A Russian Jew of Bloomsbury : the life and times of Samuel Koteliansky / Galya Diment.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Diment, Galya.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Koteliansky, S. S. (Samuel Solomonovitch), 1880-1955.

Koteliansky, S. S.

Translators--Great Britain--Biography.

Translators.

Bloomsbury group.

Great Britain.

Bloomsbury group--Biography.

Genre:

Biographies.

Physical Description:

xii, 438 pages : illustrations ; 24 cm

Place of Publication:

Montreal : McGill-Queen's University Press, [2011]

Summary:

Samuel Koteliansky (1880-1955) fled the pogroms of Russia in 1911 and established himself as a friend of many of Britain's literati and intellectuals, who were fascinated by his homeland's more civilized side: the Ballets Russes, Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, and Chekhov. Kot, as he was known, became an indispensable guide to Russian culture for England's leading writers, artists, and intellectuals, who in turn helped introduce English audiences to Russian works.

A Russian Jew of Bloomsbury looks at the remarkable influence that an outsider had on the tightly knit circle of Britain's cultural elite. Among Koteliansky's friends were Katherine Mansfield, Leonard and Virginia Woolf, Mark Gertler, Lady Ottoline Morrell, H.G. Wells, and Dilys Powell. But it was his close and turbulent friendship with D.H. Lawrence that proved to be Koteliansky's lasting legacy. In a lively and vibrant narrative, Galya Diment shows how, despite Kot's determination, he could never escape the dark aspects of his past or overcome the streak of anti-Semitism that ran through British society, including the hearts and minds of many of his famous literary friends.

"Galya Diment has done it again. The author of the acclaimed Pniniad, about Nabokov's major model for his legendary Russian lecturer, now turns to another Russian Jew with a still wider resonance in English literature. Part biography, part cultural history of the early twentieth-century impact of Russian literature on English literature (focusing on Koteliansky as conduit and catalyst), and part exploration of being Jewish and foreign in England and in Bloomsbury, the book teems with vivid vignettes of the emotionally complicated Koteliansky, his close friend D.H. Lawrence (and his foe Frieda Lawrence), Katherine Mansfield, Virginia and Leonard Woolf, H.G. Wells, and many more. A fascinating read for lovers of literature, culture, history, and personality." Brian Boyd, author of Vladimir Nabokov and On the Origin of Stories: Evolution, Cognition, and Fiction Book jacket.

Contents:

Part 1 From ShmiliK To Kot: 1880-1930

1 Shmilik 27

2 "Kot": The Jew in London 41

3 Year 1915: Kot as Kangaroo 62

4 Revolutions and Catastrophes 87

5 H.G. Wells in Russia and the Death of Mansfield 105

6 Translating for the Hogarth Press 122

7 The Adelphi Affair and the Café Royal 142

8 Rozanov and Lady Chatterley's Lover. The End of an Era 165

Part 2 After Lawrence: 1931-1955

9 Mournings: Old Enemies and New Friends 207

10 Cresset Press: Losing Equilibrium 228

11 May Sarton, Ottoline's Death, and Gertler's Suicide 247

12 World War II and Its Aftermath 264

13 Full Circle 284.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages [411]-427) and index.

ISBN:

9780773538993

0773538992

OCLC:

719427492