Russian Literature XLZV (1998) 2 79-284 North-Holland

INTRODUCTION

ROBERT BIRD AND ROBERT LOUIS JACKSON

Over the years, Yale University has been a vibrant center of interest in Vja- Eeslav Ivanov (1866-1949). The richness of this tradition lent the minicon- ference of September 21, 1996, “VeEnaja pamjat’: A Symposium on VjaEe- Slav Ivanov”, organized by Robert Bird and Robert Louis Jackson, the feel- ing of a homecoming. The first international conference on Ivanov, orga- nized by Robert Louis Jackson, took place at Yale University on April 3-5, 1981. It was attended by Dmitrij V. Ivanov and Lidija Ivanova, who, along with the late Ol’ga Deschartes, were the major force behind revived studies in Ivanov. Participants included Sergej Averincev, Valery Blinov, Pamela Davidson, Victor Erlich, Robert Louis Jackson, Kirill Fotiev, Johannes Holt- husen, Alexis Klimoff, Marina Kostalevsky, Faust0 Malcovati, Vladimir Markov, Lowry Nelson, Jr., Riccardo Picchio, Aleksis Rannit, Vasily Ru- dich, Ilya Serman, Heinrich Stammler, Edward Stankiewicz, Victor Terras, Tomas Venclova, RenC Wellek, James West, and others (see Blinov 1982). The proceedings of this meeting were published by the Yale Center for Inter- national and Area Studies (Jackson, Nelson 1986). The gathering marked the founding of the International Vjazeslav Ivanov Convivium (of which Robert Louis Jackson is president and Dmitrij V. Ivanov - honorary president) and the inauguration of an on-going series of international conferences held once every three years.

The history of Ivanov at Yale begins most probably with the arrival in 1926 of the renowned historian Michail Rostovcev, whom Ivanov had known for over thirty years (Bongard-Levin et al. 1993). Sterling Memorial Library holds a photocopy of Ivanov’s doctoral dissertation ‘Dionis i pradionisijstvo’ (Baku, 1923), with the inscription:

0304-3479/98/$19.00 0 1998 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.

280 Robert Bird and Robert Louis Jackson

hy60KoyBamaeMoMy H ~~oporo~y Mnxanny kfBmoBnZIy POCTOB- ~eBy,OTHeN3MeHHOnpeHaHHOrOeMyaBTOpa.

PIIM, Mati 1925

The first great advocate of Ivanov at Yale was the long-time curator of Slavic collections in Sterling Memorial Library, Aleksis Rannit, who had met Iva- nov in Rome in 1949 (Rannit 1964: 94). Mr. Rannit organized an exhibition and reading at Yale in the spring of 1966 to celebrate Ivanov’s centenary, and in 1971 organized the first academic meeting devoted to Ivanov, which took place at the annual conference of the American Association for the Ad- vancement of Slavic Studies in Montreal. ’ Rannit also oversaw the purchase of several significant manuscript collections for Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, containing several of Ivanov’s manuscripts and a wealth of correspondence by such pertinent figures as Ol’ga Sor and Fedor Stepun, who were the first to make the transition from admirers and friends of Ivanov to Ivanov scholars (Bird 1996). In the following years a particular magnetism seems to have developed between Ivanov and Yale, which can boast several prominent interpreters and translators of his works, including scholars such as Carol Anschuetz (now in Washington D.C.), Valery Blinov, Lowry Nel- son, Jr., Aleksis Rannit, Vasily Rudich, Tomas Venclova, Marina Kosta- levsky, Robert Bird, and, of course, Robert Louis Jackson. It was at Yale that Alexis Klimoff defended one of the first Ph.D. dissertations on Ivanov (1974). Many of these scholars were among those who gathered in 1981 at Yale at the first international conference on Ivanov.

The relevant point is that one can largely trace the history of the study of VjaEeslav Ivanov, the academic sub-field of Ivanovedenie, through the personalities of a few dedicated scholars whose investigations either grew out of or encouraged personal connections with Ivanov and his heirs. The central achievement of Ivanov’s literary executors as preservers and pro- moters of his creative heritage must not be underestimated. As Vladimir Vejdle once noted, the task they performed would eventually prove invalu- able for the poet’s homeland, but at the time they knew full well that they “would not hear a kind word” from the then-masters of Russia (Vejdle 1976). Indeed, their own contributions have gained increasing significance with the passage of time. Today a large place in Ivanovedenie is still occupied by the works of Ol’ga Sor (Deschartes), who went from being Ivanov’s closest companion to being his editor, biographer and most authoritative interpreter. Since her passage in 1979, her place at the head of Ivanovedenie has most capably been assumed by Dmitrij VjaEeslavoviE, who has overseen the six international conferences devoted to his father, and in whose recent memoirs Vjaeeslav Ivanov figures prominently (1994; 1996a; 1996b). Many of those present at the Yale mini-conference bear fond memories of Lidija VjaEesla- vovna, whose commitment to her father’s memory and work found marve-

