SHORT HISTORY

R USS I A N LI T ERATU R E

TR A N SLATE D F R OM T HE R USS IAN

S H A K H N O V S KI

W IT H A SUP P i z M EN TA R Y C H A P TER B R IN G I N G TH E w on x
DOWN To DATE (WR I TT E N S P E CI A LLY F OR T H I S B OOK )

S ER G E T O M K EY EFF

LON DON

KEGAN PA UL, T R E N C H , T R U B N ER 8: Cd , Lt d .

N ew Y OR K E D U T I O N 8: Co
’ ‘

; . P . .
 CON TE N T S

P A GE

Introductory
CHAP I
. Oral and written literature
II
. Th e beg innings of written literature
III
. Th e monum en ts of the twelfth century
IV. The monuments of the thi rteenth century
V. Th e monuments of the fourteenth century
VI. Th e modern period
VI I
. Th e epoch of reconstruction
VI I I
. Sumar okov and t h e literary writers
under Catherine I I
Von Visin
Th e firs t Russian periodicals
N Y Karamzin
. .

Zh uk é vski
Kryl ov and the j o urnalism of the
Romantic epoch
A S Pushkin and his followers
. .

Griboiedov Lermontov
,

Gogol
M ode rn Literature Th e Sc h el lin gist s ,

Slavophils and West ern izers

Later poets and the great novelists
Grigorovich an d other nove lists
Russian Literature from Leo Tol stoy to
t h e present date

( Writte n by Serge Tomkeyeff

‘

. .
 I N TRODU CTOR Y .

Th e history of literature presents a progressive develop

ment of the art of writing in every country and is corre ,

lated wit h the culture of t h e people The refore a historical

.

treatise on literature must be a review of the pro ductions

of a people in chronological order so as to illustrate the ,

achievements in cul ture in which the spiritual endeavours

have found expression and influenced its life and character .

This literature at the outset may be oral i e transmitted , . .

,

by word of mouth but ultimat ely and generally it is written

, ,

and hence c all ed l it e rat ure ql

Th e Russian l anguage is Slavonic one of the branches ,

of Indo European Other great branches are Greek

-
.
,

some Indian languages Latin Teutonic etc , , but the , .

nearest aflin it ies to the Slavonic are Lithuanian and ,

possibly the earliest form of Celtic and Teutonic .

Th e Russian language is the di alect spoken in the

principality of M oscow and arose in its present structure
,

after the Tatar invasion Th e e arliest Russian literature

.

is in me diaeval Russian and ori ginated at Kiev where the

, ,

first Russian State was founded by the House of Rurik ,

.

Th e first princes of Kiev were Scandinavians who consoli ,

dated a Russian State Th e language was called Russian

.

from the time when the Slavs of Kiev under the rul e of
thes e Scandinavian princes ( call ed Vaerin gs or in Russian ,

Va riag) became united into this single State which was ,

called Rus I t is supposed that Rus was the appellation

.

originall y given to the Variag princ es .

In prehistoric times al l the Slavs must have spoken

what was essentially one speech There are now two main .

( In R uss ian t h ere are th r e e w ords for literature eac h e m ph asizin g ,

(t h at it is l an g uage) pis men n o st (t h at

’ '
an as p e ct s l o vé sn ost ,

it is writ t en )
,
Iit e rat ura ( t h at it conf or ms t o c an ons of art ) .
2 I NTRODU CTOR Y
sections of t h e Slavonic languages : the Eastern branch
comprises B ulgarian and Ch urc h Slavonic Serbian and
-
,

its dialects ; and Russian wit h its dialects ; the Western

includes Cech Polish and the Slav languages once spoken
, ,

in P russia and Saxony .

Th e oldest monuments of Slavonic speech are the

Ostromzr Gospel t h e Cech poem Sud Liubusy ( the trial of
'

Lj ubu sa) and the Croat ( in the Carpathians) or Slovene

fragments of t h e Vt h century all of these show how very
simil ar t h e Slav dialects then were As to Russian litera
.

ture : its first appearance as a separate literary language

different from wh at t h e people spoke may be assigned to
the X I I I and XIV centu ries
.
 CHA PTER I .

OR A L A N D WRI TTEN LI TERA TURE .

Russian literature falls under two h eads oral and popular , ,

or learned and artistic .

Th e learned literature is divided into three periods of

development the ancient the new and the modern
—
, , .

Th e ancient extends from the beginning of Russian

literature to the eighteenth century ; the new from the
eighteenth century t othe forties of t h e nineteent h century
the mode m to our own times Th e Russian renaissance.

came two centuries later t h an the Western .

THE ORA L LI TERA T U RE

Th e oral literature comprises t h e spontaneous pro
duct ion s of t h e min d and t h e imagination of t h e people ,

transmitted orally from generation to generation .

M an in preh istoric times distinguish ing him

THE
s elf from the outer world perceived to the
M YTHI C EPI C
full his feebleness and h elplessness face to face
with t h e unconquerable forces which made h im t h e h apless
victim of l ight and dark h eat and cold h unger and thirst
, , ,

misfortune and grief Placed in utter dependence on the

.

external powers of N ature he acknowledged N ature as the

,

supreme will as somet h ing divine and prostrated himself

‘

, ,

in a spirit of resignation and childlike veneration He .

accepted as a great miracle N ature s mysterious ph enomena

’

wh et h er in the cal m of triumph or the terror of h er anger

“

His observant mind was especial ly struck with the opposi

tion of light and dark heat and cold t h e growth in spring
, ,

time and the autumnal decay In this wise the deities.

3
 4 ORA L AN D WRI TTE N LI TERA TURE

of our ancestors evidently arose out of t h e gradu al explana

tion of t h e import of heaven and its portents according as ,

t h ey were kindly or harmful manifestat ions of N ature .

At first h e worsh ipped t h e Sun and the M oon next the Dawn ,

and t h e gloaming th under rain the wintry cold and the

, ,

rene w al in t h e Spring and so forth Later the ea rly Slavs

, .
, ,

as ot h er peoples began noticing these obj ects and half

,

unconsciously comparing t h em with other beings with

whic h t h ey were surrounded such as anim als ; and then ,

they began worshipping them in fantastic forms and ,

interc h anging the attributes of natural phenomena with

t h ose of man and the animal s Th e first phase is cal led .

anthropomorphism the second zoomorphism 1

, .

Th e adoration of the forces of N ature found expression

in many festivals especially at the begin ning of Spring and
,

autumn On these occasions there was a ceremonial

.

accompanied with songs Furthermore man in his depend

.
,

ence on the actions of N ature was constrained at many

moments in his life to implore the assistance of heaven ,

and put his desires into mysterious acts and words to which
he ascribed magical power Th e principal agents in this .

struggle were t h e heroes or in Russian boguty n who

'

, ,

represented the national powe r Their feats are a very .

ric h source for the history of the national poetry in view ,

of the epic myths they embody B ut there are still .

,

extant only a few fragments which now enable us to ,

elucidate t h is stage of the beliefs of the people Such .

relics are ( I ) Riddl es (e g the dawn t h e maiden the beau

. .
, ,

tious damsel walked in the woods and dropped her keys

,

the moon saw her and did not betray her : the sun saw
her and revealed her) or again the two sisters one bright , ,

the other dark— she flies without wings runs without ,

feet ails without wounds ( 2 ) P roverbs an d A dages which

, .
,

e xemplify the oral national style and serve to record an

aspect of life and condition lon g past and the ch aracter ,

1 So far as Sh akh n ov ski ; b ut ot h e r l at er writ er s. suc h as R am b aud,

h av e p rov e d t h at t h e Sl av s h ad a dv an c e d v er litt l e fr om t h v g
y e a ue
w orsh ip o f t h e nat ur al p ow er s b e for e t h e w er e c
y on v e rt e d t o Ch rist
I am t Th e y n e v e r e v ol v e d an t h in g l ik e an Ol m p us
y .

y y .
 ORA L AN D WRI TTE N LI TERATURE 5

ist ics of the habits of the hunters and shepherds (e g the . .

grey wolf in the sky catches the stars ; he lived in the

woods and worshipped the trunks ; from the hollow of
the tree there flew the brown owl the white owl or Satan ,
-

himself ) Vows and omens are found assoc iated with the
.

proverbs of the most ancient pe riod as also interpretations,

of dreams and medical prescriptions : and (3) there are ,

in connection with these last I ”m utations which are relics

, ,

of the ancient heathen prayers and imprecations .

Th e most important of t h e remains of the mythical

period are the ( I ) the Cer emon ial S ongs which accompanied ,

the family and communal holidays ; ( 2 ) the M y th ical

S ongs in wh ich the people adores the powers of Nature
and ( 3) the H erot o Song s of the boguty n which are intimately
’ ’

allied with the popular traditions and legends and con ,

st it ut e the transition from supernatural to ordinary beings .

From the myt h ical songs we know that P erim was

'

the god of thunder Volos or Veles the god of cattle Dazhb og

, ,

or Khors the god of the Sun an d St ribog the god of the

,

winds .

TH E H E RO I C EP I C
W hen the people began In the course
of its historic devel opment to under
.

stand its ow n st rength it resolved to combat the hostile

,

powers of N ature Thes e natural forces were emblema

.

t ize d as th e gods of darkness an d the champions of the

protec tors were adored as bright and kindly gods with
the attributes of human qual ities and shapes These .

kindl y and gent l e gods are t h e heroes or bogaty rz

'

Th e heroic songs of the P rince Vladimir an d those of the

e poch of the Tatar invasion represent actual events and
are therefore called historic Th e memor y of the Tatars
.

is conserved in such songs as those of Shchelkan Dudel te

vich Mikhailo Kozarin ov Tsar Kalin P rince Roman
, , ,

Dmit rie vic h an d his wife M aria Yfire vn a .

LD ER A N D THE Y O U N GER B O GA TY RI
TH E E .

Th e cycle of the heroic epics falls into two pe riods :

( I ) the Elder B ogatyri and ( 2 ) the Y ounger or the K ievi te ,

bogaty n the tal es of whom are centred round Prince

'

,
6 THE E LDER B OGA TY RI

Vladimir the red sun Th e forme r resemble ra ther super

’
.

natural beings : they are characterised by the power of

'

transforming themselves into animals and possess such

extraordinary streng th t h at it becomes a burden even to
themselves Th e latter are more like men do not trans
. ,

form their human stature : their strength al beit not to ,

the same degree as with t h e former is employed useful ly

in combating enemies in t h e persons of the peoples hostile
to the Slav nations and to these foes popular fancy has
G the el e m e rit s
i
transferred many of the
{a ere are st l l extant of t i ) ese t h e
'

ttributes
TH E ELD ER B O GA TY RI
legends of Svyat ogor of Volga
'

,
’

an d M ik iil a Selian in ov ic h i e N icholas the Vil lager s son

’
.
. .
,

Svy at ogor is a bogaty r of titanic size a giant of marvel l ous ,

stren gth which is a burden to himself His inabil ity to

,
.

use it has made him imm ire him self in the earth t o his
knees when he merely wanted to lift a double s h oul der bag
,
-
.

Sv y at ogor in due course handed to Ili a M firom et s his

strength and his steel sword He is a symbol of t h e forces .

of N ature .

VolgaB usl aevich has more h uman qualities He typifies .

the habits of the hunter P opul ar fan tasy identified him .

with a historical personage Ol eg the Wise (883 9 1 2 ,

—

Volga coll ects tribute from the subj ect peoples an d is ,

occupied with catching wil d beasts fish and bir ds for , , ,

which purpose he transforms himsel f into anim als .

He wins a victory outside Constantinople in a miraculous

way over the Turkish Salt an .

Mikiil a Selian in ovich typifies the agricultural man

’

whom the early Russians honoured above the warrior and

the huntsman This can be exemplified from this story :
.

that Volgais setting out to collect tribute and meets M ikula

on the way and proposes to him they should j ourney forth
together M ikiil a agrees but on the way remembers that
'
.
,

he has left a plough in the ground Th e companions of .

Volga are first sent to fetch it and then Volgahimsel f but ,

none of them can pull it up At last Mikiil a himself drags .

’

I t out an d herein shows the quality of his strength his ,

dexterity patience care and skill Mikula Sel ian in ovic h

_

, , .
 THE Y OU N GER B OGATY RI 7

may be considered to be transitional to the Y ounger

B ogaty ri the contemporaries of Vladimir Another me diate .

type is the person of the peasant Uia Muromet s the cham ,

pion of the p eople .

Th e Y ounger b0gat l are muc h

THE YO U N GER B O GA TY R I
more numerous ag; the Elder
'

They are al so call ed pol em cy a word which has been

’

derived from pol e ( field) Th ey constitute in the mselves

.

almost a people scattered locall y t h ough subsequently ,

the were centred at Kiev around t h e gentle P rince Vladimir

an then represented not only t h eir original homes (e g . .

Al iosh a P op ovich of R ost ov j Dobrynia N ikit ic h of Riaz an ,

but also typified classes of society t h e sons of priests— (in ,

Russia parish priests are not celibate) — the boy ars (nobles)
the druzh l ny (the ret ainers of noblemen) and the peasants
'
.

Th e P rince Vladimir who takes t h e part of King Arthur

in this Russian cycle is a historical character but is a con ,

t amin at ion of two pri nces of Kiev Vladimir I and Vl adi ,

mir I I who reigned 9 7 0 1 0 1 5 and 1 0 5 3 1 1 2 6 respectively

,
- - .

Th e principal of t h e Y ounger bogaty ri are Dobrynia

Nikit ic h Alyosha P op ovic h Ch uril o P ol en kovich and above
,

al l the people s favourite Ili a M u r omet s

’
the beau idéal ,

of the bogaty ri.

Th eir cha racters are well and consistently developed

,

in th is cycle of legend : and t h e variety and liveliness of

description constitutes this epic cycle one of the most
remarkable products of any popular literature .

Th e various deeds of t h e boga ty ri h ave come down to us

in the heroic cycle of Kiev of t h e Republic of N ovgorod
, ,

and some independent poems Th e N ovgorod cycle springs

.

from the separate history of th at city state and is quite -

distinct from the Kiev cycl e B ut in gener al these epic

.

poems consist of short sepa rate episodes written in the ,

unrhymed accentu al metre of t h at tim e These poems fal l .

under two heads the by line (b al lad ) and the songs

, .

( I ) Th e by l in e is a name given by the people itself

( derived probably from by l é e the past) and signifies a story
,

of an event that real ly happened as opposed to a legend ,

(skazka) which is conceived of as a composition or invention .

8 THE Y OU N GER B OGA TY RI

Almost all by l iny begin with a description of a fe as t in

the capital city of Kiev followed by stories of the feats of
,

t h e bogaty m wh et h er visiting the Prince from afar or

'

, ,

j ourneying away from K iev at the be h est of the P rince .

( 2 ) Th e songs generally contain none of these details ,

not even t h e name of the bogaty r nor of the enemy With , ,

whom he h as fough t nor t h e details of the combat In

,
.

fact t h e song gives a condensed and terse picture of t h e

,

bogaty r s life and may be classed as lyrical poetry or as the

’

, ,

epic styl e of the by l in a wh ic h is narrative B oth by l iny

,
.
-

and the lyrical songs in t h e matter of exposition bear t h e

traces of popular composition B esides the prevalence of .

t h e miraculous element t h ey are c h aracterised with a vast

mass of exaggerated versions of facts of positive and ,

negative similes and standing epithets .

Th e metre presents diflic ul t ies even to a Russian It ,

.

was essential ly based on the music al accompaniment on ,

t h e one hand and on t h e older Russian accentuation on t h e

,

other so t h at the feet of the verses might wit h in reason

,
—
,

consist of varying number of syllables In English a .

similar feature exists to a limited extent in what is known

as the Ch ristabel metre Th e c h aracteristic metre is a line
—

of four or five c h oric s al ways terminating in a dactyl It

, .

is however impossible to illustrate this in English : and

, ,

even the modern Russian imitations fail for they are ,

infected with t h e spoken regularity of modern lyrical verse .

It may be added t h at there perhaps hardly exists any so

beautiful and continuous folk literature of the Russian -
.

B ut it was not literature in the full sense it had no form

or idea and was not written When exposed to higher .

forms such folk songs perish of inanition for they are

,
-
,

e sse n t iall v non adaptable -

.
 CHA PTER II .

TH E B EGI N N I N G S OF WRI TTEN LI TERATURE .

Chr istianit y was introduced into Russia at the end of

the X century by P rince Vl adimir I and a delegation was ,

sent from Constantinople the seat of the Eastern Empire

“

and of t h e Orthodox Chur ch to convert Russia These .

missionaries brought wit h them the B ible and ecclesiastical

books which had already been translated into a Slav speech
,

closely akin to Russian Thus the Russians had from the

.

first one gr eat advantage that from the earliest days of the
,

introduction of Chr istianity its message was delivered

, ,

not in Greek or Latin which w ould have been unintelligible

, ,

but in a form comprehensible to the people Thereby a

. .

secure foundation was laid for literacy and literature and a

first step made towards the cultural training of Russia in
letters B ut before coming to the course of development
.

of Russian literature some reference must be made to the

,

authors of Russian letters Amongst others Saint Cyril

.
,

and M ethodius had enorm ous in fluence on the fostering of

Russian wr iting and literature
Sain ts Gymand M et h Od
.

S A I N TS om AN D M ET H OD I U S
were the sons of a Greek
.

governor Led and were born at Salonica in M acedonia .

M ethodius was the elder brother : the date of his birth is

not kn own but he died in 85 5 A D He served in the army
, . .
'

was the administrator of a Greek district in which there ,

dwelt many Slavs In the midst of his prosperity M ethod

.

ius sac rificed everyt hin g became a monk in one of the

,

monasteries on M ount Olympus .

Cyril the younger brother who was called Constantine

, ,

9
io B EGI NN I N G S OF WRI TTE N LI TER ATURE

until entered a monastery was born in 82 7 and died in

he ,
.

869 . He received a t h orough education at the B yzantine

court with t h e Empe ror M ichael He too threw over the .

Cou rt and became a monk and ultimately librarian in the

Cat h edral of Saint Sophia He loved solitude and left
.

’
the capital but returned to Constantinople at h is friends
,

request and became a lecturer on philosoph y Even I n his .

t wenty fourth year h e had been an ardent evangel ist

-
,

defending Ch ristianity against t h e M ahometans amongst

t h e Greeks of Little Asia and against the Jews amongst the
,

Kh ozars in t h e Crimea His brother M ethodius took a deep

.

interest in t h e travels of his brother and shared with him

in all his self abnegations in the cause of t h e Faith and
-

proselytism Cyril one day h eard t h at the Slavs living in

.

Greece were after baptism reverting to h eathendom as ,

they could not understand t h e Ch urc h service and there

fore he set himself to compose an alph abet to meet all the
requirements of t h e Slavonic speec h wit h its many sounds .

His letters h e took principally from t h e Greek al phabet ,

some from Hebrew some Armenian and some from Coptic

, .

Having made h is alphabet Cyril wit h the assistance , ,

of his brother M et h odius transl ated into Slavonic t h e

,

necessary books of ritual and these were used amongst t h e

,

B yzantine Slavs and t h ence probably spread to the B ol gars

,

( t h en a Finnish tribe) wh o were converted in the year 86 1 .

Th e period of the greatest activity of the two brothers

was during t h eir residence in M oravia Th e M oravian .

princes seeing t h at t h e people were unable to apprehend

,

even the elementary trut h s of Christianity addressed t h em ,

selves to the B yzantine Emperor M ichael ; who selected

Cyril for the purpose Th e success of t h e Slavonic mission
.

in M oravia aroused and alarmed the German Hierarchy

,

whic h dreading t h e loss of its influence on t h e M oravians

,

impugned t h ese first missioners before P ope N icholas I .

Th e P ope summoned t h e brothers to Rome for trial but ,

it was h is successor Adrian I I who h eard t h em and so far ,

from letting t h em be tried made M ethodius a B ishop and

,

sent him to M oravia where h e lived for sixteen years more .

Cyril worn out with toil di ed at Rom e

, , .
 B EGI N N I N G S OF WRI TTEN LI TE R ATURE 1 1

first endeavou Th e
rs to s read
THE SPREA D or L I TER A CY
literacy in Russia ar e ) be
.

ii
traced immediately after the conversion of Sain t Vladimir
( 97 0 Th e ancient Ch ronicles tell us how Vl adimir
built schools attached to the churches at which he directed
children were to be taught Y arosl av I the Wis e 7 8 1 0 54)
,

continued his father s work an d fur ther him sel? bou ght
.
-
’

, , ,

read copied and transcribed such books as were then con

,

sidere d pious an action whic h was then considered pious

,

and a step towards salvation It was t h en that the ancient

.

l ibrary at the Cathedral of Saint Sophia at N ovgorod was

founded .

I t was a fertil e soil for literature and as early as the

first half of the XI century the first literary productions
appeared But as B yzantium influenced Russia either
.
,

directly or indirectly th rough the B ulgarian Slavs it

, ,

followed that the first Russian models were merely Greek

ori ginals or translations and adaptations from the B ulgar
ian Th e principal obj ect of spreading the knowledge of
.

letters in the first period was t h e desire to give the people

l iterate priests and therefore t h e literates in Russia were
, ,

mostly the clergy and the religious h ouses Their aims in .

literary production were confined t o the copying t ran sl a ,

tion and rewriting of t h e precepts sermons and the epistles , .

Th e first authors in Russia were the M etropolitan of Kiev ,

H ilarion and the B ishop of Novgorod Zh idiat a Luka .

Zhidiét a the B ishop of N ovgorod ( died in 1 0 60 ) is known

,

by his admonition to the diocese of Novgorod the P recept

to Our brethren which contains an exposition of the
obligations of Ch ristianity the Chr istian to God to his ,

neighbour and himself This adm onition is remarkable for

.

his l an guage which is most pure colloquial Russian and is ,

the first example of precepts free from B yzantin e rhetoric .

H ilarion the metropol itan of Kiev was the first Russian

, ,

author on the Law given by M oses an d on ben evol ence and

truth which proceedfr om j esus Ch r ist he incl uded in his
book a laudation of Saint Vladimir and forms of prayer .

Hil arion manifests much knowledge of theolog y and dis

plays oratorical art .
I2 B EGI NN I N G S OF WRI TTE N LI TERATURE

is still extant a M anuscript

Th ere
THE OSTROM I R GOSP EL of about 1 0 5 0 a transcript of
.

the gospel made by Deacon Gregory for the governor of

N ovgorod Ost romir Th e M S was finished I n 1 0 5 7 Is
. . ,

written on a magnificent parc h ment in a large hand ,

writing wit h gilded illuminations decorated c apit al s and , ,

four large paintings of the Evan gelists Th e Manuscript .

is now preserved in the Imperial Public Library at Petro

grad and is t h e oldest monument in Slavonic and all
, ,

Slav peoples look wit h reverence at this priceless example

of t h e ar of writing of early Russia all the more as t h e
t ,

Russians alone of the Slavs have been able to keep such a

treasure of the ancient manuscript Th e Ost romir Gospel .

is all the more important as it is written in the ancient Slav

language almost uncontaminated in its most ancient
style : even t h e departures from t h e necessities of this
language are remarkable as t h ey indicate t h e peculiarities
,

of two dialects the sout h ern or trans Danubian and t h e

,
-
,

nort h ern of Russia .

Th e tradition is that N estor lived at the end of

N ESTO R
the XI and beginning of t h e X I I century He is .

considered the most ancient chronicler of Russia His .

compilation of Chronicles is headed Th ese are t h e tales

of the years in their seasons whence came t h e Russian ,

Land wh o in Kiev ruled in Kiev and wh ence the Russian

,

land hath arisen .

There is very little known about the h istory of N estor .

This much is reliable that he entered monastic life at the

age of seventeen about the year 1 0 7 3 and therefore must
,

have been born in or about the year 1 0 5 6 In 1 0 9 1 he .

was deputed to find the relics of Saint Theodosia Tlieodosius

of the Pech ch ora ( a sacred retreat near Kiev) and he carried
out his mission M odern savants have come to the
.

conclusion that the author of t h e Tal e of th e y ears

in th eir sea son s N estor is a rather legendary being j ust
, ,

like the I gurn en [ head of a monast ery the Greek fiy o fip evosfl

Sylvester whose name is found in t h e registers
further the na me of the author says one of the latest
authorities is of no consequence : what is of much
,
 B EGIN N ING S OF WRI TTEN LI TER ATURE
1 4
character of Th e
THE C H A R A CTER O F THE C HR ON I CLE S the chronicles de .

pends on the condition of culture and rank of standing of

the chroniclers who utilized many sources without e x er
“

cising much critic ism and even confused facts and del iberate
,

inventions or fantasies .

Th e chroniclers were entirely ecclesiastics and genera lly

monks : hence the chronicles are permeated with a pro
found reli gious feeling Th e first pages are devoted to a
.

description of the progr ess of Christianity in Russm: M uch

space is given up t o the equipment of the Chronicles to ,

specification of the icon s the immersion of the Cross and

, ,

also to consecration for the copyin g of books .

is ma rked
S
h
z ii
i g
ej n
THE EXPOS I T I O N OF EVEN TS
y ier séfig i d the absence
I N TH E C HR O N I CLE .

of coherenc e or connection
events are narrated in strict chronological order and the
succession of the years is observed so strictly that the
years are in some cases blanks whole pages in the Chronicle ,

are taken up with a list of the years .

Th e language is Church —Slavonic and 0 1 d Russian .

Church Slavonic is preserved in expressions with religious

-

import or borrowed from Holy writ I n the current .

chronicle the language is Russian which owing to the , ,

epic tone of the Chronicle approx imates to the col loquial

,

language This language is especial ly val uable for philology

.
,

which traces in it the principal marks of Old Russian speech .

THE E x TEN T or RU SS I AN c U LTU R E . REL I GI O U S T REN D

THE
I N R U SS I A N L I TERA T UR E . TH E FI R ST A TTEMPTS To FOU N D
A S EC U L A R L I TER A T UR E . TH E P R ECEPTS or V L A D I M IR I I .

1 0 5 3— 1 1 26 .

As l iteracy spread with Christian ity it was considered ,

necessary not so much for the general developm ent of the

intellectual and spiritual faculties as for the purpose of ,

satisfying the deman ds of piety : hence the Russian s in

the XI and XI I centuries whilst collecting quite con ,

side r ab l e libraries and reading and transcribin g from Greek

,

or didactic books confined themselves e x clusively to religion

, .
 B EG I NN I N G S OF WRI TTEN LI TERATURE 1 5

Hence it may be understood that the first att e mpts at

a secular literature in the X I and XI I centu ries were bound
to bear the impress of a strong reli gious influence This .

may be seen in the P recepts of Vl adimir I I one of the first

‘
,

ess ays to create a secular literature .

Vladimir I I was one of t h e most cultured and clear

sighted princes of his time He was too wise not to see t h e
.

serious position of the Russian period He was always .

obsessed with the anxiety for t h e Land of Russia torn and ,

wracked with dissensions and above all with fear for h is

, , ,

own sons who would inh erit from him .

He introduces his precepts with an account of t h e reasons

for whic h he is writing In 1 0 9 9 he had onl y j ust terminated
.

t h e brothers feuds and conc iliated the other rivalries and

'

was on his way h ome by the Volga when he was greeted ,

with an embassy from h is cousins calling on him to fight

t h e R o stisl avic h i of Galicia Envoys from my brot h ers
.

met me on the Volga and said : Come and j oin us : let

.
‘

us expel t h e R ost isl avic h i and annex their lands : and if

you will not j oin us remain wh ere you are : and we will
,

act for ourselves .

’
I answered them Even t h ough you be
angry I cannot come wit h you and b reak my oath
, Th e .
’

t h reat of t h e brothers to secede for h is refusal t o take part

in the new feud bitterly o ffended Vladimir Opening h is .

favourite book with which he never parted the psalter , ,

“
his eye fell on the psal m wh erefore art thou affl icted oh ,

my soul w h y dost thou confound me

,

Th e words of the psalm soothed him and he resol ved to

write an admonition for his son s As a practical man he
, .
,

strove to reconcile the Christian ideal with the obligations

which the social and famil y relations of h is time thrust on
the man in the world .

Th is Sh ort manual is divided into three parts In the .

first h e enj oins on h is sons to control their eyes to restrain

, ,

their tongue to appease the mind subdue t h e body and

, , ,

repress anger and practice purity of thought N e ?“ .

e

he preaches an evangelical gentleness which was q ( rite ,

unusual in t h at remote epoch He sees all evil in p gan

.

practices an d t h erefore makes his religious attitude p irom

,
I 6 E LEVE N TH AN D TWE LFTH CEN TU R I ES

in ent all through the book Repentance tears and alms . ,

are the best virtues where with to rede em sin : and the
best prayer in Vl adimir s eyes is Lord have mercy on
’
, ,

me a sinner Th e second part of the instruction touches

.

on the duties of t h e prince as a ruler In this part he shows .

h is fine qualities whic h he wish es to see in his children

“

.
,

N ot to forget the poor the orphaned to assist widows

, , ,

not to slay whether t h e j ust man nor the guilty and not to ,

bid others to slay them .

Knowing t h e h eedlessness of the Russian he advises ,

him not to rely on a bailiff nor a henchman in order that

”
none may moc k his house or his repast Farther on he .

does not forget the duties of a warrior and advises princes

to keep the sentry posts under their own scrutiny Several .

times h e repeats t h e words be not slothful .

In the third part Vladimir enumerates his expe ditions ,

t h e t hirt e e n great ones and 83 little ones and tel ls of his

‘

toils in war and the chase .

Th e M anual is curious in this respect that in the course ,

of directions on the ideal duties of the prince as a Christian

and ruler it also gives pictures of the life of princes of that
,

time and life in the Russia of the XI I I century Th e .

sympathy with children the wish to do them good the keen

, ,

interest in the events of the time give the inj unctions

brevity simplicity and naturalness
, .

A BRI EF S URVEY OF THE P R O FA N E LI TERA T URE OF THE

XI C EN T UR Y A N D THE B EGI N N I N G OF TH E X I I .

Th e precepts of Vl adimir I I though belonging to secular

,

literature bear the immediate trace of the ecclesiastical

, .

