Contenu du sommaire

Simon Markish, Osip Rabinovich. Osip Rabinovich is a mid-nineteenth century writer, almost completely forgotten in our time. Nevertheless he was the father of the Russian-Jewish literature that endowed the Russian Empire with names such as Iushkevich, Aizman, Babel'. The present article brings out the sources of Rabinovich's work and stresses its connection with the Russian and Jewish literary traditions (Hebrew, Yiddish, German-Jewish); it establishes its place in the mid-nineteenth century Russian literature and in Jewish cultures of various expressions of modern and contemporary period.

Gérard Abensour, Leninism and the intellectual life. Polemic in 1905 between Briusov and Lenin. In 1905, Lenin wrote an article which since then serves as reference on the standpoint advised by him with regard to the liberty of creation and expression within the party, which, at the time, was called the "Social Democrat" party. On pretext of defending the party's freedom against hypothetical enemies who had penetrated it, Lenin contrasts the liberty of association with that of speech, as though these were two antithetical notions. As noted by the poet Briusov in an indignant article entitled "The freedom of speech", Lenin ends by forbidding intellectual creation not only within his party but even in any country under his domination in view of the fact that the object pursued by the party is to obtain command for itself alone over the entire people. The analysis of Briusov is of November 1905. Its conclusions seem still valid.

Stephen Blank, Soviet politics and the Iranian revolution of 1919-1921. The Soviet intervention in Iran during 1919-1921 arose out of the conjuncture of historic Russian interest in dominating Iran, Leninist visions of third world revolution, Stalin's personal ambitions, and the Pan-Islamic aspirations of radical Soviet Moslems led by Sultangaliev. This article seeks to trace the interplay between the domestic ramifications of the Soviet debate on tactics in Iran during 1919-1921 and the actual implementation of radical policies on the ground by Soviet troops ultimately commanded by Stalin on the one hand and the Iranian Communists on the other. By exploring the interconnected nature of the resolution of fundamental issues of Soviet nationality policy and foreign policy the article seeks to uncover the roots of Stalin's international activity at this time and the consequences of the Iranian adventure for both domestic and foreign policy after 1921.

Evgenij Kovtun, A Soviet painter: Vladimir Sterligov. Vladimir Sterligov, a Russian painter deceased in 1973, whose followers continue, up to our times, to draw their inspiration from what is called in Leningrad "the school of Sterligov"" (under the direction of the painter's widow, Tatiana Glebova) had created in Russia, in the sixties, a new aesthetic tendency at the intersection of the Suprematism of Malevich and the "organic" pictural culture of Matiushin. For Sterligov, the structure and the construction of plastic space are based on the shape of a bowl (and the cupola derived therefrom). The aesthetics of the curb, of the bowl and the cupola is perceived in the spiritual and moral life of the world as a new and imperative necessity. Sterligov dreamt of the contemporary religious art of painting. He was not attracted by the face but by the vision of the world such as displayed by ancient Russian painting. He was opposed to the arbitrary in the individualistic creation and believed in the logic of the unescapable and absolute development of the plastic shape transmitted through the artist.

Frederick Starr, Le Corbusier and the USSR. New documentation. Between 1928 and 1932, the architect Le Corbusier became deeply interested in, and closely involved with the USSR. In addition to his Tsentrosoiuz building, which was actually constructed in Moscow, he conceived various other major projects on a vast and Utopian scale. These were eventually rejected by Soviet authorities, much to the architect's disgust. Through newly discovered documents it is now possible to trace with some precision the course of Le Corbusier's disenchantment, and to relate it to his early hopes and ideals. Moreover, these documents also reveal that Le Corbusier's turn away from the Soviet experiment was motivated in part by his conviction that no social base of support for modern architecture existed among the Soviet populace at large — e.g., that Stalinist architecture was, in fact, popular.

Temira Pachmuss, From the archives of Z. N. Hippius. The present article includes an original version of two of her early poems, two unpublished humoristic poems and an unpublished poem "To Theresa", filled with the meditations of the poet, on the essence of all-comprising love aimed at harmony, ideal, truth and union in the light of Godly Personnality, of Jesus-Christ. The "Metaphysics of Love" comprises also the meditation of the poet on the androgynous nature of God-the-Father and the-Mother in One; on the artistic creation as an act of Divine Principles in their fusion; on the organic union of the act of love and the artistic act and on the artist, returning to God by his creativity the love which served to create him in the semblance of God.