The Diaries of Nikolay Punin: 1904-1953

In a lengthy introduction by Monas, an emeritus professor of Slavic languages and history at Texas, the case is made that Punin (1888-1953) was a major figure in the avant-garde Russian Futurist and Constructivist schools. The evidence, however, is not to be found in these rather brief diary notebooks. According to Monas, Punin ""identified himself with the Futurist rejection of sentimentality, [and] of obsession with the nuances of individual psychology.... "" But except for one discussion of the mechanics of an airplane, the diary extracts (competently translated by co-editor Krupata) show him, rather, as an emotional person wrapped up in himself and his amorous affairs, with almost no perceptible interest in the artistic movement with which he was apparently involved. (He does, however, refer briefly to the 1905 revolution and both world wars.) Some interest emerges when he maunders over poet Anna Akhmatova, one of whose many lovers he was, and when he writes--letters and even reminiscences are interleaved with the fragmentary diaries--of his two imprisonments by Stalin's thought police for ""cosmopolitanism."" Toward the end, in 1952, he writes graphically of reading in the gulag with difficulty, as there was one bulb shared by 200 inmates--""And it hung from the ceiling at a height of 7 meters."" He died in prison camp, occasioning an Akhmatova poem grieving that his heart will no longer respond to her voice. A biographical glossary identifies the many names in the text unknown to most readers. 20 b&w illus. (Nov.)