The Essential Characteristics of Russian Literary Criticism

Author(s): René Wellek

Source: Comparative Literature Studies , 1992, Vol. 29, No. 2 (1992), pp. 115-140
Published by: Penn State University Press

Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/40246825

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 The Essential Characteristics of Russian
Literary Criticism
RENÉWELLEK

It seems at first sight easy to answer the question implied in the title. It
has been pointed out long ago that Russian literary criticism is seldom
strictly literary, that it has been mainly a general criticism of society.
Vissarion Belinsky (1811-48), the acknowledged father of Russian criti-
cism, stated in 1842: "It might be said without exaggeration that only in
art and literature and consequently in aesthetic and literary criticism does
the intellectual consciousness of our society find expression." Nikolay
Chernyshevsky (1828-89), considered the head of the critics of the 1860s
who made criticism almost totally a weapon in the struggle against
Tsarism and for the emancipation of the serfs, asserted that criticism in
Russia has a much wider function than in the West. In Germany there are
special publics, for instance for the novel. In England there are philoso-
phers, jurists, economists read by the layman. "With us literature consti-
tutes the whole of the intellectual life of the nation."
The causes of this situation are so obvious that they hardly need elabora-
tion. The Tsarist regime severely discouraged and often suppressed the
discussion of any social or political topic. Especially during the reign of
Nicholas I censorship was given enormous legally codified powers and was
able, sometimes with the direct participation of the Tsar, to indulge in
the supervision and petty persecution of writers. Pushkin's relations with
the Tsar who reserved censorship of his writings for himself are well
documented. Ivan Kireyevsky's magazine, The European, was suppressed

COMPARATIVE LITERATURE STUDIES, Vol. 29, No. 2, 1992.

Copyright © 1992 The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA

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1 16 COMPARATIVE LITERATURE STUDIES

in 1832 after two numbers appeared. The Emperor had

"The Nineteenth Century" and judged, as Alexander Be
chief of the so-called Third Section, himself reports, t
allegedly discussing literature, has something entirely dif
that by the word Enlightenment' he means 'liberty', that
the mind' means 'revolution' and that 'the skillfully
dleground' is nothing else but a 'constitution.' His Majesty
that this article ought not have been permitted in a li
which it is forbidden to insert anything about politic
pected "Aesopian" language in a harmless article by a
became one of the pillars of Slavophilism. No wonder that
literary texts sometimes quite deliberately as pretexts to
social question. For instance, he characterizes Tatyana
Pushkin's Evgeny Onegin, perversely as a "moral embryo"
statue, immobile, heavy, fettered", in order to expoun
passion and to criticize conventional marriage. One cann
sure how far Belinsky and other oppositional critics w
confusion between literature and life, how clearly Belinsk
was using Pushkin's poem for a speech on the backwar
womanhood. Similarly, Nikolay Dobrolyubov (1836-61)
grouped with Chernyshevsky but is a more remarkabl
master, discussed the hero of the Goncharov's Oblomov si
ing example of Russian indolence, ignoring the obvious sy
author with his hero. Chernyshevsky in a discussion of T
makes the weak-willed hero of a pathetic love affair repr
decay of Russian aristocracy, a peg to hand on a warning
racy should heed the needs of the time.
The severity of censorship was somewhat mitigated later
teenth century but became harsher again after the assassin
der II in 1881. It was practically abolished after the 190
reimposed after the Bolshevik victory. Today in Sovie
formally no prepublication censorship, but in practice
the state and the party controlling paper, publishing hous
every means of communication has imposed complete u
efficiently than Tsarist bureaucracy. It gave rise to an un
ture (samizdat) y and led to a sizable emigration of wri
allude to the victims of the purges, the denunciation
Zoschenko, and Akhmatova by Zhdanov and the trial o

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 RUSSIAN LITERARY CRITICISM 1 1 7

Daniel in 1967. They were condemned to long terms of h

for their views hostile to the reigning dogma of Socialis
To account fully for this adversary relationship of criti
and government we would have to discuss the class struct
century Russia, the slow growth of the at first tiny rea
expansion of book production, of literary journalism, an
public in general: the whole process of the establishment o
mostly hostile to the government and critical of the exi
term intelligentsia was introduced by a journalist an
Boborykin, in the 1860s but the phenomenon was much
to what a study by Nikolays Riasanovsky has called "A Par
the rift between the educated public and the official ide
racy, orthodoxy and nationality" in the forties. The Rus
especially with its progressive radicalization, assumed a m
more definite meaning than the French intelligence. Ser
1909 described the Russian intelligent somewhat hyperbo
tant monk of the nihilist religion of earthly well-being.
after the victory of these monks a new group of dissiden
emerged revolting against the creed, a shocking refu
theory who thought that such a revolt is inconceivable.
This adversary relationship between the critics and
their absorption in a general critique of Russian society,
essential feature of Russian literary criticism. But it is, af
and not without parallels in other countries. Thus in I
ceived of the role of criticism in terms very similar to Bel
social criticism preparing the free Italy he envisaged at
under Austrian, Bourbon, and Papal domination. But even
ent contexts with no oppressive government and no cens
Americans in the early twentieth century could conceive
cism as a vehicle of attack on the dominant business
Mencken used literary criticism to ridicule and castigate
Wyck Brooks saw it as the liberator from puritanism and
and forties the men who founded The Partisan Review
Irving Howe recently reminded us, as "a surrogate m
people blocked in public life." Even in Victorian England
discovered that the condition of England is inseparable f
literature. He found that "a girl named Wragg" mattered f
Anarchy.

