From Orientalism to Cultural Capital: The Myth of Russia in British Literature of the 1920s

354 Pages·2017·7.16 MB·English

by  Olga Soboleva

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From Orientalism to Cultural Capital
From Orientalism to Cultural Capital presents a fascinating account F
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of the wave of Russophilia that pervaded British literary culture in o The Myth of Russia in British Literature of the 1920s
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the early twentieth century. The authors bring a new approach to

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the study of this period, exploring the literary phenomenon through
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two theoretical models from the social sciences: Orientalism and the i
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notion of ‘cultural capital’ associated with Pierre Bourdieu. Examining n
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the responses of leading literary practitioners who had a significant
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impact on the institutional transmission of Russian culture, they s
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reassess the mechanics of cultural dialogism, mediation and

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exchange, casting new light on British perceptions of modernism as o

a transcultural artistic movement and the ways in which the literary C
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interaction with the myth of Russia shaped and intensified these l
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cultural views.
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Olga Soboleva teaches Comparative Literature at the London School
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of Economics and Political Science. Her research interests are in
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nineteenth- and twentieth-century Russian and European culture.

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Her recent publications include The Only Hope of the World:

George Bernard Shaw and Russia (2012), The Silver Mask:
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Harlequinade in the Symbolist Poetry of Blok and Belyi (2008) and o
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articles on Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, Nabokov, Chekhov, Boris Akunin and o
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Victor Pelevin. e
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a

Angus Wrenn has taught Comparative Literature at the London a
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School of Economics and Political Science since 1997. His most d

recent publications include The Only Hope of the World: George W
Bernard Shaw and Russia (2012), Henry James and the Second r
e
Empire (2009) and articles on the reception of Ford Madox Ford and n
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Henry James in Europe.
Olga Soboleva and Angus Wrenn
ISBN 978-3-0343-2203-4
PETER LANG
www.peterlang.com
From Orientalism to Cultural Capital

From Orientalism to Cultural Capital
The Myth of Russia in British Literature of the 1920s
Olga Soboleva and Angus Wrenn
PETER LANG
Oxford • Bern • Berlin • Bruxelles • Frankfurt am Main • New York • Wien
Bibliographic information published by Die Deutsche Nationalbibliothek.
Die Deutsche Nationalbibliothek lists this publication in the Deutsche National-
bibliografie; detailed bibliographic data is available on the Internet at
http://dnb.d-nb.de.
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
Library of Congress Control Number: 2016963039
Cover image: Bernard Partridge, ‘The Bear Hug’, Punch, 17 May, 1922.
Cover design: Peter Lang Ltd.
ISBN 978-3-0343-2203-4 (print) • ISBN 978-1-78707-394-4 (ePDF)
ISBN 978-1-78707-395-1 (ePub) • ISBN 978-1-78707-396-8 (mobi)
DOI 10.3726/b11211
This book is an open access book and available on www.oapen.org and
www.peterlang.com.
This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-
NoDerivs 4.0 which means that the text may be used for non-commercial purposes,
provided credit is given to the author. For details go to
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/
© Peter Lang AG, International Academic Publishers, Bern 2017
Wabernstrasse 40, CH-3007 Bern, Switzerland
[email protected], www.peterlang.com, www.peterlang.net
This publication has been peer reviewed.
Contents
List of Figures vii
Professor Philip Ross Bullock
Preface ix
Acknowledgements xiii
Introduction 1
Chapter 1
The East Wind of Russianness 17
Chapter 2
John Galsworthy: Is It Possible to ‘De-Anglicise
the Englishman’? 65
Chapter 3
H. G. Wells: Interpreting the ‘Writing on the Eastern Wall of
Europe’ 101
Chapter 4
J. M. Barrie and The Truth about the Russian Dancers 143
vi
Chapter 5
D. H. Lawrence: ‘Russia Will Certainly Inherit
the Future’ 187
Chapter 6
‘Lappin and Lapinova’: Woolf’s Beleaguered Russian Monarchs 237
Chapter 7
‘Not a Story of Detection, of Crime and Punishment, but of
Sin and Expiation’: T. S. Eliot’s Debt to Russia, Dostoevsky and
Turgenev 271
Bibliography 311
Index 329
Figures
Figure 1 ‘Novelists Who May Be Read in A. D. 2029’,
Manchester Guardian, 3 April 1929. 5
Figure 2 The number of texts (fiction) related to Russian
subject-matter based on the bibliography in Anthony
Cross, The Russian Theme in English Literature from
the Sixteenth Century to 1980: An introductory survey
and bibliography (1985). 36
Figure 3 The number of texts (fiction and first-hand travel
accounts) related to Russian subject-matter based on
the following sources:
Fiction – Anthony Cross, The Russian Theme in
English Literature from the Sixteenth Century to 1980
(1985).
Travel literature – based on a combination of data
from Anthony Cross, In the Land of the Romanovs:
An Annotated Bibliography of First-hand English-
language Accounts of the Russian Empire (1613–1917)
(2014); Andrei N. Zashikhin, Britanskaia rossika
vtoroi poloviny XIX-nachala XX veka (1995); H. W.
Nerhood, To Russia and Return: An Annotated
Bibliography of Travelers’ English-Language Accounts
of Russia from the Ninth Century to the Present (1968). 37
Figure 4 H. G. Wells’ drawing of Lenin, letter to Upton
Sinclair, early 1919. 137
Figure 5 Tamara Karsavina as Karissima and
Basil Forster as Lord Vere in The Truth about the
Russian Dancers (1920). Press Association collection. 147
viii
Figure 6 Original design: The Truth about the Russian Dancers
by Paul Nash. Victoria and Albert Museum. 170
Figure 7 Costume design by Paul Nash (for Tamara
Karsavina). Victoria and Albert Museum. 172–3
Figure 8 Photo of Angelica Bell, daughter of Vanessa Bell and
niece of Virginia Woolf, in costume as the Russian
Princess from Woolf’s novel Orlando. Tate Archive. 270