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11EDITORIALS
FOOTHPATH
This is the first issue of Footpath, a journal devoted to contemporary English Literature in and for Russian Universities. It owes its existence to the Oxford Russia Fund project on Contemporary English Literature, to the Perm Seminar, and to the energy of the editorial board and the contributors to this issue.
My co-director of the Perm Seminar writes an account of the Perm Seminar and an explanation of the project in his editorial, which follows this one. Since we agreed, during the initial stages of planning this journal, that it should be in both Russian and English, we have followed this plan in offering you one editorial in English and one in Russian. (As a native English speaker and writer, I should add that there have been very few editorial corrections to the English articles written by Russians. My British colleagues and I are impressed by the fluency and liveliness of your English, and see no reason for fussy and unhelpful 'corrections' simply because the writing is not quite standard. We have occasionally altered titles because these should be idiomatic and clear; word play which sounds fine in one language sometimes falls flat in the other language for reasons that none of us can explain.)
Since this is the first issue of Footpath, some sections have many contributions, while others are, so far, empty. In future we expect to have a 'Letters' section where you can comment on what you have read and make suggestions for the future. We also intend to publish a section in which contributors answer, challenge or develop articles already printed. A lively journal requires debate and disagreement. We are looking for articles and reviews which are argumentative, while remembering that arguments need evidence if they are to be more than hand-flapping and whimsicality. Meanwhile we are delighted to offer you good reading on authors, novels, literary and cultural themes, teaching methods, translation problems and the work of your students.
We hope that you are ready to recommend Footpath to
friends and colleagues, and to any academic institutions where you think this project will be appreciated. For the success of the journal, we depend on you.
Why did we choose Footpath as a title? It is a good simple English word which can, seemingly, be translated into Russian. 'Тропа' and 'тропинка' come instantly to mind and cause no headaches for translators. Yet, as happens with so many words, this ease of translation, this apparent correspondence between our languages, is deceptive; the concept of a footpath in England is historically, socially, geographically and legally distinctive in ways which make it quite unlike the paths which a Russian will visualise.
The purpose of a path in Russia is to get somewhere - for example from a village to the river at a point where boats can be hauled up the bank, or as a route through the forest to reach a small settlement. On open ground the path is a beaten track, with the grass often worn away by many feet taking the line of least resistance. In the forest, the path will swerve to avoid a swamp or a difficult tangle of firs, and then continue implacably forward until a natural obstacle such as a fallen tree forces the walker to change direction again. An English visitor observing Russian paths from a train or from the air, or indeed from numerous fine landscape paintings, is struck by the distances, the monotonous purposefulness, the almost visionary lack of intimacy in the Russian countryside.
In England, once upon a time, as in Russia, people walked from village to village, or to the river or a nearby church or farm, choosing the best route for their purpose. We know about the paths made even earlier by prehistoric men who moved across southern England along the ridges of the grassy chalk uplands where there were no swamps and no dangerous animals. But from mediaeval times onwards, the common land of England was being taken away from the common people by powerful individuals who wanted to build up estates for themselves. By the end of the eighteenth century, most of the countryside was in private hands, so that ordinary people were often forced to take long detours to reach their destination because they were not allowed to walk across private
land.
Meanwhile, England was turning into a heavily industrialised country, with filthy and polluted air. But people who came out from the cities in search of fresh air and green fields were barred from walking by all kinds of obstacles, most obviously dense hedges and heavily-fortified gates with notices: 'Private: Keep Out'. Fortunately, ordinary people began to fight back against the landowners. They argued that if paths had been used for many years, the public had a right to continue using them, and thereby to enjoy the traditional pleasures of walking in the country. Over many decades these battles were fought in the law courts, only occasionally becoming bloody in open-air conflicts. The successful campaigns meant that by the middle of the twentieth century England was criss-crossed by 'public rights of way' or 'public footpaths' which led the walker by varied routes across much of the land in private ownership.
