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Book Review: The Opium Business: A History of Crime and Capitalism in Maritime China
No full textThe Opium Business: A History of Crime and Capitalism in Maritime China by Peter Thilly, 2022, Stanford University Press.
Из Именного указателя к «Записным книжкам» Ахматовой: Борис Пастернак. Часть I [From an Index to Anna Akhmatova’s _Notebooks_: Boris Pasternak. Part 1]
No full textThis article is yet another installment in the series of Roman Timenchik’s annotations to Anna Akhmatova’s Notebooks. This particular installment concerns Boris Pasternak (1890—1960)
„Slavica Revalensia”: Указатель содержания (2014—2023) [_Slavica Revalensia_: An Index to Past Volumes (2014—2023)]
No full textWhat awaits the reader in this section is an index to the content of Slavica Revalensia, the multilingual journal in Russian and Slavic Studies published since 2014 by Tallinn University Press
Revisiting the Execution of Marinus van der Lubbe in the Context of Invitation to a Beheading: What Did Nabokov Know?
No full textThis note (zametka) presents information from the periodic press about the trial and execution of Marinus van der Lubbe for his role in the Reichstag fire of February 1933 that could have come to Nabokov’s attention—and then been reflected in his description of the poshlost’ of aestheticized violence—as he was working on the novel Priglashenie na kazn’. Especially noteworthy is the dress and ritualized behavior in the case of van der Lubbe’s executioner and the fact that in the Russian emigré press of the time the description of the condemned man’s death involved beheading by an axe and not (as in the actual execution) beheading by guillotine
Ancora da capo: Об «Элегии» Александра Введенского [Ancora da capo: On Alexander Vvedensky’s “Elegy”]
No full textThis article is dedicated to Alexander Vvedensky’s most famous poem, “Elegy,” which is examined from a new perspective, i.e. in the context of the formation of the OBERIU poetic platform and in comparison with the poem that can be considered its predecessor, “Elegy” by Igor Bakhterev
Угол обитания: Письма из Ostland’a в Ostland: 1941—1944 гг. [A Slice of Life: Letters to and from Ostland (1941—1944)]
No full textWe present a selection of annotated letters from 1941 and 1944 addressed to Gennadii Ivanovich Tupitsyn (1895, Rostov-on-Don – 1966, Riga), a Riga-residing educator with diverse interests in languages, literature, and geography. This valuable, multilingual collection comprising more than fifty letters illustrates “everyday life” (“povsednevnyi byt”) in Latvia during the period of German occupation. Tupitsyn’s family, colleagues, and former students wrote to the ailing instructor about a variety of seemingly prosaic topics: ration cards, pensions, job opportunities, dental procedures, harvests, book sales, etc. The specter of war nevertheless hovers in the background (and on occasion intrudes into the foreground) of this correspondence. In annotating these letters, we rely on primary sources, particularly daily newspapers (for example Tēvija, Slovo). This emphasis on contextualizing newspapers and periodicals recreates the atmosphere of the time, primarily as seen through the eyes of the Tupitsyn extended family as well as Tupitsyn’s colleagues. We also comment on these letters’ poetics, attending to the tropes, typos, and word signals embedded in the Russian, Latvian and German originals
„Tagurpidi” mitut pidi: õpetlik, sürrealistlik, postmodernistlik [Instructive, surrealist, postmodernist: considering the aspects of the comic book “Tagurpidi”]
No full textArtikkel käsitleb Priit Pärna raamatut „Tagurpidi” (1980), menukat lastekirjandusteost, milles sõnaline komponent on mänguliselt põimitud mitmekihilise ja põneva visuaalse lahendusega. „Tagurpidi” on ilmunud kuues keeles ja Eestis endiselt kordustrükina saadaval, kuid seni pole seda kuigi põhjalikult analüüsitud. Siinne artikkel kirjeldab kõigepealt teose saamisluguajastu kontekstis, pöörates tähelepanu raamatu seostele selle autori peamiseks tegevusalaks peetava animafilmiga ning osutades, et lastele suunatud pildiraamat võis olla arvestatav eraldiseisev loominguline väljund. Järgmisena iseloomustatakse raamatu süžeed ehk peategelase Antsu rännakut Tagurpidiantslasse, muinasjutumaailma, kus on kindel vaid see, et tavapärased normid ja reeglid ei kehti. Raamat kujutab seda mittetavapärasust sihiteadlikult didaktiliselt, kaalutletult ja vaheldusrikkalt, seades vaatajate ette järjest piltmõistatusi ning mängides pildi ja tekstilise komponendi vahelistele ebakõladele. Seejärel keskendub analüüs teose visuaalsele poolele, kirjeldades piltides, kuid ka laiemas tervikus jälgitavaid vormivalikuid ja tasandeid: popilik väljenduslaad, teatav psühhedeelne mõõde, tugev sürrealismi, eriti Réne Magritte’i mõju ning ka teose üldisem postmodernistlik iseloom. Viimaks vaeb artikkel „Tagurpidi” ümber kujunenud nostalgilist diskursust, mida on eest vedanud seda lapsena lugenud kultuuritegelased ja -uurijad, kuid mis on kaldunud ehk pisut liialdama teosesse tagantjärele ideoloogilise lisamõõtme sisselugemisega.