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1 18 COMPARATIVE LITERATURE STUDIES

A second characteristic of Russian literary criticism foll

cally from its absorption in the social conflicts of the tim
extremes, to pushing critical positions to their limit. A
(1812-70), the most prominent Russian refugee, who l
has diagnosed extremism as a national trait. "We are great
raisonneurs. To this German capacity we add our national
less, fanatically dry: we are only too willing to cut off hea
steps we march to the very limit and go beyond it; never
the dialectic, only with the truth." One can argue that no
in Russia have the major critical positions been formul
particularly in the first quarter of this century. Nowh
critical debate so lively, so acrimonious, so much a life-an
(even literally so). This makes Russian criticism of the gre
any student of the history of criticism also outside of Russ
its obvious value as a commentary on the history of R
Roughly we can speak of four clearly defined positions: d
ganic criticism, symbolism, and formalism. Didacticism, t
should instruct rather than delight or instruct by delight
eighteenth-century Russia as an inheritance of the Horati
dulci. In the early forties of the nineteenth century Belin
earlier views, proclaimed that literature must serve
though he still rejected out-and-out didacticism even
civic-minded pronouncements. The example of the last sta
inspired the radical critics of the sixties: Chernyshevsk
and Pisarev, who formulated the utilitarian function of li
crassest terms. According to Chernyshevsky's dissertation
Relations of Art to Reality (1855) the only function of art i
reality or to inform those who have not yet experienced
immediate ends. An often quoted passage dismisses Turgen
Asya: "Goodbye erotic questions! A reader of our time
problems of administrative and judiciary institutions, of
of the emancipation of the serfs, does not care for the
says similarly: "Literature is an auxiliary force, the impor
lies in propaganda, and the merit of which is determ
propagates and how it propogates it." Pisarev went eve
article "The Destruction of Aesthetics" (1855) he advoca
destruction of aesthetics but of all art except novels and d
these he allows only as temporary instruments of prop

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 RUSSIAN LITERARY CRITICISM 119

shape the views of their readers but of no intrinsic

to the descendants of Plato who would banish the po
lic. He would, he tells us, "rather be a Russian shoem
Russian Raphael or Grimm." With a very differen
violently Tolstoy proclaimed in What is Art? (1898)
"the union among men joining them together in the
therefore to be comprehensible to everybody: it mu
lesson, at its highest, teach the lesson of Christianit
appears thus among the writings of the highest c
condemned for his supposedly indifferent moral
religion. The utilitarian standards of the radical crit
populists and the early Marxists. Lenin in 1905
didacticism by the slogan of "partisanship" (partijno
ber Revolution the role of literature as teaching com
was not only proclaimed but governmentally enforc
Final Plea, before he was condemned to seven years
well: "The view of the Prosecution is that literatu
ganda and that there are only two kinds of propaga
Soviet. If literature is simply un-Soviet, it means
continuity of the didactic tradition is undeniable
asking literature to give any kind of instruction an
ably Christian or middleclass morality to a much
for education in ideology: in the nineteenth century
tion, and after the Revolution, to quote the Fir
Writers (1934), "in the spirit of socialism. " Though
1929, he stated a generally accepted truth when
Belinsky, if "he could be transported alive into o
would be a member of the Politburo." "The historic
was to open a breathing hole into social life by
Literary criticism took the place of politics and was
Criticism of society implies preoccupation with
sian reality, and thus with realism. Reality was seen
or oppressive, crying for exposure: satirical or
Belinsky picked up the term "natural school" from
ize Gogol and the many new writers describing Rus
and even used the term "naturalism" in 1847. Be
view of the radical critics of the sixties who advocat
of reality, though only Pisarev made much of th

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120 COMPARATIVE LITERATURE STUDIES

Realism for him was analysis, criticism. "A realist is a th

In the great flowering of the Russian novel realism prev
we mean by it a depiction of contemporary reality, an o
cause and effect, a world without transcendence even
writer preserved a personal religious faith. Realism had i
fantastic, the fairy-tale-like, the allegorical and the sym
abstract and decorative, the world of myth and remote h
foreign settings. It was also a term of inclusion: the ugly
the low became legitimate subjects of art. Only Dostoevsk
interest in the fantastic and exceptional. In two well-kno
and 1869) he asserted that he had "quite different concep
and realism than our realists and critics. My idealism
their realism." His realism is pure, a realism of depth whi
surface. N. N. Strakhov, in his biography (1883), repo
sky saying: "They call me a psychologist: mistakenly. I a
in the higher sense, i.e., I depict all the depths of the hu
when, in 1890, Konstantin Leontiev criticised the nov
their abundance of trivial details in a closely analytic
reject the critical assumptions of realism. They were onl
the symbolists: Vasily Rozanov was the first to deny
realist in a confrontation of Pushkin and Gogol (1894). A
the first history of Russian criticism (1896) elaborately
trines of Belinsky, Chernyshevsky, Dobrolyubov and
Merezhovsky waged a relentless war against realism. F
cades symbolism, Acmeism, futurism, formalism, and ot
theories pushed realism into the background but afte
realism was installed as the reigning dogma. Since 1932 "
is the method prescribed to writers and critics. Socialist
two irreconcilable demands: for truth in the descript
commitment not only to socialism but to the falsifica
favor of a rosy-colored Utopia in which only positive he
Criticism of society, which was the essence of realism, i
past is also distorted: Pushkin and Gogol are proclaimed r
Dostoevsky. More recently attempts to stretch the term
in writers as diverse as Joyce, Faulkner, Brecht, an
Musil. The term has become all-inclusive and thus finally
has returned to Belinsky's use of "real" poetry, which he

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 RUSSIAN LITERARY CRITICISM 121

speare, Scott, and Cooper. Still, Socialist Realism

"the fulfillment of all art and literature."
The official Soviet view of the history of criticism i
cation of the history of critical ideas in the ninetee
the dominant trend of Russian literary criticism in t
can be best described as the view that literature is t
history; that each work of art is an organism which r
nation and that each great writer embodies this
(narodnosty with its double meaning of nation and pe
pation of critics of all stripes of political persua
Slavophiles as well as official patriots. Pushkin, in 18
that nationality is not in the language alone or in R
but in a quality he cannot define, "a particular phys
climate, type of government and religion, by a mul
liefs, and habits which belong exclusively to eac
Venevitinov in the same year complained that "natio
taken for descriptions of history, customs, beards,
thing which exists in the very feelings of the poet w
by the spirit of the people." Ivan Kireyevsky, in 182
national. "To be national it is necessary to be bre
center of the life of one's people, to share the hopes
efforts and failures, in a word to live its life and ex
sciously in the process of self-expression." Belinsky,
(1834), spoke of literature as "the expression of t
symbol of the inner life of a nation, the physiogno
emphasized that "literature is not created, it creates i
customs, independently of the will and the know
Throughout his career, through the rapid change
allegiances and political convictions, Belinsky adhere
of this vaguely defined creed: the view that the poe
the spirit of the nation, that poetry, to use phrases
Lermontov's Poems (1841), gives us knowledge bu
edge, that art is a parallel and analogue of nature, tha
organism, a unity of form and content. In a re
Baratynsky (1842), Belinsky proposes as the task of c
the mind of the poet in his works. The critic should
idea, the dominant mood; he should discover and cla

