True Songs of Freedom: Uncle Tom’s Cabin in Russian Culture and Society

Acknowledgments

xi Ac­ knowl­ edg­ ments This book took a while to reach com­ ple­ tion, par­ tially be­ cause it was a lot of fun to write. As usual, every­ one at the Uni­ ver­ sity of Wis­ con­ sin Press was ter­ rific. My hearti­ est ­ thanks to Mat­ thew Cosby, ­ Frances Gro­ gan, ­ Sheila Leary, Carla Ma­ rolt, Adam Meh­ ring, Bar­ bara Woj­ ho­ ski, Logan Mid­ dle­ ton, La­ uren Vedal, and es­ pe­ cially Gwen ­ Walker for all the help and sup­ port. I’m very grate­ ful to Sarah Meer, Nancy Rut­ ten­ burg, and the anon­ y­ mous re­ view­ ers for their enor­ mously use­ ful sug­ ges­ tions. For their ad­ vice, great ideas, re­ search help, and en­ cour­ age­ ment, a big ­ thank-you to Vlad­ i­ mir Alex­ an­ drov, ­ Amanda Brick­ ell Bel­ lows, David ­ Blight, Paul Bush­ ko­ vitch, Hazel Carby, Kat­ e­ rina Clark, Mi­ chael Den­ ning, Wai Chee Di­ mock, Irina Dol­ gova, Laura En­ gel­ stein, Masha Et­ kind, Har­ vey Gold­ blatt, Irina Go­ lub­ chi­ kov (and Liuda and Lyo­ sha), Bella Gri­ gor­ yan, Joan He­ drick, Julia Herz­ berg, Fred­ ric Jame­ son, Den­ nis Jones, Liza Knapp, Ser­ gei Ku­ dri­ avt­ sev, Sarah Lewis, David Moon,­ Charles Mus­ ser, David Re­ ynolds, Nat­ a­ lie Ryab­ chi­ kova, Ben­ ja­ min­ Schenk, Laur­ ence Sene­ lick, Maria Si­ dor­ kina, Tim­ o­ thy ­ Snyder, Wil­ lard Sunder­ land, Tomas Ven­ clova, Laura Wex­ ler, Susan Wil­ lis, and Emily Yao. As al­ ways, I lift a glass to my won­ der­ ful col­ leagues in ­ Yale’s De­ part­ ment of ­ Slavic Lan­ guages and Lit­ er­ a­ tures and Film Stud­ ies Pro­ gram, my com­ rades in the Work­ ing Group in Marx­ ism and Cul­ tural The­ ory, and all my stu­ dents in the var­ i­ ous it­ er­ a­ tions of the “American slav­ ery and Rus­ sian serf­ dom” ­ course over the years. An­ other spe­ cial ­ thanks to De­ nise Kohn, Sarah Meer, and Emily B. Todd, who saw my ear­ li­ est work on Stowe in Rus­ sia to pub­ li­ ca­ tion. xii Acknowledgments A lot of re­ search went into this short book, none of which would have been pos­ sible with­ out the help of the staff at ­ Yale’s Ster­ ling and Bei­ necke Li­ brar­ ies, and es­ pe­ cially at the Na­ tional Li­ brary of Rus­ sia in St. Pe­ ters­ burg and the State Li­ brary of the Rus­ sian Fed­ er­ a­ tion in Mos­ cow. Archi­ val re­ search was car­ ried out at my be­ loved Rus­ sian State ­ Archive of Lit­ er­ a­ ture and Art (RGALI) in Mos­ cow: deep­ est ­ thanks to Ta­ tiana Gor­ i­ aeva, Ga­ lina Zlo­ bina, and my dear ­ friends Dmi­ tri Neu­ stroev and Elena Tchou­ gou­ nova. Gen­ er­ ous re­ search fund­ ing from ­ Yale’s Whit­ ney Hu­ man­ ities Cen­ ter sup­ ported my work in Rus­ sia. Time spent in Mos­ cow ­ wouldn’t be ­ nearly as de­ light­ ful as it al­ ways is with­ out Anya Pet­ a­ nova, Ma­ rina Ev­ ge­ nieva, Sonya, Sta­ sia, and Tim; I toast you all. I’m ex­ traor­ di­ nar­ ily lucky to enjoy the lov­ ing sup­ port of my fam­ ily: my par­ ents Jack and Betty ­ MacKay, my sis­ ter Pam, my ­ brother Peter, and their fam­ i­ lies. ­ Thanks, too, to all the folks in Ar­ gen­ tina. As it turns out, the very first pub­ lic per­ for­ mance of tango in Ar­ gen­ tina took place dur­ ing a stag­ ing of Uncle Tom’s Cabin in Bue­ nos Aires in 1856 (http://www.pro­ tan­ go­ peru.com/in­ ves­ ti­ ga­ cion/ev­ o­ lu­ cion.html). I was un­ able to fit this de­ tail any­ where into the book; for Moira Fra­ dinger, to whom the book is ded­ i­ cated, I in­ clude it here. ...