Kulturtransfer um 1900: Rilke und Russland ed. by Dirk Kemper, Ulrich von Bülow, and Jurij Lileev (review)

The essays presented in Kulturtransfer um 1900: Rilke und Russland revisit Rainer Maria Rilke's (1875–1926) two trips to Russia. The essays emerged from conferences held in Marbach and Moscow that accompanied the trinational exhibition "Rilke und Russland" in 2017/2018. Presenting an interdisciplinary account of Rilke's sojourns, they are geared toward generalists and specialists alike. Remaining true to its title, the book comprises a transfer of knowledge between scholars based in Russia and the German-speaking countries. In their assessment of the influence of Slavophilism on Rilke's image of Russia along with detailed studies of the image of the Austrian poet in the Soviet Union and Russia, the essays revise and add to the extensive scholarship on Rilke's time in Russia in German, Russian, and English.

The fourteen essays of the volume are divided into four sections, beginning with an examination of the translations and reception of Rilke's poetry in Russia and the Soviet Union and a critical evaluation of the aforementioned exhibition. The second section, titled "Rilke und die Frauen," starts with a portrayal of Lou Andreas-Salomé. The contribution to follow centers on Rilke's friendship and exchange with Marina Cvetaeva and his elegy dedicated to her. An analysis of how Rilke's image of Russia manifested itself in his contact with the German artist Paula Modersohn-Becker closes the section. A closer look at Rilke and Petersburg opens the next group of essays, which center on Rilke's aesthetic writings. The next essay explores Rilke's tendentious engagement with Russian paintings of the nineteenth century, followed by a study of Rilke's notion of the icon, which moves over to his dispute between and him and Leo Tolstoy regarding the status of art and literature. The last essay compares Rilke's concept of poetry to those of Aleksej Losev and Boris Pasternak. The collection closes with contributions on Rilke and philosophy and religion.

While the entire collection underscores the lasting impact of Rilke's encounter with Russia, the contributors put his trip into perspective. Larissa N. Polubojarinova's essay demonstrates how Rilke's correspondence and appreciation for the works Paula Modersohn-Becker are marked by his transition from Russia to Paris and the paradigm shift from "Vision" to "Visualität" (94) in his notion of art. Part of this change is the break between Rilke and Lou Andreas-Salomé. Cornelia Pechota's essay offers, aside from an outline of their friendship and intellectual exchange, a concise biography and clearcut profile of her as an independent thinker.

A recurring theme of this collection is that of blind spots: those aspects that Rilke chose to omit from his image of Russia, but also that which is missing in the Russian reception of the Austrian poet. Overlooking the vast number of Russian translations and the critical engagement with his oeuvre by Russian scholars, which speak to the elevated status that his works have attained there, the essay by Alexander W. Belobratow laments that an uncritical engagement with Rilke's image of Russia, which emerges from a quite intentional "partiellen und perspektivischen Erfassung und Mythologisierung" (8), continues to mar the reception of Rilke's works in Russia. Elena Lysenkova's essay on Russian translations of Rilke's Stunden-Buch seconds this assertion as a tendency within Russian scholarship. Fittingly, her assessment of the quality of the published Russian translations is mixed as well. Regarding the image of Russia conveyed in the "Rilke und Russland" exhibition, Konstantin Asadowski criticizes that visitors from east and west are presented with an "Idealisierung des Landes im Rilke'schen Sinne" (34) and lists the many factual errors in the exhibition catalogue, which he attributes to an "Unkenntnis (oder sehr oberflächlichen Kenntnissen) der russischen Kulturgeschichte" (42).

A strong point of the collection is that the included essays offer interdisciplinary...