20 SEPTEMBER 1935, Page 32

BORZOI

By Igor Schwezoff •

Borzoi (Hodder and Stoughton, 9s. 6d.) is the autobiography of a young Russian ballet dancer. Igor Schwezoff was born in St. Petersburg in 1904, of wealthy and distinguished _parents —his father was a General in the Imperial Army. When he was thirteen the Bolshevik revolution' reduced them to poverty and put young Igor to the necessity of working for a living. He decided to be a dancer, and used the money he earned during the day, in the office of the Railway Committee, to pay for his evening lessons. He made good progress as a dancer and choregrapher, but..,his " borzoi " (the word . also. signified " bourgeois ") bearing was against him. He was appointed maitre de ballet to the theatre at Kiev, but his complaints against official mismanagement' earned him the reputation of a saboteur, and his efforts' to obtain reasonable wages and just treatment for himself and his colleagues made him so unpopular with the authorities that he soon realised that he could hope for little advancement under the Bolshevik regime. Ile-accepted a position in Vladivostok, and one night, with the assistance of Chinese smugglers, he escaped with a party of refugees across the frontier to Harbin, and thence came to Europe. He has told this story 'in careful English and at considerable length, but it lacks what one can only call personality. It contains matter enough for a dozen books, but it completely fails to excite us, because the author would seem to have aimed at writing a good book rather than an

• intimate revelation of himself. As autobiography the result is insipid and unsatisfying.