the material set forth in the French book, but in a revised and modified form as a result of new data.

The purpose of this book is to show that Tolstoi's sympathetic attitude toward the Poles after War and Peace corresponds to his spiritual crisis. The first chapter is de- voted to a careful examination of Tolstoi's Polonophobia in his earlier period. The author succeeds in proving that Tolstoi, like many of his compatriots, was infected with the xenophobia that was endemic to Russia.

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360 SLAVIC REVIEW

The other five chapters deal with Tolstoi's change, which was of a moral rather than political nature. The author marshals all the facts at his disposal to prove his thesis. He relies a great deal on Tolstoi's little-known story "But Why," written shortly before the opening of the First Duma, when the Polish question was very much in the air. Tolstoi himself considered this book to be of great importance, for it contained his credo on the Russo-Polish question. Tolstoi has often been accused of using the Polish question as a means of moral atonement for his earlier sins. If this thesis is correct, then there is little reason to suppose that Tolstoi's Polonophilia was genuine or sincere. The author does not accept this thesis. He is fully convinced that the "Apostle" of Iasnaia Poliana was sincerely concerned with the plight of the Poles on moral and humanitarian grounds and not for selfish reasons.

While the book is written sub specie Polonarum, which is to be expected, it in no way hinders the author from treating the problem objectively. The book is well docu- mented, and in the opinion of this reviewer the thesis is fully proven. The book throws a great deal of light on Russian culture and Tolstoi the artist and moralist, who possessed the unique faculty of reconciling in his works the claims of art and fact.

McMaster University LouIs J. SHEIN

N. GUMILEV, Sobranie sochinenii. Edited by G. P. Struve and B. A. Filippov. Washington: Izdatel'stvo knizhnogo magazina Victor Kamkin, Inc., Volume I: Stikhi 1903-1915 gg. 1962. Pages lvi, 333. Volume II: Stikhi I9I6-I92I gg. i stikhi raznykh let. Edited, with an introduction, by G. P. Struve. 1964. Pages xl, 365.

It must be said at the outset that these two volumes, the first of four projected, are a model of scholarly editing of Russian poetry. Those who are familiar with the difficulties of putting out any Russian publication in the West can have only praise for the performance of the editors.

These volumes contain reprints of Gumilev's lyrics and epics from 1903 to 1921, the year in which the poet was executed in Petrograd. In 1922 and 1923, shortly after his death, some of his poems and prose were still published in Russia by his friends. But after 1923 nothing more was brought out, and the poet's name became taboo in his homeland. That is why the present publication is so valuable.

For a number of years Professor Struve collected Gumilev's unpublished material abroad, and in the 1940S was lucky enough to receive from Mr. B. V. Anrep, a friend of Gumilev's, an album with poems he had left in London in 1918. (In military service from the outbreak of the war, Gumilev was on duty in Paris and London before returning to Russia in 1918.)

In the first volume Mr. Struve has written a concise biography of the poet. Obvi- ously, he lacked important documents, which are either hidden or lost in Russia, and the biography therefore remains incomplete. It should be pointed out that Gumilev's role in the so-called "Tagantsev conspiracy" of 1921 is still a mystery. Allegedly, Gumi- lev took an active part in that organization to overthrow the Soviet system, but no details have ever been revealed. There was at the time just a government announce- ment of the execution of all the participants-no open trial, no deliberations.

In the second volume Mr. Struve writes about Gumilev's poetical development. He was not only a fine poet, of a somewhat Nietzschean and aristocratic bent, but also the founder of a new school of poetry-Acmeism-and a leader and teacher of a group of young poets. He created the "Poets' Guild" to which some of the most

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