Siberia and the Reforms of 1822 by Marc RaeffReview by: Hugh Seton-WatsonThe Slavonic and East European Review, Vol. 36, No. 87 (Jun., 1958), pp. 584-585Published by: the Modern Humanities Research Association and University College London, School ofSlavonic and East European StudiesStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4205002 .

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584 THE SLAVONIC REVIEW

his paper on Julian Tuwim. Particularly interesting are his comments on the originality of Tuwim's language, on his search for 'archetypes of speech' (ukryta pierwszyzna), and on his desire to resurrect obsolete voca- bulary-all this within a basically traditional form. The great diversity of Tuwim's work deserves detailed study, and the time will soon be ripe for determining Tuwim's place in 20th-century Polish poetry.

The Canadian character of the journal is stressed by the publication of some interesting documents dealing with the Dukhobor settlement. The documents (from the papers of the late Professor Mavor) shed much light on the unsuccessful compensation claim made by the sect against the Canadian government after their expulsion from homesteads in Saskat- chewan. These were granted to them on their arrival in Canada at the end of the igth century. Although they had been told that 'there is no land under the sun where there is more liberty and tolerance in regard to religious and material matters than in Canada', nevertheless in I907 the Canadian government in a rather arbitrary manner confiscated their lands, the ostensible reason being that this anarchistic sect, which recog- nises no authority but that of God and His Son, refused to take the oath of allegiance to the Crown of England and thus transgressed the laws of Canada.

Other papers in the issue include an analysis of Bunin's autobiograph- ical novel The Life of Arsen'yev by Dr C. H. Bedford of the University of Toronto, a paper on Pushkin and the Emperors Alexander I and Nicholas I by Professor Leonid Strakhovsky, a study of a play by the Ukrainian dramatist Mykola Kulish, as well as three linguistic studies pertaining to themes as varied as spelling pronunciation in modern literary Russian, the linguistic aspect of the controversy over the authenticity of the 'Lay of Igor", and Slavonic toponymic neologisms in Canada.

London GEORGETTE DONCHIN

Siberia and the Reforms of i822. By Marc Raeff, Seattle, I956. xvii + 2IO

pages. Appendices and bibliography.

THIS short book is part of a series of publications on Russia in Asia, under- taken by the Far Eastern and Russian Institute of the University of Washington. It deals principally with the reforms carried out by Speran- sky as Governor-General of Siberia. Mr Raeff briefly discusses the work of Speransky's predecessors and the main features of Siberian society. He notes that, in the absence of a landed nobility, the social elite consisted of bureaucrats and merchants; but that the narrow outlook of the merchants, thinking in terms of restrictive privileges rather than of opportunities of enterprise, was an obstacle to progress. Among Speransky's achievements he reckons a certain encouragement to business enterprise, which con- tributed to the appreciable flowering of the capitalist virtues in Siberia at the turn of the Igth and 20th centuries. Mr Raeff briefly summarises the administrative structure created by Speransky. A fault of this section is that he does not make sufficiently clear in what respects this differed from

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REVIEWS 585 the normal pattern of provincial government in European Russia, with its gubernskoye pravleniye, kazyonnayapalata, and the rest of the apparatus. The second half of the book discusses the position of the native peoples of Siberia. The author shows Speransky as an enlightened statesman, combining a respect for the individuality of these small nations and their customs with a belief in the mission of Russian culture, and a general desire to spread enlightenment in the I8th-century tradition.

The short text of 136 pages is followed by appendices containing excerpts from some of Speransky's writings on Siberia and statistical material on the Siberian natives. There are also i8 pages of useful biblio- graphy. This is a valuable study of a little-known subject that deserves more attention.

London HUGH SETON-WATSON

Russische Lautlehre. By Wolfgang Steinitz. 2nd revised edition. Akademie- Verlag, Berlin, 1957. x + 90 pages. Diagrams, bibliography, and indices.

THIS is a new edition of Professor Steinitz's useful little book on Russian phonetics, the first edition of which was reviewed in these pages four years ago (SEER, XXXIII, 8o, pp. 236-9). My review contained certain strictures, which were directed against both the polemical nature of the author's preface and what I thought were plagiarisms from Forchhammer and Boyanus. In the course of 1957 however I was in correspondence with Professor Steinitz and met him during the summer, and as a result of the evidence which he has submitted I am persuaded that my accusations on the score of plagiarism were groundless. I promised Professor Steinitz that I would withdraw them, and I do so now.

I have carefully examined the copy of the new edition of Russische Lautlehre which he has kindly sent me and find it to be a perceptible im- provement on the first because of the elimination of errors, the modified wording of the preface, and the inclusion of a number of very necessary footnote-references. Altogether this edition of Professor Steinitz's book makes it a manual of Russian phonetics which learners of Russian will find both informative and reliable.

London t W. K. MATTHEWS

Rym i w)iersz. By Mieczyslaw Giergielewicz. Polski Uniwersytet na Ob- czyznie, London, I1957. I 58 pages. Bibliography and index.

IN recent years Polish scholars have given more attention to problems of versification (e.g. M. Diuska, S. Furmanik), and now Dr Giergielewicz provides a truly illuminating study on rhyme within the pattern of poetic composition. His scope is wider than the title might suggest, for it includes several types of sound analogies, which are further illustrated by dis- criminately chosen examples from Polish poetry, ranging from the mediaeval period to the present day.

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