Vyacheslav Ivanov and C.M. Bowra: a ... - UCL Discovery

These are not just empty truisms. In a few deft words Bowra pinpointed the essence of
his high regard for Ivanov: he recognized that Ivanov was ‘a great man, of a kind very
uncommon at any time’ and linked his stature to the ‘great tradition’ that he ‘really represented’
and ‘kept alive’. After Ivanov’s death, Bowra made sure that his last contributions to this great
tradition were not lost to posterity. Thanks to his continued efforts with Konovalov, an English
translation of Ivanov’s work on Dostoevskii appeared in 1952 with a foreword by Bowra; a
selection of his late verse and two substantial articles on his work were published in Oxford
Slavonic Papers in 1954 and 1957; last but not least, Svet Vechernii, the greatest dream and
hope of the poet’s late years, eventually saw the light of day in 1962, prefaced by Bowra’s
introduction. In this way Bowra also revealed himself as a ‘very uncommon’ sort of man and
did much through these tangible outcomes to keep alive the ‘good humanistic tradition’ that
sustained and defined his remarkable relationship with Ivanov.
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