And it is very significant that the authors of these produc

tions were laymen who probably were the first to be moved
by the conviction that the clergy being preoccupied with ,

the general human aspect and problems exclusively rel igious

,

and dogmatic and being attracted by ideal endeavours

,

a fter Christianity was ill adapted to supply the needs of

-

th e c ontemporary Russian society These first monument s .

of l iterature exposed the needs of the time and provide a

very\ caustic disclosure of t h e deficiencies o f society Th e .

l
 E LEVE NTH AN D TWE LFTH CE NTURIE S 1 7

mass of t h e people undeveloped and to an extent of at least

,

hal f practically heathens was sca rcely fitted to regard

,

the problems of life consciously and was entirely absorbed

,

in the task of conserving its simpl e toilful existence from

t h e dangers which menaced it from al l sides In the .

moments of leisure and rest popular imagination could not

rise above the level of legends the legacies of immemorial
,

tradition and heroic songs in which the pride was in telling

,

of miraculous physical strength which served to safeguard

a limited pros perity whereby a few rude necessities were
,

satisfied Hen c e it is compre h ensible t h at the first aut h ofs

.

of sec ular literature in Russia were princes and noblemen

whose material position was secure Th ey had a merry .

and plentiful existence with the princes wh o fed and clot h ed

the m and shared their boot y wit h t h em This rank of the .

druzh in y [t h e retainers] was in many respects privilege d

and advantageous and made them t h e leading class and
, ,

t h e most important in the old Russian s c heme of society ,

and conferred on t h em the possibil ity of taking a serious

and conscious interest in t h e events of contemporary life ,

as t h ey occurred So that the best members of t h e druzhin y

.
‘

t h en sough t t h eir ideals not in t h e masses of t h e people

,

which were intellectually inferior to them not in t h e clergy , ,

which they deemed superior to every day work but -

,

in their noble and princ ely midst AS a consequence of .

this the minstrels of the Druzhina class fairly correctly

ascribed the causes of the feuds to the lack of patriotism ,

to the preference for personal self interests over t h e common

-

interests of the whole of Russia and surrounded with an ,

aureole of glory the n ame of t h ose princes who only sh ed

P agan blood not to inj ure but to preserve Russia and to
,

rescue her from foreign foes .

 CHA P TER I I I .

THE MON U M E N TS OF TH E TWE LFTH CE N TU RY .

principal record of the conscious and proper relation

Th e
of the druzhina in the life of Russia in t h e XI I c entury I S
the Tal e of th e expedition of I gor This tal e is one of the
.

best songs composed by t h e minstrel s of the druzhin y in

honour of th ose princes who stand for t h e ideal of t h e best
tendencies of the petty Courts .

Th e Tale conserves remains of heathen beliefs and this

was why a knowledge of a production so h ighl y poetic was
so little spread amongst t h e wr itten literature in Russia
and in time was completely forgotten it was only redis
covered at t h e end of t h e XVI I I century by the well known
l it érat eur and antiquary Count M usin P ushkin It was
-
.

printed and publish ed for t h e first time in 1 80 5 but t h e ,

incorrectness of the copyist who probably could not read

,

t h e ancient handwriting caused m an y errors to creep into

,

the text and it could not be revised with the original as the
, ,

latter was burned in the fire together with the whole

of M usin Push kin s library in the great fire of M oscow of
-
’

1 81 2 .

N othing is known of the poet who was the author of

the Tale Some learned. editors have opined that he was
illiterate and that his poem was written down by a scribe
from memory in consequence of which the metre was
,

distorted and some Church Slavonic elements introduced .

Th e author of the Tale described the conflict o f the

Ol govic h i and M on om akh o vich i ( rival families descendants
,

of Vladimir I I ) .
 TH E T WE LFTH CE NTUR Y 1 9

In 1 1 7 6 Vs evolod I iirevic h grands on of Vladimir I I was

Grand P rince : but the seat of government had by then
been remov ed to Vladimir ( a city near M oscow) to which ,

region the political centre of gravity was then d efinitely

shifted At K iev t h ere reigned the eldest of the Ol govic h i
.
,

Svyatosl av Vsévol odovic h who assumed the title of Grand ,

P rince Th e first years of Vsév ol od s reign were occupied

’
.

with savage warfare with Svyatosl av Two princes .

,

Riiirik and Dav y d stand out free from amongst the M ono
,

m akhovichi and on the other side Igor an d Vsevolod t h e

sons of Svyatosl av Th e former of these distinguished
.

himself in a brill iant victory over the Khans ( rulers) of the

P olovtsy ( savage Tura n ian nomads who had been infesting
Russia for some fifty years) Kob y Ak and Konch ak in ,

1 1 71 in the reign of the Grand P rince Andrew B ogoliiib ski

, .

B ut the Ol govic h i had often dishonoured t h emselves by

availing themselves of the assistance of t h e Polovtsy .

Thus in 1 1 8 1 Vs evolod was prominent in the ranks of t h e

“

P olovt sy who had been hired by Svyatosl av to serve against

,

t h e Grand P rince Igor h ims el f acted as the leader of these

.

P olovtsy but was defeated near Kiev by a M on om akh ovic h

, ,

R iii rik R ost isl av ic h Th us t h is appeal to the Pel ovst y

’

.
,

h ad cast a slur on the Ol govic hi in t h e eyes of the people

wh ic h was more attached to the descendants of t h e M ono
makhovichi who had always faced t h e P olovtsy In 1 1 81 the
,
.

southern Russian P rinces had armed against the Polovtsy .

Th e expedition in which Igor the prince of Novgorod ,

Sév ersk i [ a town near Kursk] and his brother Vs evol od

.

of Tr ub e c h [anot h er principality in the same region] refused

to take part was successful , .

In 1 1 85 Igor and Vsevolod themselves undertook an

“

expedition against the P el ov ot sy and there went with them ,

Igor s son Vl a dimir the prince of Putivl and Sif yat osl av
’

of Rylsk It was this foray whic h served as the theme for

.

the Tale Th e Chronicle relates t h at the princes as they

.

n eared the Don saw the Sun standing like the moon :
and t h ey took this ecl ipse as an evil omen and informed ,

Igor accordingly who however paid no regard to the

, , ,

portent and crossed the Don At Oskol k he waited two .

20 THE TWE LFTH CEN TURY

days for his brother Vsevolod from Kursk Th e first .

battle with the P olovtsy was favourable to the Russran s

and t h e Druzhina captured the whole of the e n ermes camp
o
’

as their booty Th e second was unfortu n ate an d termi nated

.

wit h the capt ure of the princes Th e repentance of Igor as.

portrayed I n the Chronicle finely set forth the fright ful

misery which the people had to endure from these feuds .

Wh ilst Igor was in captivity a Polovets Lavor came to

him and advised him to flee o ffering his help but Igor , ,

declined on the plea that he woul d not sully himself with

,

an evil repute B ut on second thoughts he foll owed the

.
, ,

advice of the men and resolved on flight an d succeeded

in escaping He returned wit h his son Vla dimir ( who had
.

married a daughter of the Khan of the P olovtsy) and with

his brother Vs evolod .

A comparison of the story as told in the Chronicle and

in t h e Tale shows that his poetic narrative is much Sh arper
’
and circumstantial in depicting the epoc h Igor s expedi .

tion —in itself an unimportant detail— was chosen by the

,

poet owing to h is patriotic feeling and h is regard for the .

interests of his time Th e poetry is especial ly strong in

.

t h e Dream of Svyatosl av I I I and the Pl aint of Yarosl avn a .

In its language the Tale presents some resembl ance in

its epic turns with the modern Southern Russian poetry
e g
. . t h e simile of the battle as a banquet or as the toil of
, ,

the h usbandman the comparison of a weeping woman with

a cuckoo ( in the Plaint of Y arosl avn a) or with a turtl e
dove or some other bird Ancient forms have been con .

served in the lan guage and fore tokens of the Southern -

Russian dialect It has been translated into modern

.

Russian by M aikovski Me i and Min aev .

TH E S ER MO N OF CY RI L T UR OV S KI
O ur preachers fostered
on the Bible and bo th
.

Testaments imbibed the conceptions and views there con

,

t ain e d and educated themselves to the so called universal

,
-

Christian spirit whilst on t h e other hand they followed

,
,

the interpretations and explanations of the B yzantine

writers and thus became imbued with their teaching an d
ideals such as the ascetic attitude towards life very
,
,
 CHA P TER IV .

THE MON U M E N TS OF TH E THI RTEE N TH

CE N TUR Y .

Th e er of Daniel the P risoner

ray
D A N I EL TH E P RI SO N E R is en firel made up of the P arabl es
’

y
of S ol omon and the B ooks of th e Wisdom of j esus th e son ,

of Sirach It is aimed at softening the heart of wrath of

.

the prince of Perey asl avl ( ne ar K iev) who was a patron of ,

Daniel . He neatly combines extracts from the b ooks

above mentioned with Russian proverbs with reproac h es ,

at the events of t h e time in Russia which have a purely

autobiographical interest Wh o Daniel the P rison er was
.

we do not know From his work which very much pleased

.
,

Russian l ittératenrs for the a ffectedness of the style it is ,

clear that he was on frien dl y terms with the P rince of

Pe rey é sl avl Y arosl av Vsév ol odovic h who became angr y
, ,

wit h him and banished him to Lake Lache ( in the present

province of Ol onets) It is not known whether h e received
.

pardon .

From al l of the foregoing we see that the soil for culture

in Russia manifested itself very suitable that literacy ,

which was the first stage— had no difficulty in penetrating

all the upper ranks of society and spread pretty evenly
,

according to the classes that the love of collection and

,

transcribing books was the same in the clergy amon gst the ,

princes and their druzhin y : but that the Tatar atrocities

with their terrible results almost annihilated the be ginnings
of the ancient Russian civil ization This was the o nl y body
.

that kept alive these commencements of e nl ightenment on

the national soil of Russia before the XI I I century the ,
 TH E THIRTEE N TH CE NTUR Y 23

Church : and this was why the nomad Tatars who so swiftly
conquered the greater portion of the Russian dominions ,

were not to be attracted and struck by the picture of the

settled civil life which they found in ex istence in Russia
B ut the superstitious imagination of the h al f savage Horde -

was as it were amazed at the picture of the religious life

, ,

of old Russia by the multitude of magnificent churches

,

and rich monasteries the splendour and o rder of the out

,

ward ceremonial side of t h e divine service Thus the effect .

was that a yarl y k [a Tatar word incorporated into Russian

meaning something between charter or prerogative ] was
granted to the clergy and promul gated the release of the
,

Church from tribute and conferred exemptions whereby

,

t h e Tatar K h ans evi dently endeavoure d to curry favour

wit h the Ch urch and to dispose of it to their advantage .

Thus the clergy secure be h ind the mon astery walls occupied
,

t h eir time not only wit h transcribing chronicles mis

, ,

c e l l a n ies and translations of the XI XI I and XI I I centuries

, ,

but also began working to raise t h e religious spirit and the

morality of the masses Th e clergy regarded t h e Tatar .

invasion as t h ey told t h eir congregation in their adm on i

,

tions as a Divine chastisement for Sin and observance of

,

P agan customs Serapion the B ishop of Vladimir has

.
, ,

left us some remarkable sermons in this arduous period of

Russian history .

A ll that we know from the Chronicles for

S ER A P I ON
certain of this important personage of his
.

time is that he w as very learned and earnest in divine lore ,

and that in 1 2 7 4 he was promoted from being archimandrite

of the Kiev Pe c h erski monastery to be B ishop of Vladimir
and in 1 2 7 5 that he died Seven of his treatises ha ve come
’

down to us In them he exhorts his flock to r epen t en c e

.
,

to redemption from punishment and woe sent by t h e devil

as a penalty for sin Amongst the miseries h e includes t h e
.

Tatar incursion .
 CHA P TER V .

TH E M ON U M E NTS OF THE FOUR TEE N TH

CE N TURY .

Some facts about the Tatar yoke

TH E ZAn oN SHCH I N A
.

stirred t h e minds and imaginations

of contem poraries and these found expression in a whole
series of tales which were cal led precatory on account of
t h e impression they produced on the reader Th e most
.

remarkable of these are the tale of the slaying of M amai

and t h e Zadén sh ch ina ( derived from Dan the victory of,

Dmitri Donskoi over the Tatars in These composi

tions disregar ding their mo re or less pretentious style are
,

marked for their sincerity their limitless hate of t h e Tatar

,

and their fel low f eeling with the Russian people which was
the victim of the lamentable oppression Special intere st
.

attaches to the Zadén sh c hin a as an imitation of the Tale

of t h e Expedition of Igor.

Th e Z adén sh c hin a is only one of the narrativ es of the

B attle of Kulikovo
It found for itself a worth y minstrel lik e the aut h or of
t h e Tale of Igor it proceeds to find imitators of this poem
and trut h to say not artistic ones For instance the
, , .
,

prolix farewell lament of Dmitri s wife is a flabby and

’

vacuous plagiarism on the Lament of Y arosl avn a In t h e

. .

place of B oyan the Zadonsh c hin a speaks of a wise B oy ar ,

a marvellous fiddler in Kiev the poetic al image

of the nightingale of olden times 1 3 turned into a lark ,

a summer bird the j oy of a summer day or a nigh tingal e

which is invited to sing the glory of Dmitri I v anovich
 THE FOUR TEENTH CEN TUR Y 25

Don sk éi
. This tale of the Zadé nsh china is ascribed to a
B oyar ( nobl e) Sofroni .

A mon gst t h e productions of t h e XIV centu

AP OCRY P HA are the so c al led apocryphal t al es The
‘

. a.

bec ame part of Russian literature very early and lasted

into the XVI century They were Spurious stories of
.

rel igious con tent such as Th e Comman dmen t of A dam

, ,

Th e P ray er of Seth En och j acob s Ladder The Comman d

'

, , ,

men t of th e Twel ve P atr iarchs The Journ ey of th e M other

,

of God through Hel l etc , .

TH E LI TER A T URE FR OM TH E T I M E O F IVA N THE TERR I B LE

To TH E M I DD LE OF TH E XVI I CEN T UR Y .

Th e end of the XVI century marks the termination of

the ancient period of Russ ian literature It was a time when .

in society t h ere was no original life no positive interests , ,

no respect for personal righ ts or public opinion P olitical .

circumstances aided in concentrating power in t h e hands

of the princes to the most perilous e x tent Russian .

society up to this time had passed through this extremity

in developing those principles wh ich had in forme d it s life ‘

and surroun ded on al l sides wit h the most unfavourable

conditions for any further evolution severed from European ,

influence by hostile and envious neigh bours it had to ,

content itsel f with what it had worked out for itself by

its own devices and scanted means Hence it came about .

that in that part of society wh ich was more prone to

apat h y and stagnation anot h er disease showed itself
, ,

not less serious namely a false and presumptuous notion

, ,

of the import and value of everything Russian as an ,

indisputable model not needing any modification : and

together with this conviction the utmost revulsion from
,

anything foreign a mistrust and dread of any innovation

,

however evidently advantageous However in opposi .

,

tion to these extreme connections there had also grown

up un der t h e influence of certain casual conditions some
'

distant ec h oes of the vast progressive movement whic h

was guiding all of Europe in the XV and XVI centuries ,

known as the Renascence At this epoch one of strife of

. ,
26 THE FOURTEE NTH CE NTURY

various elements it was the fate of Russia to possess one

,

of the most notable of our social and literary actors of the

\

XVI century .

Th 1 5 man was M ax im t h e G ree k a

'

M A X ’M THE GR EEK
monk of At h os who was invited to
"

Russia to catalogue a large library of Greek manuscripts

t h at had accumul ated in t h e library of the Grand P rince
Vasili I oan novic h ( 1 47 9 Fortunately he lived in
Russia the greater half of his life and acclimatiz ed himself ,

was drawn with an intense longing to enl ighten Russia ,

which was so rich in moral and intellectual powers : and

thanks to his life of self denial he succeeded in educating
-
,

a generation of new Russians qual ified to divorce themselves

from the dreadful activities of t h e XVI century to out
distance them and proc eed farther on the road of a develop
ment more intellectual and ethical .
1

M axim the Greek was invited to Russia in 1 5 1 8 ; at t h e

age of 3 8 He had spent the greater part of his youth in
.

N ort h ern Italy which in the XV centur was the refuge

,

of the Greek savants wh o sough t safety m m the Turkish

yoke In Italy he taught the old classics whom he often
.

called his first teacher : but he was equ al ly famil iar wit h
modern l anguages Italian and French Th e famous
, .

Florentine reform er Savonarola the vigorous upholder

,

of early Christian ideals and morality against the lux ury and
pro fligac y of the manners of t h at day and the arbitrariness
of the clergy had beyond doubt great in fluence on M axim
, .

From Italy he ret urned to Greece and at Athos t oo k his

vows as a monk On his arrival at M oscow he did not
.

content himself with his modest position as a translator

and corrector of ecclesiastical and sacred books but ,

directed his attention exclusively to polemics against false

teach ings which were current in t h e Russian Church and
exposed the principal social in suffi c ien cies .

Th e civil disorder during the reign of B asil l oan n ovic h

( 1 47 9 to 1 5 3 3) and the minority of Ivan I V ( 1 5 3 0 to 1 5 84)
furnished ample mate rial for the condemnatory work of
M a x im .
Altogether he wrote 1 4 0 works in Russia M ost .

of them were written to combat the Judaizing heresy in

 THE FOURTEE NTH CE NTUR Y 27

Russia as well as the attempts to Romanize and the attacks

,

on orthodoxy as also against the false interpretation by

,

t h e orthodox of religious dogmas Calumnies by h is

enemies consigned M axim as a heretic to the Vol okol am ski
,

monastery Iv an t h e IV had him transferred to the

.

Troitse Sergievski convent where he died

-
.

THE DOM OSTR é I .

A detailed account of the Domost r ois ( a translation

in to Russian of the Greek oin ovépo s the management of a ,

house whence t h e modern notion of economics) is of more

,

importance to the history of the habits of that time than

to l iterary history As a literary product it is an expression
.

of convict ions and opinions prevailing in society Th e .

Domost ré i l s ascribed to P ope ( prie st ) Sylvester t h e tutor ,

and adviser in morality of Ivan IV It consists of 63 chap .

ters and an introduction Th e author exp ounds the rules

.

according to which t h e lay sh ould c onduct th ems elves ,

manage their houses their family life and their demeanour

,

to those around them Th e Domb st réi covers t h e wh ole

.

field of the higher and lower requisites in social be h aviour

and t h e needs and even the graces of manners Th e most .

curious sections are the chapters de sc ribing the position

of t h e Russian woman in the XVI century bot h in t h e
upper and lower circles A perusal of parts of t h e
. .

Dom ost roi is recommended to those who want to get a

clear presentation of famil y life in Russia in the XVI century .

Th e sc ribes and commentators

THE I N T R OD U CT I ON OF
had grievously mutilated t h e
P R I N TI N G I N TO RU SS I A Texts of Holy rit Th e M etro
“

W .

politan M ac arius persuaded Tsar Iv an to introduce

printed books into Russia as the only mean s of ,

providing ag ainst such corruption With this obj ect .

the first typographer was summoned from Denmark ,

and was assigned as assistants two deacons Iv an Fe odorov

and P eter Timofeev M en sh al ovt sev Thus printing was .

first bro ught into Russia almost seventeen years after

the first Slavonic book had been printed at Cracow
and at least thirty years after there had been printing ,
28 THE FOURTEE N TH CE N TU R Y

in Slav lan uages and Cyrillic Slav t ype Th e reason

g
.

for this tardiness in introducing printing is not merely the

mistrust and dread of any innovation but also the special ,

circumstances of soc iet v of that epoch regarding knowledge

of letters and writing .

Two 0f
w i n I V AN D A N D REW 14 1 10 1 11 1 1 0 v K URB S KI
the prin .

cipal fi gures of the second half of the XVI century were

Ivan IV and Andrew M ikh ail ovic h Kurb ski Th e secular .

literature of this century reve als a lively picture of the

actual conditions of t h e conflict of two opposite principles
, ,

which obtained in the society of ancient Russia Iv an IV .

,

as a write r in many respects shows the influence on himse lf

,

of his a ge of h is severe and troubled c h ildhood and his

education H is literary work was a correspondence with
.

Prince Kurbski and a message to Kozm a the igwmen of

the Monastery of Saint Cvril at B eloozero B oth of these .

deserve special attention .

Ivan s writings prove him to have been erudite well

’
,

acquainted with t h e Scriptures and transl ations of the

Fathers of the Churc h t h e Russian Ch ronicles and chrono
graphs from which b e derived knowledge even of universal
,

history that of Rome and Greece This wide reading is

,
.

combined with an astonishing lack of education he often

does not know how to use and arrange th e store of informa
tion facts and ideas wh ich h e treasured in his memory
, .

Hence his exposition is confused h e lumbers up his para ,

graphs with a mass of citations apposite or inapposit e :

his style fails of lucidity wh erever he tries to e x press his
thoughts in bookish fashion and disdains to use the simple
,

popular manner in which he was adept He wrote two .

letters to Kurb ski of wh ich one is long enough to make a

,

whole volume Kurb ski wrote Iv an four letters Th e

. .

correspondence ranges from 1 5 7 3 to 1 5 7 9 This famous .

correspondence started after the betrayal of Iv an by

Kurb ski and the latter s flight to Livonia and entry
’

into the service of the King of P oland .

In Kurbski s letters to the most powerful of the rulers

’

of M oscovy one may detect the voice of a strong pers on alit y

 CHA PTER VI .

TH E M ODER N P ERI OD.

B efore entering on a review of the modern p eriod in

Russian literature it is necessary to give some space to
the rise of a new culture in Sout h Western Russia in the
, ,

XVI century t h e progress of education in the XVI I to the

, ,

sc h ools and teac h ers of that time and lastly to the new
,

literary principles introduced at M oscow by learned men

from Kiev .

During nearly the wh ole of t h e sixteenth century all ,

t h e conditions of home a ffairs at M oscow and in the

Moscovi t e State continued most unfavourable for the
acceptance and spread of culture and consequently most
,

of N ort h Eastern Russia still langu ished in the deepest

gloom of ignorance Fortunately t h e better and enlight
,

e ned men of t h at time to a greater extent than at any

,

ot h er began to recognise that ignorance saps t h e best forces

of the people and is the cause of disorder moral political ,

and economic such as was crus h ing t h e Russia of that

,

period .

Just about that time on the South Western and Western

borderlands of Russia a spark of culture was glowing
whic h was destined to be refracted to good e ffect in the
far distant N orth East Th e moving factors in this border
.

land were t h e so called B rotherhoods which first took a

-
,

purely ph ilant h ropic character but subsequently towards

, ,

t h e end of the XVI century began directing their e fforts

,

towards t h c raising of the standard of literacy in the peopl e

 THE MODER N PERI OD 31

to a very notable degree These brot h erhoods at the same

.

time made themselves prominent as the saviours of the

nation and the faith from the intrigues of the Jesuits .

Th e parish schools of the Church at fir st t augh t on ly reading .

and writing but towards the end of the XVI century

,

began teaching languages Greek Slavonic Russian , , , ,

Latin and P olish grammar rhetoric poetics dialectics

, , , , ,

theology and many oth er sciences On e ! Prince Ost rt ski .

( so call ed after Ostrog in Volh ynia) founded such a school

in his proprietary village of Ostrog in 1 5 80 About the .

same time similar schools were established at Lvov Vilna , ,

B rest M insk M ogilev and Kiev

, , ( M ost of these towns
, .

are in P oland on the P ol ish Russian frontier on either side ) , .

It shoul d also be stated that when Guttenberg s epoch

‘ ’

making invention of printing was a rousing the c rookedest

interpretations an d even superstitious doubts at M oscow ,

the very centre of Russian pol itical life the printing machine ,

was bringing the greatest benefits to the Russian population .

One of the h igher schools founded at Kiev and attached

to the Church of t h e Epiph any was in 1 5 94 called the School
of Hellenic Slavonic and Latin P olish learning
- -
.

On e P eter M ogila the son of a M oldavian general

,

( 1 5 97 to 1 64 8) one of t h e most remarkable and enlightened

personalities of that time enabled the School of the Epiphany
to expand the sphere of its work At his own expense he .

sent monks and laymen abroad to complete their education

and qualify for the teaching profession .

I n 1 63 1 P eter M ogila reorganized the brotherhood

'

school into t h e Kiev M ogilian ski College and at his own

expense built class rooms and used his large inheritance to
-
,

endow the College and provide sc h olarships for the poorest

pupil s he instituted a library and in pursuance of his
, , ,

e fforts to raise the standard of education founded at

Vin n ic a ( in P odolia) a lower preparatory school to the
College Furthermore P eter M ogila gave up all his leisure
.
,

to compile manuals school books and other similar pro

,

Th e tit l e P r in ce is am b iguous in En glish I n En glish it sign ifies .

one of t h e R oy al b l oo d, b ut it is al so use d t o tr an sl at e t h e R ussia n

km az th e Ger man Fw d , a t it l e o f a l ar ge l an de d-pro priet or
’

.
,
32 THE M ODE R N PER I OD

duc t ions ,
suc h as according to contemporary pedagogic
conceptions would be likely to be distinctly useful in the
development and training of t h e pupils .

In the XVI I century the Kiev College had become t h e

model of all higher educational establish ments in South
Western Russia meeting in full t h e demands of the time
, ,

and reflecting the historical conditions under which this

education had developed against which all the workers
,

had perforce to contend T h e Kiev M ogilian ski Coll ege

.
,

which was reorganized in 1 7 0 7 into an Academy rendered ,

Russian education imm ense and inval uable services .

After the re annexation of Little Russia to Russia ( 1 667 )

- -

t h e eloquent and artistic clerical orators wh o proceede d to

M oscow brought with them new ideas toget h er wit h their ,

educated love of knowledge and respect for it and there ,

they at last succeeded in implanting a consciousness of the

necessity of education and finally through the terrific
, ,

weapon of their eloquence managed after a long and severe

,

struggle to overcome the bleakness of the ignorance and

prej udice of the religious and social scheme of old Russia ,

which voiced itself in cavill ings and accusations of heresy .

Th e Kiev savan ts laid the first foundation of Russian

classical literature : t h e schools whic h made their first
appearance in Russia in the first half of the seventeenth
century as also the Academy founded at M oscow towards
the end of that century used the manual s of Lavren ti
,

Zizani Tust an ovski ( the first Slavonic grammar) of M eleti ,

Sm ot ric ki ( his grammar was used in the schools down to

the time of Lomon osov) Cyril Tran kvil ion Simeon Pol oc ki
, ,

and many others All of these men had received their

.

education in the South Western schools and the Kiev

-

Mogil ian ski Academy .

Th e M oscovite State was closing

I GN ORA N C E A N D THE it s
P R ESS CO RRECTOR S
-
.
account with the past but was ,

still far from recognising that the

t ime had come above all to grapple with the problem of
introducing education into its dominions already very ,

spac 1 ous .

Th e people was still impressed with a vivid fe el ing of

 THE M ODER N P E R I OD 33

the past It had witnessed the fal l of the nobility as a

.

cl a ss under Ivan the Terrible an d now saw those same

,

B oy ars in most indisputable mastery under the new dynasty

of the Romanovy On e consequence of this was that the
.

people arrived at the conviction that al l good or evil could

only come from above from the Tsar and the h igher classes
, , ,

down to t h e lower Hence it is understandable that it was

.

only M oscow that coul d take any step forward on the road
of moral an d intell ectual advancement Unfortun ately; .

the reverence for an tiquity exaggerated and carried to the

,

point of the ridiculous the love of tradition the supersti

, ,

tious dread of any innovation hung like a fearful l oad on

t h e spiritu al and intellectual life of the Russian people ,

situated as it was in e xt raordinary isolation and crippling

,

confinement Th e extreme illiteracy and general ign orance

.

Combined to m ake t his tendency esp eci al ly real with regard

to rel i gious subj ects and questions of ritual .

Th e sacred books and books of Divine Service were

printed almost as faultil y and badl y as in former times ,

before the introduction of printed books wh en they were ,

transc ribed by scribes Th e very slight knowledge of read

.

ing made it diffi cul t to find a press reader or corrector to -

,

prevent the appearance of mistakes designed or undesigned .

Th e press readers according to the monk Arsenik Gl uk h oi

-
,

(wh o was engaged by the Patriarch Ph il aret ) to correct

printed books were men who had no idea of o rthography
or heterography and did not even understand the dis
tinction between vowel s and consonants .

Th e disasters which
TH E FIR ST sc n oor s I N MOS COW
ov e rwh e l me d Russia at
.

the end of the XVI century and beginning of the XVI I

did much to shake the firmness of the faith of Moscow in
its material power and import ance .

Under Tsar M ichael ( 1 5 96 1 645 ) it was not only work

-

men craftsmen an d manufacturers who were imported

,

from abroad : the need of knowledge forced Russians to

adm it t he pre ernin en ce of foreigners in science and a long
-
,

series of invitations of learned men from Western Europe

pre pared the soil for a very rapid evolution in the life of
34 THE M ODER N P ERI OD

Russian society for an accelerated in tercourse with We st

,

ern Europe .

Th e recognition of t h e n ecessity of knowledge in Russia

was man ifested in the first place wit h the obj ect of c on serv
ing Russian individuality from foreign ers an d secondl y , ,

to safeg uard the purity of the religious prmcrpl es Russia

.

h a d taken over from the Greeks .

Thus it was t h at P atriarc h Ph il are t in 1 633 foun dedt h e

first highe r school attached to the M onastery of the Miracle
called the Ch udovski or Greco Latin Sc h oc l Th e monk
- .

Arsenik Gl ukh oi was set over this school : h e was one of the
most educat ed men of his time .

Some years later by Imperi al ukciz t h e complete ,

Cosmography was translated from Latin by Ivan Doom

and B ogdan Lykov .

Kot oshikh in and

KOTOSHI KHI N A N D rum KR I Z HA N I CH
Krizh an ich must
.

be considered the most eminent writers of the second half

of the XVI I century Th e former was a copyist at t h e
.

ambassadorial office which was presided over by the

General P rince Dol goruki During the second Polish war
.

(in 1 66 0 ) he did not agree with the General and fearing

vengeance fled to P oland and thence to Sweden where he
was punished for the murder of the master of the house in
which he was staying— the quarrel arose over the mistress
of the house On e book of his is extant
. On Russia under ,

Tsar Alexis M ikh ail ovic h In this book Kot osh ikh in
‘

demonstrates the inco mpetence of the boy ars as governors

and advisers of the Tsar principal ly because ma ny of the m
,

had not learned how to read nor had studied He al so ,

speaks of the condition of the j udicature and compares

Russian institutions with those of Western Europe .

I iiri Krizh an ich a Croat by race was a Catholic priest

, ,

and arrived in Russia in 1 65 9 He is noticeable as a pro

.

pounder of the Union of the Churches but of this he soon

despaired and became absorbed with the idea of foun ding
a vast Pan Slavonic State which in his estimate should be
-
, ,

established in the future under the immediate direct leader

ship of Russia .
 THE MODERN PER I OD 35

Krizh anic h c ame to Russia as he says for three reasons

with three obj ects in view : 1 n t h e first place to foster
the Slav Lan guage and write a grammar and lexicon so
,

that we might write and sp eak c orrec t l secondly to com

pose a history of al l the Sla vs in whic h e wanted to refute
the German lies and slanders : thirdly to expose the
machinations and deceptions wherewith foreign peoples
delude us Slavs .

