Preface

doi:10.11126/stanford/9780804759038.002.0005

Front Matter

Preface

Get access

https://doi.org/10.11126/stanford/9780804759038.002.0005

Pages

vii–xii

Published:

October 2009

Extract

the dean of the Odessa mobsters Froim Grach liked Benya Krik.

“Benya speaks little,” he told the council of thieves when asked to size Benya up, then added, “But he speaks with zest. He says little but you feel you want him to say something more” (“How It Was Done in Odessa,” 1923). Maxim Gorky liked Isaac Babel and thought him better than Nikolay Gogol. Gorky's praise of Babel is echoed by the fictional elder gangster promoting his brilliant protégé. Literature and gangland raids, literature and violence, literature and the Russian Revolution, Russian literature and the Jews—welcome to the world of Isaac Babel.

What Froim Grach said about Benya Krik encapsulates Isaac Babel and his legacy. A rather small body of work is all that has survived of Babel's writings. But most of it is zesty and brilliant, leaving generations of readers gasping for more. The words are spoken by a gangster, an outlaw, with a slight local accent (Odessa) and lightly damaged Russian syntax, revealing the speaker to be a little more comfortable in Yiddish than Russian. The words of praise coming from one gangster about another are composed tongue-in-cheek, for they mark a sly intrusion by an outsider into the very serious world of Russian letters, suggesting, perhaps, that the gangster's words mean the opposite of what they say, or the opposite of the opposite, or something in-between the opposite and the same. Was the statement just an aside to shape the character of the story as a man of few words but plenty of action? Or was this a joke, ostensibly about the gangster's verbal parsimony, but made at the expense of the torrents of prose contained in Russia's nineteenth-century “baggy monsters”? Or was the marginality of the master of verbal economy, in fact, a claim to legitimacy in the upside-down revolutionary world? Was the slight Yiddishism of the phrasing a refreshing estrangement device, or was it an oblique claim by a marginal culture on a place of honor at Russian culture's high table?

You do not currently have access to this chapter.

Sign in with email/username & password
Get email alerts
Save searches
Purchase content
Activate your purchase/trial code
Add your ORCID iD

Get help with access

Institutional access

Access to content on Oxford Academic is often provided through institutional subscriptions and purchases. If you are a member of an institution with an active account, you may be able to access content in one of the following ways:

IP based access

Typically, access is provided across an institutional network to a range of IP addresses. This authentication occurs automatically, and it is not possible to sign out of an IP authenticated account.

Sign in through your institution

Choose this option to get remote access when outside your institution. Shibboleth/Open Athens technology is used to provide single sign-on between your institutionâ€™s website and Oxford Academic.

Click Sign in through your institution.
Select your institution from the list provided, which will take you to your institution's website to sign in.
When on the institution site, please use the credentials provided by your institution. Do not use an Oxford Academic personal account.
Following successful sign in, you will be returned to Oxford Academic.

If your institution is not listed or you cannot sign in to your institutionâ€™s website, please contact your librarian or administrator.

Sign in with a library card

Enter your library card number to sign in. If you cannot sign in, please contact your librarian.

Society Members

Society member access to a journal is achieved in one of the following ways:

Sign in through society site

Many societies offer single sign-on between the society website and Oxford Academic. If you see â€˜Sign in through society siteâ€™ in the sign in pane within a journal:

Click Sign in through society site.
When on the society site, please use the credentials provided by that society. Do not use an Oxford Academic personal account.
Following successful sign in, you will be returned to Oxford Academic.

If you do not have a society account or have forgotten your username or password, please contact your society.

Sign in using a personal account

Some societies use Oxford Academic personal accounts to provide access to their members. See below.

Personal account

A personal account can be used to get email alerts, save searches, purchase content, and activate subscriptions.

Some societies use Oxford Academic personal accounts to provide access to their members.

Viewing your signed in accounts

Click the account icon in the top right to:

View your signed in personal account and access account management features.
View the institutional accounts that are providing access.

Signed in but can't access content

Oxford Academic is home to a wide variety of products. The institutional subscription may not cover the content that you are trying to access. If you believe you should have access to that content, please contact your librarian.

Institutional account management

For librarians and administrators, your personal account also provides access to institutional account management. Here you will find options to view and activate subscriptions, manage institutional settings and access options, access usage statistics, and more.

Metrics

Total Views 6

4 Pageviews

2 PDF Downloads

Since 4/1/2023

Month:	Total Views:
April 2023	2
July 2023	2
August 2024	2

Contents

Preface

Extract

Email alerts

Contents

Preface

Extract

Sign in

Personal account

Institutional access

Institutional account management

Get help with access

Institutional access

IP based access

Sign in through your institution

Sign in with a library card

Society Members

Sign in through society site

Sign in using a personal account

Personal account

Viewing your signed in accounts

Signed in but can't access content

Institutional account management

Purchase

Email alerts

This Feature Is Available To Subscribers Only