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122 COMPARATIVE LITERATURE STUDIES

vision, his pathos. In his last articles Belinsky saw literatur

temporal context relentlessly pushed by the stream of hist
responsibility for a work of art away from the artist to th
what could be called a mystique of time and progress, th
last pronouncements, which emphasize the social mission
held firm to the central doctrine.
Belinsky's influence on the whole course of later Russia
decisive. The so-called Radical critics of the sixties,
Dobrolyubov, and Pisarev, were his avowed disciples but
sharply from him in their allegiance to deterministic m
their literary theory by a resolute rejection of any aesthe
tion. Their concern was with content only: they reverte
Another follower, Apollon Grigoriev (1822-64), dev
of "organic criticism" most systematically. It looks at ar
total, immediate, and perhaps even intuitive understandi
will itself be intuitive and immediate. The aim of the cr
individuality and the tone of an author and of an ag
atmosphere or "drift". Life, growth, individuality, nation
spontaneity, sincerity are Grigoriev's key terms. Gri
against historical relativism as he, in difference from Be
believe in progress and evolution.
Dostoevsky, his friend, shared most of his views, bu
other conservative critic stressed the universality of art
fervent nationalist. The Pushkin speech (1880) makes the
kin's universality by the doubtful argument that Don
Guest) could have been written by a Spaniard, that the g
is in "The Feast at the Time of the Plague," that the "
Koran" could be written by a Mohammedan, and so
repeats almost literally Gogol's reflections on Pushkin's n
is not "in the description of a sarafan but in the very spi
"In Spain he is a Spaniard, in Greece a Greek, in the
mountaineer." Dostoevsky, however, uses this argument
acterize and praise Pushkin but to buttress his own belie
"the Russian's destiny is incontestably all-European and u
With the advent of Symbolism, and later of Formalism
the organic conception became only an element in so
instance, the first Marxist critic, G. V. Plekhanov (
bined organic concepts with dialectical materialism, D

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 RUSSIAN LITERARY CRITICISM 123

thropological learning. Even in the twenties

Voronsky defended the organic unity of the work o
removed from the editorship of Red Virgin Soil in 19
He perished in a labor camp. Also V. F. Perev
disciple of Plekhanov, a staunch Marxist, has de
organicism. He strongly believed that "nobody ha
his style because nobody has the power to go out
circle of images." In his works on Gogol and Dostoev
to show, often with metaphors of plant life similar
author's work forms a totality which in turn is part
Pereverzev had to spend 25 years in labor camps in
rehabilitated.
One branch of literary studies is, in its assumption
tion: literary history. In the eighteenth century th
and bibliographical catalogues of Russian writers
(1772). Their inspiration was patriotic. Russians
they have also produced writers, that they are catch
Europe. When in 1800 the Igor Lay was discovered
again to the neglected past of pre-Petrine Russi
activity in Slavic philology, ethnography, folklore,
antiquities developed, a concern inspired by the
difference between Russia and the West. Old Russ
the domain not only of the Slavophiles but of the o
tism which was cultivated in the universities which
propagated the ideology of the Court. Actually ther
the official creed, which hailed Peter the Great as t
suspicious even of Panslavism unless it served som
The first full-scale History of Russian Literatur
(1806-64), is rightly considered an apology for th
yrev was the first Professor to occupy a chair of R
University of Moscow and to publish his History in
56). Still, all its emphasis is on the glorification of O
glowing review of Gogol's Dead Souls (1842), whi
tory shows how this organistic creed permeated his
grotesque characters of the book, Sobakevich, Nozdr
Chichikov himself are said to compose "one unifi
which includes the audience in an almost mystical e
is great, wide and wonderfully diversified. The wor

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124 COMPARATIVE LITERATURE STUDIES

like God's world: in it, too, there must be a place for everyth
satire, his exposure of the emptiness and even horror of Russia
as a beneficial deed, as a call to return to the old virtues
illustrated in the History. Shevyrev's History was the codifica
philological labors of the early nineteenth century. In its trea
eighteenth and nineteenth centuries it is largely dependent o
ment established by journal critics of the time, among wh
was, even though not a systematic narrative historian, still th
sketched out the history of modern Russian literature most p
and assigned values and ranked writers most authoritative
had, at first, a reserved attitude toward Old Russian literatur
be explained by his distaste for the official glorification and
concern for freeing Russia from its implication in a serf civili
Russian Orthodoxy, which Old Russian literature represented
Later, in 1841, Belinsky learned to admire the byliny t the Ig
Russian folksongs, but even then he considered Lermontov's "
Merchant Kalashnikov" worth all the byliny put together.
also sternly critical of what he considered to be the pure
literature of the eighteenth century and while he recognized
Derzhavin and Karamzin in preparing the new great litera
Pushkin period, apologized for them by social and histor
stances. In his latest stage (1846-47), Belinsky saw even
belonging to a bygone age of pure art and hailed the new tur
called "the natural school": the rising social novel, Dostoe
People (The Double disappointed him), the writings of Gri
Veltman. Herzen's novel Who is to Blame?, he acknowled
work of art but rather a document of the time.
Belinsky's view of the history of modern Russian literature
the later historiography of the nineteenth century: both Che
Studies in the Age of Gogol (1855) and Apollon Grigoriev's
Russian literary history, two writers on opposite sides of
spectrum.
Later in the century A. M. Skabichevsky's History of Mod
Literature (1890) was a widely read book which was inspire
fervor. But only the four- volume History of Russian Literat
by A. N. Pypin provided an erudite, largely factual, well-
survey which was based on firsthand research and inspired
liberal emphasis and ethos which made it acceptable to a wide

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 RUSSIAN LITERARY CRITICISM 125

