Preface by gerald s. smith

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until quite recently, relatively little was known about the private life and thoughts that went along with the copious published writings and public actions of D.s. mirsky (prince Dimitrii petrovich sviatopolk-mirskii, 18901939)1 . this situation existed in large part because relatively little appears to have survived of what would have been an imposing personal archive. the probable destruction of this material occurred not once but three times, at the critical junctures of mirsky’s life: when he left Russia in 1920, eventually to settle in london; when he went back to Russia from london in 1932; and when he was arrested in moscow in 1937. the most significant documents lost on these occasions are without doubt the letters mirsky received from some of the leading literary figures of his time: they include t.s. eliot, Boris pasternak, and marina tsvetaeva. and his attested contacts with the lesser literary lights of england, France, and Russia abroad suggest that his letters from them would have been hardly less important for a reconstruction of the intellectual and cultural context in which he lived and worked. against this, a good many of the letters mirsky wrote were preserved by the recipients, and the location and publication of them has radically expanded our knowledge and understanding of this remarkable man even though we lack the reciprocal side of the correspondence. in terms of mirsky’s relations with the non-Russian literary world, the most important single constituent of this body of material whose existence has been known to scholars is his letters

1 For a general account of mirsky’s life and writings see o.a. kaznina, Russkie v Anglii: Russkaia emigratsiia v kontekste russko-angliiskikh literaturnykh sviazei v pervoi polovine XX veka, moscow, 1997, esp. pp. 119-155; g.s. smith, D.S. Mirsky: A Russian-English Life, 18901939, oxford, oxford university press, 2000 (hereafter smith, Dsm); n. lavroukine and l. tchertkov, D.S. Mirsky: Profil critique et bibliographique, paris, institut d’etudes slaves, 1980; the latter bibliography has now been superseded by o. korostelev and m. efimov, ‘D. mirskii (D.p. sviatopolk-mirskii): materialy k bibliografii’, in D.s. mirskii, Nesobrannoe (Stat′i i retsenzii o literature i kul’ture: 1922-1937), sost., podg. teksta, primech. o.a. korosteleva i m.v. efimova, predislovie Dzh. smita, moscow, novoe literaturnoe obozrenie, 2014, pp. 528-572.

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to marguerite Caetani. they concern his contribution as Russian consultant to the spectacular literary journal she founded and edited, Commerce. the existence of these letters, and some details of their contents, were made known in the 1980s through sophie levie’s publications2, but the complete texts of the letters are published here for the first time. the correspondence begins late in 1926, and continues until just before mirsky made his fateful return to Russia. During this period, mirsky’s life included three principal spheres of activity. the first, in london, was centred on the academic post he held between 1921 and 1932, as a lecturer in Russian at the school of slavonic studies, then part of king’s College, university of london. this job was not very demanding in terms of teaching time. mirsky would hurry off to paris whenever he could, and in london during term-time he devoted his energies as far as he could to writing, partly in the line of duty as a reviewer for the school’s house journal, The Slavonic Review, but mainly as a freelance critic and historian of literature. mirsky’s academic activity is mentioned hardly at all in the letters to marguerite Caetani, but is perceptible throughout as a constraint on his time and movements. the second sphere of activity was the cultural life of the post-revolutionary Russian emigration, and in particular the eurasian movement3 , in which mirsky became involved partly through his friendship with p.p. suvchinskii, one of its leading lights4 . out of this relationship, but conceived as an enterprise ‘parallel’ to the eurasian movement rather than represent-

2 s. levie, ‘Commerce’ 1924-1932. Une revue internationale moderniste, Roma, Fondazione Camillo Caetani, 1989, esp. ‘D.s. mirsky et la littérature russe’, pp. 198-204; id., La rivista Commerce e il ruolo di Marguerite Caetani nella letteratura europea, 1924-1932, Roma, Fondazione Camillo Caetani, 1985. 3 For a specific study of this activity, see o.a. kaznina, ‘D.p. sviatopolk-mirskii i evraziiskoe dvizhenie’, Nachala, 4 (1992), pp. 81-88; also smith, Dsm, pp. 136-140, pp. 168-181. 4 petr petrovich suvchinskii (1892-1985), the musicologist and leading figure in the eurasian movement. on his relations with mirsky, see g.s. smith, The Letters of D.S. Mirsky to P.P. Suvchinskii, 1922-1931, Birmingham, Birmingham slavonic monographs, 1995 (Birmingham slavonic monographs, 26), referred to below as Suvchinskii letters. on his activities as a eurasian during the initial period of the movement, see especially e. krivosheeva, ‘k istorii evraziistva, 1922-1924gg.’, Rossiiskii arkhiv: Istoriia Otechestva v svidetel’stvakh i dokumentakh XVIII-XX vv., 5, moscow, 1994, pp. 475-503. on suvchinskii as musicologist, see Richard taruskin, Stravinsky and the Russian Traditions, oxford, 1996, pp. 1120-1134; Pierre Souvtchinski, cahiers d’étude, ed. eric Humbertclaude, paris, 2006; Petr Suvchinskii i ego vremia, moscow, 1999; vadim kozovoï, ‘o petre suvchinskom i ego vremeni’, in his Tainaia os′ , moscow, 2003, pp. 83-162; igor vishnevetskii, “Evraziiskoe uklonenie” v muzyke 1920-1930-kh godov: Istoriia voprosa. Stat′i i materialy, moscow, 2005; katerina levidou, ‘the artist-genius in petr suvchinskii’s eurasianist philosophy of

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ing it, came the decision to found a Russian-language literary review, which was entitled Versty. aleksei Remizov, lev shestov, and marina tsvetaeva were named as having ‘the closest cooperation’ with the editors; tsvetaeva’s husband, sergei efron, was a nominal editor, but seems to have functioned – very badly – as business manager. three annual issues were published (1926-8), and the enterprise cost mirsky an enormous amount of effort and eventually, considerable frustration. after the Russian emigration, the third sphere of mirsky’s existence consisted of his activities in the non-Russian european intellectual world, and this sphere is represented in a more concentrated way than anywhere else in the letters to marguerite Caetani5 .