Of these obj ects he accomplished the first and the last

but even thus it was in banishment at Tobolsk where he ,

was sent by Tsar Alexis ( 1 62 4

In any case there were in comparab1 l
P A TRI AR C H N I CON more wh o were devoted to t e old or d i
,

h
‘
'
. e
\
than there were champions of the new Hence there was .

a party confl ict on e party powerful in numbers the other ,

pre eminent for ethical pre eminence This conflict started

- -
.

l
publicly unde the patriarchat e of N icon ( 1 60 5 to
r
He presents one of the most remarkable types of that
arduous period of transition in Russia between from
towards the end of the XVI I century before the opening
of the epoch of reconstruction .

Nicon was t h e son of a peasant who at the age of 1 2 ,

ran away from his parents to a monastery where n ot wit h ,

standing his youth he surprised t h e inmates with his

,

feats .

His parents recalled N icon from the monastery and

forced h im to marry but he soo n again left his family and
,

returned to the monastery : he removed to the B eloe

.

Ozero where he became a simple friar at the A n zerski

h errnit age and soon after he was made igumen of t h e
,

Kozh eezerski ( in the province of On ega) monastery In .

1 646 Nic on happened to be in M oscow on the business of

his monastery an d was noticed by Tsar Ale xis who was
struck with the stately manner and unusual force of speech .

He did n ot return N ort h any more and in two years was

made metropolitan of Novgorod a n d four years later
Patriarch .
 CHA PTER VI I .

THE E P OCH OF RE CON STRU CTI ON .

How powerful was the party that loathed any innova

tion at the end of the X VI I century in the reign of P eter I
may be j udged by the wel l known will of Patriarch I oakim
-
,

who tried to convince P eter I and John to exp e l all foreigners

from Russ ia P eter the Great real ly is like a bogatyr
'

Tsar fig hting the sluggishness of his day : he in itiated the

,

epoch of reconstruction .

There is no reason to enlarge on the impo rtance of the

epoch of Reconstruction : h istory has done this for us
but those aspects only of this great epoch must be reviewed
wh ich were re—echoed in the literature of the first half of
the XVI I I century and impres sed them selves on the whole
course of the subsequent enlightenment of Russia .

To begin with an account of the education of P eter t h e

Great himself His purel y practic al mind could not regard
.

education otherwise than from a utilitar ian point of view :

hence it is comprehensible why the great reconstructor
concerned himself so little to aggrandise such schools as
the Slav Greek Academy Th e literary tendency was
-
.

merel y one of transl ations P eter himself transcribed.

books appointed translators and some times corrected

,

the translations In 1 7 2 4 he founded the Academy solely

.

for teaching languages : there were other schools e q ual ly

practical but none even thought of institutions for g eneral
education— the tendency was entirely practic al .

P eter the Great founded the N ational Theatre for

willing spec tators In 1 7 0 2 I ogan Kun sh t reached
.

M oscow as the Director of Come dies of his I mperial

”
M aj esty Kunsh t at Peter s co mmand wrote a comedy
’
.
,
38 KA NTE M I R
In 1 7 1 6/Feofan was summoned to P etersburg A wh ole .

series of sermons delivered by him after h is am val is

.

noticeable for t h e freedom from religiosity : he himse lf ,

rat h er a lay than an ecclesiastical writer expounds the ,

contemporary political events and the actions of the

Government In fine it must be stated that Feofan in
.

the history of Russian literature science and enlighten ,

ment at the outset of the XVI I I century is a very con

s pic uous figure It is not on ly for the broad intellect his
.
,

brilliant knowledge and fervour for reform to which he

devoted his entire life and activity : he is remarkable
yet more for his complete divorce from all the old Russian
spiritual and literary traditions for his independence of ,

t h em and hence despite his eccle siastical rank he is t h e

, , ,

first lay writer in Russia in this vital epoch o f reconstruction .

THE I N F L U E N C E OF TH E RECO N ST RU CTI O N ON LI TERA T URE .

It has been stated how P eter as a reconstructor regarded

, ,

science and literature It was purely utilitarian and as a

.
,

consequence there could not be established any proper

,

outlook amon gst savan ts and writers on the proper relations

between science and literature M any of them for instance
.

deemed literature only a toy a pastime more or less agree

,

able in hours of leisure between times Hence for the

, .
,

whole of the period of our literature immediately follow

ing on the epoch of reconstruction one common feature ,

may be o bserved science appears in the closest connection

with the aims of literature and all the Russian writers up
,

to t h e reign of El izabeth Petrovna ( 1 7 4 1 1 7 6 1 ) from -

Kantemir to t h e great genius Lomonosov are both writers

and professors Such too was the first of the Russian lay
.

writers known to us in the full sense of the term Feofan ,

P rokopovich He did not disdain the chance of giving up

.

to literature a moment of leisure .

P rince An t iok h Dm it riev ic h Kantemir was

K A N TEM I R
born in M oldavia in 1 7 0 8 His father Dmitri
'

Kantemir was a M oldavian gospodar ( nobleman ) and

migrated wit h his wh ole famil y and four t h ousand M olda
vians into Russia after the disastrous expedition on the
 KA NTE M IR 39

River P ruth His son A nt iokh was t h en thre e years

old Dmitri Kantemir who after thus be c oming a Russian
.
,

subj ect became one of the advisers of Peter the Great

,
‘

and travel led with him to P ersia and on the way there ,

printed proclamations for circulation in Caucasia How .

,

great was his love for knowledge may be gauged from his
will which bequeathes his inheritance only to those of his
’

chil dren who distin guish ed h im sel f most in the sciences

'

A n t iokh was most influenced by his mother a Greek ,

by birth and a woman of remarkable intellect and educa

,

tion On e of Kan t emir s biogr aphers says of her t h at

.
’

she was adorned with all the beautiful qua lities of her
sex and that beauty in her seemed one of the least of her
,

merits Sh e herself undertook the education of h e r

.

children with the aid of a Greek P riest Anastasius Con t oides , ,

wh o taught them Greek Latin and Italian , .

A n t iokh was only ten years old when h e knew languages ,

so well that he recited in church at the M oscow Academy

in the presence of Peter an eulogy of St Demetrius in .

’
Greek A nt iokh s first tutor was taken by Peter to trans
.

late books and was replaced by a Russian teacher Ivan

, ,

I l iinski w h o inspired Kantemir with a love of verse or as ,

it was t h en called prosody At t h e age oi sixteen Kantemir

, . _
,

asked leave of P eter to go abroad to complete his education ,

but his request for some reason unassigned was refused .

At the age of seventeen he had published his Symphony

to the P salter in which he expressed a desire to assist in
,

some practical way thos e who wished to refer to t h e B iblical

dicta At t his time A n t iokh was already serving in t h e
.

Pre ob razh e n ski l ifeguards and about t h is time came into

,
’
contact wit h Feofan P rokopovich At t h e end of Peter s . .

reign A n t iokh Kantemir found himself wit h out any means

of subsistence as his elder brother ( who had married a
, ,

daughter of one of t h e most powerful ministers of the Tsar ,

Prince Dmitri Mikh ail ovic h Golitsyn used his father in -

law s position to convert h is father ’s bequest to h is own use

’
.

In 1 7 3 1 Kantemir was appointed Resident in London ; j ust

before 1 7 3 1 when Anna I oan n ovn a ( 1 7 3 0 1 7 40) ascended -

t h e throne a portion of his inheritance was return ed to him .

40 KA N TE M I R

The Liter ary Wor k of K an temir Even before his .

departure to London K antemir had written five sat ires some ,

fables and epistles These were circulated in manusc ript

.

amongst the i ntellectuals of the Russ1 an soc iety of that

day an d secured t h e author an honourable repute , .

Kantemir preferred t h e form of satire not merely bec ause

of the in fluence on him of Horace and B oileau whom he ,

was thorough ly acquainted with but also because he was ,

under the sway of the period of transition in which he lived

and worked .

Kantemir composed five satires whilst in Russia and ,

four when abroad Th e first of them was a satire on The

.

”
En emies of Learn ing Th e author addresses
. his mind ,

and sets out with especial bitterness how the society of his
day has no use for scientific or artistic occupations as there ,

are so man y other roads to fame .

Th e types of Criton Sil vanus Luke M edor are borrowed

, , ,

from real life of course under disguised names They are

,

sketc h ed sharply and naturally an d provide us with a pretty

clear idea of the position of a writer and savant in society
as it t h en was In t h e satire To my M use On the Danger
.
,

of Wr iting in S atir e he collects a variety of opinions on

,

his own satires and their author This the fourth satire
of Kantemir expresses with pe rfec m eam ess the author s
.
,
'

view of his own literary work Th e oth er satires of .

Kantemir are less notewort h y In them h e indulges in .

j udgments on general subj ects borrows largely from

.
,

Horace and B oileau in a word does not stand as firmly

,
—
,

on his the Russian point of view

, .

Th e metre of Kantemir was something half -syllabic ,

half stress : consisting of thirteen syllables divided by a

-
,

c a sura into two parts between the seventh and eighth

syllables : in each half there is one strong accent Th e .

rhyt h m shows a g reat monotony and poverty but by way ,

of compensation great euphony .

Th e metro syllabic metre inve n ted by Kantemir himself

-

is used only in the sixth satire On tr ue happin ess The .

first five are written in a purely syl l abic metre Kantemir .

died at Paris in 1 77 4 in his thirty fift h year -

.
 TA TI SHCHEV TR EDI A KOVSKI 41

V asili N ikit ic h Tati shche v one of t h e cultured

TA TI S H C H EV
co—operators in the reforms of P eter the
Great a friend of F P rokopovich was born in 1 686 and died
, .
,

in 1 7 5 0 He received his education partly at home

.
,

partly abroad where b e twice lived and stayed some

,

considerable time Tat isc h ev first served in the artillery

.
,

and towards the end of h is life was made gove rnor of

Archangel P eter the Great k new him as a man competent
.

for any work in hand widely read and of broad culture , ,

and once sent him to Sweden to recruit craftsmen for

employment in minin g and metallurgy Tatishchev failed .

to accomplish the task set of compil ing a geogr aph y of

Russia but has left us a huge historical work on Russia which
,

he succeeded in elaborating very fully in five t h ick volumes .

Tatishchev published two very important works ,

Russian La ws and Th e Code of I van I V to which he added ,

commenta ri es He al so wrote A Testamen tary I nj un ction

.

an d Direction to h is s on Evgr df and a Con versation of Two ,

Frien ds on th e use of Learn ing an dS ch ool s Th e Testamen tary .

I nj un ction consists of a comp ilation of worldly wisdom as

applied to the needs and views of his time .

Tatishchev spent his last years in his village of B oldin

near M oscow under domestic arrest on t h e charge of ,

non observance of some pettifogging regulations in the

-

course of governorship of Archangel .

Vasili Kiril l ovic h Tre diakOvski was the

TR EDI A KOVS KI
son of a pri est and born at Astrakhan
in 1 7 0 3 Catholic monks infused into him the desire of
.

educati on they had come to Astrakhan to spread Cat h o

lic ism amongst the Armenians there In 1 7 2 3 he ran away .

from his parents home to M oscow and there entered the

’

Zaikon ospasski School and at once entered to the class

of rhetoric Som e years later he travell ed abroad first to
.

Hol land then to Paris where he was under the patronage

, ,

of P rince Kurakin On his return home he went first to

.

M oscow and then found an opport unity of visiting Peters

,

burg There he was made secretary of the Academy of

.

Sciences He died in poverty utterly forgotten by his

. ,
.

contemporaries in 1 7 69 .
42 LOMON O SOV

His Literary Work Th e first production of Tre diak ovski

.

was a transl ation of Th e Voy age to the I sl e of Love Tred ia .

k ovski founded t h e first l earned society of Lovers of R uss1 an .

Speech He had an honoured place in t h is soc iety and

.

Opened its sessions wit h a speech on the pu ri ty of Russian

Style . Th e latter half of his literary life is more fruit ful
in this period he wrote the following original works A ,

Dial ogue on Or thography a tragedy Deidamia a translation

.

, ,

in verse of Fén él on s Tél érnaque and a Dial ogue on A n cien t

’

Tran sitional an d M odern P rosody .

' On
the border of the epoch of reconstruc
L0 MO N 0 SO V
tion in the midst of the Russian le arned
and literary writers there appears the giant personal ity
,

of the genius of Lomon osov the peasant and acadernician

,
.

His colossal form reflects all the features of the intellectual

life of his time and also carries all the promise and the
,

seed of the development and growt h that was to come .

LomonOsov s work should properly be referred to the

’

close of the literary epoch which preceded him and al so ,

to the be ginnings of the new period .

He was the first to lead the attempt to free R ussian

literature and science from the heavy yoke of foreign
c ulture and he summoned forth the Russians to ascend
,

the heights of independence To him pertains the honour

.
,

of creating a new literary language and he rightfull y won ,

from his contemporaries and clo sest successors the title of

Father of the modern Russian literature .

Thus he heads the new period of Russian literature ,

which although it commences with the reign of Elizabeth

, ,

is accurately designated from the accession of Empress

Elizabeth the Great .

M ichael Vasil ie vic h Lomon osov was born in 1 7 1 2 in

the village of Denisovka in the province of Archangel
,

near Kh ol mogorin His father the peasant Vasili Doro

.

fée vrch was enga g ed in fishing which he taught his son

.

from early youth Th e northern landscape rude b arren

.
, ,

and ye t maj estic steeled the character of Lomon osov

, ,

and h is mother Elena Ivanovna also had much influence .

Sh e was the daughter of the deacon of the village of

 LOM ON OSOV 43

Matigara in the same district

, Th e first teacher of .

Lomonosov was the peasant I van Sh ubn éi After .

his mother s death life at home became intolerable to

‘

young Lomonosov : what with the constant complaints

of the stepmother t o his father at the time his son would -

waste on books the boy was forced away to solitude and

,

hunger and deprivation He decided to go to M oscow .

,

an d secured from t h e loc al authoritie s a permit for one

year : but should he not then return he was to be acc ount e
, ,
‘

a run away serf At M oscow Lomon osov first entered t e

-
.

School by the Sukhareva Tower an d then the Zaikono ,

Spasski School or Slav Greek Latin Academy B ef ore - -

.

completing his course at the Academy he was sent amongst ,

the twelve best pupil s who had completed their course

to Petersburg and thence abroad to finish his education
,

and get information on certain special departments of

knowledge .

At M arburg Lomon osov was taught under the guidance

of Christian Wol ff and in Fre iburg under Henker In
, .

1 7 4 0 he married the daughter of a tailor Elizabeth ,

Chr istina Zilch Severe monetary difficulties forced him

.

to run away from M arburg : and near Dusseldorf he fell

in with a party of Prussian recruiting agents who fed him ,

i n scribed him as a recruit took him to t h e fortress of Wesel

.

, ,

whence he again fled to M arburg and thence at length ,

returned to Petersburg in 1 7 41 He died in 1 7 64 Shortly . .

before his death the Empress Cat h erine I I visited him

,

with some of the most notabl e of her Court .

H is Literary Work Recognizing to the full the high

“

importance of literature in society but having no Russian ,

literary models to hand Lomonosov was obliged to use ,

foreign models As there was no possibility of creatin g

.

anything in dependent on a Russian original he had to ,

follow the prevailing manner in Western Europe i e the , . .

,

pseudoclassic .

Pse udo classicism consist ed in a purely e x ternal imit a

-

tion of the literary and poetic devices of the ancients in ,

an unnat ural application of their conditions of their social

an d religious l if e to the contemporary European life of the
44 LOMON O SOV

XVI I and XVI I I centuries and also in an incorrect

,

interpretation of the literary theories of the c l assrc al world .

On e of Lorh on Osov s first poetic essays was an ode in

’

pseudo classical style in honour of the Russian arms

- .

In this ode the o nly truths are t h e fact of Vl c t ory and the
patriotism of the aut h or and all the rest is false founded
, ,

on t h e fa lse classical theory : we have P indar with the

Ca st al ian key and muses questions and exclamations
,

devised to express the terror of the combat which t he

author had never seen .Y e t despite the artific ialit y
,

of t h is ode it h ad in this time great significance It .

finally settled the question of prosody over which Kantemir

and Tre diakovski had laboured so long Lomonosov .

proved not merely in theory but in practice the supe riority

,

of stress over sy ll ab ic ism for Russian metre and thence

forward syllabics b egan to drop out of Russian literature .

Anot h er important consequence of Lomon ésov s ode was ’

t h e purificatio n of the literary Russian from supe rfluous

Churc h Slavonic dictions : only some pa rticipial forms
were kept there was a careful selection of the words them
selves out of the former literary language which teemed
with Sl av onic ism s and fo reign words P seudoclassicism .

was established for a long time in Russia t h rough Lomon o

sov All of his literary work was expressed in his poetry
.

and in two eulogia to P eter the Great and Elizabeth He .

wrote in every style of verse epic and dramatic but is ,

principal ly known for his odes Th e characteristic of his .

lyrics may be found in two tragedies Tamir an d Selim

and Demaj an i .

H is Scientific Work . Lomon osov was mainly engaged

on chemistry and physics but he also wrote a Letter on
,

th e R ul es of R ussian P rosody Rh etorics a Grammar and

, ,

Con sidera tion s on th e Va l ue of Ch urch B ooks in the Russ ian

Lang uage . All of his learned works are marked by their
strict and methodical system and the subordination of
,

particular facts to laws .

Th e Letter on th e Rul es of Russian P rosody was sent by

Lomon osov from German t ogether with his Ode on the
Capture of Khotin ( in alicia) Its tone is political . .
 CHA PTER VI I I .

S U M A ROKOV A N D TH E LI TE R A RY WRI T ER S U N D ER
C A T H ER I N E 11 .

With the broad outl ines of the personal ity of Lomon osov
that series of learned literary men is concluded who repre
sent a feature o nl y to be found at t h e epoch of recon st ruc
tion In the course of this momentous e poch literature
.
,

and science succeeded in liberating themselves completely

from the tutelage of the clergy and the religious orders ,

but coul d still not altogether part company and take their
places as two independent an d mighty social forces At .

this point together with Lomon osov who was deeply

,

penetrated with the con sciousness of his great genius and

scientific value of his services to his coun try there comes ,

to t h e fore a much less remarkable personality his constant ,

enemy and literary antagonist Sumarokov Sumarokov

, .

may unquestionably be placed among the sign s of the time ,

pointing t o t h e transition from the epoch of reconstruction

t o t h e brilliant age of Catherine I I .

Just as in the epoch of reconstruction F Prokopovioh , .

was called the lay writer in Russia Sumarokov may

beyond doubt deserve the title of t h e first Russian litera
,

teu t in the sense now usually attached to t h is word .

Ale x ander P etrovich Sumar okov was born in

S U M A ROK O V
N ovember 1 7 1 7 and died in October 1 777
, .

B y b irth he came of hig hest rank of Russian Society of

that day At the age of fifteen he entered the corps of
.

the infantry cadets of t h e nobility which had been foun ded

,

at the insta n ce of Field M arshal Mtin n ich ( 1 683-1 7 67) in

 SU M ARO K OV 47

1 730 . It is hard to say wh at Sumarokov was taught in

t h e corps and in general h ow great was t h e education h e
,

received in that sc h olastic establishment His certificate .

,

gr anted to h im at the end of his course of science in t h e

corps runs : In geometry he has le arned geometry ,

trigonometry he explains and translates from German

,

into Frenc h : in universal history h e has compl eted Russia

an d P ol an d in geograph y h e has learne d Gie bl er s atlas : ’

h e can compose letters and oratio ns in German : he has

“

passed Wol ff s et h ics up to t h e third chapter : he has

’

started Italian and so fort h , .

Sumar okov received h is first stimulus to literary work ,

when stil l in the corps It is supposed that there existed

“

there special conditions wh ic h favoured the development

of literary talent .

At t h e age of 2 2 he entered the military service He .

h ad t h e entrée to t h e h ighest soc iety by r eason of h is

birt h and t h ere h is gentle songs enj oyed great success
, .

Subsequently h e became an aide de camp to Coun t A G - -

. .

R azrim ovski the commander in the days of Elizabeth

’

, ,

and t h us became known to t h e Empress herself .

His Literary Wor k Sum arOk ov s literary work wh ilst

’
.
,

in military service is obscure almost up to the date of

t h e publication Of this first tragedy Kh or e v i in 1 7 4 7 .

Th is tragedy so pleased the Empress t h at she after hearing

it ordered Tre diakovski and Lomon osov to write trage
dies . Lomonosov was t h e censor of t h e first productio ns
of Sumarokov .

THE B I R TH OF TH E
W h en Anna Iv anovna ( 1 7 3 0 1 7 40 ) -

ascended the throne she gave per

R U S S I A N TH EA T RE form an c es by a troupe of Italian
.
,

actors who had been sent to P etersburg from Dresden by

Augustus t h e King of Poland These performances so
,
.

pleased t h e Empress that sh e at once summoned another

troupe from abroad which acted opera and drama .

In the reign of Elizabeth Petrovna ( 1 74 1 1 7 6 1 ) who -

passionately loved every kind of merriment a French ,

troupe reac h ed Petersburg and this was the signal for the,

beginnings of French influence on Russian society which ,

48 SU M AROK OV

eagerl y subj ected itself to th is school after so long and ’

heavy a German rule Towards the end of Elizabeth s .

reign a ball et troupe arrived at P etersburg d irected by

Locatelli It was this and under the influence of t h e acting
.

of the Frenc h troupe that Sumarokov wrote the pseudo

classic tragedy Kh ore v Just about then at Y arosl avl . ,

( in Sout h Russia) one Fiddor Grigoriev ic h Volkov a son ,

of a merchant had establish ed a troupe of his own

, ,

which performed pieces written in Russian Whilst .

in Y arosl avl this troupe already performing in its own

t h eatre wh ich could seat up to a thousand spectators
, ,

private plays were being performed at P etersburg by the ‘

offi cers of the N obles Corps Then at last Vol kov s ’

.
, ,
’

company was summon e d by Imperial decree from Y aros

l av l and acted at the Cou rt stage in the presence of the
,

Empress it performed t h e pieces Kh orev H aml et Sin an

, , ,

(it e Sin e us one of the first Scandin avian brothers who

.

ruled Russia) and Trovor and Th e R epen tan t Sin n er .

Th e most competent members of the Y arosl avl company

remained in the capital and were assigned to the N oble
”
Academy i e the aristocratic corps to teach languages
, . .

and literature .

In 1 7 5 6 Sumarokov was appointed director of this

,

Russian theatre which was recognised and firmly estab

l ish e d .

the end of the fiftie s of Towards

THE LI TER A R Y WORK
OF CA T H ER I N E II
the XVI I I century there was a
growing demand in Russian society
.

for reading and naturally the circle of workers amongst

,

Russian littérateurs was bound to expand : yet this ,

tendency might never have come to fruition had there

not been at the beginning of the reign of Elizabeth ( 1 7 41
1 7 6 1 ) favouring conditio n s Catherine the Great who was .
,

endeavouring to endow Russia wit h all the advantages of

Western civilization and to import into Russia the best ,

principles of social conditions of the West could not but ,

see in l iterature a migh ty tool to achieve her end That is .

why she tried to encourage the development in Russia of

l iterature and j ournalism and also herself devoted much ,
 PETROV 49

time t o a lively newspaper polemic and pain ted a vivid

picture of contemporary manners in a whole series of come
dies and satirical sketches .

B y the y ear 1 7 90 Cathe rine had written fourt een

,

comedies nine operas seven compositions made up out

, ,

of proverbs The re have come down to us only ele ven

.

comedies seven operas and five such compilations

, .

Th e chief comedies of Catherine are Th e B irthday of

M rs Vorcha lkin a and Wha t a time ! Th ese comedies are
.

pa rticularly interesting for us especi al ly in comparison ,

with the comedies Of Von Visin whic h in their content ,

closely resemble the comedies of Cat h erine : but Von

’
Visin s are more graphic and give a sharper picture and
present their subj ect more sharply owing to his great t al ent .

Towards the end of her literary c areer Cat h erine again ,

turned her attention to ordinary topics and wrote an

entire series of satirical sketches under the general title of ,

Actu al ities and Fantasies : these were published in t h e

p roceedings of the Lovers of Russian Literature which
were issued at t h e expense of the Academy of Sciences
under the editorsh ip of Princess Dashkov a who was then ,

directress of t h e Academy .

famous und e r the soubriquet of Catherine s ’

PET R O V pocket poet was educated in England Th e

,
-
, .

epistles he addressed to P rinc e P Ot iOm kin are marked for

t h eir friendly tone which is foreign to the servile adulations
,

of other writers of that time .

Th e famous satire of P etrov Th e A dven ture of Gusta

vus I I I King of S weden typifies the attitude t h en adopted
, ,

towards the war with Sweden Th e style is clumsy the .

,

wit rough often descending to abusiveness Catherine

,
.
,

wh o was then at war with Turkey rej ected the immoderate ,

demands of Gustavus and start ed a war with h im on very

,

insuffi cient resources However success soon crown ed

. ,

t h e first actions of the Russians against Gustavus on

Jun e 6th 1 7 88 at the first naval encounter off Got hl an d
, , ,

and the Swedes were beaten and forced t o retire to Sveaborg :

it is to this moment in the War that Pet rOv s satire refers
’
.

’
Th e satire relates that Gustavus prete x t to war was his
50 P E TR OV

desire to copy Charles XI I Th e metre is accentual and

. ,

not unl ike t h e later popul ar ballads .

Gustavus wearied of sitting in peace bestirred himself ,

to war with Russia he c ut his h air like Ch arles to affright

the cities and villages of Russia : and to consume his ,
’
expenses in safety h e donned armour like th e ass in a lion s
, ,

sk in : h e looke d a terrific giant How should he serve his

.

giddy fate ? He besieged N eusc hl ot with cannon and

embarked on t h e h igh seas wit h a powerful fleet .

Th e personality of the King his appearance and ch arac

,

ter are admirabl y depicted in his endeavours to imitate

Ch arles XI I When the shade of Charles approaches
.

Gustavus with reproaches for having stirred up a useless

war Gustavus says t h at he began t h e war because he thirste d
,

for glory an d desired to resemble his grandfath er Gustavus

replies to the doubts expressed by his grandfather
What I am not my grandfather Gusta vus cried
‘

out loud I have wanted to be m y grandfat h er every hour

,
‘
,

and h ave made myself into h im and exerted all my strength .

Look at Gustavu s an d you will see yourself B ut Charles

reminds Gustavus that foolhardiness without sense is a
great hindrance in war .

Gustavus gets angry an d turnin g to his grandfather

,

in a lon g speech reminds him of h o w luck veers in war .

Y ou remember that rout that blow by P olt ava when

,

you for ever bade farewell to glory from the fray you ,

scampered away with all your m ight and onl y kept your ,

trousers on the spot where they should be .

Th e satire concludes with b al eful prognostications of

Charles on the deference with wh ich he would have to beg
for peace and how at the last his own subj ects wil l rise up
against him .

On e woman Catherine R om an ov n a Dash ko va out of

, ,

all the contemporaries of Catherine I I made herself con

spic uous . Her maiden name was Vorontsov and she was ,

born in 1 7 43 at P eters burg and died in 1 81 0 Sh e received

, .

an excellent education at the house of her uncle Vorontsov

Al l of her
leisure was given up to learning she read Beyle
- ,

M ontesquieu B oileau and Voltaire

, Sh e was soon intro
.
 P E TR OV 31

duce d to Court life and had no smal l share in the

revolution
of 1 7 62 and the accession of Catherine I I After her
.

removal from the Court she spent much time in travelling ,

and after her return from abroad was appointed directress

,

of the Academy of Sciences and P resident of t h e Russian

Academy whic h h ad then been re establishe d
-
.
 CHA PTER ix .

VON Vie .

Von Visin was the foremost writer of t h e golden age of

Catherine . He in his remarkable talented fashion re flects
, ,

all the best aspects of the social types of that t ime .

a wa s born in 1 744 and died in

D EN I S IVA N O VI C H VON VI S I N 1 2 he was de scended of an
79
ancient knightly family On e of the ancestors of Denis
.

I v anovil B aron P eter Von Visin was taken prisoner during

, ,

the Livonian War ( under Peter the Great 1 70 9 to 1 7 1 0 ) ,

together wit h his son Denis and settled with h im in Russia .

Th e grandson of B aron P eter em braced the orthodox faith

in the rei gn of Tsar Alexis M ikh ail ovic h and there
after the family was thoroughl y Russianized We know .

somethin g of Denis I van oviéh s father from the autobio

’

graphical notes he wrote in imitation of Jean Jacques

Rousseau cal ling them
,
a frank confession From .

t h ese notes we know that his father though a man of ,

sound j udgment had his education l imited to a reading

,

of Russian history of Cicero s Opinions and similar

,
’

translations . B ut he was al so a highly honourable

man and in an age when bribery was rampant he
, ,

used as his son tells to speak to his c l ients in this wise :

, .

My dear sir ! a head of sugar is no reason to for

impugning your rival : please take it away and bring
”
me a lawful evidence of your title Von Visin says of .

him sel f and his relations with his father in that being as ,

a sentimental boy he one day heard his father tell him the
,

story of the beautiful boy Joseph which so a ffected him ,

that he cried It may be concluded from this that his

"

.
54 VON VI S I N DERZHAVI N

and satirical talent and portrays the same social types

,

which had already been animadverted on by h is pre dec esors

.

but sketched in wit h the greatest clearness and movin g with

Th us A k iilin a Tim oféevn a
’

constituting living beings .

seemed related t o every one and the lady adviser and ,

I vé n ush k a seemed to neighbours and friends or even

relatives and to repress a perfect caricature of superficial
,

culture and an unreasoned aping of foreigners In .

I v an ush ka t h ere may be caught an echo of the ideas that

h ad been evolved in t h e serious compositions of Fren c h
literature on moral ity equality and t h e natural righ ts of
, ,

man but they had reached I van ush ka at second h and

and therefore were not grasped and are defo rmed and take
the form of a caricature of the new tendencies of the
Russian .

Th e comedy Th e M in or in lively colours paints

, ,

those monstrous bein gs whom serfdom produced in Russia ,

by frustrating all the benevolent intentions of the Govern

ment Th e force of serfdom is depicted in such broad
.

touches that it produces a tragic terror despite the comic ,

humour of many scenes whic h are made up of occasions

invented by the author to keep up the action in a comic
direction In this comedy the whole nature of man is
.

the victim of the loathsome serfdom which controls his

mind and feelings and passions swall ows up all t h at is ,

good and inculcates an arbitrariness unrestrainable by law .

