From: GLL@fnal.fnal.gov (Gregory Landsberg)
Subject: Re: Russian Culture through California sunshades
Organization: SUNY at Stony Brook
Date: Sat, 5 Sep 1992 17:47:59 GMT
X-News-Reader: VMS NEWS 1.20

In <1992Sep4.213431.5982@cco.caltech.edu> patricia@cco.caltech.edu writes:

> <1992Sep4.153328.9463@cbnewsi.cb.att.com> replies to me:
> 
> >Dear Ms. Schwartz, I am impatiently waiting to read your revelations.
> >IMHO, Pasternak -> Russian rock line could be matched in the English
> >speaking world by T.S. Elliot -> Ice-T connection. Good luck in your research
> >and God bless you!
> 
> Dear sir, we are just describing events, not making analyses or comparisons
> between the two. It is a fact that both became part of underground culture
> in their separate times, and for separate generations.

Ok, ok -  then, please,  start your book  with Barkov,  include bol'sheviks
with their f*cken  ``Iskra'' and upon finishing  put gently your monumental
``study of the Russian  culture'' in the  trash-bin... If you want to unify
in one book so  different phenomena  as B.P. and B.G.  just because both of
them were in Samizdat, just let me suggest you a theme for your  next book:
study of all Russian books with  green (red, yellow, whatever) cover color.
Believe me, it'd be absolutely beautiful!

> Yes, thank you, we know this. We already have a few good stories of how
> "Doctor Zhivago" was smuggled back into Russia from the West. Pasternak begins
> our book because as Solzhenitsyn wrote, he was not a dissident but still
  ~~~
> paved the way for others, because of the underground circulation of
> his novel.

Sorry,  but Boris  Pasternak  began HIS  book  without any  respect to what
Solzhenitsyn wrote about  him. He wrote the book  just because he feeled he
should   wrote it,  and  please  put  all this   politized   Solzhenitsyn's
``discoveries'' in the same trash bin next to your own book.

> By the way, about the  subjects of female/minorities/animal/rain forest/etcc
> abuse, there is a very good book by Dr. Judith Herman (daughter of
> Russian Jewish parents on McCarthy's blacklist) about the universality
> in psychological response to extreme trauma, and how to heal and recover
> from such trauma. She uses as examples soldiers in assorted wars, rape
> survivors, child abuse survivors, Holocaust survivors, and Soviet
> dissidents. The name is "Trauma and Recovery."
> 
> This book helps me understand the importance of poets like Axmatova
> and others not only in the intellectual sense but also in the emotional sense
> of providing a voice for those traumatized by the terrors of
> totalitarianism. Dr. Herman doesn't mention cultural matters in the book
> itslef, but I see a lot of Russian poetry differently now.

Great! I could only advice you to read Dr. Freud - after that you might be
able to understand Russian poetry even more deeply *smile*

> When you have your life taken out of your control by some man with
> a gun, it's difficult to take it back after you are free. Doing things
> like working for samizdat rings and volunteering at rape crisis centers
> are important steps in coming back to the human race from the land
> of prisoners.

I think you'd easily make a career as a rape-struggler so don't be upset by
the possible failure of your Russian culture studies.

Good luck in Russia - hopefully you'd change your mind after the trip!

Cheers,

Greg
Newsgroups: soc.culture.soviet