Heart-Pine Russia: Walking and Writing the Nineteenth-Century Forest

by Jane T. Costlow

Overview

Russia has more woodlands than any other country in the world, and its forests have loomed large in Russian culture and history. Historical site of protection from invaders but also from state authority, by the nineteenth century Russia's forests became the focus of both scientific scrutiny and poetic imaginations. The forest was imagined as alternately endless and eternal or alarmingly vulnerable in a rapidly modernizing Russia. For some the forest constituted an imaginary geography of religious homeland; for others it was the locus of peasant culture and local knowledge; for all Russians it was the provider of both material and symbolic resources. In Heart-Pine Russia, Jane T. Costlow explores the central place the forest came to hold in a century of intense seeking for articulations of national and spiritual identity.Costlow focuses on writers, painters, and scientists who went to Russia's European forests to observe, to listen, and to create; increasingly aware of the extent to which woodlands were threatened, much of their work was imbued with a sense of impending loss. Costlow's sweep includes canonic literary figures and blockbuster writers whose romances of epic woodlands nourished fin-de-siècle opera and painting.Considering the work of Turgenev, Tolstoy, and Korolenko in the company of scientific foresters and visual artists from Shishkin and Repin to Nesterov, Costlow uncovers a rich and nuanced cultural landscape in which the forest is a natural and national resource, both material and spiritual. A chapter on the essays and aesthetic of Dmitrii Kaigorodov, a forester and natural historian who wrote for a broad public at the very end of the imperial era, suggests a distinctive Russian environmental ethic nurtured by the rich array of texts and images that Costlow explores. The relationship between humankind and the natural world that these works portray is complex and shifting. Visionary and skeptic, optimist and pessimist: all turn to the northern forest as they plumb what it means to be Russian.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780801450594
Publisher:	Cornell University Press
Publication date:	12/15/2012
Pages:	288
Product dimensions:	6.50(w) x 9.30(h) x 1.00(d)
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Jane T. Costlow is Clark Griffith Professor of Environmental Studies at Bates College. She is the author of Worlds within Worlds: The Novels of Ivan Turgenev and coeditor of The Other Animals: Situating the Non-Human in Russian Culture and History and Representations of the Body and Sexuality in Russian Culture.

Table of Contents

Introduction1. Walking into the Woodland with Turgenev2. Heart-Pine Russia: Mel'nikov-Pechersky and the Sacred Geographies of the Woods3. Geographies of Loss: The "Forest Question" in Nineteenth-Century Russia4. Jumping In: Vladimir Korolenko and the Civic/Environmental Imagination5. Beyond the Shattered Image: Mikhail Nesterov's Epiphanic Woodlands6. Measurement, Poetry, and the Pedagogy of Place: Dmitrii Kaigorodov and the Russian ForestConclusionNotes
Index

What People are Saying About This

William Nickell

Russia's geography is rich in forest, and its culture abundant in the spirits and heroes that traverse it. The national literature has ventured deep into these woods, but western critics have only rarely followed. Jane T. Costlow’s marvelous book stands us in the middle of this forest and points to wonders all around. This is a beautiful, meditative, and insightful book that opens up new worlds of appreciation for both literature and nature.

John Randolph

Through this loving rediscovery of Russia's 'nineteenth-century forests'—as they presented themselves to the imagination and understanding of nineteenth-century writers—Jane T. Costlow helps us perceive the particularities of our own relationships to nature. She guides us into a symbolic landscape where even the most pristine woodlands are not 'wild,' but inhabited by layers of memory and meaning. The struggle to really see and hear the life of Russia's forests—both omnipresent and embattled, as contemporaries were beginning to perceive—infuses Costlow's story with many lyrical moments, where through the eyes of a searching author we can walk through 'Heart-Pine Russia,' and contemplate its mysteries, joys and sorrows. Costlow's expert reading of this tradition—and careful reconstruction of it—presents a model for future environmental readings of Russia's literary 'Golden Age.'.

Sarah Pratt

This book takes a truism—that an organic relation to the environment lies at the heart of Russian culture—and uses it as a prism to refract literary works by Turgenev, Tolstoy, Mel'nikov-Pechersky, and Korolenko, as well as paintings by Nesterov and forest studies by Kaigorodov. The shifting, sparkling pattern of the prism illuminates these works in new ways and adds substance and complexity to commonplace ideas about 'Russians and nature.'.