'
Sumar okov who outlived his time an d once
DERZHA VI N ,

said that a Horace was essential to the

reign of Augustus did not idly [ imagine himself as the
,

Horace to whom it was adj udged to sing the glories of

t h e age of the new Augustus Catherine B ut his place
, .

was taken by that in spired poet of Catherine who devoted ,

the best period of his poetic work to the glorification of

her age and in a whole series of brilliant piec e s left posterity
a poetic chronicle of the fame the feats and triumphs of , ,

the age of Catherine .

H is P erson al ity Der zh avin as a man shows all the

.
, ,

imperfect ions of t h e writers of that day but at the same

,

time some personal excellencies which constitute his real

,
 DER ZH AVI N 55

merit and differentiate him sharply from the other writers ,

who contemporaneously with him moved in the h igh est

,

Circle of Russian Court life and administrative in t h e

XVI I I century
. .

Derzh avin was naturally of a weak and soft character ,

suc h as migh t give way to evil influences Whilst often .

lea ving t h e road of rectitude he yet all through his life ,

never ceased honouring t h e straight road to wh ich h e ,

always strove to return Consequently De rzh avin whilst .

, ,

often currying favour from powers t hat were and con

temporaries and playing up to them would often be
, ,

filled wit h a deep h atred of their inj ustice avarice and , ,

narrowness and would run amok in t h e opposite direction

, ,

proceeding to extremities and exaggerating their defects .

Gabriel R om an ovic h Derzh avin was born near Kaz an

in July 1 74 3 His father a poor nobleman was an officer
, .
, ,

in the army but was compelled by illness to stay at Ore n

,
’
b ii rg wh ere the greater part of t h e poet s childhood and
’

boyh ood was passed After h is mot h er s deat h he again.

’

moved to Kaz an and j ust managed to subsist on his scanty

means he became involved in a lawsuit wit h his neighbours
and could h ardly provide for the education of h is children .

N ot one of his sons ever received even a tolerable training .

At Oren biirg Gabriel R om an o vic h was taught by

’

priests h ow to read and write and was then taught in a ,

pension kept by the exiled Ge rm an Roos who was really , ,

an utter ignoramus .

At Kaz an he learned arithmetic and geome try from

the commander of the garrison Lebedev and from the , ,

artillery oflic e r P ol et ae v At the age of fourteen h is

, .

mot h er sent him to M oscow to register h er c h ildren wit h

t h e Heralds College but after losing the last of h e r means
’

, ,

in getting evidence of her indisputable righ ts of nobility ,

as a descendant of B agrim M urz i was obliged to return ,

to Kaz an after a fruitless j ourney .

Luckily for De rzh av in a gymnasium was opened in ,

1 7 5 8 at Kaz an where h e an d his brot h ers were sent

,
B ut .

even here h e learned but little owing to the lack of good ,

teachers .
 56 DER ZHAVI N

In 1 7 62 Derzhavin entered the army in the Preob r azh

e n ski Regiment and there having no relatives had to
, , ,

lodge at the barracks with the soldiers .

Aft er ten years service he was promoted to t h e rank '

of ensign He himself paints his youth in most melancholy

.

colours B etween 1 7 64 and 1 77 2 Gabriel R om an ovich

.

often saw himself on t h e verge of ruin havin g indulged ,

in unrestrained profl igac y and cardpl ay He was sur .

rounded wit h a rout of boisterous boon companions sunk ,

in debauchery ; and card sharpers having won off him -

,

t h eir fill nex t taught h im all the wiles of their: art B ut

, .

the h ard nature of the poet bore him through this severe
school and he carried onl y the strongest desire whatever
, ,

it might cost to keep within himself the consciousness of

,

his own moral dignity .

At the time of P ugac h Ov s rebellion ( 1 744— 1 77 5 ) he ’

was a member of a secret commission charged to suppress

uproar at Kaz an and Ore n b iirg Subsequently through
'

.
,

his acquaintance with P rince Viazemski he succeeded in ,

getting a po st in the Senate as an usher in the first Depart

ment His marriage with a poor girl broke off his relations
.

with the Prince Then Derzh avin became an assiduous .

courtier sometimes fel l into disgrace and again received

, ,

h igher posts and died in retirement on his estate in July

, ,

1 81 6 .

H is Literary Work . De rzh avin began devoting himself

to literature with especial keenness after his quarrel with
Viaze m ski Ab out this tine he finished his ode God and
'

.
, ,

wrote Th e Vision of M ure a When dismissed from his .

post as Governor and not receiving any other he h ad , ,

recourse to his pen as a means for obtaining a post on

t h e 2n d September m the day of the Empress coronation ’
, ,

h e h anded in for present ation whenever suitable the ode , ,

Th e P icture of F elitsa .

His first publications after t h e rebellion of Pugac h Ov , ,

were the Odes on th e Death of P r in ce M eshchen ski and

On the B irth in th e N orth of a B oy born to th e P urpl e B oth .

of these productions revealed t h e author s t al ent ’

.

Th e ode F elitsa was written in imitation of the t ale by

 KHERA SKOV 57

Cathe rine of Tsarevich Khlor who at the behest of his , ,

father, the Kirgiz Khan sough t the rose without ,

thorns .

Towards the end of his life Derzh avin increased his

literary work ; he succumbed to the influence of Horace ,

Anacreon and Ossian dwell ing on the moral of life or the

, ,

e picurean infatuation Th e direction and all the peculiari

.

ties of Derzhavin s poetry can only be thoroughl y acquired

’

after a perus al of his works .

Kh e raskov and B ogdé nov mh

KHERAS KOV B O GD AN O VI C H
may serve as l iv mg evidence
, ,

K“EM N I TSER KA PN I ST ,
of how gradually and con se
q uen t iall y the development goes on of literature in any
society N e w generations of literary writers a rise grow
.
, ,

come to maturity and come on to the stage with new

,

outlooks and enact their parts at the same time as the

,

old school with their outworn and ancient representatives .

Michael M at véev ic h Kh erask ov was born in 1 7 33 and

died in 1 807 and came of the Roumanian family of the
,

boyars Ch erascu His father em igrated to Russia at the

.

same time as Kantemir In his tenth year Kh eraskov .

was sent to the Corps of N oble Infantry After concluding .

his course there he served for some time in the army and
thence went into the se rvice of the College of Commerce ,

and was given a post on t h e new university at M oscow

. .

Kh eraskov moderate precise and laborious in al l

, , ,

matters in the course of his life shows the same ,

qual ities in his literary works Th e mass of his e xtant .

works is constructed on the basis of rules h anded down

by the pseudo-cl assic theory and is a very close imitation
of s uch models they are conspicuous for the lack of any
independent creativeness .

Contemporaries regarded it as a great merit of his

that he was the first to transplant to Russian soil models
of pseudo -classic epic which he wrote according to all the
rules of the prevail ing literary theory and he full y Satisfied ,

the taste and comprehension of the times .

Th e publ ic of those days had mana ged to assimilate

De rzh avin in lyric -as the Russian Pindar and in drama as ,
58 B OGDA N OV I CH KHEMN I TSER

the Russian Rac ine but it lacked a Russian H omer and ,

this role Kh eraskov took upon himself in his Rossiad and

Vl adimir Th e Rossiad appeared in 1 7 7 9 but h is first
. ,

productions were the Fruits of Scien ce and Th e Ven eti an

N un . Further Kh erasko v edited the j o urnals Usef ul
,

Diversion and Leisure Hours Shortly before his death a .

tragedy of Kh erask ov written for a competition was , ,

”
performed Zerida and R ost isl av
,
.

Hi ) 0 1 tos Fiodorovic h B og d anovich was

b oi
ii iii the happy climate of Little Russia
B O GD AN O VI C H “ '

at P erevolochna At the age of eleven he was taken to.

Moscow and made a cadet at the College of Justice After .

reading Lomonosov and other poets he felt a passionate ,

desire to go on the st age and at the age of 1 5 applied t o -

,

the director of the M oscow theatre to be entered among st

the actors Th e director gat h ered from his conversations
.

with him his l on gin g for learning and poetry and had him ,

entered on to the books of the University and took him

to his own home That director was Kh eraskov and .
,
'
B ogdan ovic h s talents rip ened under his influence Countess .

B ashkov ( whom B ogdanovich came to know when with

Kh e r askov) gave him the post of a tran slator in the Foreign
College and thus assist ed him to transfer to Peters burg
, ,

where he w as alre ady well known to readers for h is sh ort -

‘

’
translati ons poems and for the version of Voltaire s poem
, ,

On th e Des truction of Lisbon he there published his first

little poem Doubl e H appin ess I n this poem which was
, .
,

divided into three parts B ogdanovich depicted an image ,

of the golden age the successes of the civil life and the,

sciences the abuse of passion the redemption e ffected by

, ,

law and the authority of the Church On e great success .

with his contem poraries h e sec ured from his fable Di cs h ei

'

tka ,

adapted from Lafontaine s Love of P sy ch e an d ’

Cupid .

IVAN O VI C H KH EM N I TSER
I VA N
was born in the be gin ning of
1 745 an d d ied in the be gin
ning of 1 7 84 He was one of the few writers of the century
.

of German fam ily and origin though of an entirely Russian ,

outlook and direction in literature His father was a .

 KHEM N I TSER 59

Sax on , born at Freiburg Johann Adam Chemnitzer ; it ,

is not known when he came to Russia and held the ost ,

in the forties of the XVI I I century of military me ical .

o fficer in the province of Astrak h an There Ivan Ivanovich .

was born who was to be famous as the author of Russian

,

fables His first education Kh emn itse r rec eived from his
.

parents ; he was next confided to the local Lutheran

pastor N e ub auer who at once directed attention to the
, ,

boy s t al ents In 1 7 5 5 Kh em n itse r left the service at

’
.

Astrakhan and remo ved to P etersburg There he placed .

his son to be taught Latin Geography and History with , ,

the teac her of the medical sch ool wh ich was subse q u ently ,

in 1 7 83 re named t h e M edica l Surgic al Institute At the

,
-
.

age of 1 3 Kh emnit ser despite his father s wish to make ,

’

him a physician entered t h e mil itar y service but reliu

, ,

q uish ed it after ten years having attained the rank of ,

lieutenan t His friend Lvov who had great influence on

.
,

a circle of the best known l ittér ateurs of the time enabled ,

young Kh emn it ser to become acquainted with Derzh avin .

It is remarkable that h e for a long time only spoke German , ,

and wrote German verse up to mature years and yet in ,

a short time so mastered Russian as to take one of the

highest ranks amongst Russian writers of the age of -

Catherine .

Kh emnitser s first production was a rather dull one

’

written to commemorate t h e capture of the Turkish

fortress Zh urzh a N ext he publ ished a translation of the
, .

heroic poem of C J Dorat Th e Letter of B arivell e to Trou

. .
,

mand in P rison M ost of his time j ust then was taken up

.

with his service which left h im very little leisure ; such

,

as he had he devoted to Lafontaine and in imitation of , ,

him tried to lay a foundation for a school of Russian

,

fables Even De rzh avin often submitted his writings to

.

the criticism of Kh emn it se r whose intellect and education ,

he admired he used to speak of him as a man who showed

him the right ro ad in composition In 1 77 9 Kh emnit ser .

was persuaded by his friends to publish his fables and

tales His fable M etaphy sics is still a favourite Russian
. , ,

fable of educated re aders .

60 KA P N I ST

was a friend of Lvov and

VA S I LI VASI LI EV I C K KA P N I ST
Kh em n it se r and one of the
most prominent men in t h e literary circle of De rzh avin .

He was born in 1 7 5 7 and died in 1 82 4 Th e ancestors of .

Kapn ist had been t h e Italian Counts Capn issi one of them ,

P eter Kh rist oforov ic h arrived in Russia in the reign of ,

P eter the Great with his son Vasili who became the father , ,

of our Kapn ist Kapn ist s father s life is a series of strange

.
’ ’

adventures and wonderful feats of war These last were .

the pretext on whic h his enemies accused him of treason ,

a charge on which he was committed for trial and im

,

prisoned However Kapn ist s fat h er ha rd and intrepid

.
,
’

on the field of batt l e proved his innocence and was ac ,

quitted and released and rewarded with the rank of

brigadier ; and six years later was ki l led at the battle of
Egersdorf He married Sofia A n dréevn a Dunina
B urk ov sk aia and from this marriage there sprang Vasili
,

Vasil ievic h who was born at one of the estates granted

,

in the village of Obukhov in P oltava granted to his father , ,

as an emolument This vil lage he afterwards celebrated

.

in verse N othing is known of his childhood and first educa

.

tion and save that Kapn ist was indebted for his education
,

to his own e fforts At the age of fifteen he was made a

.

corporal in the Izmailovski regiment and then a sergeant

in the Preob razh enski and two years later an offi cer in ,

the latter In 1 7 7 7 he had already gained some literary

.

fame for his satire On M an n ers in which he p araphrased ,

with so m e skill the popul ar saying that fools are neither

[

reaped nor sown : they sprout of themselves .

Science is strong and arts may flourish there ,

Authors are born but fools fools everywhere ! , ,

As on a field enriched by toil to scorn ,

Th e work tares grow amid the ears of corn

, ,

And maim the seedling spoil the ripened fruit ; ,

So fools spring up in freedom absolute .

They are not sown but grow apace like weeds : ,

Set evil precepts darken wholesome rede s , .

Th e literary work of Kapn ist was al ways comparatively

 CHAPTER X .

THE FI R ST RU SSI AN P ER I ODI CA LS .

I t has already been stated that at the be ginning of the

reign of Cat h erme I I conditions were very favourable
.

to the development in Ru ssia of social life the spread ,

of culture an d a so ftening of the asperities of manners

, .

Catherin e I I striving to obt ain Russia all the advant ages

.
,

of Western so cial conditions could not but see in literature

,

an efficacious means towards her ends and therefore the ,

growth of literature and j ourn alism in Russia was en

c ouraged at Court .

Even towards the end of El izabeth s reign ( 1 741 to

'

1 7 6 1 ) the first periodicals had made an appe arance M iller . ,

the professo r at the Academ y of Sciences had published ,

the monthly j ournal Essay s f or the Use and Diversion of

,

P ubl ic Servan ts and Sumar okov had started Th e Laborious

,

B ee . In this case Sumarokov the first Russian littérateur

, , ,

Was al so the first Russian j ourn alist in the real sense of

the term the first to voice that chang e which un der the
, ,

in fluence of the general European movem ent was proceed ,

ing in his time in the manners an d views of society which ,

had al ready found full e x pression only in the publicists

of the e och of Catherine Very many fol lowed in the
.

traces o Sumarokov and as soon as ever the Laborious

,

B ee ceased publication there appeared some j ournal s at

,

P etersburg and M oscow published by private individual s

and learned s ocieties on the model of Sumarokov s j ournal ’
.

In 1 7 60 the Cor of Noble Infantry issued a weekly

Leisure Usef ul ly p ;
.

mpl oy ed Sumarokov himsel f took an

.

active part in the last -named paper Two j ournals were .

62
 THE FI RST RU SSIA N P ER I ODI CA LS 63

also publ ished by the University of M oscow call ed Usef ul ,

Diversion and Hours of Freedom

'

This s wift growth in Russ ia of j ournalism following ,

so soon on the first e ffort made by Sumarokov testifies ,

to the advent of a new significant period in the history of

Russian literature as also to the quick growth of a demand
for reading material which again in its turn contributed
, , ,

to the increase in Russia of professional littérateurs as a

specific occupation There congregated around every
.

editor his especial circle more or less wide of writers who

, , ,

procured a subsistence by this kind of work and thereby

helpe d in the abol ition of the false aspe ct of literature as
a service to the M uses as a conception connoting leisure
,

and serving rather to del ight or amuse than to satisfy t he ,

positive moral capacities of an enl ightened and developed

maj ority of society
In 1 7 7 0 other new j ournals appeared t he Whispers of
.

P arn assus the Chatterbox the La borious A n t; in 1 7 7 2 and

, ,

1 7 3 Even ings : Cato Scarron ic M edl ey and The A rtist

-
, .

he A rtist was e dited by one of the most romin e nt factors

in contemporary j ourn al ism N N ov ik v who in 1 7 7 4 , .
, , ,

began editin g the paper Th e P urse It should be added

,
.

that the prevail ing tone of Russian j ournalism in the

XVI I I century was satire
. .

I was a consp icuous l iterary

N I K OLA I IVAN O VI C H n o vm ov
and social figure of the
XV I I I century a witty and talented editor of the
. ,

best satirical j ournals He was born in 1 744 and died

.

in 1 81 8 His home was in the village of Tikhvin

. ,

in the B ronic ki district of the province of M oscow .

Very little is known of the education of N ovik ov or of

his youth As a child he was taught like so many of
. ,

his contemporaries by the deacon of the parish and then

‘

, ,

in 1 7 5 5 when the University of Moscow was founded

, ,

together with two gymnasia he spent about four years in ,

the university gymnasium of M oscow where he received ,

a very un equal education and perhaps l earned Very little , ,

be cause as he confesses he did not know one foreign

, ,

language and thus he was largely self tau ght -

.
64 N OVI KOV
In 1 7 6 0 he was e x pelled from the University G ymn asium
for idleness and playing truant an d the fact was in accord , ,

anc e with custom of th at day published in the M oskovskia ,

Vadernosti [a periodic al that co ntinued down to t h e Novem

ber Revolution in Russia] for all to read an d m ark How .

ever the conditions of his home training had been

,
-
'
su fficiently favourabl e to de v elop N ovikov s riches int el ,

lectual and moral .

In his se venteenth year he entered the mil itary se rvice

in the Izm ailovski Guards and steadily without losing , ,

time went on his own course He was a passionate

, .

reader and a frequenter of cultured so ciety and soon ,

manag ed to suppl ement the blank s of scan ty education ,

and according to one of his biographers even in 1 767

, ,

was becoming famou s for his predil ection for literature ,

especially Russian and his successes in it , .

He started his literary career as e ditor of the j ournal

“

Th e Dron e in 1 7 6 0 and about that time left the service

, ,

and gave himself up to literature exclusively ; and his

success was such that he startled everyone with the
originality and boldness of his invention with his restraint , ,

conscientious finish weal th of material and remarkable

, ,

practicality and great comprehension of how to meet the

,

most essential needs of the day Then in 1 77 2 he began .

an Essay of a Historical Diction ary of Russian Writers .

Thi s book constituted the first atte mpt at a critical

estimate of the productions of Russian literature spiritual ,

and profan e an d consolidated the fame of Novik ov as a

,

l itterateur
’
.

In Novikov was arrested and imprisoned in the

1 92
Sc hliisse burg fortress whither he was conveyed under ,

strong guard On the accession of E mperor Paul ( 1 796

.

to 1 80 1 ) he was released and returned to his village of

T khvin decrepit bent and dresse d in a torn sheepskin
i , , , .

His family greeted h im— according to one friend of Novikov

— as well as all the peasants not only of his v ll g e but
i a ,

those from distant settlements with tears of j oy for they , ,

reme mbered that in the year of famine they had through ,

h im rece ived great assistance

, .
 N OVI KOV

He died quietly on 3 1 5 15 July 1 8 1 8 in his seventy fift h

, ,
-

year and was buried in the parish churchyard He was

, .

able to make himself a force at a time when power could

b e had only through Imperial service or Court favour ,

but he rel ied on neither of these e x pedients He is almost

.

the firs t example of the power of the community inde ,

pendent al ike of Court and Government .

 CHA PTER XI .

N . Y . KARA M ZI N .

At the time of Catherine the Russians

KA RA M ZI N
,

began to express their thoughts clearly to t h e

’

"
reason pleasantly to the ear and taste became general
, ,

this is how Karamzin defined the significance of the age

of Catherine in literature in his H istoric Eul ogy of Cath erin e
II
This definition is not quite accurate inasmuch as ,

Karamzin attributes to the age of Catherine characteristics

of what was only the later period after the close of Cather ,
’
ine s reign and notable for the work of a school of young er
writers the chief of whom was Karamzin as j ournalist
, ,

l ittérateur poet and savant

, , Th e authorship of Karamzin
.

falls into three very sharply bounded periods What he .

wrote before his travels in Western Europe consisted

almost entirely of translations and may be termed his
prentice stage On his return to Russia at the age of 25
’
.
,

towards the end of t he reign of Catherine I I he all at .

,

once reveals himself as the master of his art as a j ournalist ,

and writer of independent o utlook on language and litera

t ure he began writing as none before had ever written ,

and won over to his side most of the community ; lastly ,

his work on Russian history to which he devoted 2 3 years

,

of his life is a creation which may be cal led m on umental

, ,

etern izing him for all time Th e 2 3 years on his History

.

of th e R ussian Em ire constitute the third and final period

p
of Karamzin s life ’
.

Unfortunately very little is known of the first period

of Karamzin s life and work and t h ere many deplorable
'

66
 KARA s N 67

l a cun ae Even the year of birth h as been recently dis

.

proved I t used to be accounted the year of Lomon osov s

.
’

death N ow it is suffi ciently certain that Nikolai

M ikh ovich Karamzin was born on 1 st Decem ber 1 7 6 6 , ,

in the province of Simbirsk where his father had a freehold ,

holding Th e family of Ka ram zin was in straight line

.

of descent from Karamurza a Tatar princelet who was ,

baptized under one of the M oscovite Tsars and entered

the M oscovite service and received a g rant of l and in the
provin ce of N izh egorod one of his ancestors M ichael .
,

Egorovich Karamz in was granted a portion of land in the

,

province of Oren biirg ( now the province of Saméra) where

'

he served as an oflicer in one of the battalions q uartered .

there N ik ol ai M ikh ail ovic h was the son of his first

.

m arriag e Karamz in was educated under the eye of his

.

stepmother but in herited t h e character of his mother

, ,

who died in his chil dhood His boyhood was assed on

'

the banks of the Vol ga and the steppes of Oren tirg A t

’
.

the age of fourteen he was taken to M oscow and pl aced in

the best educational establishment of the time in the ,

boar din g school of Schaden the professor of the University ,

of M oscow K aramz in had previousl y passed through

.

the han ds of various teachers but it is most likely t hat ,

he was but ill prepared for serious study and therefore

-
,

Schaden presc ribed for h im a course of a general nature ,

and not spe cial ised thus it is known that Karamzin was
never taught the ancient lan guages and onl y learned the ,

modern l an guages thoroughly in after life on his j ourn ey -

through Western E urope His passion for reading was .

manifest in his youth and n o one put any bars in the ,

way of satisfying this desire and thus his development was ,

precocious Schaden s powerful in fluence on Karamzin may

.
’

be seen in that both teacher and upil laboured at very

many robl ems al most in a singp e spirit I n 1 7 83 he .

entere on military service and went to his home country ,

where he led a dissipated life ; but his fell ow countryman -

,

I P M Turgenev sorry at the futile waste of time by the

. . .
, ,

gifted youth persuaded h im to return with him to Moscow

, ,

whe re they arrived in 1 7 85 .

68 KARA M ZI N
Here Turgenev introduced Karamzin to N ovik ov who ,

h a d founded a Friendly Club Karamzin made the

a c quaintance of t h e gifted P etrov wh o was c al led in j est ,
’
t h e pocket poet of Empress Catherine P et rov s .

faculty of sane criticism and h is knowledge of ancient and

modern languages enabled him to gain great influence
,

on Karamzin to tutor h im in the acquisition of various

,

subj ects and to train him in ae sthetic feeling In 1 7 89

,
.

Karamzin t ravelled abroad and spent eighteen months

visiting Ge rmany Switzerland France and England
, , ,
.

His diary is well known under the title Letters of a Russian

-
,

Tra vell er ; they w ere addressed to M oscow to the family ,

of Pl e sh c h éev wh ere he often stayed and he afterwards ,

’
married Pl esh c h ée v s sister ih —law In 1 80 4 h e started
-
.

on his H istory of the Russian State and through the media ,

tion of M uravie v then Assistant M inister of N ational

,

Instruction succeeded in getting a pension of

, roubles
a year In 1 8 1 5 there were already eight volumes of t h e
.

History ready which he personally presented to the

,

Emperor Th e Emperor granted him for his work the

.

Order of Saint Anna of the First Clas s and roubles

for the printing of t h e work Th e next four volumes .

appeared between 1 8 1 8 and 1 82 6 .

01 1 the 2 2 n d of M ay 1 82 6 Karamzin died and was

, ,

buried at the Alexandro N evski monastery On his -

.

tombstone are engraved the words B lessed are the pure ,

in heart . A monument has been put up to him at Sim

birsk Th e centenary of his birth was celebrated in many
.

places on I st De cember 1 866 ,

Literary Work
.

Karam zin s work was in the main in

’
.
{

the transformation of the literary language the intro ,

d uction in Russian literature of sentimentalism and his ,

labour in the compilation of the History of th e R ussian State .

H is Ref orm of th e Literary Languag e Th e reform of .

the l iterary language e ffected by Karamzin in the literature

may be tested by comparison with the conception of style
as laid down in the essay On th e Use of Eccl esiastical B ooks
, .

In this reform two aspects are to be distinguished the ,

sy t at ic and in the matter of vocabulary

With regard to .
 KA RA M Z I N
‘

7o

ordinary success of these tales is due to their being the

first writings in this genre of narrative art .

Th e H istory of the Russian State B efore the appearance .

of Karamzin s History there were the Russian History of

’

Tat isc e v which went as far as the reign of Fiodor l oann o

'‘

vic h and that of P rince Sh c h er b at ov Th e former merely .

compiled and an no tated the Chron icl es the latter had some
comprehension of history as a sequence of cause and
e ffect but did not look for these causes in the community
, _

itself to him it was more or less casual In the light of .

this comparison of the unsatisfactory condition of Russian

histo ry prior to Karamzin with the work of Karamzin a ,

clear view is obtained of the v al ue of his contribution .

Th e idea of the historic al work of Karamzin is that the

autocracy conferred unity on the Russian State and power ,

independ ence education and politic al importance He

, ,
.

distinguishes three periods in the historical development

( 1 ) Russia was founded as a unity ; ( 2) was ruined by
dissension ; and ( 3) was saved by the autocracy Th e .

firs t period is from Rurik to Y arosl av ( 97 8 to

second from the death of Y arosl av to Iv an I I I ( 1 440 to -
.

and is the epoch of national and administrative

aberration marked by the system of appanages civil
, ,

feuds and the Tatar yoke which overthrew the form er

, ,

greatness and in depen den c e of Russia This period of '

error passed away and the truth t e appeard— re emerg ed

,
- -

at the beginning of the third period under Iv an I I I ( 1 440

who made a great stride forward and freed Russia
from the Tatars and initiated unlimited monarchy or
despotism Th e style of the History is clear precise and
.
, ,

eminently vivid Th e narrative is frequently illustrated

.

with old words and phrases borrowed from the Chron icl es
and o ther ancient written monuments used t o add colour ,

to the story One of the characteristics of his manner is

.

the dactylic ending t o phrases and statements in couse ,

q ue n c e of which adj ectives are placed after their nouns

[which in Russian unlike P olish is not the general practice]
, , .

Th e characterizations of the e rson al it ie s of Ivan II I

Ivan IV the M etropolitan P
.
.

.
, hilip Godunov Sh uiski , , ,
 DM I TRIEV 71
Prokopi , Liapunov are amongst the most noticeable
, .

Th e narrative of the
siege and capt ure of Kaz an is one of
the most graphic and brilliant pictures .

EV A N D OZI OR OV AS
DM ITRT FO LLOWER S OE KAR AM Zl N .

Th e
immediate followers of
1 DM I T R IEV
"
221833 0
Karamzin who represented the
se ntimental tendency in Rus5 1 an
,

Literature and as writers l aid the foundation of a new

literary style and lan guage were Dmitriev and Oziorov .

Th e former brought sentim ental ism into Ru ssi an epic

,

and lyric and at the same time under Karam zfn s ’

influence perfected Russian prosody and the con stit u

tion of a light poetic style Th e latter un der the .
,

same in fl uence and moving in the same direction

assisted in fin al ly expelling from the Russian stage the
pseudo classic ideals and dramatic productions constructed
- -

on ri gid theory Th e former s services were defined even

.
’

by contemporary criticism in this wise : Karamzin pro

vide d the models of prose literature and Dmitriev those in
verse or in other words Dmitriev invested verse with the
, ,

same q ualities wh ich were possessed by the prose style

of Karamzin an unlaboured construction fluidity and
, ,

pleasantness .

was b c m in 1 7 60 an d die d in
W AN IVA N O VI C H D M I T R I EV
1 83 7 He has lett in his book
.
,

A Retrospect on my Lif e det ailed mem oirs of his life

, ,

h are in many respects curious These memoirs consti .

tute a very val uable historical and literary source for they ,

not only bring to our knowledge t h e contemporary view of

literature but al so transport us entirely into the midst of the
,

conceptions and opinions common to all the Russian senti

mental school of writers Dmitriev passed his childhood
.

with his uncle B eket ov at Kaz an He had a scanted .

education at first he was taught French arithmetic and ,

drawin g at a French private sc h ool then he was consign ed ,

to an incompetent garrison sergea nt Later he went to a .

school at Simbirsk to a retired lie utenant who had been

the teacher in the Corps of Cadets one K abrit At the age
'

.
,
72 OZ I OR OV

of fourteen Dmitriev went to the sc h ool 0 the Semion ov

,

ifeguards His passion for writing verse came to light

.

at about the age of seventeen In 1 7 7 3 he was made an .

officer and proceeded with t h e Guards to Finland In

,
.

1 7 9 5 h e exc h anged t h e military for the civil service In .

1 80 6 h e was a sen ator and was even o ffered the post of

rector of the University of M oscow but wisely declined , ,

and three years later became M inister of Justice .

H is Literary Wor k Dmitriev wrote tales poems ballads

.
, , ,

satires and epigrams His poems had great vogue as .

,

th ey appealed to the prevailing taste for sentimentalism .

His tales Th e Fashion abl e Wif e and The Faddist are imita
tions of Voltaire from whom Dmitriev borrowed largely
'
, .

As a writer of fables he translated Lafontaine .

VLA DiSLA V I V A N OVI C H 0 3 1 6 R OV

was born in 1 77 9 and died
m 1 81 6 He was born m .

the district of Zubtsov in the province of Tver and lost

his mother when quite young He was educated in the same .

aristocratic infantry Corps as Sumarokov and so many

other Russian writers of the XVI I I century He finished .

his co urse in 1 7 87 and was appointed aide de —camp to -

Count de B almen with wh om he assisted in the capture o f

,

B ender ( in B essarabia ) by P ot iom kin P rin ce Al exis .