Nothing comparable appeared until after the 191

several attempts to write a history of the Russian "
Pavel Milyukov (1903), R. I. Ivanov Razumnik (19
Kulikovsky (1914), and G. V. Plekhanov (three
mainly from "left" positions, were inevitably also c
the ideological side of literature. The study of Old R
great strides partly under the influence of the new r
lated by the Symbolist movement. It is mostly ensh
monographs, though the surveys by P. Vladimi
Petukhov (1916) keep some value.
After the Revolution several attempts were made t
tory of Russian literature in terms of the class strug
Sakulin in Russian (The Epoch of Classicism, 1918, an
Europeanism, 1929) and an expanded systematic s
russische Literatur, 1927) make sharp distinctions bet
the people, the bourgeoisie, the gentry, the intel
urban proletariat, often resulting in disconcertin
was later rejected for "vulgar sociologism" but was h
new theoretical conception. Many largely collective
the Academy were produced mainly in the fifties and
histories of individual genres, such as The History of
volumes, ed. B. P. Gorodetsky, 1958) and The History
(two volumes, ed. G. Fridlandr and B. P. Gorode
the most valuable. They contain no new ideas on lite
operate with such simple criteria as "progressivenes
thy with communism or in earlier times with revol
which means either Russian patriotism or concer
"realism", the only approved artistic method. Still,
of the central ideas of the organic tradition surv
brought new ideas to the writing of literary history,
soon suppressed and mostly managed to make plans
literary history-writing rather than demonstrate th
sions for research and teamwork, Soviet literary
ished, at least quantitatively. It has acquired great ad
ing productivity and publication but also the conc
of overspecialization, lack of initiative and perso
monotony as results are predictable from the doctr
for the unconvinced reader, sheer unmitigated bore

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126 COMPARATIVE LITERATURE STUDIES

deny the value of the many concrete investigations, e

phies, biographies, descriptive analyses which repre
nineteenth-century positivism, if we disregard the oblig
to the classics of Marxism and the often artificially impo
simple historical evolution from feudalism through the
glories of socialist realism.
The organic tradition was basically secular or, at least,
a non-religious outlook: certainly Belinsky, in spite of so
was not inspired by religion. With others a belief in Ort
a private affair separate from literary criticism. But in
Slavophiles, religion motivates their aesthetic beliefs,
and Dostoevsky the aesthetics has immediate religio
Myshkin will say: "Beauty will save the world": art is
ultimate reality, to the essence of things, to the supe
Dostoevsky is hardly expounded as a theory or a stan
comes so with his disciples and interpreters. Vladimi
1900), a young personal friend, wrote three discours
after his death (1881) in which he hails him as "the p
religious art" and Vasily Rozanov (1856-1919) wro
Legend of the Grand Inquisitor (1890) in which Dostoevsk
preted like a Gospel, though Rozanov sides with the a
Grand Inquisitor and would want mankind to submit to t
authority of the Church. Rozanov was too idiosyncra
solitary also in his, in Russia unique, exaltation of s
immediate influence. The mystical and symbolist con
was most systematically formulated by Vyacheslav Iv
who, not by chance, wrote extensively on Dostoevsky
symbolic art approximating religion as the artist by my
tion can reach the one essential, objective reality." H
realibus ad realiora and the term, derived from Solovyov, t
miracle-working, conceived as literally transformin
world. For the critic there follows a demand for identif
object, the artist and his work and the demand not to re
reality but to create myths. Ivanov draws from the Slav
"sobornost", "collectivity", to justify a new choral art w
the soul of the people. In his critical practice Ivanov
topics: Greek drama, Goethe, Schiller, Gogol, Byron,
marily Dostoevsky. Ivanov interprets Dostoevsky's novels

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 RUSSIAN LITERARY CRITICISM 127

analogy of Greek tragedy, showing the rebellion of h

the holy laws of Mother Earth and the purgation of t
version collected in a German book on Dostoevsky (19
in allegorizing the great novels: for instance Mysh
pears as a Christlike figure who descends from the
incarnation through Love, but fails and is received ba
late article on Symbolism, Ivanov makes a sharp dis
own "realistic" kind of symbolism and subjective sym
poet is the decipherer of the great alphabet of nat
symbolism is associated with art for art's sake, with
ism, even with solipsism.
The mystical pretensions of Russian symbolism w
stated by Ivanov. The other poets had other meth
supernatural: Bely was concerned with Rudolf Steiner
his big book on Symbolism (1910), besides speculations
matics of meaning," treats questions of style and met
detail, drawing even on statistical evidence. The late b
manship of Gogol (1934) is even more technical in t
Gogol's imagery. It is unfortunately sometimes quirky
the curious spectacle of an author demonstrating in d
Gogol on Bely's own novel, St. Petersburg. Alexand
greatest poet of that splendid group, was least engage
criticism. He simply claimed to be "the solitary p
treasure."
From the point of view of strictly literary criticism
not among the most admired poets produced the
Merezhkovsky (1865-1941), whose historical novels
ten, was actually the first to diagnose "The Present C
Literature and the Causes of Its Decline" (1893)
symbolism as a remedy. His book on Tolstoy and Dost
spite of the overworked contrast between the "seer o
and the "seer of the spirit", Dostoevsky, full of ac
sensitive characterizations. Also the later essay on
(1906), though it allegorizes Gogol's characters and act
between God and Satan, contains insights into Gog
beyond the old realist interpretations. Nikolay Be
the religious philosopher, studied The World View of
a philosophy of freedom in which God's existence i