For most people, a substantial fourth sphere of activity would be represented by a private or family life, but in this respect mirsky was strikingly deficient, apparently by choice. after his active military service between 1914 and 1920, first in the imperial Russian army and then on the white side in the Civil war, he became a somewhat solitary and truly hyperactive intellectual worker. mirsky’s father had died in 1914, and into emigration with him came his mother and two sisters; they found refuge first in athens, and then moved to Courbevoie in what was then the western outskirts of paris. the mother died in 1926, and from soon after that mirsky had no family home. the only trace of his family now is the occasional appearance of one or other of his sisters’ addresses as a pied-à-terre; normally, though, he writes as before from the london university Club at 17 gower st, or from hotels. He had no close personal relationships with anyone of either sex, with the exception of suvchinskii and then vera, suvchinskii’s wife, who is mentioned in letter 6 below. the letter to Caetani of 28 June 1927 (letter 9) pleading to be let off a visit to her salon contains almost the only autobiographical evidence we have of the somewhat anti-social personality that lies at the centre of this unquiet development. exactly how accurate this passage might be with particular ref-

History: the Case of igor stravinskii’, The Slavonic and East European Review, vol. 89, no. 4, october 2011, pp. 601-629. 5 For the broad historical context of mirsky’s involvement with Commerce, see leonid livak, ‘Russian emigrés in the intellectual and literary life of interwar France: a History’, in his Russian Emigrés in the Intellectual and Literary Life of Interwar France. A Bibliographical Essay, montreal-kingston-london-ithaca, mcgill-Queens university press, 2010, pp. 12-44; on Commerce, see p. 21. according to livak’s extremely questionable definitions, though (p. 8), mirsky cannot be considered an émigré on two counts: he joined a Communist party, and returned to Russian before 1939. among other serious distortions, this means that he is not mentioned in connection with two of the cardinal foci of inter-war Franco-Russian cultural interaction, Caetani’s salon and the pontigny décades, at both of which he was in fact the most prominent and sustained individual Russian presence.

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erence to Caetani’s celebrated sunday gatherings, though, is hard to judge6 . in the same letter mirsky adverts to the nature of his life in london, perhaps with greater justification than is the case with his life in paris: ‘i see so few english people’. in letter 18, written on 2 march 1929, mirsky writes: ‘… in general i am dreadfully busy – writing my book which should have been ready long ago, writing every week for our Russian paper, doing my usual university [work] (not much of that, fortunately) and seeing nobody’. mirsky was thus a free agent in personal terms, and because of this (or perhaps as the principal reason for it) his actions were dictated by his convictions, to an extent rarely encountered even among people whose principal mode of perception is intellectual and verbal. these convictions were constantly re-evaluated as historical events unfolded. He came into emigration as almost a caricature figure: Russian prince, veteran of the white army, loser of a substantial birthright as a result of the revolution, even minor poet. By the late 1920s, in a development contemporary with the bulk of these letters to Caetani, mirsky had reconciled himself with the revolution and become a marxist-leninist; and in 1932, again acting on his convictions, he went back to Russia. His unslaked commitment to ideological development in the circumstances of stalin’s regime inevitably led him into conflicts with authority, and like millions of others he was arrested, to die in the gulag in 1939. as the annotation will show, the letters to Caetani contain little or no evidence concerning the development of mirsky’s political stance in the later 1920s. she was clearly a person he considered to belong to a sphere centred in aesthetics rather than politics; by the late 1920s mirsky would have denied the possibility of such a separation, but in his relations with Caetani he evidently maintained it.

For the first two years of the correspondence with marguerite Caetani, mirsky was involved in finding financial backing, choosing contributors, editing, and writing for Versty, which has proved to be one of the most impressive literary achievements of the inter-war Russian emigration7 . the

6 in his Journal under 26 september 1929 andré gide (1869-1951), whom mirsky had known since at least 1924, reports: ‘at three-thirty the princess de Bassiano’s motor comes to pick me up and take me, together with alix guillain, groethuysen, and prince mirsky, to versailles, where i spend the rest of the day’. The Journals of Andre Gide, translated from the French and annotated by Justin o’Brien, vol. iii, 1928-1939, new york, 1949, p. 62. How often mirsky was present on these occasions remains unknown; iswolsky said he came ‘as often as he visited paris’: see Helene iswolsky, No Time to Grieve, philadelphia, 1985, p. 167. 7 on Versty, see willem g. weststeijn, ‘the Russian émigré-journal Versty’, in Reviews, Zeitschriften, Revues, ed. sophie levie, amsterdam-atlanta, Rodopi, 1994, pp. 169-197.

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idea of this journal is mentioned in mirsky’s first letter to suvchinskii, written on 11 october 19228, but practical work on the project was postponed for some time. the first issue came out in the early summer of 1926, somewhat delayed by a printer’s strike. in a letter to suvchinskii written on 31 october 1926, ten days before his first letter to Caetani, mirsky refers to discussions between the two men about how Versty might interact with Commerce. suvchinskii evidently mentioned Caetani as a funding source, and mirsky asks for further information concerning …under what specific conditions princess Bassiano would give us money. phps it might be possible somehow simply to amalgamate Versty and Commerce? as far as concerns an obligation to give Commerce “all Russian literature/poetry”, then if that means keeping them abreast of things, i would be happy to take that upon myself, and in general as far as my labour is concerned, i’m happy to sell myself to italo-american capital9 . this seems to have been broadly the arrangement that in fact was put in place, as mirsky’s first letter to Caetani goes on to demonstrate. Here, mirsky makes a pitch for Versty as a bona fide literary enterprise: ‘For, honestly, we [Versty] are the only Russian publication that is free from allpervading political one-sidedness, and who pay our attention to cultural and truly literary values’10 . though here he was obviously drawing an implicit parallel with the standpoint of Commerce in order to engage the sympathies of marguerite Caetani, this was not the only occasion on which mirsky set out this view of Versty as ‘uniquely above politics’11 . to people on both left