B orisov ic h Kurakin transferred Oziorov to the dep art ment

of Forests where he enj oyed the special patronage of
Admiral Ribas He entered on literature in 1 794 with a
.

heroic poem El oise to A bel ard On retirement from office ’

he settled in his village of Krasny Yar in Kaz an He was .

distracted with untoward circumstances an d died of a soft

e n in g of the brain .

H is Literary Work Oziorov wrote five tragedies the .

,

best known of which are Oedipus at A th en s Fingal and , ,

Dmitri Don skoi Th e first two are imitations of the Fre n ch

.

tragedy but are written in metre so good as had never

,

before been seen on the Russian stage the verse is smooth , ,

powerful penetrated with the sense of tragedy and these

,

plays produced a great e ffect on the audience Th e .

subj ect of Fingal is taken from the life of the ancient

Gauls In Fingal Oziorov aimed at depicting the Achilles
.
,
 OZI OR OV 73

of the N orthern Lands Fingal is the chiefs of the M orven

.

who has conquered the ruler of Loc hl in st am taken h im ,

captive and released him Starne s heart was full of pride

’
.

and bitterness : he plotted to murder his conqueror the ,

only rival to his power To c arry his obj ect out he invited
.
,

Fingal and o ffered him the hand of his daughter Th e .

daughter out of love for the hero reveals to him the threat
, ,

e n in g danger Th e angry fat h er kills his daughter then

.
,

Fingal summons his band of warriors surprises the Loc h ,

lins c arries the body of his lady love away on a ship and
,
-

buri es her on one of the crags of h is homeland .

Th e tra gedy of Dmitri Don s ké i appeared in the heat of

the war of Russia with N apoleon Russian patriotism .

was then strongly stirred against France and an upsh ot ,

of this feel ing was a whole series of patriotic writings In .

Dmitri B an shoi everyone rea d Alexander and in M amai

'

, ,

N apoleon and with all their h earts an d souls desired victory

to the Russian arms and everyone was blind to the faults
and inconsistencies of t h e tragedy in which t h e heroic
foundation was wildly perverted by the attempt of the
aut h or to give the first place in the tragedy to the senti
“

ment To suit this attitude of m in d Dmitri in the tragedy

'

.
,

is unma rried and in love with Xenia a princess of Nizh e ,

gorod At the time when he is going into battle on which

.

depends the fate of the country Dmitri is unable to repress

,

t he voice of love and pusill animously gives way to j e al ousy

, ~

of the P rince of Tver to whom Xenia has been betrothed

, .

Th e P rince of Tver graciously reno unces Xenia .

 CH A PTER x ii.

ZHU KOVSKI .

was born in the province

VAsfu A N D R EEV I C H ZH U KOVS KI
of Tul a in 1 7 83 and died
in 1 85 2 His father Athanasius Ivan ovich B unin was a
.
,

rich Russian gentleman His mother was a Turk by name

.
,

Salkh a who had been brought from Turkey by the serfs

,

of B unin ( who had been sent there as canteen keepers with

the army) .

A friend of B unin a noble with a smal l esta te Andrew

, ,

Grigore vic h Zh uké v ski who lived in M ish en ski ( where

,

the poet was born) proposed to adopt Sal kh a s son and

’

suggested to M aria Grigore vn a B unina that she should

al l ow her daughter Varvara A fan asevn a to bapt ize the
ne w born infant as Vasili Andreevich Zh uk ovsk i M aria
-
,

Grigor evn a B unina took the baby into h er farm l y and

ed uca ted him as her own child Th e father B unin died in . .

1 791 ,and on his deathbed entrusted the eight year old ,

-

Zh uk é v ski and his mother to his wife who assumed the

duty of bringing up the boy with a pure maternal affection .

Further by the will of B unin each of his four daughters

, ,

was bound to assign roubles each out of their

inheritance to Vasili Andreevich Th e godmother of .

young Zh ukovsk i married one Y ushkov and it was in this ,

family that Zh ukovski passed most of his childhood He .

learned French German etc with the children of Mrs

, , .

Yushkova and was later on sent to a German boarding

,

school at Tula to one Christian Philippovic h Rode From

’
.

the G erman s pen sion he was soon taken and thence put
in the popular school of Tiil a in whic h t h e senior teacher
'
 ZHU KOVSKI 75

was Pokr ovski doctor of phil osophy and writer of historical

,

phil osophic essays in a paper under the name of the phil o

sopher of the mountain of Alaun .

I n 1 7 9 7 Zh ukovski entered the noble pension attached

to the University of M oscow where he did some translations
!

of t ales of Kotzebue The B oy an d th e Stream and Don

Quixote from the French translat ion of Florian for a book
seller In 1 802 Zh ukdvski translated Gray s El egy in a Vill age
.
'

Churchy ard and this translation put nim at once in the

,

ran ks of the b est poets He settled in the town of B él e vo

.

with one other of his sisters M m e P rotasova and fel l in , .

,

love with one of her daughters M ary who taught history , , ,

l iterature an d m odern languages

, From 1 80 8 to 1 8 1 0 .
,

Zh ukovski was editor of the j ournal Véstm k Evropy

‘

the .

ball ad Liudmil a was printed in one of the parts of this

,

j ournal and impressed the public as much as fifteen years

previously Karamzin s P oor Liza had impresse d th em.
'

Th e essay Wh o is a Truly Good an d Happy M a n 7’

indicates the idealistic temperament of the author and is ,

important in that it depicts his views on the essential

boons of life In 1 81 2 he proposed to Maria Andreevna
.

P rotasova : but her mother refused assent on grounds of

kin ship ( which in reality did not exist) Zh uk ovski in .

August of that year entered the M oscow mil itia and

was at the Head quarters of Kutuzov B oth his pupils
- .

M aria an d Al exan dra P rotasova married : and he t h en

settled at Pete rsburg where in 1 81 5 he was presented to
,

Empress Maria Fiodorovn a with whom he remained as ,

a reader On the accession of Emperor Nicholas he

.

was appointed tutor to the heir apparent .

Th e translation of the Indian poems N al a and Damay atz

'
'

according to one of the biog raphers of Zh ukovski is on the

border line between t he two periods of his life : for after
-

concludin g his duties as tutor of the heir apparent he ,

travell ed to Germany where in 1 841 he married t h e

,

daughter of an ol d friend Colonel Reutern who lived , ,

his family at Dusseldorf This marriage realised the .

happine ss the poet h ad striven for from his youth to be ,

cheated of it by fate He died in 1 85 2 at Baden B aden

.
-
76 Z HUKOVSK I

his body transferred to P etersburg

was b urie d at the an d
'

A l e x an dron e vsk i M on astery next to that of Karamzin , .

H ts Literary Work Zh ukovsk i s literary work falls

’
.

into two periods the first of forty years up to 1 840 This

,
.

first period is the more important in Russian literature .

Zh uk ovski principally translate d extracts from German

and English poets all in the romantic direction This ,
.

is w h y h e himself called himself the father of romanticism

in Russi a Romantic literature derives its name from the
.

i ncident that its first productions were in the Romance

languages i e those formed from popular Latin in the
, . .
,

countries of Latin civilization This is the poetry of the .

new Christian world as opposed to that of the ancient ,

Greco Roman world Rom anticism shaping itself under

-
.
,

Christian i n fluence sub ordinated the physical to the ,

-

spiritual the earthly to the celestial : to poets of the

,

romantic school the ideal of b eauty was the spirit of man _

,

his thoughts and feelings and desires N ot being able to .

discover the ide al on earth the romantic poet remains ,

'

unsatisfied and therefore betrays a melancholy an un quen ,

able source oi themes for poetry with a Christian outloo k .

Zh ukovsk i s compositions of the first period may be

’

further s ub divided into three stages the patriotic odes

-
, ,

the elegies and the ballads Th e patriotic odes belong to .

the school of Derzh avin Such are the Song of th e B ard .

over th e Grave of the S l av Victors an d the M in strel in the

Ran ks of th e R ussian Warriors .

Th e last poem with its echo of the general patriotism

earned the author the title of the Russian Tyrt ae us and ,

contains much lyrical be auty and expressions of p ersonal

feelings on h ome and brotherhood friendship l ove and
, , ,

poetry Th e style is artistic and terse ( a quality rare in

.
,
Derzh avin ) Th e two remaining features of t his period
.

are translations and imitations principally from Schiller , ,

G oethe Uhland B iirge r Gebel Seidl itz and other German

, , , , ,

poets and Gray Southey Goldsmith Wal ter Scott

, , , , ,

B yron and M oore amongst the English

, However it is
, .
,

unj ust to call Zh ukovski a translator in the ordinary sense

of this term His translations are reconstructions with
.
78 ARZA M A S M ER ZLI A KOV GN EDI CH

In 1 8 1 5 a club was founded c al led Arzamas

A R ZA M A S
,

consisting of a circle of young men who devoted

themselves exclusively to a pol emic with the Sh ish kow st s
( t h e antagonists of the reform of Karamz in ) Gibes and .

parodies and satires and caricatures were the principal

weapons of Arzamas Th e members of the Club bore
.

names derived from the titles of Zh ukovsk i s ballads thus

'

P ushk in was called Sv e rc h k a B at iush k ov Achill es an d eve n

,

Zh ukovski took the title of Svét l ian a Th e services .

rendere d by Zh ukdv ski consist mainly in h is acquainting

Russia with the various productions of foreign authors
and thus enabling Russians to j udge of their value I n .

his translations verse and language attained a high

perfection simplicity and exquisiteness He was the first
, .

to create a Russian style of verse poetic and truthfully ,

artisti and had shown a great mastery of Russian using

c
, ,

the most various metres in his verse .

( 1 7 7 8 1 83 0 )
- translated from the original ,
M ERZLI A KOV
the Odes of P indar the Tragedies of Euripides
, ,

the I dy l l s of Theocritus the Ecl ogues of Virgil and the Odes

, ,

of Horace He understood the spirit of ancient poetry and

.

possessed a poetic talent but in obedience to the influence

,

of a false theory he shortened and transformed t h e original ,

made t h e text bombastic or glorified it or sentimentalized

it introduced many Slavonic words which were unsuitable
, ,

to t h e simplicity of the original and he was contented to

,

translate extracts trusting t h at this would prove a sufficient

acquaintance with the original Th e best translations .

are those of the I dy ll s of Theoc ritus the Ecl ogues of Virgil ,

and the P oetics of Horace .

is famous for his translation in 1 82 9 of the I l iad

GN EDI CH
.

Th is w ith the Ody ssey is of value not merely

, ,

for knowledge of the plastic outlook of the Greeks but ,

also provides abundant material for the history of t h e

theory of ethics and of the life of mankind in primitive
t imes Gnédich s translation is very close to the original
.
.

an d Home r s style is exactly re ndered

’

B ut whilst con.

ser vm
g t h e force of the Homeric diction Gn é dic h did not ,

always keep to the simplicity of his author He still .

 B ATI USHKOV 79

could not redeem himself from the old fashioned conception -

of a poem according to which it must have some solemnity

,

and pomp S ometimes this conviction s ometimes the

.
,

wish to cons erve the very phrase s of the original made h im ,

often use participles and Slavonic expressions and generally , ,

speaking sonorous fine words in the stead of simple o n es

, ,

and t h is is the more pecul iar as in conj unction with such

words there are found expre ssions adopted from colloquial
speech for inst ance false rhymes and unsuitable collo
, , ,

cations of style His hexameters are melodious and

.

smoot h in so far as any such artificial metre can be in

,

Russian .

was born in 1 7 87 and died in

CON S TA N T I N E NI KOLAEVI CH
B ATI US HKOV
1 85 5 He came of a house
. of
ancient nobles of N ovgorod
who in 1 683 were the proprietors of the picturesque village
of Dan il ovsk oe in t h e U st iuzh in ski district which had
been bestowed on them by the Emperors Ivan and
P eter A l e x éevic h ( 1 666—9 6 and 1 682 — 1 7 2 5 ) to M att h ew
B at iush k ov one of t h e poet s ancestors He from
’

, .

early c h ildhood was consigned to strangers he scarcely

knew his mother as she had to be separated from
,

h er children in consequence of insanity His educatio n

. .

h e received from his uncle first cousin once removed , ,

M N Muravie v whose wife he all his life regarded with

. .
,

filial feeling and deep affection Muraviev s exertions .

’

secured to Batiush ov admission to the boarding school of

Jacquinot where h e learned modern languages Later
, .

on h e was sent to another foreigner I A Tripoli who , . .

made him thoroughly conversant with French German and ,

Italian Muravie v h imself no doubt exercised a beneficial

.

’
instr uctive influence on t h e development of B atiush kov s
mind and intellect as a moralist and cultured writer as
, ,

also did a circle of littérateurs and artists who constantly

met at the house In 1 80 6 B at iushkov finished his educa
.

tion and entered service at the Chancell ery of t h e ministry

of public education but was very soon a fterwards made
,

secretary to his second cousin M uravie v then assistant ,

minister I n 1 80 7 B at iush kov volunteered for the rifle

. .
80 B ATI USH KOV

battalion of the Petersburg regim ent and was wounded in

the foot at the B attle of Heidelberg In 1 80 8 and 1 80 he
took part in the per ilous expedition against the Aa9
.

and
I sles over the frozen se as of the gulf of B othnia In t he
‘

midst of the forests and al l t h rough t h e anxious camp life

,
-

B at iush kov was st udying Tasso and P etrarch After the .

war he entered the public service in the I mperial Public

Library where two other authors had also found a shelter ,

Kryl ov and Gn édic h in the War of Liberation of 1 81 2 he

'

could not enlist at first but in 1 8 1 3 when satisfied with

, ,

re gard to the family of his benefactress Mme Muravieva , . ,

he j oined the forces an d together with the hero R aevski

,

went through the whole campaign I n 1 81 6 B atiushkov .

retired and was again made honorary librarian in the

Library where he ze al ous ly occupied himsel f with literature .

In 1 81 8 he travelled to I taly and in 1 82 2 returned to Russia

”

in a condition of intellectual conturbation .

H is Literary Work Although the service rendered by

.

B atiush kov to Russian literature is not as evident and

great as that of Zh ukovski and Gn édic h in the history of
’

literature he deserves a high and h onourable place Under

,
.

the in fl uence of the rom anticism of the time Batiushkov ,

wrote the poems A Frien d s Sh adow Th e Dy ing Tasso

’

, ,

On the Ruin s of a Castl e in S weden ( a translation of Frie drich

,

von Mat th isson : 1 7 6 1 to These poems show the

q ual ities of his poetry sensitivenes s plasticity in which
'

, ,

feature he is in sharp contrast with inde fin it eness of form

in Zh ukdvski His translations from Tibullus Petrarch
.
, ,

B occaccio and Evariste Désiré Desforg es Farny ( 1 7 5 3 to

,

1 8 1 4) were strange to the life of his day but e x press ed a ,

real feeling stirred by act ualitie s .

 CHA PTER XI I I .

KRYLO V AN D TH E J OURN A LI SM OF THE

R OM A N TI C E POCH .

Kryl ov in Russia n literature -

r un LI T ER A R Y I M PO R TA N C E
takes rank as an altogether
O F x nv r ov .

exceptional figure His name .

is on the lips of every literate Russian and his writ ings ,

have ac q uired a popularity and significance comparable

with t h at of Homer in an cient Greece I t is remarkable .

tha t Kryl ov who entere d on the stage of literature almost

,

at the same time as Karamzin kept himself altogether

aloof from t h e trend which the latter innovated into
Russian literature it is also observable that he remained
adverse and almost hostile to the romantic development
t h at h ad as its representatives two suc h giants as Zh ukovski
and Pushkin Kryl ov thus survived two literary periods
.

those of Karamzin and P ush kin an d yet stood aside from ,

the definite trend of Russian literary life that was being

enacted and neither following anyone nor having any
,

followers indisputa bly occupied in literature a position

, ,

higher than that of any of his predecessors or c ont e mpor

aries and stood on a level with Karamzin and P ushkin
, .

Iv an Andreevich Kryl ov was born at M oscow in 1 7 63

and died in 1 844 He spent the first eight years of his
.

life at Oren bii rg where his father an officer in the army

’

, ,

was on service In 1 7 79 h is father died at home at Tver

.
,

where he had b een engaged on service after his retirement

from the army and left his wife and children al most desti
t ute. Fortunately the mot h er M aria Al e x ée vna Kryl ova
, ,

81
82 KRY LOV

was one of those splendid Russian women who were pre

pared for any sacrifice for the sake of her ch ildren N ot .

withstanding e x treme penury and need she found t ime to

teach her son all she knew and also to discover means for
supplementing her scanty resources I v an An dreevich .

was hardly fourteen years old wh en he was forced fo r sheer

poverty to enter service as a mere copyist in the Kah azinski
district Court whence he soon was transferred to the
,

magistracy at Tver in which his father had served up to

the time of his death In 1 7 83 M aria Al ex éevn a with her
.
,

son remove d to P etersburg where the latter entered service

, ,

in the Treasury with a salary of two roubles a month Soon .

afterwards he was promoted to the Cabinet of the Empres

where he stayed a long time His m other died in 1 788 .

and he then quitted the service and full of the energy of ,

out h and hope in his strength and prospects devoted

himsel f exclusively to literature
,

Kry l é v s F irst Composition s His first art of authorship

’
.

was in his fourteenth year From 1 7 7 to 1 80 1 Kryl ov

.
,

lived near K iev on the estate of S F G0 it syn who was then . .

in disgrace When P rince Golitsyn was nominated

.

Governor of Riga he took Kryl ov with him as the first sec

re t ary of the Chancellery In 1 80 3 Krylov thr ew up this
.

service Where he passed the interval between 1 80 4 and

.

1 80 5 is not known and has not been ascertained onl y t h is ,

much is certain that at the end of the year 1 80 5 Kryl év

, ,

arri ved in M oscow and handed to the author Dmitriev a

translation of Fabl es of Lafontaine The Oak and the Reed , ,

The Fastidious B ride, Th e Ol d M an and h is Three Sons .

A little later he ag ain reached P etersburg, Where he for a

while entered the ser vice of the mint and then became ,

assistant librarian at the I mperial Public Library and finally

-
,

Librarian .

Th e centenary of his birth was celebrated in both capitals

and in many provincial centres in the year 1 868
His Literary Work Kry l ov s liter
.

’
. work fall s into
two periods Th e first embraces the e t in g of j ourn al s
.

and the second the composition of two comedies and t he

Fables . B oth periods are similar in that the predominating
 KR Y LOV 83

tenden cy is towards an allegorical form of thought and that

the gist is the same I n the second period the allegory
.

took the form of fable .

Th e j ournal The P ost of the Spirits was of a condemnatory

tone Th e foreign e ducation of Russian nobility was
.

scoffed at In the j ournal Th e Spectator articles by the

.
, ,

editor were published such as Kaib ( an Eastern tale)

, ,

A n Eul ogy to my Gran dfath er Th e first depicts the servility

.

of the vizir to his commander and is a satire on the composers

of odes and idylls Th e second ironically praises the virtues
.

of the squire his love of dogs an d horses whereby he is

, ,

abl e in a very short time to squander all that his peasants

had laboriously collected for him in the co urse of years .

In the comedy The Fashion abl e S hop he makes a mock

cr
y of the infatuation for French fas h ions and customs ,

the position of French governesses tutors wh o can adroitly ,

take advantage of the credulity of the inhabitants of the

capital .

Fables have existed in almost all peoples and have merely

varied in their orientation Kry l ov s F abl es have the same
.
’

tendency as Lafontaine s B oth ascribe an e ual import

’

ance both to the narrative an d to the moral he animals .

in them are not mere allegories but living beings only ,

each has its own unalterable character As to the spir it .

and aim of Kryl ov s Fabl es it is apposite to men tion t h at

’

latterly they have been subj ected to much censure and

a dverse criticism M any blame him for his coldness
.
,

his ultra conservatism and sceptic al attitude towards

learning and education the preference he s h ows to wit and
,

common sense as against profound theoretic sciences .

Th e reply to all such condemnations is that t h e moral of

Kry lov s F a bl es is remarkably near that current everyday
’

form in which it has been distilled in the R ussian people

in the course of many centuries .

It is allowable not to like Kryl ov s outlook to decry ’

his moral standpoi n t as obsolete and crab bedly conserva

tive or even to agree wit h Wiegel who says that in Krylov
there was e xpressed all the character of the simple peopl e
of Russia such as had been produced by the Tartar subj u
,
84 THE HI STORI CAL N OVE L

gation the tyranny of Ivan IV serfdom and the iron

, ,

hand of P et e r the Great B ut in any case there can be

. , ,

no denial of t h e fact that all the work of Kryl ov as a ,

fab ulist is one of the most brilliant phenomena of that

,

inexhaustibl e genius which lies dorman t in the masses of the

Russia n peopl e beneath the heavy laye rs of age long -

stagnatio n and apathy .

Kryl ov s Fabl es in their content may be divided into

’

the instruct ional su ch as the Education of the Lion The

, ,

P easan t a n dth e Sn ake Th e B ottl e The Cuckoo andthe Turtle

, ,

dove the satiric , s uch as Th e Cook and the P earl The ,

M armoset a nd th e Spectacl es, Th e P ig un der the Oak an d

th e B esom I n the fables The Duc at, The Diver , The Cofier,
'
.

The Gardin er , The P hilosoph er The P easan t an d the Fox, ,

Th e M an who was Curious The A uthor, an d The P irate , .

Kryl ov con demns theoretic learning , pre fers comm on

sense and sagaciousness to goody-goody moral izing Such .

a philosophy is not very instructive and the unpleasant

impression is redeemed only by the artistic v al ue of the
fa ble
.

THE HI STO RI CA L
O VEL N .

Sir Walter Scott was the founder of the histori cal

novel In Russia he had many im itators who unfort u
.
,

nat e l y did not avail themsel ves of the orig inal sources ,

the Chron icl es and oral po pular traditions for they had
material ready to h and Karamzin s histo ry They ex tracted
’

, .

from that book the subj ect for their novels and romances
and unconsciously were carried away by the Opinions and
predilections of the historian and imparted into their pro
duct ions a senti mentality a feeble comprehension of the
,

life of the mass of the people and further in their imita , ,

tion of the new romanticism they added ex traneous elem en ts

of marvellous endea vour strong passions an d id eal virtues
,
.

Such were the narratives of Karamzin M artha the Governor s

’

Wife an d the historical novels of Pol evoi and P ogodin

( 1 7 96 to 1 846 and 1 80 0 to l a os kin and Lazn éch
n ik o v are the most g ifted autho rs in t is g eneration who se
works we now read .
 CHA P TER XIV .

A . S . P U SHK I N A N D H I S FOLLOWER S .

r M lg; 2d
b li ) 2 th
z
s n n
A LE X A N D ER SER GEEVI CH P US H KI N
pp
gg c os z v , 11
died January 2 9t h 1 83 7 He came in direct line of descent
,
.

from the boyar Gregory Gavril ovic h Pushkin who served

under Tsar Alexis Mikh ail ovic h ( 1 645 to 1 6 76) his mother
was a grand daughter of Abraham P etrovich Hannibal
-

who became known to Russia as the N egro of P eter the

Great As soon as P ushkin h ad learned how to rw d he
.
,

was taught Russian by one Schil ler and then was consign ed
to various French tutors who for a time made him forget
that he was a Russian B eing very unimpressionable up
.

to the age of seven this education had no e ffect At the .

age of ten P ushkin changed and although not very

, , ,

studious began to devour books feverishly His brother

, .

Le o says t h at P ushkin at the age of eleven knew all French

literature by heart and a biographer agrees that these
,

words may be accepted with some reservations Hence .

his first verses were in French At the age of twelve .

,

P ushkin passed the entrance examination int o the Lycée

( 1 8 1 1 ) as one of 33 who were to constitute the first pupil s .

Th e educational conditions at the Lycée were the most

favourable possible for the development of the poet s
’

talents the association with others did the youn g poet

great good and weakened the French influences of his home .

Several manuscript j ournals were published in the Lycée ,

suc h as Th e Sch ool Sag e For P l easure an d Use The Ty ro

, , ,

and in them his schoolmates and P ushkin himself took an

 P U SHKI N 87

active part and further the members of this schoolboy

,

club had every evenin g in turn to make up a story and start

one lea ving it to be concluded three or four evenings later
by other narrators And in the midst of this environment
.
, ,

P ushkin who was first called a Frenchman in this Lycée

, ,

left off writing French verse and began writing Russian .

Th e first of his schoolboy poems was a dedication to his

sist er These youthful poems did not sh ow any originality
.
,

but disclosed h is t al ents to such an extent as to attract

the attention of such writers as Karamzin and Zh ukovski ,

the best wr iters of the day .

Karamzin and Zh uk ovski encouraged Pushkin in his

poetry when he was still sitting on his sc h ool b ench and ,

Zh uk ov sk i handed P ushkin s verses to Karamzin to read

’

trusting t h e latter s fine ear more th an his own experience

’
.

I t is very interesting t h at even P ushkin accounted himself

as a pupil of Zh ukov ski whom he copied least of anyone
, ,

as his poetry was in spirit and form much nearer to t h at of

B at iush k ov wh ich was freer from misty dreaminess and
,

in touc h wit h reality and rich in graceful i m ages In 1 8 1 7 .

P ushkin finished his course at t h e Lycée and in 1 8 1 8 at the

’
meetings of the Arzamas and at Zh uk ovski s evening
pa rties he had already begun reading t h e first verses of
Russian and Liudmila in which any dispassionate hearers
,

could not but see a novel and unprecedented event in

Russian literature B ut t h e susceptible young poet was
.
,

abandoning h imself to dissipation and even debauchery in

t h e whirl of society At the age of twenty he h ad allowed
.

himself great freedom of speech and denounced whatever

aroused his anger and th e storm would h ave burst on his
,

head save for the earnest mediation of Karamzin and other

,

friends but for this he might h ave been exiled to t h e island

of Sol ovka : instead of this he was transferred from t h e
Foreign M inistry to the Chancellery of the principal superin
tendent of colonists of t h e South and in M ay 1 820 was ,

already on his way South to Ek at erin osl avl From 1 82 0 .

to 1 82 4 P ush kin stayed in Sout h Russia and surrendered

himself to the influence of B yron who had already captured
,

most of the poets of Europe .

88 P U SHK IN

B yron s in fl uence is manifested in Th e Caucasian Capti

’
ve ,

The Foun tain of B akhchi-S ara i and partly in The Gypsies , ,

with whom he lived and wandered for some time .

At Ekat erinosl avl Pushkin fell ill of a fever an d the

, ,

family of General R aevski secured him the right c f j ourney

.

ing to the Caucasus In B essarabia Pushk m s genius

’

attained its matur ity There he wrote The M use To . ,

Ovid N apol eon The S ong of Ol eg the Wise and some first
, , ,

stanzas of Evgén i Onegin In 1 824 he was rel ea sed from .

t h e service and relegated for residence to the village of

Mikh ail obsk oe in the province of Pskov In 1 82 6 he was .

allowed to return to M oscow and presented to Emperor ,

N icholas I who took it on him self from thenceforth to be

,

the censor of his works .

There exists a legend that the Emperor at a bal l said

to Count B ludov To-day I had a t al k with the most
,
"
sensible man in Russia In 1 834 the poet married N N . . .

Goncharova Th e last years of his life Pushkin spent in

.

editing Th e Contemporary On January a7th 1 83 7 he was .

, ,

mortally wounded in a duel with B aron George Gekeren

Dant es and carried home by his se cond Danzas : two days ,

later he died surrounded by his friends and universally

mourned His body was buried in the Svyatog orski
.
-

Uspenski mona stery and a monument to him put up in

,

Moscow in 1 881 .

His Literary Work To unde rstand the significan ce of

.

’
P ushkin s literary work attention must be directed first
“

to his lyric compositions Even in his first attempts his .

,

poems in anacreontic and other Greek metres one character

ist ic of his style may be observed peculiar to him : that
each fl eetin g impression is expressed with unaccustomed
lightness and vigour and playful ness and variety of style
, .

P ushkin in the form of his lyric resembles Zh ukovski

, ,

and Bat iush kov save in that whilst the abolished th e ,

ancient theory of borrowing and imitating ushkin created ,

for himsel f and derived his imag es from the impressions

,

of his own life His poetry like an echo responded to all

.
, ,

the moods of life : the eace ful friendly rej oicin g the ,

dreams of war e phemer intrig ues the ideal adoration

, ,
 P U SHK I N 89

of beauty t he simpl e minded old nurse the e x cited aristo

, ,

e rat Tati ana the picturesqueness of the Caucasus the

, ,

poverty of Russian villages the rainy autumn — anything ,

equally attracted him and was expressed as a simile full ,

of harmony an d charm .

He was as has been said strongly influenced by B yron

, , .

This sympath in him found utterance in the beautiful

poems To the ea and Day s B eacon has expired ,
’
.

Th e descriptions of N ature show us th at Nature does

not fret Pushkin doe s not transport him into the realm
,

of mysterious questions of life and fate but merely calms ,

his soul and reanimates the feeling of beauty Some poems

, .

may be especially noted The Fl eeting Cl ouds are thin n ing , ,

Th e Caucasus The Lan dsl ip Th e Demon s The Win ter

, , ,

Even ing The Win ter Road A utumn

, , .

Th e polished poems The P oor To th e Poet Ech o The , , ,

M onument e xpress the poet s perturbation amidst men

’

who ask of him not what he can give and aspires after .

Th e public of his day and the critics could not be satisfied

with Pushkin as all his productions were artisticall y beyond
,

the a st h etic development of that time He was appreciated .

by the descendants of the forties and fifties B elinski . ,

the gifted critic grasped t h e great value of Pushkin s

'

poetry and proved how great had been his services to

,

Russian literature .

’
Thus in defining the character of Push kin s lyrics
, ,

we may divide them into two categories : those written

about 1 820 which represent the influence of B yron and
,

the later ones that are the outcome of an ae sthetic enj oyment
of the e x q uisite phenomena of the human soul In o ther .

species of poetry the same tendency may be observed as

,

in the lyri cs Th e prose is a model of live observant

.

narrative and a light style very di fferent from that of ,

Karamzin .

Rusl an an d Liudmil a was the first oem that attracted

t h e intere st of the public It was nished about 1 82 0 . ,

now some great faults are found with it first it is a medley ,

of the variegated elements reminiscences of Russian tales ,

and medieval Italian fantasies of Zh uké vski s romanticism

’

,
9° P U SH KI N

and the light poetry of the Frenchman P arn y : secondly ,

it has no defined i dea n or Specific character it is rather a ,

leisurely diversion with sharp transitions from soft or

passionate scenes to terrible and military from t h e ridiculous
to the sad Of the ch aracters the best defined are the
.
,

feminine in which Puskhin excelled : and thirdly th e , ,

poem as a composition shows some confusion in the rel ation

of the actors and connection of the episodes .