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128 COMPARATIVE LITERATURE STUDIES

fied by the existence of evil. Berdyayev exalts Dostoe

heights: "So great is the worth of Dostoevsky that to hav
by itself sufficient justification for the existence of the
the world: and he will bear witness for his countrymen
ment of the nations." All these writers came from Ru
Two Russian Jews, Michail Gershenzon (1869-1925) a
(pseudonym of Leo Schwartzmann, 1868-1938), used si
cal and symbolist methods to interpret literature with d
sions. Gershenzon studied the elusive sceptical Wisdom of
and engaged in a curious exchange of letters with Vy
"Correspondence between Two Corners" (1920), in wh
the issue of Revolution versus Tradition. Shestov searche
irrational God everywhere. In Dostoevsky and Nietzsche
sky is made into a cryptic atheist, a prophet of catastrop
and even Chekhov, in "Creation from Nothing" (1905)
ist in whose hands "nothing escaped death." One can find
existentialism in Shestov's writings, which later cente
philosophy of history, particularly after his emigration
From about 1893 to 1914 Russian literature was domina
of symbolist poets who had close affinities with a r
Berdyayev, in his autobiography, describes the head
which he was plunged when arriving in St. Petersburg in
a religious, poetical, and artistic renaissance which,
remained in an ivory tower, ignoring or misundersta
driving to revolution. In criticism the symbolists pushed
extreme the view that poetry is revelation, is disguised th
philosophy. There was, however, another group of sy
critics who were condemned by Ivanov as subjective
conflict between the two groups which led to an ope
They considered symbolism mainly a technique for writi
ing its aim by suggestion, by images, metaphors, allegor
conceived as figures of speech without any supernatural
stantin Balmont's Poetry as Magic (1915) used this term
sorcery, enchantment, glorifying the power of the word
world of imagination, of irreal and irrational fiction. Not
whole trend was almost completely silenced after the
Alexander Blok because of his poem The Twelve and his p
thies for the Revolution, and possibly Bryusov survive a

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 RUSSIAN LITERARY CRITICISM 129

others (Merezhkovsky, Zinaida Gippius, Ivanov,

emigrated and thus became non-persons in Soviet Ru
The demise of the Symbolist movement was not, h
the Revolution. Symbolism was rejected by Acmeism
neoclassical views, and soon by Futurism. The symbo
cially its supernatural pretensions, were rejected by t
ists, a group of linguists, literary historians, and cr
labeled Formalists, a term they adopted only reluctan
understood the pejorative implications at that tim
speak only of "the formal method")- The Formalists
ents in Russia. They learned more than they were w
the technical studies of the symbolists in Russia
versification and from the labors of Alexander V
who planned a historical poetics, a universal evolutio
etry for which he assembled materials from all over
learned comparatist who studied poetic devices parti
metaphor, and meter as well as motifs and plots, sh
from content. The Formalists are also often seen
theticism, of art for art's sake, for which one c
pronouncements by Pushkin saying "the aim of poe
nineteenth-century critics such as Alexander Dru
opposed the "Neodidactic trend, efforts for the corr
society which may be useful in everyday affairs bu
neither Pushkin nor Druzhinin, and his friends A
can be described as aesthetes or formalists. They
independence of the artist and the difference betwe
polemics against the Radical critics earned them
scholarship though they were sensitive, judicial, and
means formalist, critics, as interested in the human
as their opponents with whom they disagreed on po
Russian Formalism as a movement was, howeve
succeeded in formulating not merely a general theo
crete methods for analyzing literature more close
before. In the early stages of Formalism one can
which sound like extreme aestheticism. Viktor S
in particular, asserted that all art is "outside em
outside compassion." He goes so far as to say that
from life and its color never reflected the color of t

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130 COMPARATIVE LITERATURE STUDIES

the fortress of the city." All subjects are absolutely equa

world-shaking and intimate works are all equal. The conf
world matters as much or as little as that of a cat with a
literature are like colors on a canvas. "Why," asked
(1896-1982), then a young member of the circle, "sh
more responsibility for a conflict of ideas than for a batt
pistols?" Form creates content. The subject of literary sc
"literature but literariness*, that which makes a work li
analyzed by the group as an "assembly of devices" wh
material of language by "deformation", a term with no de
tions. It means simply the changes imposed on the m
achieved, for instance, by poetic language in contrast to
prose, the patterning by sound repetitions and figures, t
of a novelistic plot - in short, all the "devices" of art. Th
done much in studying sound-patterns, meters, gramma
and contrasts, and plot structures, in defining genre
finally widening the historical horizon by suggesting sche
tion of literature. Their preoccupations with poetic langu
devices were eagerly seized by the futurist poets
Mayakovsky (1893-1930), who welcomed the defense
tion with language and their rejection of Belinsky's form
"thinking in images."
In its later stages the Formalists modified or toned dow
theories. The term "form" was replaced by the term "
avoided the old association of form with surface and s
unity of form and content, a wholeness, a Gestalt. Partly
pressure from the reigning Marxists, the Formalists aba
insistence on the separateness of the realm of art. Th
social role of literature in making us see things, as sharp
ing our awareness of the world, but finally they succum
dogma: some of them recanted, others found refuge in n
edited, wrote historical novels, or changed over to lingui
malism left a legacy which could not be ignored. A
originality, Mikhail Bakhtin, who repudiated Formalism
much from it. The semioticians such as Yuri Lotman, the
as Vladimir Propp, linguistically oriented students of
Viktor Vinogradov, and students of the technique of
Boris Uspensky, could absorb some of their teachings. Th

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 RUSSIAN LITERARY CRITICISM 131

least in their original statements, uphold an extrem

theticism but of a mechanistic interpretation of poet
theory to a linguistic game or puzzle. In their assum
they were determinists and relativists and in the
favored either extreme experimentation with la
friends the Futurists, like Khlebnikov, indulged in,
poetry in the past. They have the great merit of sh
view that literary study should focus on the work of
on the author or the social circumstances, and t
concrete analyses which go further than any made b
and describing the actual means by which artistic ef
these trends, Marxism, symbolism, and formalism,
the first World War. It was a real battle of minds which social and
political forces decided in favor of Marxism.
Finally we must ask what is Russian, what is original, in all this theoriz-
ing about literature and critical activity. Konstantin Aksakov (1817-60),
one of the leading Slavophiles, stated in 1850: "From the first minute I
was convinced that Russia is a thoroughly original country, completely
different from European states and countries." Is this, however, true of
literary criticism? I have suggested that the extremism with which posi-
tions were held may be peculiarly Russian. This seems confirmed by old
clichés. Thus Zinaida Gippius used the pseudonym Anton Krayny, "An-
tony the extreme", for her reviews. But these views were often stated in
extreme fashion in other countries. Thus, Théophile Gautier's Preface to
Mlle de Maupin (1834), which states defiantly that "nothing truly beauti-
ful serves a purpose; everything useful is ugly", can be contrasted with
Saint-Marc Girardin's enormously popular lectures published as Cours de
la littérature dramatique (1843-68), which judges and compares all litera-
ture by strictly middle-class criteria most severely. Or one can think of the
outrageous paradoxes of Oscar Wilde in the essay "The Decay of Lying"
and contrast them with the hatred of all fiction loudly proclaimed by
Carlyle. The conflict between the poets and society is universal; it goes
back to Plato. On the whole Aksakov's statement, while probably contain-
ing much truth in manners and politics, does not fit the history of Russian
criticism. It obviously reflects the general history of Western criticism, at
first quite passively and later slowly emancipating itself from complete
dependence while still reflecting the main changes in the history of West-
ern criticism: romanticism, realism, symbolism, modernism in some form