Donna Tussing Orwin

In Heart-Pine Russia, Jane T. Costlow explores an environmentalism in nineteenth century Russia uncannily parallel to that in America at the same time, while culturally different from it in decisive ways. Her subtle readings of prose texts (fiction and nonfiction) and paintings against the background of this forgotten tradition will inspire modern-day readers to think about the complexities of our own relation to nature.

Nicholas B. Breyfogle

'Who are we when we enter the forest?' In this rich, textured, thoughtful, and thought-provoking book, Jane T. Costlow asks us to walk with her into the woods of literary Russia. She unveils for us a forest both cultural and physical: the imaginative, emotional, spiritual power of the forest, both 'cultural memory but also berries on thick moss.' This is a path-breaking work of ecocriticism and a seminal contribution to an environmental understanding of Russian (and human) culture.

Editorial Reviews

Strolling for the first time in unknown woodlands – seeing, smelling, and hearing the curious and obscure – our experience is happiest and truest when we resist the temptation to interpret our sensations in terms we understand, and allow ourselves to acknowledge and appreciate difference. In its best moments, Heart-Pine Russia produces just this kind of unexpected epiphany. If outstanding universal values exist, this, I'm sure, is one.

MAKE Literary Magazine, - Killian Quigley

Each chapter of Heart-Pine Russia offers a different perspective on the symbiosis of the human and the forest in Russia, but the book's real strength arises from the combination of its parts, the tracing of the many ways in which the Russian forest, mysterious yet sustaining, played an essential role in the development of Russian culture and consciousness. Like any good ramble in the woods, Heart-Pine Russia offers new understanding of the familiar, encounters with unexpected, and a deepened sense of the interconnection of it all with ourselves.

Slavic and East European Journal - Andrew R. Durkin

In this beautifully written and researched volume, Jane T. Coslow takes us on a journey into the forests of European Russia through the eyes of the nineteenth-century literary figures, naturalists, and painters who walked its floors and thought deeply about the land they walked on..I cannot overstate the value of this book for literary and cultural historians, environmentalists, and for anyone interested in how research and personal narrative can be elegantly woven together. Costlow's work succeeds in laying out for us how Russia’s European forests have served as icons of national identity. It also urges us to sit up and take notice of our failure to be proper stewards of the land on which we live.

Slavic Review - Adele Barker

Heart-Pine Russia elegantly combines scholarship and a personal love (and experience) of the forest itself.... This work is a wonderful contribution to the study of Russia's aesthetic and spiritual history and a rare offering to the world of environmental history. Specialists and educated readers alike will take delight in this literary journey through the dense and mysterious forests of European Russia.

Canadian-American Slavic Studies - Amy Singleton Adams

This book is a landmark achievement. It opens up enormous swaths of heretofore unexplored territory, and it provides Slavists (and, for that matter, non-Slavists, should they branch out and read it) with a sophisticated, supple, and manifestly interdisciplinary model for thinking about the relationship between humans and the natural world. It is the first sustained and intellectually rigorous attempt in any language to train an ecocritical lens onto nineteenth-century Russian culture. In this sense it might be said that it does for the Russian field something akin to what Lawrence Buell's seminal 1995 work The Environmental Imagination did for American Studies.

The Russian Review - Thomas Newlin

This erudite study of the Russian forest in 19th-century literature and art... argues that the forest holds a particularly mythologized place in the Russian cultural imagination. Each of the book's six chapters addresses a different author or artist.... This look at the Russian forest in literature and the arts is overdue. As an added plus, it includes ample reproductions of 19th-century paintings in both color and black and white.

Choice

"Through this loving rediscovery of Russia's 'nineteenth-century forests'—as they presented themselves to the imagination and understanding of nineteenth-century writers—Jane T. Costlow helps us perceive the particularities of our own relationships to nature. She guides us into a symbolic landscape where even the most pristine woodlands are not 'wild,' but inhabited by layers of memory and meaning. The struggle to really see and hear the life of Russia's forests—both omnipresent and embattled, as contemporaries were beginning to perceive—infuses Costlow's story with many lyrical moments, where through the eyes of a searching author we can walk through 'Heart-Pine Russia,' and contemplate its mysteries, joys and sorrows. Costlow's expert reading of this tradition—and careful reconstruction of it—presents a model for future environmental readings of Russia's literary 'Golden Age.'."