Th e Caucasian Captive has left his country : he has

retired from the world and fled to a far country as a friend
of N ature with t h e j o yous portent of freedom Such a .

disenchantment was in par t an imitation of B yron and in ,

’
part a reflex of Pushkin s own experience when he visited
the Caucasus Th e poet s own feelings are plainly expressed
.

’
’

but the hero s character stil l remains undefined it is not

evident what precisely compell ed him to abandon his
home and his petty selfish nature in our eyes forfeits any
charm .

Th e Gy psies Aleko the hero of the Gypsies exhibits

.
,

the same disenchantment as The Caucasian Captive but ,

the character is better defined the reasons t h at compelled

,

the hero to flee from civilized society are set forth The .

gypsy woman Zemfira with her frank and seductive

-
,

nature her c haracteristic song of her old harsh husband

,

is especially natural and simple .

Evgen i On égin is a novel in verse describing the d1 5

illusioned hero as applied to t h e life of Russia the reason
of this disenchantment is t h e superficial worldly education
and the vanity of the civilized life .

In this romance there are pictures of the brilliant worldly

education images of t h e life and dan dified ways in the
,
.

capital of days spent in eating and idle chatter

,
.

SOM E OF THE P R I N CI P A L TYPES C R EA TED B Y P USHKI N .

Onegin a Russian gentleman with splendid faculties

, ,

and potentialities is marked for his sparkle sincerity and ,

h onour His educ ation has been in the French sense

.

brilliant superficial and without national predispositions

,
.

He passes his time in Society at balls and in masquerades ,

 P U SH KI N 91

an d everywhere shines for his fragm entary knowledge

his wit and he triumphs on the stage of gentle passions
When weary of his victories in Society he goes home to
.

his vill age to busy himself on the management of his

estates : but soon he is bored with this as well : and he
finds the romantic aspirations of his neighbour Lenski
j ust as tiring : the rapturous love of the village Lady
Tatiana interests him to a cert ain extent and for love of ,

her he q uits his own cold and reasoned counsels and sets
out abroad to divert his morbi dity On egin is permeated .

’
with B yronism and B y ron s ideas are often cited but he
,

h as mostly onl y he ard them in Society where he has spent

more time than at home He is a man sensitive attracted
.
,

by ideas which he cannot reconcile with life and has there

fore become indolent and splenetic .

Len ski is in all respects the opposite of On egin and ,

therefore his romanticism is quite different Lenski .

possesses no special strength of mind nor will power but -

,

has a kind sym pathetic heart born for love and friendship
, ,

he thinks that l ife is given to us for happin ess and t h at ,

everyone is only conce rned with doing his neighbour good .

He h as been educated in Germ any has read Kant and ,

Sc h iller has yearned and written poetry

,
He meets .

Onegin in the vil lage and confides to him all his noble dre arhs
He fal ls in love with Olga Tati ana s sister wal ks with her
’

, ,

in the garden smiles and gazes at the moon and stars and
,

reads Schill er He is wholly unpractical has not un der

.
,

stood Olga s behaviour at t h e ball is ruffled with On egin

’

and challenges him to a duel is slain and carries to his

,

grave his splendid dreams which he has never been able

to bring to fruition for he never had sufficient sense nor
,

character In this hero Pushkin intended representing

.

the unattractive side of romanticism .

Tatidn a posses ses the best features of this new element .

There is much natural resemblance between Tati ana and

Lenski but Tatiana has more will power
,
Sh e has been -
.

brought up by a nurse who has trained her imagination

with the tal es of the simple people Th e novels of Richard.

son an d Rousseau have something to do with the formation

92 P U SH KI N

in her of a certain outlook on mankin d At the sight of .

Onegin she re al izes his supe riority over the other Visitors
'

to the vil lage and decides forthwith he is her ideal and

writes him a letter Th e cold response offends her but
.

leaves the ideal untouched and it is pleasant to her to

,

consider herself as a victim or heroine to dream and muse ,

on On egin .

Having found the books he re ad an d h ad annotated ,

she tries to guess what manner of man he is but she never

grasped h is B yronism and ended with a comparison of
him with the ideal of her favourite authors ( such as
Grandison) of a man su ffering from the excess of his
good qu al ities Th e acts of her lover clearly prove
.

to her the contrary whereupon doubts arise in her

,

mind depriving her of the energy necessary to combat

ill —succe ss or sorrow After this she submits to her mother
.

and marries some general [ In Russia Gen eral is not

.

necessarily a military title] .

In Tatiana P ushkin h as succeeded in portraying many

,

tou ching aspects of the feminine character : gentleness ,

ingenuousness and sincerity ; a passionate curio sity of a

mind that is tortured by inaction obstinate struggle after ,

t h e ideal which might a fford a moral satisfaction in life .

Th e picture of Tati ana is a vivid presentation of the fate

of the Russian woman educated in t h e epoch de scribed ‘

by Pushkin .

Ol ga the sister of Tati ana is very much happier

, , .

Sh e possesses a kindl y and a ffectionate soul and from the ,

first has at tached herself to Lenski but when he is kill ed , ,

su ffered awhile and then consoles herself and marrie s

,

some Uhlan In a word she is the daughter of her mother

.

from whom she never departs afar Sh e is altogether .

unperturbed by what agitates the souls of Onegin Lenski ,

and Tatiana In her person Pushkin depicts a girl of his

.
,

time of whom hundreds e x isted of whom there are many

now who are happy .

Th e weakness of the novel consists in that it merely

presents a series of pictures in simpl e and masterly form
without any sign of an inner development of character
94 PU SH K I N

expressed the idea that those who combine their personal

interests and desires with the aims of humanity or the
nation leave behind them a memorial in the shape of their
energy and deserve t h e respect of posterity : whilst those
who on the contrary are guided in their actions only by
, ,

selfish motives are soon forgotten by posterity however ,

great their renown during their l ives Th e per sons of .

P eter Koch ub éi his daughter M azeppa etc are linked

, , , ,

together with interests which conflict and are decided at

,

the B attle of P olt ava .

The Kn ight of B ronze commemorates the mel ancholy

fate of the poor official Evgen i who at the time of an inunda
,

tion of Petersburg in 1 82 4 lost his bride he was so shattered

that he went mad and had the hal lucination that he was
,

bein pursued by the bronze statue of P eter I in front of

wh icg
,

l he utters bold language against the founder of Peters

burg .

The Captain s Daughter is a good introduction to the

’

e xternal side of the events of the insurrection of Pugach ov

"

I van Kuzmich and Vasil isa Egorovn a folks of the old ,

order and born bachelors are succ essfull y and faithfully

,

depicted : and the type of Sav élic h with his grumbles ,

and slavish devotion is equal ly fine But the principal .

character Pugach ov Grin ev Sh vabrin and M aria A van ovna

,

are too broad l y drawn Sh v ab rin is the ordina ry t e of

.

the romantic blackguard whos e h as no other 0 j ect

than to pester M aria Ivanovna a thoroug hly moral and ,

modest maiden Grinev is a generous lover a B a ard

.
,

sans peur et sans reproch e and everythin g he puts his and

to g oes smoothly In Pugac h ov s perso n the national
’
.

character is traced feebly an d superficially .

Th e services rendered by Pushkin are principally that

he after fully mastering the living l angua e of R ussia used
,

it with the art of genius to express t e most various

i mpressions the g reatest refinements of feelings and thus
,

enriched the lit erary language : appositene ss terseness , ,

vi gour of e xpression in the homely speech of Russian ,

together with playfulness delicacy and g race— t hese are

,

the marks of Pushkin s style

'
.
 DELVI G 95

The successors o f the P ushkin school N ot one of the .

Russian poets ever created such a revolution in literature

as Push kin At the beginning of the thirties he already
.
,

saw around him a number of young literary workers who

had developed and grown up under the influence of his
fertil e and inexhaustible resources in poetry in al l its
varieties Some merit mention in a history of literature
.

such as Kozlov Dél vig B aratyn ski Y azyk ov Venevitinov

, , , ,

and Podolin ski .

Kozlov ( I VA N I VA N OVI C H 1 7 99 1 840 ) is so far remarkable

,
-

that he became a poet only after his blindness Misfort une .

made him into a poet and thus a deep melanch oly charac
,

t e rizes his verse and emerge s in all his poem s and conveys
,

to them a monotony which cannot escape notice even at

the first reading .

Th e poems Chernéts and N atal ia Dolgorukaia used to

be learned by heart before they were printed and circulated ,

in manuscript .

was born at M oscow in 1 7 98

A N TO N A N TO N O V I C H DELVI G
.

His descent was from one of

the most widely spread families of the B al tic B arons He .

went to the same lycée with Pushkin Push kin s memoirs

'
’
.

acquaint us with some facts of Del vig s childhood : he ’

entered in the year 1 81 1 his facul ties devel oped slowl y :

,

his memory was weak his intell ect sluggish On e day

, .

Dél vig told his companions that h e h ad taken part in the

M paign of 1 80 7 and his na rrative so a ffected his audience
that for some days he gathered around him a circle of eager
listeners who begged for a repetition of the tal e Th e .

Director came to hear of this and himself wanted to hear

from Dél vig the story of his adventures in the war Dél vig .

successfully repeated his narrative to the sta ff Sub .

sequently he own ed to his comrades that it was all imagina

tion and in general Dél vig sh owed a great aptitude for such
inventions N evert h eless he never told a lie to j ustify
.

himself in any wrong he had done so as to avoid punishment , .

He fell il l in 1 830 of a mental disorder and died in 1 83 1

“

His poetic tal ent was accounted slight He wrote romances .

,

plagiarized popular songs and in vol unt ail y gave them a

,
96 B A R ATYN SKI Y AZ Y KOV

drawing room tone-

Th e best . of his poems are To-day I
Feast with y ou M y Frien ds ,
.

was born in 1 80 0 on t h e estate 0 f his

EVGEN I A B R AMO V I C H
father Adj utant General A A B ara ,
. .

B A R ATY N S KI
t y ns ki in the village of Viazh l a in , ,

Tamb ov His mother had compl eted her course at the

.

Sm ol n y Institute at Petersburg and was a fraulein in ,

at te ndance on Empress M aria Feodorovn a Baraty n ski .

died at N aples in 1 844 His body was transported to .

Russia and buried in the Alexandro N evski M onastery -

next to that of Kryl ov and Gn édich .

His literary work and his lyrics like those of most of , ,

P ush kin s contemporaries is characterized by lugubrious

’

ness In his poem The Last P oet he expressed the tho ught
.

that the prose of life crushes poetry hearts harden and , ,

people concern themselves onl y with utilitarian obj ects .

Th e poet dreads the development of reason the strengt h ,

e h ing of the Spirit of research the t riumph of science which ,

in his opinion must ruin poetry B ut this fal se view is .

put in beautiful verse .

In his poem The Last Death he says that life is the booty
, ,

of death and reason the foe of sentiment and truth the

, ,

devastator of happine ss This poem too expre sses the .

, ,
'
poet s fear of the fate of poet ry His ideal was the com
,
.

bination of poetry with life as he expressed it in the poem ,

On the Death of Goethe I n the poems Eda The B al l Th e .

, ,

Gy psy there are many spots of beauty but the thought

,

is unsustained All t h e fine points of B arat yn ski and his

.

weaknesses proceed from the same cause that though a ,

real poet wit h a high appreciation and understanding ( if

,

his profe ssion he had no definite outlook on life no strong

, ,

and live idea .

was born in 1 80 3 in the province of

Y AZ Y K O V ( N IK OLA I
Simbirsk There is nothing known
M I KHAI LOVI CH)
.

of his childhood In his eleventh .

year he was taken to P etersburg and plac ed in a school of

mining engineers where he stayed six years an d learn e d very
little The only inclination he sh owed was towards litera
'

ture an d reading and this was at la st developed in him

, ,
98 VENEVI TIN OV PODOLI NSKI

oetis a
who died at the a g e of
V N EVH I N OV 0
E
‘

V A DI M I R
3m
I 80 5
?
“
t wen Fy
—one but succeeded in
,
’
awakening generally sym pathy and
promising the most brilliant prospects He is noticeable
.

for his love and thorough grasp of contemporary German

philosophy and this feeling found expression in his verse
, .

He was more of a philosopher than a poet Further had .

,

he survived he would probably have abandon ed poetry

,

for philosophy and done great service in that field .

a godson of P ushkin was deeply influenced

,
PODOLI N S KI
by B yron and completely unacquainted with
,

life His poems B arski ( the Rich M an ) The P oor M an

.
, ,

The Div an d the P eri abound in ric h ness of feeling and

,

poetic pa ssages but are weak in content and disconnected

, , .
 CHA PTER XV .

GR I B OI EDOV , LER MON TOV .

belonged to the h ighest circle of

A LEXA N D R SER GEEVI CI
W
’

Moscow Society
.

GRI B OI EDOV
ith his extra .

ordinary capabilities at the age ,

of 1 7 he finished his course at the University and entered

.

as a com et in the Sal tykov Hussars but in 1 8 1 6 retired and

,

entered the Fo reign Office He began his literary career

wit h an a rticle in the Viéstn ik Evropy on a regime ntal
.

festival and then after coming in to contact with a circle

, ,

of actors began writing l ittle comedies either alo ne or in ,

collaboration with A A Zh an dr ( the director of t h e

. .

Adm iralty 1 7 89 to
, Thus in 1 81 6 there was playe d
on the P etersburg stage Griboiédovs first comedy Th e
Young Consorts and next year I nfidelity Simul ated In
, .

1 8 1 8 Grib 0 1 e dov was o ffered the post of Amb assador in

Persia wh ere he sketched out the famous comedy depicting
the h igh est ranks of M oscow society which h e had the
opportunity of observing so clo sely du ring his residence
at M oscow He served in Georgia under Generals Erm ol ov
.

and Paske vich In 1 82 7 after the conclusion of peace

.
,

with Turkey he was appointe d plenipotentiary M inister

,

in Persia where he reluctantly departed To serve his

, .

mission he surrounded h imself with men well acquainted

with E astern customs and t h ose of Georgia and Armenia
but t h ey used the flattering opportunity merely for t h eir
own advantage and began agitating for the return of
relatives who were in captivity Intrigues came about .

and collisions between the Russian Embassy and the

natives which terminated in an unexpected riot Th e .
I OO GRI B OI EDOV

enraged populace of the tow n invested the building of the

Embassy killed t h e suit e and inhumanly assassmat e d the
,

Ambassador h imself Grib oiédov s body was buried in ’

the monastery of Saint David to the West of Tiflfs His

.

.
_

wife erected a monument over the grave .

Th e M ishaps of Wit Griboiédov s

'

H is l iterary work .
,

principal production will long continue to satisfy the

e sthetic taste of society and its historical sign ificance is ,

assured for all time In this comedy there is portrayed a .

man who permeated with the new ideas has entered on

, ,

the conflic t with the obsolete prej udices the struggle ,

between t h e gene ration in power and those arising Th e , .

P owers t h at be fall into two circles Th e members of one .

belong to the old nobility of M oscow who are educated in ,

the French spirit are preoccupied with petty cabals and

,

slander and have no ambition s ave to conserve a good

repute and to maintain their connections Th e other set .

re presented on the stage by Repe t il ov constitute the salt

of t h e intellectual youth Th e obsolescent decaying genera .

tion is typified by many various persons who are ve ry

true to life .

Famusov the father of Sofia is an anxious father and an

, ,

industrious official is eager to give his daughter a good ,

educ ation as then understood and then to secure for h er a

, ,

proper match i e with a rich and well connected husband

, . .
,
-
.

He regards his offi cial duties from the point of view of his
personal interests .

Ch at sk i wh o in Fam uso v s opinion utters nonsensical

’

ideas is a dangerous man a Voltairean and carbon ario

, , .

It is his uncle M axim P etrovich who has managed with all

h is repute and wealth to stoop and bend himself double ,

so as to attain his l ofty rank and orders that is Famusov s ,

'

ideal and model .

M ol ch al in possessed all the q ualities of Famusov but in ,

riper form his composu re moderateness punctiliousness , ,

and closeness his cringing to bigwigs and faculty o f drawing

,

advantage out of everyone— with these characteristics

h e travels far .

Skal ozub is a profitable bridegroom for he is a colonel ,

1 02 LERMONTOV 1 02

encyclopae dic education Th e ofi cial must not be more .

than a formalist the law must rank for something higher

than kinship and friendl y relations He is irritated that .

the interests of society should cover only cards gossip , ,

dances and prattle His convictions are sincere and .

Ch at ski s pe rsuasion must be adm itted to be

’
h onourable .

truthful and productive .

'

was boru fu 1 8 1 4 and ( 11 ed

M I C HAEL rv vrc rr LeRM ON r ov in 1 8 1 His f l y was
°

4 .

a poor noble house in the province of Tul a His birthplace .

was M oscow but he was educated with his gr andmother

,

A rsénievna in the vill age of Tarkha n where he was taken as

an infant His mother died when he was onl y two and a
.

hal f years old P ractically nothin g is known of his father

. .

His grandm other spared nothing for the upbringing of her

grandson but this was j ust as French as that of Pushkin
,
.

Lerm ontov also wrote his first verse in French and t ell s
that he once said angrily what a pit that my mother
was German and not Russian I never eard any popular
tales and fancy there is more poetry in them than in al l
French liter ature On e of the impre ssions of Lermontov
.

as a boy must be noted that he travel led with his grand

mother to the Caucasus at t h e age of ten and quite seriousl y
fell in love with a light haired and blue e yed maiden of - -

ten About 1 82 6 Lermontov was sent to the school of the

.

nobility attached to the University of Moscow A poem .

has been preserved composed by Lermontov when quite

a lad that shows how early he was able to express his
,

impressions in verse At this boardin g school he remained

.

five years and completed the course rec eived the first ,

prize at the public examination for composition and history ,

and entered the University where he however did not long

remain He became involved in some stude nts affair
.
’

and was excluded from the university together with other

students In 1 83 2 he entered the Petersburg school of
.

ensi gns and in two years bec am e an o fficer of the guar d

, .

but in 1 837 was trans fe rred to the Nir h e gorod Regiment

in the Caucasus In October 1 837 he was ordered back
.
, ,

to Petersburg and appointed to the Grodno Hussars Regi

 LER MONTOV 1 03

ment . About thi s time he wrote the famous Song 0 Tsar

I van Vas il ievich and the Val ian t M er chan t Kalas n ihov .

In 1 840 Lermontov had to t ravel to the Caucasus for the

third time to fight a duel with B aron de B arant a French ,

historian attached to the Russian Court In April , 1 841 , .

he again spent a short time at P etersburg but on 1 st h Jul y ,

of that year returned to the Caucasus and was kill ed in a

duel with a fel low officer M artynov His body was carried.

to the province of Pén za and buried at Tarkhan .

His Literary work This is closely linked up with the

.

episodes of his life His lyrics ar e pe netrated with artistic

.

truth and may se rve as a genuine reflection of his ment al

attitude They reveal to us the tempestuous soul of the
.

poet its impulsiveness its longing for the beautiful , its

, ,

proud consciousness of his powers h is contempt of any ,

thing mean feeble and outworn

, , .

Lermontov was keenly sensitive to N ature In his .

descriptions of scenery he is not the inferior of any of the

World poets as foreign critics acknowledge Push kin s
’
.
,

influence on him is pl ain even in the earliest of his pro

,

duct ions there are the same impressions of the Causasus

and mountain life the same sym pathy with N ature and free
,

unshackled forces working in freedom Lermontov differs .

from P ushkin in the degree of the influence exerted by

,

B yr on Lermontov was infected with B yronism and

carried it to an extreme point and is therefore the leading
,
’
representative in Russian literature of B yron s poetry .

His great poem The Demon is based on the idea of nega

tion Th e poem M tsy ri portrays another side of B yronism
. ,

sympathy with N ature .

A comparison of Lermontov with Pushkin in the matter

of artistic form will show t h at the latter had much more
variety in his sources in the spheres of life and literary ,

whilst Lérmontov s satire predominates serious an d devoid

'

, ,

of an j oc ular
L ont ov is marked for his ligh tn ess and simplicity
. ,

as also for the greatest melodiousness : his verse has a ring

of pure metal : his style is clear and vivid and b rin gs out
the subj ect with the greatest clearness .
1 04 K OLTSOV
was born at Vorén ezh in
A LEX I S VA siLI Evrc H Ko r r sov
1 80 9 the son of a burg her ,

wh o h ad gained a su ffi cient competence On e of the Vor .

on ezh seminarists taught him reading and writing and he

completed his course a t t h e local school Even w hen .

h al f literate he was a passionate reader and at the age of

-

1 6
,
the desire arose of writing verse A book seller of .
-

Voronezh Dmitri Ant onovich Kashkin was the first t utor

,

of Koltsov in poetry He provided him with books from .

h is shop amongst them h e gave him a Russian prosody

,

published for the University Sc h ool of N obility Seré .

b rian sk i the teac h er at t h e Vor onezh seminary also h ad

, ,

great influence on Kol tsov An unfortunate love a ffair .

-

with a girl led to h is poetic attempts becoming fervid

poems of love and hatred gloomy and truthful expressions ,

of grief and sorrow and full and melodious responses to,

the impress of his outer world At t h e time of his poetic .

development fate brought Koltsov into contact wit h

Stank ovich who in 1 83 5 also publis h ed the first volume
, ,

of his poetry Th is little volume in itself was sufficient

.

to prove that Koltsov possessed a native and real l y remark

able talent I n 1 842 in October this popular R ussian
.
,

poet died the one who was the son of a cattle dealer
,
-
.

H is literary wor k Kol t sov s poems Th e Y oung H ar vester

’

.
,

Th e Ring Th e S eason of Love paint the inner psychological

, ,

side of love its secret birth in the soul Th e last named

,
.

poem is very important as it shows amongst other features

h ow t h e poet regarded N ature which in popular lyric ,

plays a very important part In the poems Th e B itter .

Lot Th e S econ d Song of th e Coachman Kudriavich The

, ,

R efl ections of a Vill ager The P ath I n Stormy Weath er , , ,

Th e Coun sel of th e H awk Th e Cross roads he analyses ,

-
,

misfortune deeply as an irresistible fore ordained power :

,
-

it is a feeling of inconsolabl e misery Th e cause of the .

misery is poverty but often there arises the bitter feelin g

,

of discontent even in a man healthy and strenuous rich ,

in moral q ualities and ready to fight his battle against

misfortune Th e thought in these poems is the hun ger
.

for reality and the feeling of a power which a man does

 CHA PTER XVI .

G OG OL
- .

From the year 1 830 the novel and the romance assume
ever increasing promin ence in the sche me of Russian
literat ure An entire series of authors makes its appearance
who imitate some one or other; of the Western writers :
.

some still display romantic tendencies others follow in ,

the wake of Scott B ut they al l show a more or less

.

successful attempt to frame scenes from Russian life of

the past or t h e present with pretensions to e ffects comic
, , ,

satiric or humorous About this time there came upon

-
.

the scene Gogol who took the first place in t his literary
,

movement and established by his great genius the school

which even now and for a long while will predomina te in
Russian literature .

was born on l gth M arch 1 80 9 in

urc uora s va siu r vrc u , ,

the province of Polt ava in the

c o c on m uov sxr
,
-
hamlet of Soroc h n it sy His father .

was the son of a regimental secretary ( one of the honorary

posts in the U krainian corps) and his grandfather was a
representative of t h e waning generation of the Cossacks :
and Gogol does not idly refer to him in the Even ings in a
Fa rm h ouse for he owed to him half of his Little Russian
-
,
-

stories Gogol was taug ht his letters by a seminarist

. .

In 1 82 1 G ogol was entered in a gymnasium j ust opened , ,

of the Higher Scienc es at N ézhin a ( near B ezborodko) .

B ut there he learned nothing but drawing but he read ,

widely and even on his schoolboy s bench became ac q uainted

’

with all the Russian poet s In 1 8 2 8 he finished his

.
.

course and in 1 82 9 went to P etersburg and bec ame a

,
 G OGOL 1 07

secretary at some government office but soon gave this up , ,

travelled abroad lived about a month at Liib ec k and

, ,

retu rned to Pe tersburg again and sought employment .

He tried the s tage and was examined for the purpose

and rej ected He was also a teacher of Russian literature
.
,

and then a professor of Russian history but all to no ,

e ffect and finally he devoted himself to literature He

, .

died in 1 8 5 2 of a severe illness .

H is l iter ary work . The Even in gs in a Farm-hous e

were publis hed in 1 83 1 and favourably received by the
public and approved by the poets of that time amongst
, ,

them by Pushkin In 1 832 Gogol returned from his

.

home and brought back with him his Ol d worl d Squir e -

,

Th e Quarrel of I van I vdn ovich with I va n N i kiforovich ,

and Taras B ul ba Th e last tale was the fruit of research

.

of Little Russia a history of whic h he intended writing

, .

All of t hese productions were published and t h eir splendid

success aroused in Gogol the consciousness that his re al
vocation was aut horship : he began contemplating books
which should h aVe significance for all of humanity or at , ,

least for all of R ussia This aspiration to create a first

, .

class artistic book to bring him substantial profit never

,

left him His long residence at P ete rsburg resulted in

.

many fine stories The N evski P rospekt Th e Great coat

, , ,

Th e P ortra it and others in which beyond the depiction of

life his characteristic humour is observable the laughter
, ,

with sobs in the voice .

Dead S oul s took shape in his mind under the influence

of as great a genius as Pushkin When P ushkin died .
,

Gogol who felt towards h im t h e deepest respect and grati

,

tude did not forget the plan of a gre at po em for all oi

,

Russia regarding the fulfilment of it as an oath an d

,

h allowed vow to fail in whic h would have been sacrilege

,

to the great poet .

Gogol in his lit erary work was a conte mporary of

P ushkin and Lérm on t ov and belonged to the same schoo l , ,

and was not u naffected by its romanticism yet he was ,

the first to cast off its fetters to leave o ff the seeking of ,

ideals of the beautiful and to aim elsewhere He painted .

1 08 G OG OL
the happenings in Russian society that departed from t h e
ideal and created not rogues but commonpl ace everyday
persons with all of their pettinesses ; and wh ilst telling
,
“

of their declension from the ideal did not relate the feelings
stirred up in him by their deficren c ies His types create .

an irresistible impression on the reader who feels that ,

the author is not laughing at the typ es he depicts but ,

feels in his heart the deepest sympathy with them This .

is the impression which raises Gogol above Von Visin and

Kryl ov and Shchedrin : it is called humour .

Gogol s talent as it developed divided his works

’

, ,

into three periods first the tales of Little Russian life

, ,
-
,

secondly tales of the middl e class at P etersburg and

, ,

thirdl y the comedy the Revisor and the poem ( in prose)

,

Dea d S oul s .

Th e tale Vi
’
-
is satiric at first and recal ls N arézh n y s
(17 80 to 1 82 6) romance B ursak ; a description of the
bourse with its grammars and rhetoricians and phil oso
phies and theologians On e of the philosophe rs meets .

a fearful witch wh o appe ars to him in various shapes

,
'

now as an hag and then as a beauteous maiden he kil ls

,

her and then happens to be the P salm reader over her -

body and sees such horrors that he di e s of fear .

Taré s B ul bd is a splendid story and is ma rked for the ,

predominance in it of the tragical element derived not ,

from fancy but from the incidents of the narrative B ulb a .

is one of the old warriors of the Cossack border such as

are sketched to us in the ancient historic Cossack songs .

His education was life in the brunt of the savagery o f the

steppes in incessant s kirmishes with Tatars or P oles and ,

his elde s t son Ost ap was of the same type Th e younger .

one Andrew unlike his father and brother has their

, , ,

energ y but also a softness of sensibility little valued in

the stern age of fierce forays .

’
Taras wife is a touching type of the mute woman ,

condemned to eternal solitude in her farm with but one ,

solac e to think and mourn for her children

, .

Th e tales Th e Old worl d S quires and Th e Quar re ’ of

-
, .

I vdn I vdn ovich with I vdn N ik if orovic h bridge t h e transition

r ro G OG OL

claims he has to satisfy have destroyed any lofty strivings

,

in him and t h ey are replaced by a desire for money and

ephemeral renow n in the world His talent has been .

ruined by the corruption of Society Th e first part of the .

tale describes the development of the character as influenced

by his social surroundings Th e second is much less notable :
.

for the fantastic in it is almost monstrous ; and it shows

that Ch art k ov h as not emancipated himself from t h e fateful
e ffect of t h e fear of t h e eyes of the usurer although he was ,

a most sensible and hard man and had met in society with
every inducement to honest work Th is feature shews .

Gogol s romantic outlook on art

’
.

Th e Greatcoat and Th e M emoir s of a M adman display ,

another side of the life of t h e middl e classes of P etersburg .

Th e hero in Th e Great coat B ash mac h kin a poor m o dest

-
, ,

o fficial h as no other occupation nor interest or even dis

traction than h is book keeping Shyness t imidity and
-
.
, ,

unusual heedlessness are t h e main features of his character .

B ut together with these aspects h e combines a natural

gentleness and kindl iness conscientiousness and rar e
,

industry and even inclination to create an ideal out of what

’
constitutes a man s life Thus conditioned he might
.
,

in a modest sphere have been a useful worker .

B ut he has become dulled has lost any individuality

,

and is merely the butt of general mockery This is the .

result of his beggarly position in society of the dead forms ,

that have e n sh ac kl e d all of his life and of his extreme

poverty Th e author concentrates all the interests of
.

B as h m ac h k in on his great coat which he must have to

-
,

save him from freezing .

B eside B ash m ac h kin there is introduced a type of

person whose rule in life is sternness He is naturally .

kind and gentle but an i mportant rank has completely

,

be wildered h im In him too there may be seen the same

.
,

stupidity and attrition the same servility to empty forms

, ,

owing to the lack of any fundamental thought and serious

work j ust as with B ash mac h k in only in another aspect
, , .

In the M emoirs of a M adman the hero is P oprish c hin .

His insanity began from his being privileged to sit in the

 GO G O L I I I

Director s Cabinet and cl ean his pens

’
He is excited at .

the decoration of the room the maj estic aspect of the ,

Director and the beauty of his daug hter Dazzled with .

all this splendour he goes mad and falls in love with the
Director s daughter
’
In a condition of lunacy he t empor
.
,

aril y recovers a sound j udgment on man kind and a recog

nit ion of human di g nity since now there had been ex t in g
,

guish e d in him his servile terror of the Director These .

healthy notions Poprish ch in expounds not as from himself ,

but from the person of the Director s dog M edoc There ’

.

he sees men in the actual world understands that they are ,

even o f less account than ordinary men an d that it is only ,

high ran k and orders that place them over Péprish c hin .