mirsky’s subsequently published letters to suvchinskii provide a detailed account of how the publication was financed and managed. 8 Suvchinskii letters, p. 17. 9 ‘… на каких конкретных условиях княгиня Бассиано дала бы нам деньги. М.б. можно было бы просто как-нибудь амальгамировать Версты с Commerce? Что же касается обязательства насчет того, чтобы давать Commerce’у “всю русскую литературу/поэзию”, то если это значит держать их в курсе, я с удовольствием возьму это на себя, и вообще что касается моего труда, рад продаться италоамериканскому капиталу’ (Suvchinskii letters, p. 64). 10 mirsky makes this same representation of Versty in his letter to leonard woolf; through woolf he eventually secured a contribution from maynard keynes. see andrei Rogachevskii, ‘neizvestnye pis′ma D.p. sviatopolk-mirskogo serediny 1920-kh godov’, Diaspora, 2, paris-st petersburg, 2001, pp. 349-367. 11 Compare the flyer mirsky enclosed with his letter to suvchinskii of 27 november 1926 (Suvchinskii letters, 66), which inter alia states that the editors of Versty were ‘contemplating a parallel english translation of the more important matter’; no such translation came about.

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and right wings of the Russian literary emigration, of course, the enterprise was anything but: to those on the Right, the demonstrative inclusion of writers resident in the ussR meant that it was hopelessly compromised with regard to acceptance of the legitimacy of the soviet regime, while to those on the left the inclusion of the émigré writers Remizov, shestov, and tsvetaeva among the ‘close collaborators’ of the editorial board as well as contributors meant that the journal’s stance was anti-soviet. as we shall see, such considerations probably played a part in mirsky’s choice of Russian material to recommend to Caetani. mirsky goes on to refer to a letter from his friend Bernard groethuysen, which apparently conveyed Caetani’s wishes concerning the relationship with Versty; unfortunately, this letter has been lost along with the rest of mirsky’s london archive. mirsky had met groethuysen at the pontigny décade in 192412, and the friendship that developed might well have been the initial connection with marguerite Caetani. mirsky also refers to groethuysen’s letter when writing to suvchinskii on 10 november 1926, the same day as his first letter to Caetani. Here, mirsky is advising suvchinskii about what to say to Caetani when he meets her (as he advises Caetani in the last paragraph of his first letter): ‘i’ve just written to her. i, on my own personal account, accept whatever obligations she might ask. as far as i could understand from groethuysen’s letter, she wants us to give Commerce in manuscript everything we have that will be of interest for them. one can, of course, agree to that’13 . whatever may have been the particulars of the meetings between Caetani and suvchinskii, the princess seems to have been moved in favour of the Russians, for in his letter of 5 December 1926, mirsky tells suvchinskii that he has received £50 from her. He then set about producing what became the second volume of Versty. From this point on, however, mirsky complains to suvchinskii ever more forcefully that he is sick and tired of the organisational work involved in the journal. the letters to suvchinskii of June

12 the Décades at the abbey of pontigny were invited meetings of european intellectuals, held annually between 1910 to 1939, with suspension during world war i. mirsky attended the literary section of the meetings in 1924, 1925, and 1927; whether or not he attended in 1926 is not clear. see smith, Dsm, pp. 100-103. on the history of these meetings, see François Chaubet, Paul Desjardins et les Décades de Pontigny, paris, presses universitaires du septentrion, 2000. 13 ‘Ей я только что написал. Я, лично за себя, принимаю все обязательства, какие она только просит. Сколько я мог понять из письма Гротхейзена, она хочет, чтобы мы давали Commerce’у в рукописи все, что у нас будет интересного для них. На это, конечно, можно согласиться’ (Suvchinskii letters, pp. 64-65).

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1927 give a detailed account of his proposals and measures for terminating Versty with the third issue; commitments had been made to authors and subscribers, but little funding was forthcoming from donations or (even less) sales. as letter 7 (8 June 1927) shows, Caetani then sent another donation to Versty. Four days later, mirsky confesses his difficulties, and asks for a further subsidy (letter 8). writing to suvchinskii on 15 June 1927, mirsky says of this letter: ‘i’ve written a heart-rending letter to the Bassianikha’14 , and then on 25 June: ‘the Bassianikha’s a low-down woman, i’ve not had a peep out of her’15. But by 28 June (letter 9) she had sent yet another cheque, and to judge by mirsky’s words, an encouraging letter. later on that summer, he visited her at la Baule (letter 10), and again on the Côte d’azur that December. Caetani sent mirsky a final cheque, for £40, in late February 1928; suvchinskii had done the asking this time, which apparently offended the princess16 . mirsky’s letter 12 (21 February 1928) begins with his efforts to smooth matters over. this is the last substantial reference to Versty to be found in these letters. in 1928, in the context of one of his survey articles for Versty, published in its final issue, mirsky set out the following description of Commerce, offering a uniquely authoritative Russian perspective on what the journal stood for and had achieved since its foundation in 1924: among current French periodicals a completely special place is occupied by Commerce, which is now entering the fourth year of its existence. this is as it were the citadel of French literary culture, not of the old academic kind, but of a living, contemporary kind. Commerce is not a revue d’avant garde, but the organ of mature and adult people, it looks forward rather than back, and among its contributors are the surrealists aragon and vidrac (the principal core of surrealists do not get involved out of party discipline considerations). the closest participants in Commerce are paul valéry, léon-paul Fargue, and valery larbaud, a writer of no great creative powers, but enormous understanding, perhaps the most open, sensitive, and advanced critic of the contemporary west. Commerce carried one of valéry’s most astonishing works, Lettre d’Emilie Teste. the principal adornment of the latest issues of the journal, however, has been the poems (in prose) of léon-paul Fargue, whom these works (especially Esquisse pour un Paradis and La Drogue) make into one of the leading French poets. two other first-rank poets, paul Claudel and st John perse, also participate closely in Commerce. a great deal of attention is paid

14 ‘Написал Бассианихе раздирающее письмо’ (ibid., p. 85). 15 ‘Бассианиха подлая – ни гу-гу’ (ibid., p. 86). 16 ‘…получил £40 от Бассианихи. Она вроде как в обиде на меня, что не я ей

писал’ [‘… i’ve had £40 from the Bassianikha. she seems to be offended at me because it was not i who wrote to her’ (ibid., p. 100)].

