Zarathustra's Sisters: Women's Autobiography and the Shaping of Cultural History PDF
Preview Zarathustra's Sisters: Women's Autobiography and the Shaping of Cultural History
ZARATHUSTRA'S SISTERS: WOMEN'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY AND THE SHAPING OF CULTURAL HISTORY T his page intentionally left blank SUSAN INGRAM Zarathustra's Sisters: Women's Autobiography and the Shaping of Cultural History UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO PRESS Toronto Buffalo London www.utppublishing.com © University of Toronto Press Incorporated 2003 Toronto Buffalo London Printed in Canada ISBN 0-8020-3690-2 @* Printed on acid-free paper National Library of Canada Cataloguing in Publication Data Ingram, Susan Zarathustra's sisters : women's autobiography and the shaping of cultural history / Susan Ingram. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0-8020-3690-2 1. Autobiography - Women authors. 2. Women authors - Biography - History and criticism. 3. Prose literature - Women authors - History and criticism. 4. Man-woman relationships. 5. Nietzsche, Friedrich Wilhelm, 1844-1900. I. Title. PN471.I542002 809'.93592072'0904 C2002-901794-7 'Kremlin's Mountaineer' is reproduced from Nadezhda Mandel'shtam, Hope against Hope: A Memoir, translated by Max Hayward (New York: Modern Library, 1999). University of Toronto Press acknowledges the financial assistance to its publishing program of the Canada Council for the Arts and the Ontario Arts Council. This book has been published with the help of a grant from the Humanities and Social Sciences Federation of Canada, using funds provided by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada. University of Toronto Press acknowledges the financial support for its publishing activities of the Government of Canada through the Book Publishing Industry Development Program (BPIDP). Contents Acknowledgments vii Introduction: Zarathustra's Sisters 3 Prototypically Zarathustrian: A Prologue 23 PART 1: WRITING OVER 31 1 Lou Andreas-Salome 33 2 Simone de Beauvoir 46 PART 2: WRITING BACK 61 3 Maitreyi Devi 65 4 Asja Lacis 77 PART 3: WRITING UP 91 5 Nadezhda Mandel'shtam 95 6 Romola Nijinsky 110 Conclusion: Autobiographical Writing and the Postmodern 127 Notes 143 Bibliography 169 Index 191 T his page intentionally left blank Acknowledgments This book's underlying theme, the relationality of subjectivity, is reflec- tive of my own good fortune in this regard. During the course of my research and writing, I incurred many debts in many places - from St Petersburg and Riga to Sosnowiec and Saarbrucken, Vienna, Prague and Ljubljana, New York, Montreal, and Toronto - but starting in and always returning to Edmonton. Those are the signposts of this project - the special faces and memories that found their way into, and indeed made possible, the following pages. Now that the project is drawing to its far from inevitable conclusion, it is a real pleasure to acknowl- edge the support that has made the past several years so enjoy ably productive. First, I am most grateful to the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada and the University of Alberta for the funding without which this project would not have been possible. In addition, a Research Associateship courtesy of the Russian and Eastern European Summer Laboratory at the University of Illinois allowed me access to both its fine library and a group of wonderfully engaging interlocutors. Working in the Jerome Robbins Dance Division at the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts, as well as in the The- ater Museum and the Andrejs Upits Museum in Riga, was facilitated greatly by their knowledgeable, personable staffs. Maria Kalnina, in particular, has been a tremendous source of material and inspiration. It was great luck to have Catherine Frost at University of Toronto Press as my copy-editor and to be so well chaperoned through the publish- ing process by Barb Porter. At the University of Alberta, I had the privilege of working with Elena Siemens, a generous, rigorous reader, whose critical suggestions viii Acknowledgments infused the following pages with whatever life they have and whose never-wavering encouragement, optimism, and support continue to keep me dreaming of possibilities. To Bob Burch, Ray Morrow, Leo Mos, and Edward Mozejko I am grateful for our always motivating meetings, both fortuitous and planned. I also very much appreciate the time taken by Birgit Wagner and the anonymous readers in the ASPP process to so attentively read and so helpfully comment on my work. Special thanks go to Markus Reisenleitner, whose tenure at the Cana- dian Centre for Austrian and Central European Studies was instru- mental in this book's completion and who makes the future a far more inviting, exciting, promising place. Heartfelt thanks are also due my family. My cher frere proved, as always, a veritable pillar of encouragement, advice, solace, sources, summer lodgings, and Korrekturlesen. My parents were there for me when the worst came to the worst, as it repeatedly did. And my gener- ous aunt and uncle also made sure at a critical venture that I had the best writing environment possible. That leaves to be acknowledged my trusty Powerbook 100, whose whirrings and clickings so often provided a much-needed pick-me-up, as did very dear friends, who, scattered between new worlds and old, help me to make sense of, and find my way in, all of them. Finally, I dedicate this work to the biggest and grandest of grandmas. Lou Andreas-Salome. Photograph courtesy of the Freud Museum, London. Simone de Beauvoir. Photograph courtesy of Magnum Photos.
The list of books you might like
