On the international scene — especially the English-speaking one — the New York professor and researcher Ken Hirschkop (University of Waterloo) stands out as one of the most renowned scholars of the works of Bakhtin and his confreres. In addition to organizing the work Bakhtin and Cultural Theory (original from 1989, with a revised and expanded edition in 2001) alongside David Shepherd, Hirschkop is responsible for the reflection present in Mikhail Bakhtin: an Aesthetic for Democracy. Therefore, it is not surprising that the aforementioned professor was chosen for the challenge of preparing The Cambridge Introduction to Mikhail Bakhtin, published at the end of 2021, as part of the Cambridge Introductions to Literature series, by Cambridge University Press.

In this text, from the first chapter — namely, Introduction —, the North American researcher reveals his interest in making whatever is at his reach “to balance and coordinate the two tasks: to present a usable and interesting Bakhtin for students and researchers; and to present what is in some respects a new Bakhtin” (HIRSCHKOP, 2021HIRSCHKOP, K. Mikhaïl Bakhtin: An Aesthetic for Democracy. New York: Oxford University Press, 1999., p.4). And these tasks, certainly, gain greater conditions of effectiveness with the wellthought division of the book, specifically the division between Life, Context, Works, and Reception — respectively, titles of the second, third, fourth, and fifth chapters. Themes are followed by a sixth chapter, entitled A brief conclusion.

As The Cambridge Introduction to Mikhail Bakhtin is somewhat of a presentation of Bakhtin’s life and thought for readers of different types, a text that proposes to only expose the Bakhtin presented by Hirschkop would end up being a summary of the summary. Therefore, here, in addition to a very brief incursion into each chapter, I will make more specific considerations, which effectively highlight the most distinct points of Hirschkop’s text.

The first singular point in Hirschkop’s work is his understanding that it is necessary to accept the limits imposed by Bakhtin’s history. It is in this sense that, giving a new direction to the metaphor of ruins — proposed by Kristeva in Une poétique ruinée, preface to the French translation of Problems of Dostoyevsky’s Poetics —, the New York researcher states:

Hirschkop’s position seems to me to be commendable. Not so much because it refuses to finish what is natively unfinished, but because, at the right time, it reminds us that the effective knowledge of a theoretical work involves attention to the sociocultural conditions of its production.

And remarkably close to this is another commendable attitude of the author. Using the metaphor of ruins, Hirschkop shows all respect for those who, even at a time without sufficient information about Bakhtin’s context, sought to help in the reconstruction of this project.

Having observed these first points — which mark a respectable ethical stance, both with Bakhtin and with his interpreters —, it is worth considering issues related to the content found in The Cambridge Introduction to Mikhail Bakhtin.

The second chapter of Hirschkop’s work discusses five periods in Mikhail Bakhtin’s life. In the Youth section, the period from Bakhtin’s birth, in 1895, to the fateful year of 1917 — the year in which the Russian Revolution presents itself. The Friendships section explores the troubled period spanning from 1918 to the unforgettable year of 1929 — the year of Bakhtin’s arrest and the publication of his work Problems of Dostoevsky’s Art. The interval between 1930 and 1946 is reported in the Exile, Escape, and the War section. The phase that begins in 1947 and ends in 1961 is narrated, very briefly, in the Saransk section. And finally, in the Rediscovery, Rehabilitation section, the interval of years from 1961 to the year of death, or 1975, is included.

In fact, despite the important comments about the political and social instability that lasted for decades in the USSR — and ended up interfering, for better or for worse, in Bakhtin’s intellectual path — a good part of what is reported in this second chapter already appears in other pages that record the biography of the Russian philosopher — whether in English, French, Portuguese, etc. However, it can be said that Hirschkop’s text is endowed with a more balanced biographical vision and that this vision prevents him from carrying out attacks based on assumptions and prevents him from promoting hagiography.