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to foreign literature, especially english, including extracts from Joyce’s Ulysses in larbaud’s translation and eliot’s poetry translated by perse. in its choice of foreign material the journal does not limit itself to what is near at hand and contemporary; the latest issue (Xii) has selections from the Byzantine chronicle of psellus. as far as Russian is concerned, The Negro of Peter the Great, and poetry by mandel′shtam and pasternak have appeared, translated by our contributor elena izvol′skaia17 . in the subsequent correspondence, mirsky carries out the undertaking incurred from Caetani’s support for the Russian venture by advising about current Russian literature and who might best serve as translators. they also show him offering advice about english texts for Commerce, both fiction and non-fiction, an aspect of his advocacy that was previously unknown, though not surprising in view of his many published reviews of such texts during the 1920s. to begin with the Russian authors and texts. Boris pasternak and marina tsvetaeva, both close contemporaries of mirsky, were the writers with whom he had the most extensive and productive dealings, and in the case of his activities concerning Commerce, their names are constantly linked18 . in 1925, as

17 ‘Среди современных французских журналов совершенно особенное место занимает «Commerce», вступающий теперь в четвертый год своего существования. Это – как бы цитадель французской литературной культуры, не старой академической, а живой, современной. «Commerce» не «revue d’avangarde», a орган зрелых и взрослых, но он смотрит вперед, а не назад, и среди его сотрудников встречаются имена сюрреалистов Арагона и Витрака (главное ядро сюрреалистов не участвует в нем по соображениям партдисциплины). Ближайшие участники «Commerce»’а – Поль Валери, Леон-Поль Фарг и Валери Ларбо, писатель небольших творческих сил, но огромного понимания, может быть, самый открытый, чуткий и передовой критик современного Запада. Из произведений Валери в «Commerce»’е напечатано одно из самых удивительных, «lettre d’emilie teste». Но главное украшение последних номеров журнала – поэмы (в прозе) Леона-Поля Фарга,

которого эти произведения (особенно «Еsquisse pour un paradis» и «la Drogue») делают одним из самых первых французских поэтов. Два других первостепенных поэта, Поль Клодель и С.-Ж. Перс, тоже принимают близкое участие в «Commerce»’е. Большое внимание обращено на иностранную литературу, особенно английскую, между прочим – отрывки из «ulysses» Джойса в переводе Ларбо и стихи Элиота в переводе Перса. В выборе иностранного материала журнал не ограничивается близким и современным: в последнем (Xii) номере даны отрывки из византийской хроники Пселла. Из русских были напечатаны «Арап Петра Великого» и стихи Мандельштама и Пастернака в переводах нашей сотрудницы Елены Извольской’.

kn.D.sviatopolk-mirskii, ‘kriticheskie zametki’, Versty, 3, 1928, pp. 155-160. 18 the relationship between pasternak and tsvetaeva is discussed with profound insight in Catherine Ciepiela, The Same Solitude. Boris Pasternak and Marina Tsvetaeva, ithaca and london, Cornell university press, 2006; for their dealings with mirsky, see index.

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mentioned in mirsky’s article, Commerce carried some pioneering translations of pasternak into French by Helen iswolsky19 . some two years later, mirsky was evidently asked by marguerite Caetani to sort out the question of the fee due to the poet. on 8 January 1927 he wrote to pasternak from london: profoundly esteemed Boris leonidovich, Forgive me for daring to bother you with this letter. the matter is as follows. the French journal Commerce some time ago published translations of two of your poems (‘nakrapyvalo, no ne gnulis′,’ and another from Russ[kii] Sov[remennik], the translations are so-so). they wish to pay you a royalty for them, and in all probability a good one. what would be the most convenient way for you to be sent the money – where to, and in what form (cheque, transfer, currency)?20

pasternak replied from moscow on 10 may 1927. after some characteristically orotund discussion of mirsky’s father and his role as minister of the interior during the difficult events of 1905, he continues: it’s probably completely inept to refer now to the proposal made by Commerce. those people are undeservedly kind. what was translated decidedly doesn’t amount to much, after all. For me the great happiness was that it was in this journal in particular that the translations found a place. if they haven’t abandoned the idea of a fee, then probably it could be transferred here to my address via a bank. a much more perceptible reward was specifically the attention paid by the journal, and, above all, the translations themselves. i liked them. if you know e. izvol′skaia, please convey to her my most profound gratitude21 .

19 For details of this episode, see the letters of Helen iswolsky and accompanying material below. 20 First published in Fleishman, pp. 535-536; collected in marina tsvetaeva–Boris pasternak, Dushi nachinaiut videt′. Pis′ma 1922-1936 godov. Izd. podgotovili E.B. Korkina i I.D. Shevelenko, moscow, vagrius, 2004. ‘Глубокоуважаемый Борис Леонидович, простите, что осмеливаюсь беспокоить Вас этим письмом. Дело в следующем: французский журнал «Commerce» напечатал некоторое время тому назад переводы двух Ваших стихотворений (Накрапывало, но не гнулись, и другого из «Рус‹ского› Совр‹еменника›», переводы так себе). Они хотят Вам заплатить за них гонорар, и вероятно хороший. Как Вам было бы удобнее всего, чтобы Вам выслали деньги: куда и в какой форме (чек, перевод, валюта)?’. 21 ‘Совершенно нелепо наверное поминать теперь про предложенье «Commerce». Там назаслуженно любезны. Переведены ведь решительно пустяки. Для меня большим счастьем было помещенье переводов именно в этом журнале. Если они не оставили мысли о гонараре, то вероятно можно его перевести сюда по моему адресу через какой-нибудь банк. Гораздо ощутительнейшим вознагражденьем было именно вниманье журнала и, прежде всего, самые переводы. Они мне понравились. Если Вы знаете Е.Извольскую, передайте, пожалуйста, ей мою