John Randolph

"This book takes a truism—that an organic relation to the environment lies at the heart of Russian culture—and uses it as a prism to refract literary works by Turgenev, Tolstoy, Mel'nikov-Pechersky, and Korolenko, as well as paintings by Nesterov and forest studies by Kaigorodov. The shifting, sparkling pattern of the prism illuminates these works in new ways and adds substance and complexity to commonplace ideas about 'Russians and nature.'."

Sarah Pratt

"Russia's geography is rich in forest, and its culture abundant in the spirits and heroes that traverse it. The national literature has ventured deep into these woods, but western critics have only rarely followed. Jane T. Costlow’s marvelous book stands us in the middle of this forest and points to wonders all around. This is a beautiful, meditative, and insightful book that opens up new worlds of appreciation for both literature and nature."

William Nickell

"In Heart-Pine Russia, Jane T. Costlow explores an environmentalism in nineteenth century Russia uncannily parallel to that in America at the same time, while culturally different from it in decisive ways. Her subtle readings of prose texts (fiction and nonfiction) and paintings against the background of this forgotten tradition will inspire modern-day readers to think about the complexities of our own relation to nature."

Donna Tussing Orwin

"'Who are we when we enter the forest?' In this rich, textured, thoughtful, and thought-provoking book, Jane T. Costlow asks us to walk with her into the woods of literary Russia. She unveils for us a forest both cultural and physical: the imaginative, emotional, spiritual power of the forest, both 'cultural memory but also berries on thick moss.' This is a path-breaking work of ecocriticism and a seminal contribution to an environmental understanding of Russian (and human) culture."

Nicholas B. Breyfogle

"This erudite study of the Russian forest in 19th-century literature and art . . . argues that the forest holds a particularly mythologized place in the Russian cultural imagination. Each of the book's six chapters addresses a different author or artist. . . . This look at the Russian forest in literature and the arts is overdue. As an added plus, it includes ample reproductions of 19th-century paintings in both color and black and white."—Choice (June 2013)

"In this beautifully written and researched volume, Jane T. Coslow takes us on a journey into the forests of European Russia through the eyes of the nineteenth-century literary figures, naturalists, and painters who walked its floors and thought deeply about the land they walked on....I cannot overstate the value of this book for literary and cultural historians, environmentalists, and for anyone interested in how research and personal narrative can be elegantly woven together. Costlow's work succeeds in laying out for us how Russia’s European forests have served as icons of national identity. It also urges us to sit up and take notice of our failure to be proper stewards of the land on which we live."—Adele Barker,Slavic Review (Winter 2013)

"Each chapter of Heart-Pine Russia offers a different perspective on the symbiosis of the human and the forest in Russia, but the book's real strength arises from the combination of its parts, the tracing of the many ways in which the Russian forest, mysterious yet sustaining, played an essential role in the development of Russian culture and consciousness. Like any good ramble in the woods, Heart-Pine Russia offers new understanding of the familiar, encounters with unexpected, and a deepened sense of the interconnection of it all with ourselves."—Andrew R. Durkin,Slavic and East European Journal(Winter 2013)

"Strolling for the first time in unknown woodlands – seeing, smelling, and hearing the curious and obscure – our experience is happiest and truest when we resist the temptation to interpret our sensations in terms we understand, and allow ourselves to acknowledge and appreciate difference. In its best moments, Heart-Pine Russia produces just this kind of unexpected epiphany. If outstanding universal values exist, this, I'm sure, is one."—Killian Quigley, MAKE Literary Magazine, (Aug. 25, 2014)

"This book is a landmark achievement. It opens up enormous swaths of heretofore unexplored territory, and it provides Slavists (and, for that matter, non-Slavists, should they branch out and read it) with a sophisticated, supple, and manifestly interdisciplinary model for thinking about the relationship between humans and the natural world. It is the first sustained and intellectually rigorous attempt in any language to train an ecocritical lens onto nineteenth-century Russian culture. In this sense it might be said that it does for the Russian field something akin to what Lawrence Buell's seminal 1995 work The Environmental Imagination did for American Studies."—Thomas Newlin, The Russian Review (2014)