His dre ams become broader and wider and at last turn ,

into disordered shapes although he ever conserves his

,

kindl iness and sensibility .

Th e comedy of the Revisor is very simple both in content

and construction Th e characters o f the play are sketched
.

with great diversity and exactitude Th e principal parts .

are the P rovost and Kh l est ak ov .

Th e P rovost h as own old in service as he says by no

mean s a foo l t h ongg rwill ing t o be bribed : he conducts
, ,

himself decently is su ffi ciently serious and at times can

,

hold his own in argument His features are hea vy and .

rough as with all who began their offi cial caree rs in the
,

lower ranks He is an experienced rogue who has mastered

.
,

and carried to a fine point all the t ricks of the service .

Further his ignorance is laid bare in his superstitious

,

dread at drea ming of two mice and in his belief in stupid ,

"

portents on the basis of which Dobc h inski and Bob c hinski

to ok Khl est akov to be the Revisor ( a superior Inspector
se nt fr om the Central authority) Th e cru dity of his .

character comes in passages w here he says how he wil l

live after attaining a Generalship His fear for his pecca .

dil l oe s is so great that it blinds h im despit e all his experience

, ,

( for he had bamboozled three gove rnors) he does not

.

rec ognise in Khl est akov a nobody a filthy parasite a , ,

dirty clout as he calls him at the end of the play

,
.

Kh l e st akov is one of the mo st striking characters created

rrz GOGOL

by Gogol His is a generous temperament : but he has

.

gambled away his fortune at cards and has been subdued

and tamed : he endures the rudeness of his se rvant Osip
patiently and timorously begs h im t o go to the bu ffet
,

to secure another meal somehow on tick His ordinary .

device as though c h allenging a nobleman is to go to

, ,

the house of some squire in a hackney carriage with

Os ip in livery and this he wil l do in the most desperate
,

circumstances Together with simplicity and rudeness

.

there is to be see n in this empty headed man a combination -

of every kind of falsehood which has grown into habit in ,

him into a necessity and therefore as natural as the truth

,
.

He cheats and invents because he believes in the lie h e is

,

telling Various passages in the play show how such a

.

character was formed developed in the atmosphere of the

capital where formerly everything tended to ostentation ,

where one passion predominated to make a s h ow of oneself ,

to glitter albeit only for the instant Weal th descent

, .
,

and rank are the only qualifications for respect Th e petty .

persons who are caught in this whirlpool have st riven ,

with all t h eir might and wo uld spend their last farthing at
least to col lect even the crumbs that drop fro m the table
of fashion and vanity Such is the character of Khl e st akov
.
,

in which all the degrading features of the life of the coxcomb

of the capital are expressed without any trappings or
embellishments Kh l est ak ov is a magnificent tool for
.

the moral obj ect of the play Th e mayor is severely .

punished n ot because he pays dear but in that he is fooled

, ,

by the emptiest of v agabb n ds Th e secondary ch aracters .

of the play Ar temi Filipovich the guardian of the ecclesi as

, ,

tical foundations is a comfortable solemn rogue His

, , .

first act on appearing before t h e Re visor is to whisper

,

in his ears and make reports against his fellow servants .

Th e j udge Amos Fiodorovic h takes bribes in the shape of

racing dogs but is not reluctant to enliven himself from
,

other occasions as well He j udges of all matters from a .

lofty standpoint and is a freethinker because he has read

, ,

a few books .

Th e school inspector Lu k a Lukfc h is an utterly timid ,

1 1 4 G OG OL

impression produced on then by the unexpected an d strange

visit of Chic h iké v .

M an il ov is the type of idl e squire sentimental to the ,

point of simulation A ll he does is to smoke his pipe sit

. ,

at his balcony in his room and dream of friendship make , ,

impracticable proj ects such as to build a subterranean

,

passage from t h e house or a stone bridge over the pond

,

wit h shops on both sides etc He neglects th e manage , .

ment of his estate and besotted in the vill age in aristocratic

,

sloth has become vacuous and leaves everything to an ,

agent who is either drunk or asleep He is naturally a .

peaceful man ; phlegmatic and sentimental novels such as

those of M arm on t el ( 1 7 2 3 which he has read once
upon a time have merely incited his imagination and
misdirected his feelings H e is content with anything .
,

a fl am e at anything the stupidest phrase wil l evoke from

him his tears His wife has been educated at a boarding
.

sc h ool but can now only knit little purses and other knick
knacks an d like her husband is quite content with her
, , ,

lot .

Korob oc h k a I S a woman of native character develope d ,

in the remote country side and without an y reflection of

-
,

European cultu re Sh e lives alone and does not know

.

what is happening thirty versts away Her furniture is .

antediluvian and her e state conducted on the ancient

model : there is plenty of everyt hing all accounts are ,

accurately kept as she supervises everythin g Sh e utterly

, .

’
fails to understand Ch fc hikov s explanation as to the dead
souls and is quite inaccessible to him Sh e believes in .

divination by cards sees the devil in her sleep but the

, ,

lust for gain a penny wise wisdom the fear of losing a

,
-
,

reliable customer overbear any such terrors and she is

,

amenable to Ch ic h ikov and even moderate in her price .

N ozdr iov is vigorous and alert a n d l ike Khl est akov ,

only more energetic and not a parasite or dirty rogue He .

typifies in all its strength the bold Russian valour born ,

not o ff t h e luxury of the capital but in the wild horizons ,

of t h e steppe and drinking bouts and under the ancient

conditions of serfdom Th e attitude of N ozdri6v to
.
 G OG OL 1 1 5
'
Ch ich ik ov enterprise is very significant ; he forces the
s
schemer t o a f rank avowal not out of malice but simply , ,

in conse q uenc e of his unrestraint of speech he blurts out

what h e means When incomes diminish characters .
,

l ike Nozdr ié v become rare but some scattered features ,

of this type will long survive in Ru ssian society with all

its varieties ’
.

Sob akévich is a man self centred an d uncon vin ce abl e -

.

He is always clum sy awkwardly silent and powerfully ,

built All of his husbandry is rough but soun d He is

. .

a pl ain direct man and does not like light French cooking
, ,

and wants a lot of everyth ing prepared simply without ,

’
any foreign trappings He at once grasped Chfch ikov s .

ro 0 53 1 but at first asked a frightful price which he

p ,

g ra uall y abated in this respect behaving more honestly ,

t h an the swindling close fist e d extortioners called kul aki -

in Russia He is keen only for profit and scolds out loud

.
,

at every one : and calls t h e most g entle peopl e brig an ds .

His rude nature is incapable of fine dissimulation he acts

simply outright without dece it he Clasps hard and without
, , ,

compassion Gogol calls him a kul ak ( a fist) which will

.

not open its palm If learn ing to any extent open h im he

.
,

will ta ke a m ore prominent place and show himself to

anyone who really knows anything thoroughly .

Pl y iishkin in Gogol s Opinion is exceptional in Russia

'

, , ,

where everyone loves t o expand that is why the features

of this type are drawn too sharply and a littl e unnaturally ,

especial ly the conversation with Ch ic h iké v Th e appear .

ance of the miser is gr aphically described .

Gogol s influence is so significant that the literature of

'

the forties is al most entirely coloured by him Like .

Pushkin Gogol depicted the life of Russian educated

,

c ircl es ,
the squires and offi cials but first his attention , ,

was directed primarily to the mean aspects of this life :

and secondly he portrayed them with striking faithfulness
, , ,

neither softening his colour nor shading his picture , ,

without really analysing his types : and thirdl y the im ,

pression he conveys on the reader is beneficial it is laughter ,

throug h tears sym pathy with the actors in the tale whom
, ,
1 1 6 G OG OL

the writer humanized Gogol has rendered yet this

.

service to discover an untouched well of poetic inspiration

in the middl e and lower classes of society
.
1 1 8 AK SAK OV

of Western letters and in no wise expressive of the essence

of the Russian spirit Consequently it is natural that
. ,

the Sch ellin gist groups inclined towards utterly denying

the very e x istence of a Russian literature .

Th e considerations enumerated were the reason of the

division of Russian society into two camps t h e Slavoph ils ,

and the West ernizers These parties h ad e x isted pre

.

viousl y but h ad not gone any farther than to discuss

,

questions of the purity of the Russian language or a senti

mental devotion to elements Russian or foreign : now
b oth parties discovered a theoretical philosophical b asis
for their doctrines and at the same time occupied them
,

selves with the decision of problems a ffecting the fate of

the Russian people .

Ptrsh kin and Gogol

’

S ER GE! TI M OFEEVI CH
was born before
and began his literary work very muc h
A K S AK OV
earlier than either of them but the ,

character of his literary productions is e x traordinarily

original and even strange and will not in any way follow
,

any ch ronol ogical rules In fact his literary work and

.
,

l ife falls into two halves in strong contradiction : during

the first he is a artisan of pseudo —classicism an enthusiastic ,

disbeliever an champion of literary traditions outworn

long before Pushkin and in the later after a long interval
, ,

he steps on the scene with descriptions of nature and

recollections of the past and very soon in ed the reputa
T
,

tion of a t alented and original writer h e second period

.

is from about 1 840 t o1 85 9 and for this reason he is assigned

, ,

to modern literature .

Sergei Tim oféevic h was born in 1 7 9 1 at Ufa Th e .

family of Aks akov is very ancient and is derived from

one Simon A frikan ovic h who arrived in Russia under
, ,

P rince Y arosl av ( 1 0 2 7 ) from the vikin gs country wit h '

three thousand vassals .

His first education he received at home from his beloved

mother who was well educated ; he was ne x t s en t to the
-

gymnasium of Kazan and lastly to the University of

Kaz an where his artistic sensibi l ities developed
, His .

success on the sta g e and in decl amation was very great ,

 AK SAK OV 1 1 9

and even in mature years he continued to be one of the

,

best actors in private theatricals at P etersburg and M oscow .

Towards the end of 1 80 7 he arrived at M oscow with his ,

family and occupied himse l f principally with the stage

, .

In the spring of 1 80 8 the family of the A ksakovs reached

P etersburg and stayed there about two months : Sergei
Tim o fé evich himself stayed on in the public service as a
translator for the Legal Commision In 1 82 0 he removed .

to M oscow and took a closer part in the literary and t h eat ri

cal world About then there was published his t ran sl a
.

tion of B oileau s Tenth Satire and he was elected a member

’

of the M oscow society of Russian literature He also .

wrote verse in the Viéstn ik Evropy From 1 82 7 to 1 83 3 .

he was engaged in official work as censor and during .

this time translated M oliere s Ecol e des H omm es and ’

In 1 83 4 he was made inspector of the M oscow

’
L A va re .

School of Surveyors which under him was r e named the -

Constantine Institute of Surveying B ut up to this time .

his talents had l ain dormant or had not found a proper

channel Th ey developed in maturity and for this fortun ate
.

circ umstance he is largely indebted to Go gol .

H is l iterary work This consisted in depicting the life

.

of the steppes which he had seen during his j ourneys over

its vast stretches hunting or fishing Ak sak ov s first
, .
’

essay in this manner was B uran and about this time he ,

was planning his Family Chron icl e In 1 847 he published .

N otes on A ngl in g in 1 85 2 M emoirs of a hun tsman in Or en

,

burg Tal es and R emin iscen ces of a H un tsman and The

,

Family Chron icl e in 1 85 8 and in 1 85 8 the Childh ood of th e

Gr an dson of B agrou Th e Family Chron icl e made a very
.

strong impression and all the more as at the time of

, ,

publication R ussian literature was showing a great revival

,
.

Th e author s principal me rit was considered to be pictures

’

of life with their faithfuln e ss to type and broad powers of

reproduction It is well known that the history of the
.

B ag rov family was based on real persons Th e death of .

this writer in 1 85 9 was universally regretted by all classes

without distinction his death robbed Russia of a generous
independent and powe rful writer .
 1 20 B E LI N SKI

Th is reat critic was bred under the

B ‘ G B ELI N S KL
‘

g
in fl ue c e of the German philosopher
Schelling and was the c h ief representative of the intellectual
,

movement of the forties He was the son of a staff physician

.

Viss arion Grigof e vic h B elinski and was born in 1 8 1 1 , and ,

d ied in 1 84 8 He passed his youth in the remote dist rict

.

of Ch e m b arski (in P enza) amongst t h e provincial offi cials

, ,

in an atmosphere of petty scandals bribery an d wild ,

drinking bouts About 1 820 he entered the local school

-
.
,

and thence after completing the course went to the lower ,

class of the Pén za Gymnasium Th e books of this in st it u .

tion record that B elinski was not advanced because he ,

played truant and later on his name was struck out in

,

the local gazette for this reason Some in fluential friends .

enabled him to enter the University of M oscow w h ere ,

he also did not complete the course for in 1 83 2 he l eft it

with the certificate of sligh t c apacity negligent Th e , .

development of h is critical powers was aided by P avlov s ’

and N adézh din s lectures the literary and learned disputa

’

tions of the students wh o frequented N V St an ke vich . .

( the son of a ric h squire of Voronez h ) St an k e vic h was .

a sickly and silent dreamer : of a sort that might look to

h is friends like a being really not of t h is world and a ,

genius ethereal and disembodied full of sensibility and ,

gentle appreciations He had absolute sway over

.

all the foremost young men of M osco w not so —

,

much by the force of his strength of will and dialectic

powers as by his natural keenness for anyt h ing fine
,

or humane B esides St an k e vic h there belonged to this

.
,

group of students B elinski B otkin Ketcher Granovski , , ,

Konstantin Aksakov Kudriavt sev Herzen and others

, .

B elinski died of consumption on 2 8t h M ay 1 848 at , ,

t h e age of 3 8 .

H is critic al wor k B elinski in St an k evic h s circle repr e

.
,
’

sented the criticism of literature In twelve v olumes of .

small print he reviewed all of Russian lite rature guided

’
,

partly by Hegel s conceptions partly by h is own artistic

'

talent w hich had been fostered by German philosophy .

His criticism may be divided int o two periods according ,

1 22 B ELI N SKI

advance for Russian literature defining the principal

,

epochs and delimiting them and finally he upheld the

,

nat uralistic and Slavophil school against their antagonists

,

and showed the necessity of these phases in a rising litera

ture .
 CHA PTER XVI I I .

LATER P OETS AN D TH E GREA T N OVE LI STS .

Th e same con ditions as produced B elinski bred also ,

the following writers all of them more or less prominent

,

Iskander Goncharo v Turgén ev Dost o évski Grigorovich

'

, , ,

and Pfse ms ki; A I Herzen ( 1 8 1 2 1 87 0 ) wrote some articles

. .
-

remarkable for their breath of intellect talent wit origin , , ,

ality of outlook and expressiveness such as Dil ettan tism ,

in Learn ing Letter s on the Study of N ature On th e Subj ec t

, ,

of Dram a Th e Letters of Doctor Kr upac Th e M emoirs

, ,

of a Y oung M an Th e Thieving M agpie

,
Th e three last .

named are stories M ost of his work is permeated with

.

a feeling of sorrow a discontent with the environment of

,

facts whic h sometimes becomes melancholic despair

,
.

was a poet with a gent l e

N I CH OLA S

figs
OGA R I OV
but sad heart ardent F0 ,

7 love and b elieve and dis ,

mayed at the discrepancies of reality Th e desire to .

disc over consolation in the enticement of musings destroys

life and thought In the eyes of truth his peace and personal
.

pride vanishe d leaving behind them the yearnings of love

,

with senseless grief A disconsolate feeling also fills those

.

poems of his where h e depicts the world around him the ,

gloomy pictures of poverty penury and the wretched ,

betrayal of love Ogarié v reminds the reader of Lermon

.

tov but the predominating feature of the latter is a more

,

artistic form and the ability to seek for rays of hope under
the darker clouds of life .
1 24 MA I KOV ; FET ; POLONSK I

Discontent with reality and at the

TH E L Y R I CA L r o ar s :
same time faithful to t h e bequest of ,
M A I KOV FET ,
Pushkin t h e conviction that the ,

principal task of poetry is to sing of the beauti es of N ature

that mysterious world these tendencies had many —

representatives amongst the poets of the forties .

Th e best of them Apoll on N ikolas M a tkov ( 1 8 1 1 1 897 )

,
-

and A fan asiA fan dsie vic h Sh en sh in ( 1 82 0 1 892 ) wrote verse -

,

beautiful in its poetic and artistic form but j ust as from ,

the time of Pushkin fluidity and beauty of style had become

essentials of Russian poetry in M aikov our attention should ,

be directed to his subj ects : and in this respect his bes t

poems are accounted those which belong to th e anthological
type Such are Octaves an d A rt the basic thought of which
.
,

is that nature is the tutor and inspirer of the poet and

that he must take lessons from her first of all in the art
of composing smooth verses Th e fol l owing poems are .

also written in the anthological direction Th e M use Th e ,

Goddess of Oly mpus Th e Dream On th is Wild H eadl an d

, , ,

M y Ch il d and Th ere are n o more th ose B l essed Day s

, .

In the verses of P et two tendencies are sharply discern

,

ible the one consists of translations of Horace and beau ,

tiful anthological poems in which the vividne ss of the

images the clearness of e x pression and truth of feeling
,

may be o bserved Th e best in this vein are Even ing an d

.

N ight which breathe forth a perfect tranquillity of mind

, .

In the Songs to Ophelia The M el odies on the Sn ow and others

, ,

Lérmon t ov s in fl uen c e is evident

’
.

The origin al it ’ of the poet r of P ol on ski is

its re fl ec t iven g
POLO N S K "
ss melancholyy but not is c on ,

solate and the languid fantastic colour Th e verse is

, .

timid even clumsy and sometimes rough but a fine percep

, ,

tion of nature makes itself felt and a thorough merging of ,

the facts from without with imagery and impulses from ,

with in Th e tale The Statue of Spring tells how I l l ush a

.

fell in love with this statue shattered it to pieces and what ,

afterwards ensued in his feverish imagination and weak

organism In the humorous poem Th e M usical B l ac ksmith
.
,

it may be seen how P ol on ski animates n ature Th e .

1 26 G ON CHAROV

wa s one of t h e women who could devote their lives to their

children Sh e spared nothing towar ds the training of
.

her son and did much to assist the growth of his natural
,

powers Goncharov was first educated at home and then

. ,

in a private boarding school and ended his education at

the University of M oscow In 1 85 2 he sailed on the
.

frigate P al l ada to Japan as secretary to Put iatin who was ,

proceeding there to negotiate a commercia l treaty ( con

cl uded in Th e outcome of this voyage appe ared
in a very artistic description of the j ourney entitled Th e
Frigate F al l ada .

His l iter ary work

’
Goncharov s first literary predictio ns
.

appeare d in a little manuscript j ournal of M aikov In .

addition from time to time he published in various con

,

temporary papers his tra nslations thus continuing to work ,

at his education At the beginning of the forties he

.

began to write this Commonpl ace Story a mournful story of ,

youthful fervour soon t o be cooled in the stern experience

,

of t h e Russian life of t h at date that tended to degrade the,

young men from the ir dreams of progress and perfection

to t h e ideal of oflic ial formalism ; Obl omov appeared in
serial form in the N ation al M emoirs of 1 85 8 an d 1 85 9 and
produced a great impression on the public What sur .

prised readers most of all was the art with which this
author managed to conj oin in the character of Oblomov ,

as a magnificent artistic whole all the unattractive aspects,

of the type the e ffect of the inconspicuous activities of

Russian squiredom the apathy of the isolated life of the
,

landowner together with all the best and most pleasant

,

aspects of Russian life in its essence To g ether with the .

decaying type of Obl omov Goncharov displays anot h er

,

c h aracter that of the splendid Russian woman in Olga

, .

Th e novel Obl omov was published in the Vestn ik Evropy

in 1 868 to 1 869 and as a book in 1 87 0 Further in a little .

book of criticisms A M illion Grievances Goncharov t h rew an

altoget h er new light on Grib oé dov s M ish aps of Wit and ’

indicated several features in the character of Ch at ski

unnoticed by previous critics .

His other great novel Th e P rec ipic e is also powerful

 TURGE N EV 1 27

and less cruel study of Russian landowners before the

emancipation of the serfs and Goncharov must
be ranked among the great writers of this period .

was born at Ori ol on

I VA N S ER G EEVI CH T U R GEN EV
2 8t h Qete ha; By
descent h e belongs to an an c iEh t ifdbl e family His home
‘ ‘ '

education was conducted by various tutors not one of ,

whom was a Russian It was a serf of h is mot h er s who

.
’

first acquain ted the author wit h Russian books and poetry ,

an ardent reader and devotee of Kh e r ask ov : it was he

who brought to the notice of his young master t h e R oss iad
which was one of t h e first Russian books Turgenev read .

In 1 83 4 he entered t h e University of M oscow but 1 83 5 ,

went to that of P etersburg wh ere after qualifying in t h e

fac ulty of ph ilosophy h e proceeded abroad to finish h is
,

He died in 1 883 at Paris His body was .

transported t o P etersburg and bu ried in the Volkov

monastery .

Th e literary works of Turg enev even before he had ,

completed h is course were printed through P I P letnev

,
. .
,

professor of Russian literature Th e M emoir s of a H un ts .

man and s o me short stories and tales whic h appeared

between 1 84 4 and 1 85 0 created a great name for the
,

author Th e best books of Turgenev are R udin Th e N est

. ,

of N obil ity F ath er s an dS on s ( 1 85 to Th e characters

3
,

of the dreamer Rudin of Liza an Elena with t h eir masterly

,

portrayal and artistic reproduction raised Turgenev to a ,

heigh t amongst Russian writers as yet unattained .

Turg én ev s characters Karat ae v R adil ov Ch ert op

’

, , ,

khanov and N edopiusk in are endowed wit h force they

cannot put into action Th ese features come best to t h e
.

forefront in Th e H aml et of Sh chigrov Distr ict Hamlet is

'

an educated man wh o has spent three years abroad h as

, ,

read Hegel knows Goet h e by h eart but is devoured with

, ,

reveries His cowardliness proceeds not from poverty

. , ,

not from low rank but from his self conceit A brilliant
,
-
.

education abroad has profited h im nought because it is ,

inapplicable to Russian life whic h h e knew nothing of ,

and could not easily learn His confidence in his own .

1 28 TURGE N EV

perfection has been sh aken by failure his contempt of the ,

mob and the gibes of a captain of police finally convinced

,

him that he was futile and superfluous Th e analogy with .

Hamlet is intended to be ironical In the story Quietude .

,

t h e two prominent characters are Astakhov and Verét iev .

Th e former is miserly cold and calculating ; the latter

,

possesses e ffervescent force a fiery temperament um, ,

mistakeable talents and lofty ambitions but all of these ,

qualities thrust themselves to the surface and are wasted

on trivialities for lack of strength of feeli ng and practicality ,

and it all ends in philosophizing a sense of grievance at ,

the absence of outlets from h is position and the longing

for forgetfulness in which to drown repining .

’
Veré tiev is reminiscent of Pec h orin but Turgén e v s hero ,

has less activity and more Russian characteristics .

Th e M emoirs of a H un ter and the stories Th e I n n and

M umu depict the habits of the peasantry and t h e squire
,
’
arc h y Turgén e v s great talent rescued him from the
.

perils of sentimentalism and bucolicism and all the charac ,

ters created by the author arouse a deep feeling of sym pathy

in the reader .

Rudin permeated with ambitions of progress at every

,

step preaches the power of love the higher calling of man

, , ,

the conditions favourable to the attainment of prosperity

b ut at this point he stops dead for lack of energy and ,

strengt h to step forward to t h e combat for his ideas or to

support h imself in the struggle in some other way Th e .

character of Lavre t ski (in The N est of N obl emen ) is not so

full of tragic irony as that of Rudin Th e drama of the .

situation of the Lavret ski consists not in conflict with his

o wn feebleness but in the co l lision with conceptions and
,

customs to overcome which would really b afll e the most

energetic and daring of men .

Th e idea of the famous novel Fath ers an d Son s is the ,

analysis of nihilism the subj ect of which has become all

,

precedent life and institutions and established principles , .

B azarov the hero of t h is novel in his quarrel with the

, ,

representatives of the dying generation tries to prove that ,

there exist no principles that feelings are a process of

,
1 30 OSTR OVS KI

quietly puts it into the debtor s prison and t h en turns to

-
’

the public inviting t h em to visit h is little s h op and assures

, ,

them t h at not even a c h ild would be c h eated in t h e matter

of an onion this final phrase w h ich is so truly character
—
,

ist ic and intimately connected with the whole plot seemed ,

to many so extraordinary that Ost rovski was obliged ,

subsequently to alter t h e ending and add a sc ene in which

the virtuous officer of poli ce appears very inappositely ,
’
and will not accept P odkh aliuzin s gratitude and the ,

wicked son in law h as to undergo the same punishment

- -

as his wicked father in law - -

.

From 1 85 2 to 1 8 5 9 Ost rov skiwrote several long comedies ,

P overty is n ot a Cr im e M in d y our own B usin ess Th e

’

—
, ,

P oor B ride Lif e is n ot a ll B eer an d S kittl es H ow to F ea th er

, ,

On e s N est Th e Un wil l ing Scapegoat Th e Foun dl ing and

’

, , ,

Th e Storm In this series of pictures he paint s a gloomy

.

picture of family life and social conditions in the ranks of

the merc h ant class as yet unenlivened by rays of culture
-
,
.

Sloth apathy in which whole generations grow up

, , ,

grow old and stagnate h eedless of the advancing move

ments of the times are well depicted by the author .

According to Dob rol iub ov ( 1 83 6 Ost rs ki can

pierce into the dept h s of a man s soul distinguish wh at is ’

nature from all t h e external abnormalities and therefore

the pressure from without the weight of circumstance ,

that crushes men are all felt in his productions very much
more forcibly t h an in many stories which may be shocking ,

in their co ntent but from their externality and o fficial

, ,

tone completely shut out the inner aspects of man

, .

Ost rov ski was m ost successful in depicting t h e wilful

fool and the honour of creating this type in Russian litera
,

ture belongs to him .

Dob rol iub ov devoted an entire series of articles entitled

The K ingdom of Darkn ess to t h e criticism and interpreta
tion of Ost rovski s comedies ’
.
 CHA P TER XI X .

GRIG OROVI CH AN D OTHER N OVE LI STS .

Of the novels of D M I TR I VA SI LI EVI CH GR I GOR OVI CH

(born the following should be noticed : ( I ) Th e
P l oug hm an . This is notable as revealing the attitude of
the author his sincere love of the people of agricultural
, ,

life in which alone the peasant can conserve fine qualities

inherited from his ancestors : whereas industrial life and
’
factories to the author s mind corrupt the manners of the
simple people .

( 2 ) Th e Vill age which describes the obverse side

,

of the medal the bad peasant and wastrel who causes the
,

kindly folk su ffering Here h e portrays t h e prototypes

.

in his sketches of the master t h e merchant and the manu ,

fac t urin g vagabond .

( 3 ) Th e F our S eason s This cont ains many pic tures

.

of nature and scenes of peasant life with its hardsh ips

,

and penury .

( 4) Th e P asser by A picture of the village at Ch ristmas

-
. .

(5 ) Th e story of A n ton th e Unf ortun ate has brought ,

Grigorovich great fame : the success is comparable to

M rs B eecher Stowe s Un cl e Tom s Ca bin
’
Th e hero of
’
-
. .

the story a harried depressed peasant is in a desperate

, ,

situati on oppressed by serfdom which takes the principal

, ,

place in the story .

(6) Th e Smedovski Vall ey one of t h e best books rich , ,

in artistic pictures and brimming wit h dramatic features .

( 7 ) Th e story Th e Fish erman first depicts t h e fish ermen s

’

l ives and then the manufacturer hands Gl eb the fisherman .

is considered the artistic and best of any of Grigorovich

 DAL PISEM SKI
'

1 32

he com bines all t h e best that t h e writer could find in the

habits of the worker and peasant Th e second part was .

designed to show t h e dark side of industrial life which is ,

represented by Zé kh ar .

( 8) Th e Emigran ts a very long novel abounding in

, ,

fine pictures of N ature national types various adventures

, ,

and personalities dramatically and faithfully rendered .

Dmitri Vasil ievic h Grig orovich was educated in a

French boarding —sc h ool at M oscow at the age of thirty ,

entered the engineering school and subse quently the ,

school of art In 1 85 8 to 1 85 9 he travelled in Western

.

Europe His literary career began in 1 846

. .

was born at Lugansk in the

V LA D I M IR I VA N O VI CH DA L province of Ekat e rin osl avl He
( 1 80 1 to
.

served in the navy and also

became an army physician in 1 83 8 was made a corres ,

pondent member of the Academy of Science for his work

in natural history and from 1 849 devoted himself entirely
,

to literature He wrote under the pseudonym of the

.

Lugan sk Cossac k He is considered the bes t writer on

.

peasant conditions in all parts of Russia He was in the n

fullest sense experienced and knew where in dustries were ,

carried on and by whom the customs habits dishonesties , , ,

and t h e good aspects He was also conversant with the

.

popular language and oral literatu re and was then able to ,

compile a good anthology and occupy himself with the

explanation of the actual language of Great Russia In -
.

one of his best productions P hy siol ogical Studies Dal , ,

appears not merely as an expert but also as an observant ,

writer and artist His best stories are Th e Con cierge

.
,

Th e B atman , Th e P or kbutch er ,Th e H uc ksters .

va born 1 th M arch 820 d

y
li z 2January
1
fie
a
A LEX I S FEOFI LAKTOVI CH , ,

PiSEM S KI
e on 21 5 , I 88 I
.

served at Kostrom a P etersburg ,

and M oscow I n h is youth was a good actor and ultimately

b ecame a mathematical lecturer at the Un iversit v of M oscow .

Hrs l iterary career began in 1 848 with the story N in a ,

wh ich was published in the N ation al Spectator His repute .

was gained for his truthful pictures of the middle class in

1 34 SA LTY K OV N EKRA SOV

tive of the natural sc h ool and t h e disciple of Gogol but ,

lacks the latter s depth and serious h umour Th e

’
.

Carpen ter s Un ion and t h e drama Th e B itter Destiny

’

provide perspicuous pictures of peasant habits Th e former .

contains the portrait of the c arpenter P eter which is ,

sketched very fairly and lit w ith gleams of powerful author

ship wit h unmistakeable adherence to reality Th e obj ect
,
.

of t h e latter drama is to show that a consciousness of honour

outraged calls fort h from t h e soul of man all its powers
in defence of natural rights without regard to distinctions
,

of civil life To carry out his idea the auth or selected a

.

subj ect full of dramatic force and touc h ed on all sides of

peasant life .

