What can be done with diaries?
I Paperno - The Russian Review, 2004 - JSTOR
I Paperno
The Russian Review, 2004•JSTORReading other people's intimate papers-mostly, diaries and letters--has long b privilege of
students of history and literature. In many ways, diaries and letters a similar: both are
archived intimate writings of potential historical as well as litera value. Scholars have
defined private, or familiar, letters as literary writings and as f of sociability.'Diaries seem to
present more of a difficulty. Many scholars have comm on the uncertain situation of the diary.
To use a recent statement," the diary, as an unc genre uneasily balanced between literary …
students of history and literature. In many ways, diaries and letters a similar: both are
archived intimate writings of potential historical as well as litera value. Scholars have
defined private, or familiar, letters as literary writings and as f of sociability.'Diaries seem to
present more of a difficulty. Many scholars have comm on the uncertain situation of the diary.
To use a recent statement," the diary, as an unc genre uneasily balanced between literary …
Reading other people's intimate papers-mostly, diaries and letters--has long b privilege of students of history and literature. In many ways, diaries and letters a similar: both are archived intimate writings of potential historical as well as litera value. Scholars have defined private, or familiar, letters as literary writings and as f of sociability.'Diaries seem to present more of a difficulty. Many scholars have comm on the uncertain situation of the diary. To use a recent statement," the diary, as an unc genre uneasily balanced between literary and historical writing, between the spontan of reportage and reflectiveness of the crafted text, between selfhood and events, be subjectivity and objectivity, between the private and the public, constantly disturbs atte to summarize its characteristics within formalized boundaries." 2 (The list of dichoto can be revised and extended.) On this basis, the diary has been both condemne exclusion from analysis as a specific genre and privileged for its ability to reveal t tension between the opposites and to highlight marginality. Yet, over the years, scholars have read, and used, diaries as a historical testimony literary form, or an autobiographical document. The success of the diaries of Samu Pepys, Marie Bashkirtseff, Anais Nin, Franz Kafka, Virginia Woolf, Mikhail Kuzmi Witold Gombrowicz, Anne Frank, and Victor Klemperer demonstrate the never-en fascination diaries hold for readers. In these and other capacities the diary belongs t overlapping domains of history and literature. What is the diary as a mode of writing, or as a genre?(I use the word" genre" in broad, Bakhtinian, sense, not limited to the belles lettres: as a complex form that sh the representation of experience into a whole.) There is no consensus about the defin
'On private letters as a literary genre and form of sociability in Russia see WM Todd III, The Familia as a Literary Genre in The Age ofPushkin (Princeton, 1967). A student of William Mills Todd, I have en benefited from his insights into the interrelations of the literary and the social; his pioneering work on literature as a social institution has had tangible influence on Slavic studies. For West European context
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