глубочайшую признательность’. Boris pasternak, Polnoe sobranie sochinenii s prilozheni-

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in his letter of 8 January 1927 mirsky had also said: ‘i’m busy translating ‘Detstvo liuvers’ [‘the Childhood of liuvers’] into two languages, French (for Commerce, again) and english (i still don’t know for whom)…’22 pasternak duly responds: i thank you warmly for the notion of translating ‘the Childhood of liuvers’. even allowing that the piece merits your labour and the attention of the French, and won’t be set aside by you before being finished – where can the fee you speak of come from if not from your being prepared to reduce your own or assign a portion of it to me? it goes without saying that this is in no wise permissible, and discussion of it must be set aside23 .

this is the letter which mirsky summarises to Caetani in his letter 7 below, written on 8 June 1927. in letter 3 (23 February 1927) mirsky had apologised to Caetani for delay with the project of translating pasternak. after letter 7 there was an interval of silence on this subject. the very last letter here (26) refers to ‘the pasternak typescript’, and the work concerned is almost certainly still the translation into French of ‘liuvers’. whatever the case, in the end the work did not appear. Robert Hughes has pointed out that two other translations of ‘liuvers’ were in play at the time mirsky first considered the idea, and he would certainly have known about them both24 . these translations are by moura Budberg into english, and by vladimir

iami, 11 vols., viii, Pis′ma 1927-1934, moscow, slovo/slovo, 2005, pp. 29-30; see also marina tsvetaeva–Boris pasternak, Dushi nachinaiut videt′, p. 342. Characteristically, pasternak makes a point of countering mirsky’s casual denigration of the iswolsky translations, for transmission to iswolsky. 22 ‘Я занимаюсь переводом “Детства Люверс” на два языка, французский (для Commerce же) и английский (еще не знаю, для кого…’). marina tsvetaeva, Boris

pasternak, Pis′ma 1922-1936 godov. in 1925 mirsky published one of the earliest reviews of pasternak’s prose, paying particular attention to ‘Detstvo liuvers’; see ‘B.l. pasternak, Rasskazy’, Sovremennye zapiski, XXv, 1925, pp. 544-545, reprinted in D.s. mirsky, Uncollected Writings on Russian Literature, edited, with an introduction and Bibliography, by g.s. smith, Berkeley, Berkeley slavic specialties, 1989, pp. 206-207. 23 ‘Горячо Вас благодарю за мысль перевести «Детство Люверс». Допустив даже, что вещь заслуживает Вашего труда и вниманья французов и до конца не будет Вами брошена, – откуда быть и тут гонорару, о котором Вы говорите, если не из готовности Вашей урезать свой собственный или уделить мне его долю? Разумеется, это ни с какой стороны не допустимо, и разговоры об этом должны быть оставлены’. ibid.

24 see ‘“…s vami beda – ne perevesti”. pis′ma D.p. sviatopolk-mirskogo k a.m. Remizovu, 1922-1929’, ed. Robert Hughes, in Diaspora V. Novye materialy, paris-st petersburg, athenaeum-Feniks, 2003, pp. 335-402. the introduction and notes to this publication give a comprehensive overview of the relationship between Remizov and mirsky.

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pozner into French. the pozner translation was partial, and was included in his anthology of 192925, which obviously would have been a disincentive even to a complete publication in Commerce. the Budberg translation was completed, and furnished with a preface by maksim gorky. on 4 october 1927 gorky wrote to pasternak from sorrento saying that the english translation of ‘Detstvo liuvers’ was due to be published in the next few weeks by Robert m Bride & Co, new york, but it never appeared26 . it is inconceivable that this translation was not discussed when mirsky visited gorky in sorrento in January 1928, especially as moura Budberg was a member of the gorky ménage at the time. if mirsky subsequently mentioned this project to Caetani, it is quite possible that she would have considered the potential public association with gorky, who at the time was the world’s leading front man for soviet Communism, sufficient cause to decide against publishing the French translation of pasternak’s story. mirsky’s letter to pasternak of 10 may 1927 is notorious; it had to be sent via tsvetaeva after she persistently refused to divulge pasternak’s moscow address to him, and it was posted only after considerable delay. she displayed this obstinacy despite the fact that after her move to paris in December 1925, mirsky had persistently championed her work in print, and invited her to london to give a reading27 . in letter 2 (4 December 1926) he mentions translating a poem by tsvetaeva into French for Commerce; the work concerned is ‘poema gory’ (‘poem of the mountain’), a masterpiece of 1923, which mirsky and suvchinskii had given its first publication, in the first issue of Versty. From letter 7 (8 June 1927) it would seem that this translation was in fact completed and submitted to Caetani, but no further trace of it has ever come to light28 . whatever may have been the ultimate results, mirsky had the self-confidence to undertake the translation of difficult writers like pasternak and tsvetaeva into French as well as english. the method with the translations into French, as we may gather from these letters, was for mirsky to prepare

25 Boris pasternak, ‘l’enfance de luvers’, in vladimir pozner, Anthologie de la prose russe contemporaine, paris, Hazan, 1929, pp. 176-188. 26 For gorky’s preface, which was written between september 1926 and september 1927, see Literaturnoe nasledstvo, vol. 70, moscow, 1963, pp. 308-310. 27 on the relations beween mirsky and marina tsvetaeva (1892-1941), see g.s. smith, ‘marina tsvetaeva i D.p. svyatopolk-mirsky’, in Marina Tsvetaeva. Actes du 1er colloque international, ed. Robin kemball, Bern, 1991, pp. 192-206; and id., Dsm, pp. 145-148. 28 a translation into French was published many years later: marina Cvetaeva, Le Poème de la montagne, Le Poème de la fin, traduit et présenté par Ève malleret, lausanne-paris, l’Âge d’homme, 1984.