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The article discusses Priit Pärn’s book “Tagurpidi” (first edition: Tallinn: Kunst, 1980; a possible translation of the title would be “Topsy-turvy”), a popular work of Estonian children’s literature in which the verbal component is playfully intertwined with multi-layered and exciting visuals by making use of the medium-specific toolkit of comics. “Tagurpidi” has been translated into Finnish, Swedish, Danish and Norwegian (all published in 1989) as well as Spanish (2017). While the book has been available as a reissue in Estonia since 2005, and has prompted quite a bit of nostalgia-tinged discourse from its now-grown-up readers over the years, the article is the first attempt of academic analysis specifically dedicated to it.
The initial subchapter gives an overview of how the book came to be, considering its original historical and sociopolitical context. Particular attention is paid to “Tagurpidi’s” links to its author’s activity in the field of drawn animation: while Pärn had a number of creative outlets, there is a tendency to regard animation as the most important one. Thus the discourse surrounding “Tagurpidi” has often presented the book as a reworking of a supposedly banned animation script from the late 1970s into something that could be released in the less controlled, marginal field of children’s literature. Upon closer inspection, this understanding appears to exaggerate matters, as the rough script drafts in question were never greenlighted by the Tallinnfilm studio’s drawn animation department Joonisfilm, and thus never made it out of the studio to the Soviet State Cinema Committee in Moscow, which held the actual power of censoring or banning films. On the other hand, it is important to assert that the book does have a fairly obvious connection with one of Pärn’s animated films, namely “Harjutusi iseseisvaks eluks” (“Some Exercises in Preparation for an Independent Life”, 1980): the book and the film have some overlapping themes and design similarities. It is also important to emphasize that at the time, illustrating children’s picture books was a valid, attractive and well paid creative outlet in itself.
The next subchapter discusses the contents of the book. The plot follows the main character, a little boy named Ants who dislikes conforming to common sense and practices, and tries to do the opposite at every opportunity. His concerned parents would like Ants to grow out of this phase and thus send him to visit his uncle in a fictional location named Tagurpidiantsla (approximately: Topsyturvyville), a fantasy environment where the only certainty is that conventional norms and rules do not apply. The book depicts the narrative environment in a considered, purposefully didactic, yet entertaining way, presenting the audience with a series of picture puzzles page after page, playing on the inconsistencies that emerge between the image and the textual component.
The third subchapter is dedicated to the book’s illustrations, analysing the artistic choices and layers of meaning observed in particular images but also those emerging in the broader picture. There is a clear visual influence of pop art in the use of bright colours and collage, but the book also appears to have a certain psychedelic dimension. Surrealism, a phenomenon that was both highly popular yet officially still rather frowned upon in 1970s Estonia, is another strong influence. The book shows a particular fondness of Réne Magritte, with multiple references to his works, i.e. the character design of Ants’s uncle is linked to Magritte’s anonymous men in dark suits and bowler hats. Yet the overall nature of “Tagurpidi” also appears open to interpretation as a postmodernist work due to the characteristics of the narrative.
The fourth subchapter of the article takes a look at the existing discourse about “Tagurpidi” in Estonia, shaped by cultural figures and literati who read the book as children, and influenced by nostalgic feelings as well as the so-called resistance discourse evident in much of the analysis of Estonia’s late-Soviet culture. The issue of whether these influences have led to a somewhat exaggerated reading of the book’s relatively faint ideological dimension emerges as a particular point to consider
Опыт освоения языка Осипа Мандельштама: «Как светотени мученик Рембрандт…» [Understanding Mandel’shtam’s Language: “Kak svetoteni muchenik Rembrandt…”]
No full textThe article offers a close reading of one of Osip Mandel’stam’s Voronezh texts, the poem “Kak svetoteni muchenik Rembrandt…”, which has been examined more than once and from very different positions (see the synopsis of the main interpretations in the initial part of the article). The main impetus for the article comes from my wish to understand the language of this text as its structure, lexis, and sounds have not been sufficiently studied. What I also examine from a linguistic point of view, are such essential features of Mandel’stam’s poetics as his techniques for condensing the semantics of a text by combining several meanings at different levels (words, phrases, etc). A revision of the previous understanding of syntax in both stanzas of the poem unexpectedly opens up the opportunity to take a fresh look at the distribution of the roles of the poet and Rembrandt, which in turn lead to the rethinking of the poem’s imagery and its general idea. In my understanding, the focal point of the poem shifts from Rembrandt and his paintings to the I of the poet and his tragic relations with his time and contemporaries
Близкие, далекие: Давид Бурлюк и А. Ветлугин [Close, Distant: David Burliuk and A. Vetlugin]
No full textThe article addresses a short (1923—1925) but at the same time extremely important period in the shaping of destinies of two Russian émigrés—artist and poet David Burliuk and journalist, prose writer and figure of the American film industry A. Vetluguin (Vladimir Ryndziun). What makes them alike is the very choice of the destination country (the US), which was uncommon for post-revolutionary refugees from Russia, and in the fact they worked for the same New York Russian newspaper. What sets them apart, however, is their different attitudes towards America, Americanism and their entirely polar answers to the question of whether to integrate into the American society or not
Об одной картине А. Белобородова [A Captive of Time: Andrea Beloborodoff]
No full textThis article addresses the technique distinguishing the painting by a Russian emigré artist Andrea Beloborodoff (1886—1965) Veduta di Piazza di Siena dalla Fontana dei Pupazzi a Villa Borghese (1929) from other pictures depicting the same subject: Fontana dei Pupazzi in Rome