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Lookup NU author(s): Professor David Saunders
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC 4.0).
WHEN the first edition of Donald Mackenzie Wallace's Russia came out in January 1877, The Times called it 'undoubtedly the best book written on modern Russia by a foreigner, and one of the best books ever written on that country by either foreigner or native? Most other reviews were equally enthusiastic.(2) Robert Michell, however, was unimpressed. He did not think that foreigners needed better information about Russia. Their suspicion of the country derived not from ignorance but from 'difference of standard of all guiding principles of action; dissimilarity in habits of life; more than discouraging results following almost every attempt that has ever been made to enter into any kind of enterprise in Russia, &c.'. Even if foreigners did need better information, Russians did not want them to acquire it. The many observers who had 'pictured and illustrated [Russians] with photographic fidelity [ ... ] have only reaped obloquy'. Because writers on Russia were afraid of being condemned by the people they were writing about, they tended to pull their punches. Mackenzie Wallace had fallen into this trap. His book was 'much better written' than its competitors, but it lacked analytical bite. Despite having spent six years in Russia, Mackenzie Wallace had failed to give his readers a 'decided opinion' on the effects of the abolition of serfdom. Although readers could work out from his book that not all was well in Russia, the author's tone was too judicious for this impression to come through clearly.(3)
Author(s): Saunders D
Publication type: Article
Publication status: Published
Journal: Slavonic and East European Review
Year: 2014
Volume: 92
Issue: 2
Pages: 255-283
Print publication date: 01/04/2014
Acceptance date: 03/10/2013
Date deposited: 06/05/2016
ISSN (print): 0037-6795
ISSN (electronic): 2222-4327
Publisher: Modern Humanities Research Association
URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.5699/slaveasteurorev2.92.2.0255
DOI: 10.5699/slaveasteurorev2.92.2.0255
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