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a first draft with notes, and then submit them to a native speaker for the preparation of a version presentable to marguerite Caetani. this method resulted in a successful outcome in the case of mandel′shtam’s The Egyptian Stamp (Egipetskaia marka), translated by mirsky and georges limbour and carried in Commerce XXiv in the summer of 1930. surprisingly, there is no mention of any proposal to translate this work, nor reports on progress with it, in the letters to Caetani. perhaps the experience of struggling with these translations led mirsky in other cases to suggest an alternative translator instead of undertaking the work himself. earlier, he had spoken up for Remizov and Babel. the story of Remizov’s ultimate non-appearance in Commerce is made difficult to unravel, as is the case with everything involving this most talented and idiosyncratic writer, by his compulsive rewriting and renaming of his works and his obsessive manipulation of publishers, translators, and intermediaries29. D.s. mirsky acted in all three of these capacities. the evidence concerning Remizov in the letters to Caetani adds a further dimension to what has already been documented as a difficult, indeed relationship-breaking, episode30 . mirsky had consistently championed Remizov in his published criticism since the early 1920s, and had made great efforts to get his work translated and published by english, american, French, and Russian houses, with significant success. in the first issue of Versty, mirsky and suvchinskii published the Russian text of Remizov’s work ‘iz knigi “nikolai-Chudotvorets”’ (literally ‘From the Book Nicholas the Wonder-Worker’), a set of legends about the Russian st nicholas31 . it was with reference to this piece that on 4 may 1928 mirsky reported to Remizov: ‘princess Bassiano asks me to make a start with the translation. so it’s in the bag’32 . mirsky’s letter 5 to the princess of 19 may 1927 confirms that a start had indeed been made with the translation into French. on 24 may mirsky wrote to Remizov from london: ‘[…] i am translating (have finished translating) Nikolai Chudotvorets into French – with the devil knows what result – but with the help of somebody French

29 For a sympathetic introduction to Remizov’s personality and working methods, see Julia Friedman, Beyond Symbolism and Surrealism: Alexei Remizov’s Synthetic Art, evanston, northwestern university press, 2010, with preface by avril pyman; marilyn schwinn smith, ‘aleksei Remizov’s english-language translators: new material’, in A People Passing Rude: British Responses to Russian Culture, ed. anthony Cross, Cambridge, open Book publishers, pp. 189-200, accessible at http://www.openbookpublishers.com/reader/160. 30 see ‘“…s vami beda – ne perevesti” (note 24 above). 31 aleksei Remizov, ‘iz knigi “nikolai-Chudotvorets”’, Versty, 1, paris, 1926, pp. 37-51. 32 ‘“…s vami beda – ne perevesti”(note 24 above), p. 395.

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let’s hope something will come of it’33 . on 30 may (letter 6) he tells Caetani that he is sending her the ms (here he says there is more than one story) and spells out the difficulties associated with translating Remizov. letter 12 (21 February 1928) adverts to these same difficulties, but this time specifying not Nikolai-Chudotvorets but ‘stratilatov’ as the source text. on 2 may 1928 mirsky writes to Remizov, without naming the work he is talking about, ‘Dear aleksei mikhailovich, i still can’t get a clear reply. i’ve written in the most categorical terms. still no answer. when it comes, i’ll write’34 . this letter was filed by Remizov in a dossier he compiled in the 1940s containing documents relating to the long-drawn-out and unfortunate publication history of his Povest′ ob Ivane Semenoviche Stratilatove (The Tale of Ivan Semenovich Stratilatov), which goes back ultimately to 1909-1910. there is no trace of mirsky’s letter ‘in the most categorical terms’ in the Commerce archive. next, on 28 may 1928 mirsky writes letter 15 to Caetani enclosing ‘the revised version’ and saying that further drastic revision will be needed. the matter was probably discussed when mirsky visited Caetani at la Baule that summer. then, on 15 october 1928 he writes letter 16, saying ‘i have not heard anything from groet[huysen] or mlle guillain and i do not know whether she has done anything about the Remizov translation’. another five months went by. on 2 march 1929 mirsky wrote letter 18 to Caetani, enquiring: ‘i wonder too what you think of the Remizov translation? when i saw Remizov last (in January) he said it had just been sent to you and that he thought it very good’. From letter 19 (6 June 1929) we learn that the translator concerned was ‘mlle (i do not remember her name)’, ‘the best translator i know of in France, but she is a slow worker’. (this is probably madeleine etard, the same person whose name mirsky could not remember when he wrote letter 12 in February the year before). it would seem that at this stage Caetani was prevaricating or forming a negative opinion of the project, for on 13 July 1929 mirsky wrote to Remizov: ‘i shall answer your letter about Stratilatov in a few days (very soon), when everything becomes clear. i hope the matter will take a not entirely bad turn, but bear in mind that my possibilities are far from unlimited’35 . mirsky had not been the only intermediary between Remizov and Caetani. also involved was his friend and fellow editor of Versty, petr petrovich suvchinskii, who wrote the following letter to Remizov on 6 august 1929:

33 ‘Перевожу (перевел) Николая Чудотворца по-французски – вышло черт знает что – но с помощью какого-нибудь француза что-нибудь да выйдет’ (ibid., p. 391).

34 ibid., p. 394. 35 ibid., p. 399.