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132 COMPARATIVE LITERATURE STUDIES

or another. One must think of the early stages of Russia

eighteenth century as echoes of West European neocla
modern Russian poet, Antiokh Kantemir (1709-44), co
that there is no Russian word for the French "criti
Tredyakovsky (1703-69), the second important figure
modern Russian poetry, translated Boileau's Art poét
verse (1752). Mikhail Lomonosov (1711-1765), scientis
piled then a Rhetoric (1748), a neatly arranged hand
heavily on J. C. Gottsched's Redekunst (1736) with elabor
to Russian linguistic peculiarities. Alexander Sumarak
foremost dramatist of the time, translated or rather
Horatian epistle known as De arte poetica (1748). Theor
within the framework of neoclassicism though the quest
the relation of Russian to Church Slavic, the levels o
significance for the development of the Russian literary
guage. Later in the eighteenth century the emphasis
European developments to a theory of taste. Taste, assum
sal but in practice the French taste, rather than the rule
vague critical standard in what in Russia is called the per
talism". Gellert's essay on "The Pleasures of Sadness" appe
translation (1781). Muravyev wrote a poem "The P
(1781), glorifying the new concept made fashionable
and the Germans. The German aesthetics of taste pen
Russia. Sulzer's "Conversation about the Beauty of N
peared in a Russian version in 1777. The textbook
Eschenburg were translated early in the new century
1812 a Russian "Outline of Aesthetics, excerpted from Ka
Aesthetic Judgment" as well as a translation of Schil
Sublime in the same year. Karamzin, the dominant figur
read Sulzer and Platner and was steeped in the view that
praise and encourage rather than judge and that taste
mysterious force.
Criticism actually played only a minor role in Russia un
Romanticism, which as a theory and movement came to
the Napoleonic war. The war opened the floodgate t
ences, mainly German, though the earliest informan
theories were French. Mme de StaëPs De l} Allemagne (18
intermediary, though in the same year a review of

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 RUSSIAN LITERARY CRITICISM 133

Lectures on Dramatic Literature, with long excerpts f

tion, appeared in The Spirit of journals, a newly
then a veritable battle about romanticism raged
pamphlets. In 1821 Pushkin called his poem The
Caucasus "a romantic poem" and in the following ye
in a review of the poem discussed the contrast b
romanticism at some length. Pushkin himself made
tions in his notebooks and collected historical inform
of romantic poetry from Schlegel, Sismondi, an
ardent defenders and champions of Romanticism
thor of an enthusiastic essay "On Romantic Poe
Kuchelbecher, who in 1824 praised romantic poet
over classical poetry in "freedom, invention, and
Ryleyev, the leader of the Decembrist Revolt, an
would be difficult to discern any new motif or idea c
in Germany and France.
Belinsky was certainly the first Russian critic wit
physiognomy. Usually we are told that he knew no
certainly no German. But that has to be taken wi
student he gave German lessons. He worked thro
Meister with a dictionary. Yet one need not assum
tance with the originals to see that he had easy
Belinsky owned and annotated Friedrich SchlegePs H
Modern Literature in Russian translation; he read Ba
senschaft, a Kantian treatise; and he studied and quo
Rôtscher, a rather second-rate Hegelian. Besides
kov, lent him notes on Hegel's aesthetics. To th
plentiful oral sources: Belinsky's intimate friends St
were enthusiastic Hegelians. The atmosphere was
these ideas. In these years it is hardly an exaggerati
Berlin, that "Russia was virtually an intellectual d
academic thought." All the key concepts: nationa
romantic, individuality, originality, development, t
and the age, inner form, continuity, came from Ge
antecedents in France and classical antiquity ma
paradox of intellectual history that the German exa
conceived as a linguistic and spiritual community in
a weapon in the struggle against French dominan

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134 COMPARATIVE LITERATURE STUDIES

countries, adopted to their own struggle against Russia, Pru

tria. In Russian nationality (narodnost), originally a tran
French nationalité, first used by Vyazemsky in 1819, becam
ambiguity of the word narod, which means both nation
slogan which helped the growing split between the sta
"nationalistic" in one sense, and the intelligentsia, which
people, in practice the peasants, and the cause of the emanci
serfs. In criticism the new historicism strengthened the feel
ity with the past and thus the distinctness of the Russian t
whole organic concept, with literature as an expression of t
essence of the nation, implied the demand that the grea
integrated person, a moral man, an ideal figure. In criticism
unity of form and content, the rejection of the suppose
French drama in favor of the organic, romantic Shakespe
art is assumed to form a whole dominated by a leading id
kin, who disliked German philosophy, absorbed the romanti
nationality, on the high role of the artist, the preemin
speare and Byron, though his own poetic practice was, in th
rather shaped by French models. Belinsky, while absorbing
concepts, cannot, however, be accused of translating or
them except in a few instances when he reproduced theoret
or copied from Rôtscher a far-fetched interpretation of Fau
the Mothers. After all, he wrote almost exclusively on Russ
examined mainly contemporary writers firsthand, spontane
to them and judging them, on the whole unerringly. Belins
position of Russian writers of his time. Pushkin, Gogol,
owe him their preeminence, at least in part. He discove
promise of Dostoevsky, Turgenev, Goncharov, and Nekrasov
one of the main functions of criticism: he defined the class
lished the canon.
Belinsky experienced late in his short life the shift from
to a more civic minded art, more closely reproducing and co
everyday reality, a shift which, general in Western Europe
Revolution in France, reached Russia with some delay. H
proclaimed the end of the "Kunstperiode" and relegated
admired but irrevocable past just as Belinsky did to Push
repudiated by the Left Hegelians and soon by the materia
bach. In France the new slogan "être de son temps" favo