Regarding the third chapter, five different sections can be observed once again. In Philosophy: Influences and Options for the Young Bakhtin, with just the right balance, Hirschkop points to Hermann Cohen’s influence on the early philosophical writings of the Vološinov confrere. In the section titled Language: Soviet Struggles over Literary Criticism in the 1920s, and Bakhtin’s Linguistic Turn, the New York researcher comments on Bakhtin’s apparent uniqueness among the different groups that competed for the reins of Russian literary criticism in the first three decades of the 20th century. In the Excursus: Vološinov ’s Linguistic Turn section, with some haste, which borders on superficiality, the author takes up observations from Poole (2001)POOLE, B. From Phenomenology to Dialogue: Max Scheler’s Phenomenological Tradition and Mikhail Bakhtin’s Development from ‘Toward a Philosophy of the Act’ to His Study of Dostoevsky. In: HIRSCHKOP, K.; SHEPHERD, D. (eds.). Bakhtin and Cultural Theory. Revised and expanded second edition. Manchester, UK; New York, USA: Manchester University Press, 2001. p.109-135.¹ 1 POOLE, B. From Phenomenology to Dialogue: Max Scheler’s Phenomenological Tradition and Mikhail Bakhtin’s Development from ‘Toward a Philosophy of the Act’ to His Study of Dostoevsky. In: HIRSCHKOP, K.; SHEPHERD, D. (eds.). Bakhtin and Cultural Theory. Revised and expanded second edition. Manchester, UK; New York, USA: Manchester University Press, 2001. pp.109-135. and Brandist (2004)BRANDIST, C. O dilema de Voloshinov: sobre as raízes filosóficas da teoria dialógica do enunciado. In: BRANDIST, C. Repensando o círculo de Bakhtin: novas perspectivas na história intelectual. Organização e notas de Maria Inês Campos e Rosemary H. Schettini. Tradução de Helenice Gouvea e Rosemary H. Schettini. São Paulo: Contexto, 2012. p.35-63.² 2 BRANDIST, C. Vološinov ’s Dilemma: On the Philosophical Roots the Dialogic Theory of the Utterance. In: BRANDIST, C; SHEPHERD, D.; TIHANOV, G. (eds.). The Bakhtin Circle: In the Master’s Absence. Manchester, United Kingdom: Manchester University Press, 2004. pp.97-124. about the philosophical-linguistic work undertaken by Valentin N. Vološinov. Finally, the last two sections of the third chapter — namely, Literature: Socialist Realism and Arguments about the Novel in the 1930s and The 1950s and 1960s: Consolidation and a Quiet Life —, bring to light a set of information that highlights, once again, the political injunctions that affected Bakhtin’s life.

Regarding the fourth chapter, it is worth mentioning the fact that Hirschkop presents a list — sometimes more commented, sometimes less — of all the published writings of Mikhail Bakhtin. And this list, as the author himself indicates, is not organized according to the chronology of the works, but by the theme that runs through them. More importantly, this fourth chapter brings with it an exposition and a critical analysis of some Bakhtinian concepts. As an example, I observe that, after exposing the concepts of author, hero, art, and responsibility, Hirschkop advances a brief argument to question the validity of the I/Other relationship, as defended by Bakhtin. Still, as an example, it is worth noting that, after exposing the concepts of author, hero, art, and responsibility, the researcher brings to light the argument that suggests seeing, at least in Bakhtin’s initial texts, a conception of aesthetics that is a bit ahistorical.

The reader is free to disagree with the critical analysis that Hirschkop proposes about the chosen concepts. Even so, the very fact that the coherence of the concepts is questioned by a serious scholar, who has a friendly approach to Bakhtinian studies, is already something to be admired.

Finally, while the fifth chapter, Reception, presents an exposition of the different interests that have driven Bakhtin scholars over the years — from the interest in presenting Bakhtin as a religious philosopher to the interest in using him in feminist and post-colonial studies —, the sixth chapter, A Brief Conclusion, consists in suggesting that, although Bakhtin is not original in what he observes, he is quite original in the way he applies or allows us to apply it.

