I".SOLODOVNIKOV, V. G. 1971 Ten Years of the Africa Institute: Scientific Achievements and Tasks of Soviet AfricanStudies. Budapest, Hungarian Academy of Sciences, Center for Afro-Asian Research, Studies on Developing CountriesNo. 55, 52, X pp.This pamphlet gives useful informationon the development of Africanology (sic)both in Russia and Hungary.When Russia became interested in politicaldevelopments in Africa in the 1950s, the studyof things African was not co-ordinated and in-deed not greatly developed, although there wassome tradition of research into history, ethno-graphy and linguistics. In 1959 the Academy ofSciences created the Africa Institute as a centrefor African research; seven years later a Scien-tific Council for African Problems was estab-lished to collect, assess and publicize informationon all research in the Social Sciences on Africanaffairs. It is on the reports of this body thatthis survey of the first ten years of the AfricaInstitute is in fact largely based.It is not easy in an anniversary survey of thissort to sift what is of academic value from thepropaganda; and the points that follow have beenselected simply as ones of possible interest tosocial scientists in Central and Southern Africa.Particular attention is given to the problemsof South Africa where apartheid and partner-ship are simply equated as racist theories (p. 18);and it is interesting to speculate on the wellestablished provision in Russia of instruction inZulu (p. 22).There have been several publications in historyand ethnography, notably for our purposesDrevnie i srednevekovye istochniki po etnografiii istorii narodov Afriki yuzhnee Sakary (Ancientand Medieval Sources for the Ethnography andHistory of Africa South of the Sahara, 2 volumespublished so far, in 1960 and 1965). Inevitablyeven greater emphasis has been placed on politicaland economic development, and the most interes-ting of these works on political economy areY. N. Cherkasov's Ekonomicheskie problemyYuzhnoi Rodesii (Economic Problems of South-ern Rhodesia, Moscow, 1966) and Yuzhnoafri-kanskii blok Kolonizatorov (The South AfricanColonial Bloc, 1968).The rest of the pamphlet is given over toreviews of recent work on Africa, the most in-teresting of which is the translation into Englishof the History of Black Africa by the Hungarianhistorian, Endre Sik (Budapest Akademia Pub-lishing House, Vol I, 7th edition; Vol. II, 6thedition, 1970).The real value of this section however is thatit lists in full the publications of the Center forAfro-Asian Research of the Hungarian Academyof Sciences, most of which are in English editionsand are available from Blackwell's. The oneson African Literature Nos. 24 (1968) and 43(1971), look to be the most useful by virtue oftheir wide bibliographical coverage; but mostspecialists Will find something that takes theireye; for linguists. No. 5 (1969): a critique ofGreenberg's classification of African languages;for educationalists and ethnographers Nos. 3(1969) and 14 (1967): surveys of their problemsin Africa; even the Rhodesian Ministry of Com-merce and Industry may be interested in(Marxist) advice (No. 38, 1970) on methodsof achieving import substitution.R.S.R.PEADEN, W. R. 1970 Missionary Attitudes to Shona Culture 1890-1923. Salisbury, Central Africa Historical Asso-ciation, Local Series, No. 27, 41 pp. $1,20.Nobody as yet, has given a clearer and moredetailed picture of the clash between Christianculture and Shona traditional culture than theRevd. Peaden in his booklet. He uses materialfrom various early documents to show that theattitudes of the early missionaries were, in themain, a hindrance to evangelization. These atti-tudes stemmed from the fact that the early mis-sionaries were slaves of their own culture. As aresult, they made little attempt to understand theShona thought-world. Therefore, they remainedalien, at heart, from the people they were toevangelize.Their basic premise was that all Shona culturalelements were indissolubly bound up with super-stition and error, and had, therefore, to be scrap-ped. Thus Christianity was presented to theShona in a European cultural context instead of97in terms of existing Shona preconceptions andbeliefs. But sudden and complete changes in apeople's way of life are unknown, except perhaps,during a military revolution, and consequentlythe missionaries failed dismally: 'The naturalresult of attempting to suppress by force deep-rooted customs held dear by the people was todrive the practice underground' (p. 21). TheShona converts finding it impossible to abandontheir traditional religion, for instance, practisedit behind the scenes.Peaden shows that there were in fact a numberof practices that were irreconcilable with Chris-tianity such as the kuzvarira system, polygyny,divination and possession. The missionaries, how-ever, thought all Shona culture anti-Christian.They, therefore sought to bring about the neces-sary changes through education. Schools andhospitals provided the means for this. Againstthis background, one sees the logic of the Shonaresistance and resilience to Christianity describedin this book.Peaden is not alone in this. Hastings, writingon 'The African Church: from Past to Present'observes in the same tone, 'Christian doctrine canhardly be got across to Africans who have notreceived any appreciable amount of Westerneducation ... if the missionary has not firstunderstood something of their own thoughtworld . . . The only way to avoid this is by adeep understanding of existing African precon-ceptions and beliefs and by the explanation ofChristianity in terms related to them, while atthe same time making clear the absolute newnessof Christian faith and life.'1I disagree with Peaden when he says, 'TheShona had no tradition of the Western practiceof courtship as a preliminary to marriage'. Thepractice of courtship among the Shona is as oldas the hills, and is well documented by J. F.Holleman in Shona Customary Law.In conclusion one might pose two unansweredquestions: What should have been done in theearly days of early mission? What should bedone now?REFERENCE1. HASTINGS, A. 1967 Church & Mission in Modern Africa. London, Burns & Oates, pp. 59-60.GweloREVD. J. C. KUMBIRAIMAXWELL-MASON, W. D. and BEETON, D. R. eds. 1970 Poetry at the Grahamstown Conference: UNISA EnglishStudies, 8 (iii), 56 pp.'No age or condition is without its heroes,the least incapable general in a nation is itsCaesar, the least imbecile statesman its Solon,the least confused thinker its Socrates, the leastcommonplace poet its Shakespeare' (G. B.Shaw, 'Maxims for Revolutionaries: TheRevolutionist's Handbook', Man and Super-man).The poems chosen by the English Academy ofSouthern Africa to be read at its conference inJuly 1969 have now been published but withoutany critical comment from the editors:Our purpose has been simply to provide arecord of what was read. We have not seen itas our task to delete from, or in any way com-ment on, the work that has reached us. Thepeople represented have all been acknowledgedas writers of sincerity and standing by the factof their invitation to Grahamstown (foreword).As Professor Beeton has for some years beenPresident of the Literary Committee of theEnglish Academy of Southern Africa, the explana-tion has a certain circularity, but is accurateenough. Certainly the seven poets sincerelybelieved they were writing poetry and that theyachieved it. Equally it would have been hard tofind better poets than those included, a fact whichbodes ill for 'The Progress of Poesy' in SouthAfrica.The main general impression is the striking, andalmost complete, abandonment of rhyme andmetre; Free Verse is everywhere but most of thepoets seem to have forgotten T. S. Eliot's dictumthat no verse is free for the man who wants todo a good job. Most of the poets representedseem little concerned with the cadences of theirlines or their appeal either to the sense or the eye.Chopped up prose, as we so often have here, isneither verse nor good prose.One also notices a constant striving after meta-phorical expression. It is an endemic fault inmuch of the latest poetry arising possibly from afear of paucity in the poets' thought or an attemptto give that thought a profundity both specious98