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you have doubly disappointed me – with the news that of the original plan to give Commerce a series of your stories so little use has come in the end, and also in that – so it has seemed to me – this is something for which you hold me to blame. Here are the stages this matter has gone through. i personally spoke warmly to princess Bassiano about you, and she took an interest; i personally delivered the books to groethuysen, and with his friend “the communist” [alix guillain] translated several stories, so as to give him some idea of them; several times i personally asked princess Bassiano what had happened to the books i’d delivered, and each time she replied that they were ‘being worked on’, etc. as far as i know, it was always a matter of publishing a series of stories. i’m speaking to you circumstantially on the basis of what was said by groethuysen and princess Bassiano herself. what happened subsequently i do not know, since i have not been at Bassiano’s for a long time now. the truth is that i am to blame for nothing, and that i have wanted and still want to do only what is best! on monday i’ll find out everything from D.p. [mirsky] and let you know then36 . after letter 19 (6 June 1929) there is no further mention of Remizov in mirsky’s letters to Caetani. the matter would seem to have ended with a letter mirsky wrote to Remizov on 1 september 1929, from suvchinskii’s address in Clamart: i feel very much as if i’ve done you wrong but honest to god, it’s not my fault. since the end of July i’ve written to the Bassianikha several times, and she simply does not reply. the best thing would be if mlle etard would make enquiries of alix guillain, who phps would get a reply. i entirely share your indignation at this business37 . whether or not mirsky did indeed write these letters to Caetani, there is no trace of them in the Commerce archive, and it is safe to assume that mirsky had given up on Remizov’s chances for an appearance in the journal, had come to the end of his patience, and was dissembling. the question of exactly which Russian text or texts were translated and submitted remains open; it is certain from the exchanges summarized above that both Nicholas the Wonder-Worker and Stratilatov were in play. in the same letter 12 (21 February 1928) that raises the question of Remizov, isaak Babel also makes an appearance. mirsky had many times recommended Babel’s work to his readers, and even translated him into english, before finally meeting the writer in paris in march 1928, through suvchinskii. yet again, there was to be no positive outcome; nothing by Babel appeared in Commerce, notwithstanding mirsky’s very specific recommendation. as for

36 ibid., p. 400. 37 ibid., p. 399, 400.

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the work of other living Russian writers, the letters reveal that while being on balance positive about them, mirsky advised Caetani against Fadeev, semenov, and zaiaitsky (see letter 12). this may be an example of mirsky’s literary judgement taking precedence over his political preferences. During his visit with suvchinskii to maksim gorky in sorrento in early 1928, a journey that was facilitated by marguerite Caetani’s husband Roffredo (see letter 11, 16 December 1927), mirsky appears to have made an undertaking to gorky to promote soviet writing, part of the circumspect but nevertheless seemingly inexorable moves he was making towards applying for a soviet passport38 .

He makes a positive recommendation in the case of tikhonov’s Riskovannyi chelovek (letter 18, 2 march 1929)39, and also one of nina smirnova’s stories (letter 19, 6 June 1929). the tikhonov piece is particularly remarkable, because mirsky elsewhere lauded this work in the kind of positive terms that are rarely encountered in his critical writings: this is to such a degree a new type of narrative art, and it stands out to such an extent against the entire background of contemporary Russian literature, that it makes no sense to talk about it in brief at the end of an article primarily dedicated to tikhonov the poet. Riskovannyi chelovek puts tikhonov in a completely special place and perhaps opens a new page in the evolution of Russian literature40 . notwithstanding this enthusiasm, again, there was no positive outcome in the case of Commerce. in all these cases, the fact that all the authors concerned were resident in the ussR and enjoying a positive reputation there as soviet writers is indicative of the way mirsky’s literary preferences went in step with the leftwards direction of his political preferences as the 1920s went on. whether the rejection of them had something to do with Caetani’s political preferences or those of her editorial board, is impossible to say with any confidence41 .

38 on this episode see olga kaznina and g.s. smith, ‘D.s. mirsky to maksim gor′ky: sixteen letters (1928-1934)’, Oxford Slavonic Papers, new series 26, 1993, pp. 87-103. 39 nikolai semenovich tikhonov (1896-1979), Riskovannyi chelovek (leningrad, 1927), a collection of short stories. 40 ‘Это настолько новый тип повествовательного искусства, и он настолько отделяется от всего фона современной русской литературы, что говорить о нем вкратце в конце статьи, посвященной преимущественно Тихонову поэту, не имеет смысла. “Рискованный человек” ставит Тихонова на совершенно особое место и открывает, может быть, новую страницу в эволюции русской литературы’. D.s.

mirsky, ‘nikolai tikhonov’, Evraziia, 17, 16 march 1929, p. 8. 41 For an account of evolving French intellectual attitudes to Russian writing at this time, see leonid livak, ‘introduction’, in Le Studio Franco-Russe 1929-1931. Textes réunis

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a further indication of mirsky’s changing stance flits by in letter 23, written in april 1931, two years after he had proclaimed himself a Communist (he probably joined the party in June 1931)42. Here he recommends edgell Rickword’s Scrutinies, a collection compiled from The Calendar of Modern Letters. Rickword was a left-leaning writer who went on to join the party in 1934, but the essays he collected here, now regarded as a high point in British literary criticism of the 1930s43, avoid explicit marxist political commitment, which is probably why mirsky summarises them to Caetani as ‘not very interesting’. He makes some exceptions, chief among which is the contribution by his friend alec Brown on t.s. eliot; and Brown too was on his way to joining the party, part and parcel of why mirsky refers positively to his writing here with the coded phrase ‘really masculine’. But the political convictions that evolved during the period spanned by these letters are hardly mentioned explicitly in them at all. again, we know nothing of what might have passed between the two principals in private on this topic; Caetani can hardly have been ignorant of mirsky’s move leftwards. the only reference to a writer who had recently left the ussR and whose attitudes were known to be anti-soviet occurs in letter 13 (before 22 march 1928) and concerns viacheslav ivanov. mirsky’s words here are almost pitying, portraying ivanov as a spent force. incidentally, this appears to be the only occasion when mirsky declared in writing that he had been personally acquainted with viacheslav ivanov, though his presence at ivanov’s famous petersburg salon ‘the tower’ before 1914 is known because of his relationship with the poet mikhail kuzmin. in the final appearance of a Russian writer, in one of the last letters (23, 5 april 1931) he speaks up for tsvetaeva’s own translation into French of her long poem Molodets (The Swain)44 . it is not only Russian writers about whom mirsky feels entitled to speak to Caetani. From his vantage point in Bloomsbury he felt himself well enough placed to talk about contemporary english writing as well. particularly striking is his declaration in letter 2: ‘i am also reading english novels – which i have never done. i am in love with virginia woolf’. this was written on 4 December 1926. He also tells Caetani here that he has