Introduction

lous expression in her own memoirs (1987; 1992), excerpts of which were first read at the 1981 Yale conference. And still, to a degree, does Ivano- vedenie retain this close-knit sense, much more, it would seem, than com- parable sub-fields within contemporary Russian literature. An important fac- tor in this has been the regular series of conferences, which have brought many scholars from many countries together around the common task of Ivanovedenie, invariably under the chairmanship of Dmitrij VjaEeslavoviE. In this way something of the convivial persona of Vjateslav IvanoviC has been communicated to the dry world of Western academia. As scholars from the former Soviet Union have begun to participate, this community has be- come a microcosm of the rich cultural synthesis between East and West that Ivanov envisioned.

The ability of Ivanovedenie to transform itself into a vital intellectual community rests on two major qualities, one shared by all members of the Ivanov family. Firstly, Ivanov’s works and ideas command a remarkably open-ended nature; they always guide one to new questions, often hinting at well-nigh inexpressible resolutions, but they never simply impose an answer to be accepted or rejected. It is not just “dialogism”, since Ivanov usually made his own strong views clear and stood by them consistently, but a sin- cere respect for the dignity of each person’s ability to aspire to such a com- mitted stance, indeed a demand that each person face the ultimate questions with courage and independence, in order to form such views as might be firmly held. Secondly, and again a quality common to VjaEeslav Ivanov him- self, these discussions are always open to all willing. Those of us who have not yet made any lasting contribution to Ivanovedenie can certainly attest to the warm and ready welcome given by accomplished and senior scholars of Ivanov’s works.

The scholars who gathered at Yale and whose papers are published herein form the main contingent of Ivanov scholars in the English-speaking world. Professor James West is the author of the first book in English on Ivanov, published in 1970, the editor of two important reprints of Ivanov’s prose collections, and has recently published a series of articles on the Sym- bolists and Russian Neo-Kantian thought (1991; 1995). Recently Michael Wachtel has published both a monograph on Ivanov, Goethe and Novalis, and a collection of Ivanov’s correspondence in German - the first major monographic publication of Ivanoviana in any language (1994; 1995). Pro- fessor Wachtel is also collaborating on a collection of Ivanov’s essays in English translation with Robert Bird, who is at present completing a major study of Ivanov’s works. Dr. Carol Anschuetz, who has published several important articles on Ivanov, has translated Ivanov’s first book, The Hellenic Religion of the Suffering God, which is to be published by Yale University Press. Valery Blinov is the author of a comprehensive chronology of Iva- nov’s life and works, which remains one of the major sources on his

282 Robert Bird and Robert Louis Jackson

biography, as well as of studies of Ivanov and the Acmeist movement (1986; 1988). And, finally, Robert Louis Jackson, who republished Ivanov’s book on Dostoevskij and edited the first collection of articles on Ivanov in 1986, has recently contributed yet another article on Ivanov (1993). All in all, those present are responsible for all but two of the ten books published on or by Ivanov by English-speaking scholars. Pamela Davidson, the author of the other two, was unfortunately unable to attend, as was Tomas Venclova, whose important contributions to Ivanovedenie form the core of his most recent book of scholarly essays (1997).

The past several years have witnessed an increasing wave of publica- tions and books on and by Ivanov, published both in Russia and the West. Apart from the works noted above, recent publications include Pamela Da- vidson’s momentous reference guide, encompassing a bibliography of works by and on Ivanov; the complete memoirs of Ivanov’s students Moisej Al’t- man and Elena Millior, covering the period of Ivanov’s professorship in Baku; two collections of “materials and studies” and a two-volume edition of Ivanov’s poetry in the prestigious “Biblioteka poeta” major series2 Thanks in no small part to the untiring efforts of those present at the mini-conference, Ivanovedenie is gradually attaining proportions that are commensurate to the stature of its subject, VjaEeslav Ivanov. It can only be hoped that this growth will only envigorate the convivial nature of Ivanovedenie, so that it may al- ways be, in the words of the master, “a matter native and universal”, - “rod- noe i vselenskoe”.

NOTES

1 On these events see the notes in Novae russkoe slovo for March 1, 1966, p. 3; March 13, 1966, p. 8; May 13, 1966, p. 3; May 15, 1971, p. 4. For further ci- tations on many of the themes and scholars discussed in this introduction the reader is referred to the authoritative bibliography of Ivanoviana (Davidson

2 1996). Aieksej Zverev’s review of Dmitrij Ivanov’s book of conversations (1996) also discusses the significance of 1996 for the fate of Ivanov’s Russian heri- tage (Zverev 1997).

Introduction 283

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