Conclusion

Abstract

Within the Russian Montparnasse circle, the potential of various individual writers was uneven, as is their standing in twentieth-century literary history. For example, Gaïto Gazdanov appeals to an ever-widening audience. In the 1990s, a circle of fans in Russia established the Gazdanov Society, which attracted to its activities such high-profile cultural figures as Valery Gergiev. And a steady flow of recent translations of Gazdanov’s novels testify to growing interest in his work in the West. Meanwhile, Boris Poplavsky, while serving as the frequent subject of scholarly monographs, will probably remain a writer for an elite intellectual readership interested more in the interplay of metaphysical concepts than intriguing plotlines. The early novels of Elsa Triolet, the grande dame of the postwar French literary scene, are nearly forgotten, and her hybrid, Montparnasse-inspired Bonsoir, Thérèse! attracts minimal critical attention, with the text considered a bibliographical curiosity. Varshavsky, Yanovsky, Berberova, and Odoevtseva, whose prewar prose works recently came out in annotated volumes, are appreciated today by non-specialist readers, primarily for their memoirs, rather than fiction. Bakunina enjoyed a moment of unlikely posthumous glory when her two novels were released by the Geleos publishing house in its erotic literature series “Favorites of Love.” Some reviewers pointed out the modern ring of her feminist agenda, placing her novels at the origins of contemporary Russian women’s literature. Still others, including Sharshun, Shteiger, Otsup, and Felzen, are likely to remain little known outside the community of experts on émigré culture, and will be evoked only as the modest comrades of the bigger stars in the literary constellation of the time.