Irina Odoevtseva, Poet, Novelist, Memoirist: A Literary Portrait

Rolf Hellebust is a professor of Russian language and literature at the
University of Calgary.

Irina Odoevtseva (1895–1990) was an active participant in the literary
life of prerevolutionary St. Petersburg, and after 1921 became one of
the leading figures of Russian émigré culture in Paris. Although
mentioned in the history books, she is unfamiliar to today’s reader.
It is Ella Bobrow’s mission to restore Odoevtseva’s name to its
place of prominence. Bobrow, a longtime friend and admirer, is herself a
writer and well-known member of the Toronto émigré community. Her
portrait (published concurrently with a Russian version in Moscow) is a
labor of love, written with the parallels linking author and subject
clearly in mind.

Considering Bobrow’s intentions, and the effort spent completing this
project and getting it published, it is unfortunate that her reader is
left with a poorly edited, at times annoyingly superficial examination
of Odoevtseva’s life and works. The book consists of a biographical
sketch; a commentary on her poetry and short prose, with some translated
examples; a section on the novel, consisting mainly of plot summaries
which takes up almost half of Bobrow’s text; and a description of
Odoevtseva’s memoirs—again dominated by retellings of the original.
The book concludes with a cryptic reference page. Bearing in mind the
inaccessibility of Odoevtseva’s works, perhaps Bobrow might be excused
for her extensive paraphrases—were it not for the paucity of her own
critical observations, and her failure to tie the disparate parts of her
work into a coherent whole. Still, she succeeds in conveying much of the
irrepressible spirit of Odoevtseva’s poetic vision; and the memoir
excerpts about her encounters with many of the famous Russian writers
and artists of this century should prove attractive to specialists and
general readers alike. In this case, Bobrow will have largely succeeded
in her mission, despite the many failings of this slim volume.