Katherine Mansfield and Russia
Edited by Galya Diment, Gerri Kimber, Todd Martin
Katherine Mansfield’s passion for Russian literature and culture is well documented in her letters and notebooks. Anton Chekhov was not just one of her most significant literary influences, but also a mythological presence with whom she mentally communicated every day. The emotional bond became even stronger when she discovered that the two of them shared the same deadly disease. But her fascination with Russia and its culture extended beyond Chekov and included the Ballets Russes and an interest in Russian politics, in part sparked by Maxim Gorky. She also read and assimilated several other Russian writers, including Fyodor Dostoevsky and Marie Bashkirtseff as well as Leo Tolstoy. This volume presents essays that engage with many aspects of Mansfield’s response to all things Russian as well as to the Russians she met in England and France. In addition, the volume presents a collection of images of Gurdjieff’s Institute at Fontainebleau, several of which have never been seen before.
Key Features- It includes contributions by both English and Russian scholars
- Mansfield’s personal and artistic response to Russian literature, culture, philosophy, and art
- Explores her responses to the actual Russians she met in England and — towards the end of her life — in France
Contents
Abbreviations
List of Illustrations
Acknowledgements
INTRODUCTION
Galya Diment
CRITICISM
‘Je ne parle pas français’: Reading Mansfield’s Underground Man
David Rampton
Post Diagnosis: Bashkirtseff, Chekhov, and Gorky through Mansfield’s Prism of TuberculosisGalya Diment
‘A child of the sun’: Katherine Mansfield, Orientalism and GurdjieffGerri Kimber
Near Misses: From Gerhardi to Mansfield (and back), via Anton ChekhovClaire DavisonMansfield, Movement and The Ballets Russes
Ira Nadel
At Home Among the Russians: The Short Stories of Olive Garnett and Katherine MansfieldFrances Reading‘The Only Truth I Really Care About’. Katherine Mansfield at the Gurdjieff Institute: A Biographical ReflectionPierce Butler
CREATIVE WRITING
Short Story
Owen Marshall: ‘The English Visitor’
Poetry
Fleur Adcock: ‘Tinakori Road’
Jessica Whyte: ‘Remedy’
Creative Nonfiction
Roger Lipsey: ‘Chez Monsieur Gurdjieff’
CRITICAL MISCELLANY
The Tree of Knowledge: New Insights on Mansfield, Oscar Wilde and ‘A Woman’Giles Whiteley
A Note on Some Unidentified Sources in Mansfield’s Reading from 1907
Giles Whiteley
Addicted to Mansfield: A Glimpse at the Ruth Elvish Mantz Collection in TexasGerri Kimber
REVIEW ESSAY
Katherine Mansfield in a Global ContextRishona Zimring
Notes on Contributors
Index