For now, then, in order not to dwell too much on these more descriptive considerations, I will say that, despite the many difficulties imposed by the subject, The Cambridge Introduction to Mikhail Bakhtin testifies in favor of the admirable capacity of synthesis and systematization of Ken Hirschkop. Therefore, from the novice reader to the researcher most familiar with the subject, we can all benefit from the author’s work.

Having said that, it is worth considering something else. It is worth saying that, even recognizing Hirschkop’s valiant feat, it is necessary to see some of his interpretations with reservations. For obvious reasons, it is not appropriate to go into a detailed discussion of each of these interpretations here. Even so, as an example, it is worth mentioning at least one, so that the readers of Hirschkop do not go through such interpretations without exercising their right — and, as a good reader, their duty — to distrust.

In this direction, the interpretation that seems most objectionable is the one that concerns an apparent equivalence between the concepts expressed by the terms “polyphony” and “dialogism.” In Hirschkop’s text, this interpretation is exposed, initially, in the second chapter, when, reporting Bakhtin’s words present in the preface to Problems of Dostoevsky’s Art, from 1929, the researcher states that “it’s focused on Dostoevsky’s ‘revolutionary innovation in the field of the novel as an art form’, which Bakhtin called ‘dialogism’ [...]” (Hirschkop, 2021HIRSCHKOP, K. Mikhaïl Bakhtin: An Aesthetic for Democracy. New York: Oxford University Press, 1999., p.17).

In fact, since Dostoevsky’s “revolutionary innovation” is polyphony, the confusing quotation marks in Hirschkop’s text seem to endorse an equivalence between polyphony and dialogism. These confusing quotation marks may imply, on the one hand, that the term “dialogism” was also taken from the preface of the 1929 work, and, on the other hand, that the term referred to is used by Bakhtin to specify what would be the “revolutionary innovation” that Dostoevsky promotes within the novel.

However, when viewed closely, these jumbled quotes do nothing more than the obvious: cause confusion. And this happens, in the first place, because the term “dialogism” does not appear in the preface to PDA (Bakhtin, 2022BAKHTIN, M. Problemas da obra de Dostoiévski. Tradução, notas e glossário de Sheila Grillo e Ekaterina Vólkova Américo; ensaio introdutório e posfácio de Sheila Grillo. São Paulo: Editora 34, 2022., p.52) and, secondly, because the attitude of specifying “revolutionary innovation” through the aforementioned term is not Bakhtin’s, but Hirschkop’s own.

This strange interpretation by Hirschkop gains strength when the author, at some point in the fourth chapter, presents us with a section entitled Dialogism as Polyphony. There, right from the start, the researcher points out that “the idea of ‘dialogism’ makes its debut in Bakhtin’s 1929 study of Dostoevsky, where it appears as a peculiar and interesting form of the author/hero relationship” (Hirschkop, 2021HIRSCHKOP, K. Mikhaïl Bakhtin: An Aesthetic for Democracy. New York: Oxford University Press, 1999., p.75).

Now, anyone who knows Bakhtin’s work as a whole cannot help but be surprised by a statement like this. Nowhere in his texts is the term “dialogism” used to refer to the “peculiar and interesting form of the author/hero relationship.” The term that designates such a relationship is “polyphony.”

As ironic as it may seem, this strange interpretation by Hirschkop is absolutely the same strange interpretation that can be verified in the biography that the author himself calls into question, namely the pioneer Mikhail Bakhtin, by Katerina Clark and Michael Holquist, original from 1984CLARK, K; HOLQUIST, M. Mikhail Bakhtin. Tradução J. Guinsburg. São Paulo: Perspectiva, 2008.. The mistake of equating polyphony and dialogism was already evident in the latter, when, regarding Bakhtin’s work on Dostoevsky, the authors comment:

