COLUMBIA GUIDE TO THE LITERATURES OF EASTERN EUROPE SINCE 1945, THE

Comparative Literature, Fall 2004 by Emerson, Caryl

In his Introduction, Segel describes his principle of selection. It was not strictly linguistic (which would have favored the Slavic family and, Segel felt, left out too many important areas: Albania, Hungary, Romania, East Germany). It was more experiential. To qualify for inclusion, all his writers must have produced their major work after World War II, and they must have remained at home (no diaspora writers). There is a fraternity of sorts in this constraint. The year 1945 found a dozen Central European peoples comparably scarred by total war and threatened by the liberator-imperialist Soviets. Eastern Europe was that part of the continent which became booty or compensation for Russian sacrifice. But what also unified many of these peoples was the shared fate of having had their national identities carved out of the great, bloated Empires that collapsed in 1918-19Austro-Hungarian, Russian, Ottoman Turk, and, on a somewhat different timetable, ItalianAdriatic-to become, at last, independent entities, after centuries of assimilation and exploitation. This common experience meant two things. First, Eastern European writers after 1945 had a highly sensitized social conscience and were easily politicized. Some felt acute national pride, others an acute disgust at being forced to forego a normal private life, but few important writers were indifferent to problems of nationhood. And second, there was the growing sense that the interwar period, with its glimpse of "independence," was only a mirage. The region knew varying degrees of victimization, tyranny, and bloodshed, of course. The Czechs were probably the least scarred, the Serbs, Bosnians, and Poles the most, and their respective war epics reflect this spectrum (The Good Soldier Schweik versus The Bridge on the Drina and Ashes and Diamonds). Nations also differ in the timing of their uprisings and subsequent pacifications (Hungary and Czechslovakia made world news in 1956 and 1968, but Poland, Romania, Albania-equally bad-"autocorrected" through local tyrants and were thus spared Soviet tanks). But Segel is certainly correct that a bitterness about history, a memory of slaughtered minorities (Jews and gypsies), a growing resistance to Communist ideology, and a passionate devotion to the literary word were common to all. Western capitals tend to name their major parks and boulevards after military conquerors or political heroes. In Eastern Europe, the places you love are named after poets.

Segel's author entries, averaging one-and-a-half columns in length, follow a standard rubric. First comes a brief biography; then discussion of the themes or significance of the major works (all titles provided in the original language); finally, a paragraph listing the "Translations" (into English). Again, a guide is not an encyclopedia. Segel has wisely resolved that key to putting a new area on the inner map of American readers is to provide a reference work where literature available in translation can be supplied with a face, a life, and further reading. Whereas Segel's primary goal appears to have been to bring mute, or muted, cultures to a richer international life, he is nevertheless no Utopian; some presence in English must precede each of these writers. Thus among the shadow heroes of this volume are the indefatigable translators (and their publishing houses) who have pursued this heroic task for decades. It would be good if there were some way, short of going on line, to update the "Translations" sections, which are inevitably immediately obsolete in proportion to the successful realization of Segel's goal.