Year: 1985
Type: article
Abstract: Just inside the front doorway to Carl Proffer's rambling home in Ann Arbor, and not far from the handsome study in which he usually worked until 4 a.m., stands a bookcase seven feet tall and six feet wide.This case, with considerable overflow, holds the more than 350 titles (about half in Russian, half in English) which Carl and his wife Ellendea published in their Ardis Publishers from its beginnings in 1971 until Carl's death in September 1984.In the basement of this same large house, Ardis continues to hum and thrive under Ellendea's direction.The Proffers built well.The outlines of Carl's academic career are simple.He completed his B.A. (1960), M.A. (1961), and Ph.D. (1963)-all in Russian literature-at the University of Michigan.He taught Russian literature of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries at Reed College from 1963 to 1966, at Indiana University from 1966 to 1970, and at Michigan from 1970 until his death.He did research in Moscow for two six-month periods (1962 and 1969) and one three-month period (1972).All in all, he made ten trips to the Soviet Union.Within this ordinary framework and relatively short span of time, however, there was extraordinary accomplishment.I first met Carl when he was a nineteen-year-old sophomore who had just decided to abandon varsity basketball-lanky, soft-spoken, and somewhat cherubic in countenance.Although his manner was quiet, he was by no means diffident.Even then there was ample self-assurance behind his wry smile and impish, sometimes sardonic humor.He turned out to be the best student I have ever known.His memory was amazing.He was enormously efficient, energetic, and imaginative, and he wrote beautifully.He sailed through graduate school in record time.Carl had scarcely finished his graduate work when the articles began coming outfirst on Zamiatin and then on Gogol', Pushkin, and others.In 1967 and 1968, three of his books appeared: his translated edition of The Letters of Nikolai Gogol, his revised dissertation The Simile and Gogol's Dead Souls, and the first fruits of his enduring fascination with Vladimir Nabokov, Keys to Lolita.From 1970 through 1972, five translated editions were published-the anthology of short stories From Karamzin to Bunin, The Critical Prose of Alexander Pushkin, two collections of the works of Mikhail Bulgakov (both in collaboration with Ellendea Proffer), and Soviet Criticism of American Literature in the Sixties.By then, the Proffers had moved to Ann Arbor and had launched Russian Literature Triquarterly, a large and colorful journal designed to bring to light, in translation, the very numerous Russian works of prose, poetry, and criticism that had hitherto been unavailable in English.In addition to translations, RLT has provided overview articles on various neglected topics, periods, and movements in Russian literature, as well as bibliographies, articles, and criticism on smaller subjects.A special feature of the journal has been its prominent archival section, which prints, in both the original Russian and in translation, and often in facsimile, important but heretofore unpublished literary documents, such as letters, memoirs, and manuscript fragments.Carl and Ellendea especially wanted their journal to appear "different"-unacademic.To this end, they spent much time and money on design, photographs, and illustrations, and as a result RLT is without question the most original and striking periodical in its field.Because it is intrinsically so expensive to produce, RLT would probably not have survived its first few issues had it not been for three special factors: (1) the Proffers were willing to go deeply into debt to support their project, (2) the Proffers at first did virtually all their own typesetting and proofreading and continued to do a substantial amount of
Source: Slavic Review
Author: Deming Brown
Institution: University of Michigan
Language: English
Subfield: History
Field: Arts and Humanities
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: bronze
OpenAlex ID: W2586648317