As can be seen, to exemplify what they call a “demonstration of on-the-job dialogism,” Clark and Holquist (1984)CLARK, K; HOLQUIST, M. Mikhail Bakhtin. Tradução J. Guinsburg. São Paulo: Perspectiva, 2008. mention Bakhtin’s attitude towards the other critics of Dostoevsky, that is, the fact that “Bakhtin lets all of the critics speak in their voices.” Thus, what the authors take as dialogism would be the equivalence of different voices, which is polyphony. And it is on this misconception, then, that the astonishing sentence is presented: “the phenomenon that Bakhtin calls ‘polyphony’ is simply another name for dialogism” (Clark; Holquist, 1984CLARK, K; HOLQUIST, M. Mikhail Bakhtin. Tradução J. Guinsburg. São Paulo: Perspectiva, 2008., p.242).⁴ 4 For reference, see footnote 4. And it is precisely the same misunderstanding, I repeat, that appears in the pages of Hirschkop.

This brief review of The Cambridge Introduction to Mikhail Bakhtin is not the most favorable place to hold an in-depth discussion on the distinction between polyphony and dialogism. However, even if superficially, it should be noted that, concerning this point, on the opposite side of Hirschkop, there are those who, in general, see dialogism in terms of immediate and historical responsiveness (Morson; Emerson, 1990MORSON, G. S.; EMERSON, C. Mikhail Bakhtin: criação de uma prosaística. Tradução de Antonio de Pádua Danesi. São Paulo: Editora da Universidade de São Paulo, 2008.;⁵ 5 MORSON, G. S.; EMERSON, C. Mikhail Bakhtin: Creation of a Prosaics. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1990. Faraco, 2009FARACO, C. A. Linguagem e diálogo: as ideias linguísticas do Círculo de Bakhtin. São Paulo: Parábola Editorial, 2009.).

Apart from all that, even though I am aware of the introductory nature of the work, there are two questions of which absences caused me some surprise. First, the absence of a minimal consideration of the Bakhtinian discussion about axiology. Second, the absence of a minimal consideration of the phenomenon of polyphony in Vološinov’s eyes.

It is true that, when commenting briefly on Vološinov’s essay “Discourse in Life and Discourse in Art,” published in 1926, Hirschkop recognizes the special place that Vološinov gives to social evaluation. Despite this, it is surprising that, when dealing with Bakhtin himself, the American researcher has not advanced on this topic. Therefore, in my eyes, the best presentation of the fundamental relationship between Bakhtin and axiology remains recorded in the writings of the Brazilian linguist Carlos Alberto Faraco, with emphasis on the enlightening Mikhail Bakhtin: linguagem e axiologia [Mikhail Bakhtin: Language and Axiology] (Faraco, 2021FARACO, C. A. Mikhail Bakhtin: linguagem e axiologia. AGlo. Anuario de Glotopolitica, 5, 2021. Disponível em: https://glotopolitica.com/aglo5-indice/. Acesso em: 27 jul. 2022.
https://glotopolitica.com/aglo5-indice/... ).

As for the issue of polyphony in Vološinov’s eyes, it is true that, as Hirschkop’s work is intended to deal with Bakhtin, this claim seems incoherent. However, this is just an apparent inconsistency, since, as the author emphasizes the possible influence of Vološinov on Bakhtin, it would be coherent to point out that, in terms of polyphony, the confreres keep a certain distance from each other (Gomes, 2022GOMES, F. A. A vindicação do axiológico: uma leitura da filosofia da linguagem de Valentin N. Volóchinov. 2022. Tese (Doutorado em Linguística e Língua Portuguesa) -Pontifícia Universidade Católica de Minas Gerais, Belo Horizonte, 2022. Disponível em: http://www.biblioteca.pucminas.br/teses/LetrasFilipeAlmeidaGomes29844Textocompleto.pdf. Acesso em: 1 set. 2022.
http://www.biblioteca.pucminas.br/teses/... ).

In the end, I am convinced that, as I outlined earlier, Ken Hirschkop’s new work has points that demand a more detailed, more prudent reflection from each reader. In any case, this is not a demerit of the work. On the contrary, in a field where the attempt to avoid misunderstandings seems to prevent clear definitions and objective summaries — almost always causing deadly boredom — Hirschkop’s courage impresses and, thus, calls for the reading of The Cambridge Introduction to Mikhail Bakhtin.

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