et présentés par Leonid Livak, sous la rédaction de Gervaise Tassis, toronto, Department of slavic languages and literatures, university of toronto, 2005, pp. 7-44. 42 smith, Dsm, p. 181, 196. 43 Bernard Bergonzi, ‘The Calendar of Modern Letters’, Yearbook of English Studies, vol. 16, 1986, pp. 150-163; see also introduction to iswolsky below. 44 this translation was published many years later: marina Cvetaeva, Le gars, préface de efim etkind, paris, Des femmes, 1992.

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submitted an essay to t.s. eliot’s Criterion45 . eliot was a cousin of Caetani, and in regular touch with him at the time about Commerce and more private matters. From these letters we learn exactly when the two men met, and what flowed from the meeting. mirsky also makes some specific recommendations about current english writing. Both woolf and eliot had had work published in Commerce, and there was no basis for mirsky to suggest them. in letter 12 (21 February 1928), mirsky recommends some lesser lights – tomlinson, powys, and Roy Campbell, of whom all but the first did eventually end up in Commerce. then in letter 14 (20 may 1928) mirsky makes a pitch for gerard manley Hopkins; the subject returns in letter 19 (6 June 1928), but in this case no publication in Commerce ensued. the positive reference to william empson in letter 22 (3 march 1931) is of interest, since so few younger contemporary critics seemed to impress mirsky. earlier, i.a. Richards had been mirsky’s first choice of critic to supply a survey of contemporary english literature for Versty, but the task had eventually fallen to e.m. Forster, whose essay remains largely unknown to english readers46 . more significant than what mirsky has to say about the various individual Russian and english writers he mentions to Caetani is the general evidence the letters offer of his formidable confidence in dealing with the current european literary scene. He makes his assessments with complete assurance and without delay or prevarication, moving authoritatively between four languages. His extraordinary linguistic versatility is the personal basis on which he is entitled, as he claims to do in the first of these letters, to announce his effort to ‘counteract’ the nationalism of his Russian compatriots. throughout these letters, though, the acuity of mirsky’s literary judgement is on display; and writing privately, as opposed to writing for publication, he is able to give full vent to it. the ensuing vitality is the principal reason why these letters

45 For the context, see olga ushakova, ‘Russia and Russian Culture in The Criterion, 1922-1939’, in A People Passing Rude… (see note 29 above), pp. 232-240. 46 e.m. Forster, ‘sovremennaia angliiskaia literatura’, Versty, 2, paris, 1927, pp. 240-246. a back-translation into english by g.s. smith from mirsky’s translation into Russian is deposited in the Forster archive at king’s College, Cambridge; the original has apparently been lost. Dsm to leonard woolf, 3 march 1926: ‘Dear mrs woolf, we want to have articles on foreign literature in our Review, and want to start with england. the difficulty is that we can pay only French, i.e. practically nominal fees. i wrote to i.a. Richards asking him to do it, but he is going to China and has no time. He suggests e.m. Forster, whom i do not know as a critic at all. Can you give me some advice? what we want is a concise and historical view of the present state of english literature’. see a.B. Rogachesvskii, ‘neizvestnye pis’ma D.p. sviatopolka-mirskogo serediny 1920-kh godov,’ Diaspora, 2, (pp. 349-367), p. 365, 366.

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retain such interest even so long after they were written, even though the world they represent has been lost to change in so many important, even fundamental, respects. the letters to marguerite Caetani are written in mirsky’s fluent, expressive english; the occasional deviations from standard usage only highlight his extraordinary active command of the language47 . as in his letters to Jane Harrison that end at almost the same point in time as these letters begin48 , so in writing to Caetani mirsky maintains the tone of polite and respectful formality to be expected in a man of his class and time addressing someone foreign of the opposite sex for whom there is little emotional attachment, and someone, moreover, to whom mirsky feels a sense of obligation for financial support. they contrast strongly with the often rambunctious tone of the contemporary letters mirsky was writing in Russian to his close friend and male contemporary suvchinskii, where, as we have seen, marguerite Caetani is occasionally referred to by the denigratory sobriquet ‘Bassianikha’ and discussed using a much less polite and formal tone. whatever may have been the nature of the personal relations involved, though, these letters testify to an extraordinarily serious and productive contribution to the history of european literature in the modern period. the calculated international awareness of the modernist attitude, and its unapologetic habitation of its elite status, is in evidence throughout. it was only later that mirsky turned against the cultural world he had inherited and shared with marguerite Caetani. when he denounced it, in his notorious The Intelligentsia of Great Britain49, he restricted his contumely to the island country in which he had been employed and had lived somewhat under sufferance, rather than including the continental country to which he had resorted at every opportunity while he was in emigration, but to whose literary culture he had made a lesser contribution.

Gerald s. smith

47 a characteristic example of fluency combined with marginal inaccuracy occurs in the first letter, where mirsky says that Versty ‘can hardly stand on its own legs’, where normal english would say ‘on its own [two] feet’; mirsky’s phrase is a Russianism. in letter 12 he says ‘pretensions’, a Russianism, when he means ‘demands’. in letter 19 he writes ‘he forestalled eliot’, when he means ‘anticipated’. 48 g.s. smith, ‘Jane ellen Harrison: Forty-seven letters to D.s. mirsky, 1924-1926’, Oxford Slavonic Papers, new series 28 (1995), pp. 62-97. 49 D.s. mirsky, The Intelligentsia of Great Britain, translated by alec Brown, london, gollancz; new york, Covici, Friede, 1935; the original is D. mirskii, Intellidzhentsia, moscow, sovetskaia literatura, 1934.