"Heart-Pine Russia elegantly combines scholarship and a personal love (and experience) of the forest itself. . . . This work is a wonderful contribution to the study of Russia's aesthetic and spiritual history and a rare offering to the world of environmental history. Specialists and educated readers alike will take delight in this literary journey through the dense and mysterious forests of European Russia."—Amy Singleton Adams, Canadian-American Slavic Studies (2016)

"Heart-Pine Russia makes an important contribution to our understanding of nineteenth-century Russian culture. Jane T. Costlow restores important figures such as Mel'nikov, Korolenko, and Nesterov to the cultural mosaic in an imaginative and subtle way."—Abbott Gleason, Barnaby Conrad and Mary Critchfield Keeney Professor of History Emeritus, Brown University, author of A Liberal Education

"Heart-Pine Russia is almost dizzying in its erudition and contemplation of connections among literary works, academic disciplines, various arts, Russia, and the West. Jane T. Costlow plunges deep into the woods, bringing American notions of environmental analysis to bear on Russian culture while at the same time honoring and appreciating the complex heritage of that culture. This book is a vital, pioneering contribution to the ecocritical analysis of Russia and its literature."—Thomas Hodge, Wellesley College, translator of Sergei Aksakov's Notes on Fishing

"'Who are we when we enter the forest?' In this rich, textured, thoughtful, and thought-provoking book, Jane T. Costlow asks us to walk with her into the woods of literary Russia. She unveils for us a forest both cultural and physical: the imaginative, emotional, spiritual power of the forest, both 'cultural memory but also berries on thick moss.' This is a path-breaking work of ecocriticism and a seminal contribution to an environmental understanding of Russian (and human) culture."—Nicholas B. Breyfogle, The Ohio State University, author of Heretics and Colonizers: Forging Russia's Empire in the South Caucasus

"This book takes a truism—that an organic relation to the environment lies at the heart of Russian culture—and uses it as a prism to refract literary works by Turgenev, Tolstoy, Mel'nikov-Pechersky, and Korolenko, as well as paintings by Nesterov and forest studies by Kaigorodov. The shifting, sparkling pattern of the prism illuminates these works in new ways and adds substance and complexity to commonplace ideas about 'Russians and nature.'"—Sarah Pratt, University of Southern California, author of Russian Metaphysical Romanticism

"In Heart-Pine Russia, Jane T. Costlow explores an environmentalism in nineteenth century Russia uncannily parallel to that in America at the same time, while culturally different from it in decisive ways. Her subtle readings of prose texts (fiction and nonfiction) and paintings against the background of this forgotten tradition will inspire modern-day readers to think about the complexities of our own relation to nature."—Donna Tussing Orwin, University of Toronto, author of Consequences of Consciousness: Turgenev, Dostoevsky, and Tolstoy

"Russia's geography is rich in forest, and its culture abundant in the spirits and heroes that traverse it. The national literature has ventured deep into these woods, but western critics have only rarely followed. Jane T. Costlow’s marvelous book stands us in the middle of this forest and points to wonders all around. This is a beautiful, meditative, and insightful book that opens up new worlds of appreciation for both literature and nature."—William Nickell, University of Chicago, author of The Death of Tolstoy: Russia on the Eve, Astapovo Station, 1910

"Through this loving rediscovery of Russia's 'nineteenth-century forests'—as they presented themselves to the imagination and understanding of nineteenth-century writers—Jane T. Costlow helps us perceive the particularities of our own relationships to nature. She guides us into a symbolic landscape where even the most pristine woodlands are not 'wild,' but inhabited by layers of memory and meaning. The struggle to really see and hear the life of Russia's forests—both omnipresent and embattled, as contemporaries were beginning to perceive—infuses Costlow's story with many lyrical moments, where through the eyes of a searching author we can walk through 'Heart-Pine Russia,' and contemplate its mysteries, joys and sorrows. Costlow's expert reading of this tradition―and careful reconstruction of it―presents a model for future environmental readings of Russia's literary 'Golden Age.'"—John Randolph, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, author of The House in the Garden: The Bakunin Family and the Romance of Russian Idealism

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