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 RUSSIAN LITERARY CRITICISM 135

immediate relevance to temporary issues and encour

forward drift of history which Belinsky shared in
embraced an ingenuous faith in progress and the wo
even: "Of all critics, the greatest, the one fullest
infallible is time." The turn toward the depiction of
reality was general also in Western Europe: in Ger
Deutschland", in France with the Saint-Simonian
Britain with Carlyle denouncing romantic pessim
your Byron", and in Italy where Manzoni produced
cal novel full of concrete particularity. In Russia, ap
elsewhere, the term "natural school" was given to
emerging in the 1840s but the term "realism" (th
sophical usage) became a critical slogan only in 1
Courbet staged an exhibition and two mediocre n
and Duranty, propagated the term. In Russia, "realis
pletely victorious as an artistic method between 1
cannot speak of much interest in French and Germa
Tolstoy read a French book, Eugène Veron's L'Es
drew from it confirmation for his view, which is u
that art is a communication of emotion and that th
participate in it. But this is hardly theoretical realis
Russian symbolism is, however, inconceivable w
impact of French theories. In 1892 Zinaida Vengerov
on the French movement. Valeri Bryusov (1873-
leading propagandist and imitator of the French.
linck's L'Intruse and wrote a poem entitled "From R
year, and in 1894 brought out a translation of Ve
paroles. Bryusov had contacts with René Ghil, a disc
derived from him the term "instrumentation" w
adopted by the Russian formalists. But while the Fr
initial stimulus, the later symbolists rather appealed
tion of orthodox theology and mysticism and to th
of mystical bent, particularly the early Schelling, w
by the Slavophiles and Grigoriev. In 1910 Vyaches
the French influence as "adolescently unreasonable,
fertile."
Russian formalism had its European antecedents mainly in the tradition
of German formalist aesthetics, in Herbart and Zimmermann, and more

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136 COMPARATIVE LITERATURE STUDIES

concretely for literary analyses in the work of then' liv

Oskar Walzel. Certainly Viktor Zhirmunsky drew on him
of the philosopher Edmund Husserl, possibly through th
a Russian philosopher Gustav Shpet, was important f
meaning. Broder Christiansen's Philosophie der Kunst
lated into Russian in 1911; it suggested the terms: "d
distinction between a work of art and an aesthetic o
emphasis on the texture of art, its concreteness, his enmi
must have been known as his works were translated
before the First World War. The basic conception of
history of art is in Ferdinand Brunetière's writings o
genres though he pressed the biological parallel much
Russians, wisely, would allow. In spite of all these foreig
must recognize that the Russian Formalists developed the
boldly original at least in their formulation and in the c
developed to demonstrate their truth.
Marxism and Marxist theories of literature obviously ap
of the founders: Marx and Engels. There were in the We
critics such as Franz Mehring in Germany who precede t
opments. His Die Lessing-Legende (1893) was the first att
writer by a study of the social and economic conditions
But the influence of Mehring in Russia seems neglig
Lukâcs, the Hungarian Marxist who spent the years from
Moscow, collaborated with the Marx-Englels Institute
book on The Historical Novel (1938) first in Russian, infl
against vulgar sociologism in favor of a dialectical hi
some of his later writings and his role in the Hungar
were condemned as "revisionist". But on the whole th
Marxist aesthetics and criticism was local. Plekhanov f
added important formulas and examples with his ar
There is since a whole long row of theorists in Russia
argue about different versions of the Marxist dogma: wh
complete determinism of literature by economic and soc
to allow a dialectical interchange, whether Marxism has t
only method or is combinable with other approaches, and
We can conclude that Russian literary criticism reflect
of European criticism: neoclassicism, romanticism, esp
ganic version, the turn toward realism, symbolism, a new

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 RUSSIAN LITERARY CRITICISM 137

finally Marxism. The official dominance of Marxism

vented Russian criticism from reflecting the newest de
ern criticism: the New Criticism, Myth criticism, Fre
post-Structuralism and whatever trend has emerge
Psychoanalytic criticism is also almost absent from
kov's Sketches of an analysis of Gogol's writings (1923
able exception. Alfred L. Bern's psychoanalytical studie
kin and Dostoevsky, were written in emigration, in Pr
Russian criticism has not only reflected Western d
often deflected or changed the emphasis of West Euro
Especially, the emphasis on types and heroes is gre
elsewhere. Type as social type emerges as a critical ter
France. It replaced the earlier term caractère whi
meaning of individual character and lost the associatio
tus and La Bruyère. Balzac in the Preface to The Hu
considers himself a student of social types and George
to her novel Le Compagnon du tour de France (1851) co
social model worthy of imitation in real life. The w
Taine are full of speculations about types. But in R
concern for social types became an obsession. In Belins
in the romantic sense as a figure of mythical proport
Quixote, Don Juan, and Hamlet. In the article on G
defines the task of the artist as the creation of types,
although individuals, still have universal significan
Shylock and Faust are Belinsky's examples, to which
ously, Gogol's lieutenant Pirgorod, the doubtful hero o
Prospekt", as a "type of types", a "mystical type". N
(1836-61) seems, however, to have been the first
probably elsewhere to point out social types as re
characteristic vision independently or even contrary t
tentions. Dobrolyubov distinguishes between the o
meaning of a work of fiction and sees social types as c
social change. Unfortunately in his critical practice he
to this central insight and often considers types merely
formation of correct ideas about things and the dis
ideas among men." "Correct" ideas means radical soc
tionary thought. Dobrolyubov relapses into simple
often. His main rival, Dimitri Pisarev (1840-68), in