Enclosed land in England is not organised in any clear pattern. Fields are shaped by arbitrary bouondaries of hedges, walls or streams. The geology (and hence the geography) of the country is varied and small-scale. So paths follow the edges of small irregular fields, climb up through patches of woods, turn suddenly at boundaries where one estate meets another, dip down to little rivers crossed by plank bridges, amble through muddy pastures, meander into villages, follow the line of a canal tow-path or an old forestry track, emerge on to grassy or rocky hillsides where sheep graze, cut down through bracken wastes past thorn bushes and straggling copses, turn into stony tracks, or narrow routes through thin grass, and as they reach the cliffs, suddenly reveal the sea. Of course a single path will not cover all these kinds of terrain, but a English walker expects to encounter a lot of variety along a footpath that stretches for, say six miles (about ten kilometres). For, as by now you must realise, footpaths, although useful for farmers and the local inhabitants, are today primarily used for pleasure - the pleasures of walking, of looking, hearing, smelling, feeling different textures beneath one's feet and different qualities of air across one's face. Many footpaths are in more-or-less open countryside, bounded
by bushes and trees that are covered in blossom in May and offer rich berries in the autumn. Collecting berries along the path is fair game; but the curious walker is expected to stick to the path and not stray across fields which belong to someone else. His route is various, surprising, often very beautiful - but restricted in a way unknown in Russia.
On the other hand, a network of thousands of footpaths covers England, with paths crossing, splitting and diverging, and then swinging round to join up again. Almost always, there is plenty of choice. In England you do not set out along one path, reach your destination, and discover that the only return route is the one by which you came. Circular walks which eventually bring you back to your starting point by a meandering and ever-changing footpath are popular and almost always easy to devise.
Since fields are small and boundaries are many, walkers are always encountering obstacles: a hedge of tough twisted shrubs, a barbed wire fence, a dry stone wall, for example. For this reason footpaths are dependent on stiles. Stiles are a means of crossing these obstacles if there are no gates to open. A stile can be a simple wooden ladder, or a wooden frame with a step. In stony country, ingenious footholds are built sideways into the walls, or small gaps are mde in the wall, too narrow for a sheep (or a fat person) to pass through. One of the pleasures of a good walk is climbing stiles.
Why are footpaths important for readers of English literature? First because so many of our poets and novelists have such a strong sense of a particular locality. Russian poets write about Russia. English poets write about their parish - which they are quite sure is different from the next parish. Think of Tess in Hardy's novel crossing from one valley over Egdon Heath into another valley and finding herself in a different world, all in the space of a dozen kilometres. Think of Wordsworth in the Lake District or Tennyson in Lincolnshire, Forster in the Surrey woodlands, D.H. Lawrence on the Derbyshire border, Ted Hughes in the Yorkshire Dales or Matthew Arnold on Dover beach. None of these regions is like any of the others, at least to those who live
there and know its geology, its characteristic trees and plants, its typical buildings and building materials. The specificity of place is part of the English experience, and very different from the implacable, ever-present, awe-inspiring largeness of Russia.
Secondly, because the historical conflict between the private ownership of land, and the fight for public rights across that land is distinctly English; nowhere else that I know of has quite this pattern of access to the land, to the earth on which we all tread. Understanding what a footpath means will help you to think about the roots of English legal and social institutions; what we value and what we ignore.
Thirdly, because the footpath serves as a convenient metaphor for the English habit of not going in straight lines, of constantly twisting and turning with ironic amusement or uneasy scepticism, of changing the subject and appealing to the realities of here and now, whenever we are asked for our opinion of some general truth. (Russian paths invite you to generalise; they will not change their nature as you try to frame your thoughts.)
Fourthly, because stiles are important in literature. They appear as romantic spots in novels of all periods, are used metaphorically in poetry and prose, and provide a focus for the eye and the mind. To see what we mean, you can look at the cover of this journal.
Finally because English footpaths are a source of pleasure, hundreds of thousands of English people enjoy walking in the countryside. Sometimes they are setting themselves the challenge of a long-distance walk, lasting several days, but usually they are not trying to get anywhere; they are simply combining physical exercise and spiritual enlargement within a humble, ordinary walk along a footpath which exists because their ancestors fought for it not to be obliterated. That most of these paths are beautiful is an extra bonus; my point - for I am returning along a circular and devious path - is that Footpath is simple and good. And that is why.
Karen Hewitt, Oxford
