Synopses & Reviews
The weather in Moscow is good, there's no cholera, there's also no lesbian love...Brrr! Remembering those persons of whom you write me makes me nauseous as if I'd eaten a rotten sardine. Moscow doesn't have them--and that's marvellous."
Anton Chekhov, writing to his publisher in 1895
Chekhov's barbed comment suggests the climate in which Sophia Parnok was writing, and is an added testament to to the strength and confidence with which she pursued both her personal and artistic life. Author of five volumes of poetry, and lover of Marina Tsvetaeva, Sophia Parnok was the only openly lesbian voice in Russian poetry during the Silver Age of Russian letters. Despite her unique contribution to modern Russian lyricism however, Parnok's life and work have essentially been forgotten.
Parnok was not a political activist, and she had no engagement with the feminism vogueish in young Russian intellectual circles. From a young age, however, she deplored all forms of male posturing and condescension and felt alienated from what she called patriarchal virtues. Parnok's approach to her sexuality was equally forthright. Accepting lesbianism as her natural disposition, Parnok acknowledged her relationships with women, both sexual and non-sexual, to be the centre of her creative existence.
Diana Burgin's extensively researched life of Parnok is deliberately woven around the poet's own account, visible in her writings. The book is divided into seven chapters, which reflect seven natural divisions in Parnok's life. This lends Burgin's work a particular poetic resonance, owing to its structural affinity with one of Parnok's last and greatest poetic achievements, the cycle of love lyrics Ursa Major. Dedicated to her last lover, Parnok refers to this cycle as a seven-star of verses, after the seven stars that make up the constellation. Parnok's poems, translated here for the first time in English, added to a wealth of biographical material, make this book a fascinating and lyrical account of an important Russian poet. Burgin's work is essential reading for students of Russian literature, lesbian history and women's studies.
Review
“DiNunio has done a spectacular job of revealing the intelligence and humanity of a man often clouded by legend.”
-Choice: Highly recommended,
Review
“DiNunzio has weighted his selections toward Wilson's prepresidential career, making much of the book unique.”
-Library Journal,
Review
“DiNunzio suggests that Woodrow Wilson was the first and only scholar-president. Wilson remade Princeton University as a first-rate bastion of liberal-arts learning as its first layman president before serving as New Jersey governor and later ushering the nation through the Progressive Era and into World War I.”
-Timeoff,
Synopsis
From the Ivy League to the oval office, Woodrow Wilson was the only professional scholar to become a U.S. president. A professor of history and political science, Wilson became the dynamic president of Princeton University in 1902 and was one of its most prolific scholars before entering active politics. Through his labors as student, scholar, and statesman, he left a legacy of elegant writings on everything from educational reform to religion to history and politics.
Woodrow Wilson: Essential Writings and Speeches of the Scholar-President collects Wilson's most influential work, from early essays on religion to his famous “Fourteen Points” speech, which introduced the idea of the League of Nations. Among the last of the presidents to write his own speeches, Wilson left behind works which offer impressive insights into his mind and his age.
Deeply religious, Wilson looked to his faith to guide his life and wrote candidly about the connection. A passionate advocate of liberal learning, he broadcast his ideas on educational reform with missionary intensity. In politics he moved from a traditional nineteenth-century conservative view of government to a progressive, international vision which transformed American politics in the new century. His writings allow us to trace the intellectual struggle that took the nation from a position of neutrality in World War I to its role as a central player on the world stage.
Penetrating and eloquent, the works gathered here represent the best and the most important of Wilson's writings that retain enduring interest. A rich repository of ideas on the American people and America's purpose in the world, these works reveal the thoughts of one of the most acute analysts and actors in the drama of American politics.
About the Author
Diana Lewis Burgin is Professor of Russian and Chair of the Department of Modern Languages at the University of Massachusetts at Boston and an Associate of the Russian Research Centre, Harvard University. She is author of a biography in verse, numerous articles on Russian literature, and a translator of Russian prose and poetry.