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138 COMPARATIVE LITERATURE STUDIES

the hero of Turgenev's Fathers and Sons, as the type of

the herald of the new generation. The fictional figure is
act of self-recognition and self-criticism quite apart from
tions of the author. Critics in Russia more than elsewhere concentrated
on this problem of the hero, both the negative and the positive hero. The
"superfluous man" was found in Pushkin's Onegin, in Lermontov's
Pechorin, and in Goncharov's Oblomov, while the positive hero was
hailed in Bazarov, the self-proclaimed Nihilist, or in Rakhmetov, the
tough revolutionary hero of Chernyshevsky's novel What's to Be Done?.
Lenin saw in Rakhmetov his ideal and so did Dimitrov, the Bulgarian
communist of the Leipzig trial. "Type", "typicalness" was pronounced by
Georgi Malenkov in a speech at the Nineteenth Party Congress (1952) to
be the central, political problem of realism. Certainly Soviet fiction is full
of attempts to create, quite deliberately, positive heroes who were to be
imitated at least in their endurance and fortitude by the readers. The
concept of the "type", far less prominent in Western criticism, formulates
the problem of universality and particularity, the concrete universal in
Hegel's term, and it states the problem of the hero, of his representative-
ness and hence of the social challenge implied in many works of fiction.
The Russian symbolist movement differs also from the corresponding
Western trends in its much stronger emphasis on the transcendental as
the aim of poetry. There is no proper parallel to Ivanov's mysticism in
European criticism though poets such as Paul Claudel appealed to the
doctrines of the Roman Catholic faith. Formalism seems to me, in many
ways, the most original trend of Russian criticism: it cannot be matched
elsewhere for the inventiveness of the methods of investigating and analyz-
ing a work of art and the often witty and hyperbolic emphasis on the
artness, the "literariness" of a work as the only legitimate subject of
scholarship. The extent and diversity of Russian Marxism is, even only
quantitatively, far in excess of anything produced in the West where
Marxist motifs are often freely combined with other theories or developed
in directions the Russian schoolmen would condemn.
Russian criticism has for a long time been unknown in the West.
Tolstoy's What Is Art? (1898) with its blunt questioning of aesthetic
theory and upperclass taste and its defense of popular art must have been
the first Russian treatise widely read and widely discussed: attacked for the
most part but also defended by writers such as Bernard Shaw. Among the
symbolist critics, Dimitri Merezhkovsky became well known in the West

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 RUSSIAN LITERARY CRITICISM 139

by his book on Tolstoy and Dostoevsky which appea

an abridged English translation. Leo Shestov establis
tion and among English critics Middleton Murry pa
early. Much later Berdyayev's and Ivanov's book
translated and attracted comment as Western interest concentrated on
Dostoevsky in preference to almost every other Russian writer. A Russian
emigre, D. S. Mirsky (1890-1939), wrote in English a book on Contempo-
rary Russian Literature (1925), followed by A History of Russian Literature
(1926), which as direct criticism remains the most readable account of
the history of Russian literature. Though often idiosyncratic and over-
assertive, Mirsky's two volumes reflect the taste prevalent in Russia during
the Symbolist movement even though he perversely downgrades Dostoev-
sky and Chekhov in favor of Lermontov and Tolstoy. The Formalists had
then the greatest impact outside of Russia: first in Prague where they
stimulated importantly the Prague Linguistic Circle mainly through the
intermediary of Roman Jakobson, who had been a member of the Moscow
Linguistic Circle and was a friend of Mayakovsky. Victor Erlich's Russian
Formalism: Doctrine - History (1954) was the first book to give a full
account of the movement in the West. It was, though published in The
Hague, the work of an American professor of Polish origin. Later in Paris
a Bulgarian settled in France, Tzvetan Todorov, edited a French anthol-
ogy of the Russian Formalists. Also in Germany and Italy interest devel-
oped in this group and much was done to translate and reprint in Russian
their writings which were often difficult to procure. Most recently a
highly unorthodox Russian scholar-critic Mikhail Bakhtin (1895-1975)
has aroused enthusiasm in the United States and France for his books on
Dostoevsky (1926) and Rabelais ( 1941 ) which propound, with great learn-
ing, often paradoxical theses about the carnival tradition in literature and
of the innovative polyphonic method of Dostoevsky which denies him a
single authorial voice. Bakhtin was long under a cloud in Russia and had
to live in the Saransk in the Mordvinian Republic: but he has devoted
disciples who have seen that his early writings were collected and his ideas
on the Dialogic Imagination spread also abroad. Bakhtin is an exception.
The pall of official dogma lies still heavily on Soviet scholarship and
criticism. Courageous individuals, punished for their rebellion, such as
Sinyavsky, have attacked the official dogma. Others have taken refuge in
developing methods which do not clash with the ideology openly like Yuri
Lotman, the master of a group of semioticians at Tartu in Estonia. More

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140 COMPARATIVE LITERATURE STUDIES

and more younger scholars have quietly questioned, mod

ened the shackles of the official doctrine. One can only hop
criticism and scholarship will again affirm its vitality, wh
for some hundred fifty years.
In discussing Russian literary criticism we have necessaril
in generalities. My title alone announces that we look for ess
for main trends. But it is, I think, a mistake to treat critics
histories, as representatives of specific historical views, soc
attitudes, and even trends of taste. Critics, at least the
personalities with their distinct physiognomies. They have t
est often to my mind greater than that of second-rate "cr
They also create values: they shape the past and future of l
comment directly or through the medium of books on life a
great figures of Russian criticism deserve and have som
detailed monographs, vivid portraits. Belinsky, Grigoriev,
Ivanov, Shklovsky, Tynianov, Bakhtin, and others are pr
beings, men in all their variety, complexity, and contradic
knowing in their own right.

Yale University

SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY

Histories of Russian Criticism:

Volynsky, A. L. (pseudonym of Akim L. Flekser). Russkie Kritiki. St. Petersburg, 1896.

Ivanov, I. Istoriya russkoi kritiki. 2 vols. St. Petersburg, 1900.
Lunacharsky, A., and Polyansky, V. Ocherki po istorii russkoi kritiki. 2 vols. Moscow-
Leningrad, 1929.
Gorodetsky, B. P.; Lavretsky, A.; Meilakh, B. S., eds. Istoriya russkoi kritiki. 2 vols.
Moscow-Leningrad, 1958.
Kuleshov, V. I. Istoriya russkoi kritiki VX1U-XIX vekov. Moscow. 1972.
Stacy, R. H. Russian Literary Criticism. Syracuse, New York, 1974.

pp. 256-60. New Haven, Connecticut, 1985.

On early Russian literary historiography, see: Jagic, V. Istoriya
Petersburg, 1910. Pp. 658ff.

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