( a 1so known under

M I KH A I L EVGRAFOVI CH SA LTY K O V
his pseudonym of
S H CH ED R I N ) ( 1 82 6 to 1 8 8 9 ) came of an aristocratic family of
Tver His first tutor was a serf t h e painter P au l and in
. , ,

1 844 he attended the Tsars k ose l s k oie Lycée His literary .

career began almost in his schooldays with poetry which ,

b e however soon abandoned In 1 844 h e was given a

.

post in the War Office in 1 85 8 was made Vice Governor

,
-

of RiazarI in 1 862 retired and settled in P etersburg to

'

devote himself entirely to literature He is the first w riter .

whose name is associated with the accusatory literature

of Russia His first productions of weight were Th e
.

P rovin c ial S ketch es and next Sign s of th e Tim e and

, ,

P rovin cial Letter s Shchedrin shows talent not merely

.

in reproductions of decaying forms of life and holding

th e m up to ridicule but also receptivity of new ideas
,

and demands h e h as great it sometimes coarse humour , ,

and a certain degree of artistic power Th e fault that .

prevents him from ranking with writers of the highest

category is the vagueness of his ideals .

In h e attended the
N I CH OLA S A LE KS EI E VI CH N E KR AS OV
U n w ersrt y of P eters
( 1 82 1 burg and also colla ,

b orated in the Literary Supplemen t to the R usski I n val id

and wrote vaudevilles His first poetic essays in the
.

romantic style ( 1 840 ) were condemned by Belinski In .

 N E KRA SOV LEO TOLSTOY 1 35

the following years he w as employed on various editorial

posts at P etersburg In particular as the editor of
.
,

Sovremenn ik ( Th e Contemporary) together with Dobro

li ubov and Ch ern y sh e v ski h e made that j ournal the organ
,

of the progressists and ins erted in it some of the best

of his poetry .

’
N ekrasov s poetry in matter of style is unequalled :
he is melodious and poetic but sometimes prosaic and ,

awkward B ut he is the first and best representative of

.

the revelatory lyrical sc h ool His verse shows a wealth .

of content a depth of feeling a sensitiveness to the needs

, ,

of contemporary life and withal a disregard of form .

N ekr asov in nowise wh et h er in subj ect or form belongs

, ,

to the school of P ush kin for h e is t h e poet of deprivation

, ,

sorrow humiliation and vice : and h is verse is one long

,

protest against the bitterness of reality Th e satires .

The P oor Girl an d th e F ash ion a bl e Lady Th e Weath er , ,

A t th e P ortic o Th e P r in c ess M asha Th e Unf ortun ates

, , , ,

The P hil an thropists I n th e H ospital are merciless denuncia

, ,

tions of life in the capital .

great Tolst oy was born Th e

LEO N IK OL A EVI C H TOLSTO Y
on 2 8t h August 1 82 8 and .

, ,

died in 1 9 1 0 He was educated in his boyhood by a German

.

tutor who subsequently appeared in Ch ildh ood B oy hood ,

and Youth as Karl Iv anovich After attending the Univer .

sit y of M oscow he served in the Caucasus he also served

in the Crimean c am paign and went through the siege of
Sebastopol On this episode h e wrote his Tal es of S ebas
.

topol. Lat er he became an intermediary for peace and ,

als o worked at the institution of schools for the peasantry .

Th e greater part of his works are most brilliant artistic

-

value Even in the first Ch ildh ood B oy hood an d Youth

.
, ,

Tal es of War th e M emoirs of a B il liard M arker close

, ,

observation exact natural descriptions marked simplicity

, ,

of style and a delicate psychological analysis of the develop

ment of spiritual changes may be noted however d eep down ,

such alteration smight be Childh ood an d B oy h ood may be

.

compared with the Y ears of Childh ood of th e Gran dson of

’
B agrov but Tolst oy s narrative has less repetitions less ,
1 36 LEO TOLSTOY

monotony and greater depth of psyc h ological analy sis .

Th e Tal es of War dealing mainly with the Crimean

,

War give splendid and impartial pictures of life in the

,
‘

field In the M emoir s of a B il liard M arker the gradu al

.

perversion and degradation of the young P rince N ekliudov ,

who had been a generous and noble youth .

In the famous novel War an d P eace the author s con

’

v ic t ions are clearly stated Th is novel is a va riegated

.

and diverse series of pictures its subj ect matter is of ,

-

striking beauty but it is so broad and many sided that

,
-

it is almost impossible to appreciate at once all its value

and a long survey is necessary to grasp the conn ection
between the separate parts Th e obj ect of the author is
.

to present the cultivated aristocratic society of Russia

at the beginning of the X IX century with the two opposite
aspects of its nature at this transitional period : on the
one hand the strength in its flower fortune and the triumph ,

of a you ng people and on the other the lack of character

, ,

servility lack of self respect and the scandalous moral

,
-
,

serfdom B ut although the faults of the Russian of this

.

transitional period are brought fully to light the novel as ,

a genuinely artistic produ ct is penetrated wit h a kindly

sympathy a live fellowship with the men thus depicte d
, .

Th e author in describing the old time squires of Russia -

,

has not spared them and has uttered more cruel trut h s
than did many of the professional denouncers of the old
time despots Th e plastic and artistic manner of narration
.

prevails Over its dramatic and lyric content Th e whole .

of the position is above all a picture Th e number of

, , .

brilliant colours used by the author of varied scen es and

characteristic figures portrayed by him from their visual
and personal aspects the series of marvellous landscapes
,

and descriptions of scenes of al l sorts to be found in this ,

huge book at every step— it is this feature which makes

the pictorial consideration predominate .

In 1 85 0 he published his a ern e in which he expressed

, ,

his disenchantment with European culture His Three .

Death s After his marriage in 1 86 2 opens a new pe riod

.
,

Th e F amily Happin ess may be considered weak but was ,

 CHA P TER XX .

R U SSIA N LI TERA TURE FR OM LEO TOLSTOY

TO TH E P RE SE NT DA TE .

( WRI TTEN BY S ER GE TOM KEI EFF ) .

In the second h alf of t h e nineteent h century two giants ,

arise in Russian liter ature and t h eir fame spread not only
in Russia but all over t h e world
,
Leo Tolst oy and Th eodor
.

Dostoevski ; bot h di fferent in life c h aracter psych ology , , ,

literary style but at t h e same time there was something

,

in common somet h ing t h at is a genuine feature of Russian

,

c h aracter as a red t h read all t h rough the Ru ssian literature

and this is the instinctive desire to seek aft e r a better moral
life and to find a righ t path in accordance with God s laws ’
.

M arc h ing to t h e same goal but by di fferent roads they

, ,

seem to be polar to eac h ot h er but the same time taken , ,

as a wh ole they form a complete exp re ssion of Russian

character .

’
These writers works are so closely bound up with their
li ves t h eir writings are in such degree a reflection of their
,

own experiences t ha t it is almost impossible to understand

,

t h em wit h out knowing their biographies

, .

L Tolst oy educated and bred in luxurious surround

.
,

ings among t h e old Russian land nobility having spent his

, ,

yo ut h in military adventures and social frivolity wit h

, ,

plenty of money happy family life and a comfortable

,

h ome — yet fro m his early child h ood he raised a tormenting

q uestion What is l ife and h ow is one to live better ?
This continual struggle of his conscience against his wealth
and position in society as imposed on him is a dominant ,

1 38
 LEO TOLSTOY 1 39

factor in all his life On the contrary Dostoevski s life is

.
,
’

endless misery and suffering .

B orn in poverty he was poor all his life He lived

, .

among poor and oppressed and knew their su ffering

and needs He was unj ustly arrested and condemned to
.

deat h but the sentence was remitted and he was relegated

,
“
to Siberia whe re he spent many years in Th e House of
,

the Dead This arduous life fostered Dostoevski s

.
’

genius as a writer a deep psychologist of human nature

,

and su ffering Tolsto y gave alms Dostoevski received

’

.
,

them To l st oy wanted to lead a simple life Dostoevski

.
,

lived not only a simple but a hard one Tolst oy passed , .

along the high road and Dostoevski was dragged along ,

the low one B ut both had the same desire the same ,

impulse to make their lives pure and good to reach the ,

Kingdom of God in their hearts .

was born in 1 82 8 in his country

CO U N T LEo TOLSTé Y
estate Y asnaya P oli ana ne ar the ,

town of Tula His mother died soon after his birth and
.
,

his father when he was nine years old L Tolst oy toget h er . .

,

with his brothers and sister was brought up by a dista n t ,

relative of the family Her tenderness and a ffection to .

the c h ildren played a very important part in building the

,

character of the future writer After receiving elementary .

education at home Tolstoy went to the University of ,

Kazan After spending a few years in irregular studies

.
,

he left the University and went to St P etersburg where .

,

he plunged into the whirlpool of society life His eldest .

brother N icholas seeing the danger menacing L Tolst oy

, .
,

persuaded him to j oin the army and go to the Caucasus .

His departure from St P etersburg in 1 85 1 marks a new .

,

period of life Th e wonderful scenery h ealthy adven t ur

.
,

ous life and rustic c h arm ; made a deep and refresh ing
influence on Tolst oy and it is t h ere that h e began to ,

write Ch il dh ood a partly autobiographical story was

.
, ,

the first t h at h e publish ed He next published some .

Cauc assia n tales B oy h ood an d Youth ,

.

In 1 85 3 Tolst oy left t h e Caucasus for Crimea an d served

,

in Sebastopol during the siege of 1 85 4 In the masterful .

1 40 LEO TOLSTOY

Tal es f Sebastopol he displayed fully his artistic and

o ,

psychological gift and made himself a name in literature .

H e then went abroad for a time where he stu died the ,

theory of education His brother N icholas died in 1 860 .

,

and this event made a deep impression on Tolst oy Ret urn .

ing home he tried to apply educational methods to the

peasants children on his own estate In 1 862 h e married
’
.

and began to manage his estates He had a large and happy .

fa mily and in this pe riod he wrote his best novels : War

,

an d P eace and A n n a Karen in a To wards the end of t h e .

'
seventies a crisis passed over Tolst oy s life He began to
, .

be dissatisfied with his l ife and looked for one simplified and
better Tolst oy artist changed into Tolst oy moralist and
.
- -
,

Christian ascetic Having no courage to break his family

.

ties he lives a seclude d life as a peasant and moral teacher

, ,

in t h e midst of the domestic life of his family .

Th e deeper the political life of Russia was plunge d

into morass and stagnation the brighter grew Tolstoy s ,
’

idealism and faith Fi nally he emerged as a founder of a

.

new teaching placing him among the highest religious

,

thinkers His ideal was a pure and simple life guided by

.
,
“
the Sermon of the M ount He glorified the simple life .

of a peasant proclaimed all material culture the state

, , ,

the laws the church art an d literat ur e as sinful an d against

, ,

human nature .

Th e climax in his religious evolution was reached in

1 9 1 0 when he left his home for ever and on his way to the
, ,

unknown future died at a lonely railway station All

, .

Russia was deeply a ffected by his death A well renowned .

critic wrote that time Th e whole world was his admirer ,

but he had few followers even in his family He was

'
, .

blessed and loved by everybody even by people that h e ,

denied and the liberals and the workmen and the social
, , ,

ist s and the in t e llige nc ia because in him they saw the

‘ ’

,
“
consciences of the world .

'
In Tolst oy s early work Ch il dh ood B oy h ood and Y outh , ,

we see the twofold aspect of his nature the love ,

of animal life and the quest of a higher moral standard .

The se two antagonistic principles run parallel all throug h ,

1 42 LEO TOLSTOY

doctrine of non resist e nce to all e vil Pierr e was deeply

- .

impressed by his lofty soul and for all his life since then ,

was guided by these Christian principles Th e evolution .

of Pierre s life reminds us of that of Tolst oy himself

’

,
.

Th e treatment of history is peculiar Tolst oy pays .

n o attention whatever to the so called great men in history -

like N apoleon or Alexander the First and thinks that all ,

historical process is due to the unconscious mass movement -

,

in wh ic h every one has his share but at the same time

'

, ,

{everyone is dragged along by the irresistible current .

B ut above all above N apoleon war and politics we

, , ,

see the uprising figure of victorio us life an d it is a hymn to

'

the family and the mother that Tolst oy ends h is

book with .

Th e moral idea of War an d P ea ce is still more developed

in Tolst oy s next novel A n n a Karen in a Here Tolst oy
’
.

de picts the life of two families of the higher society of

St P etersburg
. Anna whil e a y oun g girl marries Karenin
.
, , ,

a n old bureaucrat It is a mar iage de con ven an ce and

.

Anna secures a good position in society and plenty of

money b ut after a few years feels that her life is intolerable
,

and tries to get o ut of it by loving a young but quite

mediocre officer Vron ski Sh e has not courage enough
, .

to break with his family and after passing through t errible

su fferings she throws h erself under a passing train P arallel
, .

to the history of Anna Tolst oy gives a picture of happi ,

ness in another family : Levin like Pierre B ezukh ov ,

passed through a moral evolution and finally came to t h e

conclusion that life for one s own family constant work '

, ,

healthy nat ural surroundings is all that a man should ,

desire Th e motto of this novel is taken from the B ible :

.

Vengeance is mine I will repay God is the l aw of

, .

n ature and who goes against nature is punis h ed This .

was the case with Anna .

After Tolst oy s religious crisis of 1 87 9 we observe a

'

d ecided change in his works Pessimism begins to pre .

domi nate Th e former j oy of life is vanished altog ether

. .

Life has no meaning culture is a corruption of human ,

n ature and only by self sacrifice and love can we a e com

, ,
 LEO TOLSTOY 1 43

plish our aim in life Tolst oy the preacher takes the place
.

of Tolst oy the artist .

Th e story Th e Death of I win I l y felt is a tragedy of an

average man wh o knows that he is to die He is alone in .

the wh ole World has no sym pat h y from anyone and under
,

stands the in sign ific an c e of h is life Just before his death .

,

a ray of hope pierces the dark clo uds and h e dies as a happy ,

man believing in future life .

Th e P ower of Dar kn ess is a terrible drama of peasant

life Th e next play : Th e F ruits of C ivil ization is rather
.

a satire on t h e educated upper classes .

In the story Kr eutzer S on ata Tolst oy appears to im ,

pugu his former idea of love and family With t h e fierce .

fanaticism of a puritan he attacks and denounces n ot

only family and love but woman herself and proclaims
, ,

the ideal of absolute chastity as a remedy against all the

calamities associated with the sexual life .

F a th er S ergius has a similar idea to the Kr eutzer S on ata .

R esurrection is the last of Tolst oy s novels Here he ’

.

is on his h ighest level as a preacher but his old artistic ,

temperament is still great Th e state laws church con .

, , ,

v e n t iona l morals are severely attacked N e kh l y udov

,
.
,

a rich nobleman while a j uror for a trial of a case of crime

, ,

recogn ises in the accused a girl he had sed uced in h is ,

e arly yo uth Overcome wit h remorse he leaves every thing

.
,

and follo w s h e r in h e r exile in Siberia Sh e refuses his .

o ffer of marriage and aft e r t h e expiration of her sentence

marries another man B ut meanwhile N e kh ly udov is
.
,

converted to a new life and through l ove mercy and , ,

self abdication goes to h is salvation

,
.

Tolst oy wrote quite a number of articles on educatio n ,

morals religion art etc From a religious point of view

, , , .
,

he may be called a pure Ch ristian repudiating Church and ,

all dogmas His political outlook is anarc h istic State

. .
,

law an d all values of mate r ial progress are denied by

,

Tolst oy .

was born in M oscow in 1 82 1 His

TH EODO R D OS T OEV S KI family was very poor and from his
.

early youth till his death he had a terrible struggle for

1 44 DOSTOE VS K I

existence often living on the margin of starvation He

,
.

began to write while a cadet in the School of Engineering

,
.

After resigning h is commission be devoted himself to ,

literature His first novel P oor F ol k written in 1 845

.
,

produced a big success in the literary world White N ights .

,

N etoch ka N es van ova and a few other stories followed

shortly In 1 848 after the Revolutionary move m ent
.
,

in Europe, a kind of radical —socialistic society was formed

in St P etersburg Dostoevski took part in it but in
. .
,

1 84 9 he was arrested together with the other members , .

They were condemned to death B eing the third in .

the row writes Dostoevski, I concluded I had only a ,

few minutes to live before me B ut j ust before the .

execution they were reprieved and sent to Siberia He .

spent four years in the terrible condition of a convict

prison which he described in his book Th e House of the
,

Dead He returned to St P etersburg in 1 85 9

. His career . .

as an edi t or of a newspaper was a series of failures and ,

he had to escape abroad where he lived in misery until ,

1 87 1 His last years of P etersburg life were happier He

. .

died in 1 88 1 .

Struggling in the grip of poverty and bad healt h ,

Dostoevski had never enough time to bring his style to

perfection His language is hasty neglected ; the whole
.
,

of his words are shapeless fantastic personages are moving , ,

in a space less and timeless void .

Th e critics called him a cruel genius I depict .

all the soul s depths he once wrote Like E P oe he went . .

,

into the deepest region of human psychology whe n the

human soul is on the margin of normal consciousness .

In his first novel P oor F ol k Dostoevski put down ,

t he main idea of his future writings Th e plot there is .

quite simple A humble and poor minor clerk gave all

.
,

h is heart and soul to a girl poor as himself Sh e is for him .

a light in the darkness His love is so great that when .

, ,

the girl marries another rich man he accept s this fact ,

with a perfect self sacrific e and kindness In this novel -

.

Dostoevski depicts his own ideal of a healer and com

forter of all downtrodden and Oppre ssed He proves .
1 46 DOSTOEV SKI

people call mental insanity ( but really may be a h igher

state of brain activity) depict s a type of a wonderful
,

man .

P rince M yshkin ( the idiot ) is a simple naive tender , ,

hearted man with a compassion and love of everybody .

He would love a spirit among t h e grotesque material

world and in fluence e v ervb ody with whom he came in
contact .

Th e P ossessed or Devil s is a novel with a very entangled

,

plot trying to represent the revolutionary circles Dos

, .

t oe vski was a Slavophil i e h e believed in the sacred

, . .
,

mission of Russia in the world religion and politics He ,

.

disliked socialism in which he saw an absence of religious

principle and a moral materialism .

Kirillov is the le ader of the revolutionary party He has .

a strong will and powerful persona l ity He dre ams of a .

radical revolution when there will be a new life a new ,

man ; everything will be new then they will divide

history into two parts : from the gorilla to the annihila
tion of God and from the annihilation of God to
Th e Gorilla ? To the transformation of the earth
and man physically M an will be God .

B ut the revolutionists are defeated morally an d

physically .

Th e last masterpiece Th e B r oth ers K arama zov was never

finished b ut in the first completed part Dostoevsky
, ,

gave a fine analysis of Russian life and character .

Th e plot is rather simple b ut t h e whole is extremely ,

complicated Th e old Karamazov a wretched sensualist

.
, ,

has three sons : Dmitri Ivan and Alyosha Th e first, , .

’
two have inherited their father s passion Alyosha is meek ,

and kind Th e q uarrel between the father and his son

.

about a girl that both want to possess form the narrative .

Th e old Karama zov is killed A trial ensues And from

‘

. .

all this dirt troubled spirit and reign of flesh emerges

, ,

the pure soul of Alyosha who follows his teacher s the,

’

,
’
monk Zosima s advice : Love all God s creation everv ’

,
—

g rain of sand .

Th e great period of reform which followed on the ,

 GAR SHI N 1 47

Crimean so called
war ,the politica l spring tim e of -

Russia brought about a refres h ing influence on social

,

life and literature but was short lived M ost of the political
,
-
.

bette rment was superficial and the bureaucrat ic autocracy ,

reg ained power after the death of Alexander I I in 1 88 1 .

Th e best aspirations of the Liberals were shattered and

deep depression and disillusion penetrated all classes of
’
society Th e people s party
.
(N arodovtsy ) so full of ,

acti vity and hope after the liberation of the serfs declined
, ,

rapidly and under th e unfavourable external pressure

, ,

were losing faith in the peasant and in their own princi ples .

Th e beautiful dream of a land communism and of an ideal

structure of future society passed away like a castle in t h e ,

air and the Russian in t e ll igen c ia awoke with a broken

,

heart a paralysed will inactive deeply pessimistic and

, , ,

with a fatalistic indifference to the rising tide of re action .

It seemed that the bright torch of liberalism lighted ,

by the best Russian minds was extinguished and the , ,

people fumbled helplessly in the dark We have a l ready .

noted t h e striving transition from optimism to pessimism

in Tolst oy s psychology but the best reflection of the life
'

in this period we find in the tales of Garshin Chekhov and ,

the sad poetry of N adson .

V S EV OLOD GA R S H I N ( 1 855 1 888)

was born in t h e sout h of
-

Russia He was educated .

at the University of P etersburg where he wrote his first ,

tales In 1 87 7 whilst still a student he j oined the army

.
, ,

as a privat e moved by t h e patriotic desire to figh t for t h e

,

liberation of B ulgaria Passing all through the Russo .

~

Turkish war he keen ly observed the psycholo gy of the

,

soldier ; and his tales describing the war can be compared , ,

only with those of Tolst oy He was wounded and was .

,

invalided home to St P etersburg where he started his .

,

literary works His death was partly due to a m ental

.

disease .

His early tale Four Day s the diary of a young man , ,

vol unteer in the Army wounded in battle and left hel pless ,

in the sun scorched field alongside a dead corpse of his

-
,

enemy— a Turk Th e agony of the wounded man nearly

. ,
1 48 GAR SHI N

dead of thirst and hunger h is th oughts about the horrors

, ,

of the war and his deep humanitarian fee l in g s are des ,

c ribed by Garshin with great skill and pro found under

standing oi hu man n ature .
.

Garshin lived at a time when the two Russian schools

of thou g ht one realistic or positi vistic and the other
,

idealistic were gi ving way to a new individua lism He

, .

still was true to the old moral ide al s but in his writing we ,

ob serve a strange dualism between ration alism an dideal

'

ism His heroes listen to the voices of their reason an d

.

their heart but their t rag edy consist in t h e inability to

,

find the ri g ht way of action .

Th e Coward is one of such tales where the man s heart

’
,

protests a g ainst the war but the same time his reason ,

tries to j ustify it Th e same idea pervades throu gh the.

Diary of P rivate I van ov .

N adezhda N ikol a evn a a girl the heroine of a story of , ,

this name is again a victim of a similar tragedy Love

, ,

rational and love emotional are brou g ht into a sharp

, ,

( :0 n flict the result of which is the death of the girl and her
,

1over .

In The N ight a man overwhelmed by his introspective

,

ness ends his life by suicide

, .

Th e impossibility of an individual raising hi mself

above the mean life to reach a higher moral value is , ,

de ict ed in the allegorical story A ttal ea P rinc eps A .

pa tree growing in a conservatory trying to reach t he

-
, ,

s unshine an d open air breaks the g lass roof of its prison , .

This heroic attempt is its death .

His last story Th e Red Fl ower is an e x asper ated protest ,

a gainst the world wide indifference and coldness A man -

.

g oes insane having no more power to endure the human

,

su fferin g of h is fellow creatures without bein g able to

help them In the asylum he b uilds in his insane brain
.
,

a new theory o f good and evil According to this theory .

good and freedom always subsisted throug hout the

ag es but now the world was overshadowed by the
,

evil I n a red poppy growin g in the garden of the asy lum

.
, ,

h e s ees the incarnat ion of the wor l d s evil Th e rapidly

’

.
1 50 CHEKH OV

animal and cynically laughed at every act of hypocrisy ;

Ch ekhov in the deepest pitfalls of huma n ity sought a
presence of love and hope He sometimes laughed ; but .

he never was a bitter satirist .

In h is short stories Ch ék h ov presents us the whole

,

Russian life in its man ifold manifes tations He takes .

his types str aight fro m life and they are alw ays ordin ary ,

people saying commonpla ce things living comm onplace

, ,

lives N o exaggeration no b right colours They are

.
,
.

snapshots from life B ut at the same time all these little

.

fragments as a wh ole give us an undivided artistic

,

va l ue of a mosaic with one idea running all through .

Th e Russian character welded between the two ,

millstones of Western and Eastern civilization show s a ,

great intricac y but t h e predominant feature is the persist

,

ence of a religious sentiment an intuitive faith in some ,

’ ’
thing that will guide home In the 6 o s men believed in .

Darwm Herbert Spencer physi ology and chemistry in , ,

the 7 0 s in the people , village communism the mission of

’

Slavonic races etc later on M arx becam e a gospel for the

, ,

Russian intellectuals and all this w as taken with the same

,

e n t h usiasm t h e same b l ind faith the same ignoring of reality

, , .

Th e Russian literature is par excell en ce philosophical ,

an d every reader expects to find in it a clue to the right

-

path in life .

What an swer does Ch ek hov give on the cursed ques

tions of mankind ? I s he an ardent teacher of m orals does he ,

preach some new faith does he accuse somebody ? N o

, ,

he was never a preacher h e was only an artist He gave

, .

us life as he saw it and always t ried to find a living flame

deeply buried somewhere in the human heart He wanted .

j ust to show that the misery of life is something t ransitional ,

that life is worth living if not for our own sakes then for
, ,

the sake of future generations becau se he believed that ,

in a few hundred years time life will be full of j oy and ,

happi n ess .

Th e moral evolution of Ch ekhov from a deep pessimist , ,

after observing life as it is to an optimistic faith in progress

, ,

can be clearly traced all through his works .

 CHEKH OV 1 51

I t would take a long time t o describe Ch ekho v s tales ’

but from a few examples the main idea may be followed .

Life seems to be a terrible muddle ; pe 0 pl e no longer

underst and each other aimless and bl ind they continue
'
.

to dru dge in the dark land of sorrow Th e hero of a little l .

story The K iss R y abovic h sees in life only a series of

, , ,
“
accidents without any connection and idea And the .

whole world the whole of life seemed to Ryabovic h an

, ,

unintelligible aimless j est , Some people like ,

a teacher in Th e M an in a Case tried to escape from it by )

living an isolated internal life and shutting himself from i
, ,

the rest of the world in an inpenetrable she l l Reality ; .

”
irritated and frig htened him .

Everybody l s perple x ed by the mystery of life and his

helplessness A syb aritic bureaucr at (A n A n ony mous
.

Story ) be h aving in nothing having no aim no desires , , ,

assumes an ironical attitude of life which serves him as an

armour and he fills up his time reading novels playing
, ,

cards and in adventurous love A revolut ionist who .

,

from a political reason was engaged as butler to this ,

gentleman before leaving h is house writes him : Wh y

,

I am prematurely weak and fallen is not hard to explain ,

Like t h e bib l ical strong man I lifted the Gates of Gaza to

'

carry them on the top of the mountain but w hy

ha ve you fallen ? why you before even st arting ’
,

your life have cast away God s image and transformed

,
.

yourself into a cowardly brute ? Wh y we so pass ionate ,

and strong at first so noble and full of faith are at thirty

, ,

or thirty—five complete bankrupts 7 B ut at t h e same .

time he confesses a passionate desire to live to make his ,

who l e life holy high and solemn like the blue vault of h eaven
,
.

Another man an old distinguished professor with world

,

fame ( Th e Dreary Story ) devoted to sciences when he reac h es

, ,

his old age feels a terrible emptiness of soul Everyt hing .

seems to him disgusting he is lonely and not understood ,

’
even in his own family His science his life 5 work seem ,

to him meaningless and isolated from life because he cannot

.
,

find in all this what is called a general ide a or the God of a ,

living man .
1 52 CHE KH OV

Ward N is the same story about dull weak people

. 6 ,

s uffering in the midst of a tangled and introspective com

plicated life .

Everywhere Chekhov sees this misery and desolation .

In the numerous tales of peas an t s life we see a dark picture ’

of poverty-stricken dull uneducated people Th e life , , .

of our comm on people workm en and peasants is a bl ack ,

nigh t built up of ignorance pauperism and all kinds of

, ,

prej udices Th e rising and growin g capitalism in Russia

.
,

appeared to Chekhov as a monst er with crimson eyes the ,

”
devil himself who was controllin g and de ceivin g both the
,

owners and the workmen Th e provinc ial l ife of little .

officials doctors clergy mercha nts is depicted with the

, , ,

same dark colours .

Happines s seems only a day dream and exists only in -

imagination I n a beautiful story Th e Bl ack M on k we

.
,

see a young man a Doctor of P hilosophy a dream er who , , ,

hates the ordinary life of the human herd and believes that
he is a g enius A vision of a black monk follows him
.

everywhere and his genius seems to be al l ied to madness

, .

He despises healthy and normal people and isolates ,

himself from common life breaking his wife s heart ,

’
.

B ut dying he called Tanya called to the g reat ,

g arden with the beautiful flowers sprinkled with ,

dew , called to his wonderful le arnin g his youth , ,

courage j oy called to life which has been lovel

, ,
-
,

and an unspeakable infinite happiness filled is

wh ole being .

In the last story we see a turnin g point in Ch ekhov s ’

thought What he seeks for is faith Faith in g ood faith

. .
,

in life and progress I f a Russian do n ot b elieve in God .

,

it means that he believes in something else ( On the Way ) .

It seems to me that the man must believe or must seek

, ,

a faith otherwise his life is dull empty

,
( Three ,

S isters) Th e calling of all man kind is in a spiritu al

.

activity in a constan t search for truth and meanin g of

,

life his satisfaction may be only relig ion scien ce , ,

arts Sciences and arts when they are real ,

,

tend not to transitional not to private a im s but to the , ,

1 54 K OROLE N K O

a new salvation B ut still all through his work we can

.

trace his moral ideal whic h is so near t o the foundation

,

stone of tr ue Ch ristianity and at the same t im e is at the

,

base of every democracy As in N Gogol deep sorrow . .

,

about the destiny of man lofty aspirations to the ideal of

,

good are t h e main idea of Chekhov s writings For him

,
’
.
,

e v ery h uman being is something of a great value

_ _
and ,

cannot and ought not to be considered merely as a

means .

Th e notion of all persistent moral ideals guiding

human life is very well expressed in the story Th e S tuden t ,

Th e past he thought
, is linked up with the present
,

by a continuous chain of events flowing one out of another ,

that truth and beauty wh ich have guided the ,

human life in the garden and the yard of the h igh priest -
,

has continued uninterruptedly to this day and evidently

, , ,

had always been t h e main thing in human life and in all

the world ; and the feeling of youth health strengt h , ,

he was only twenty two years old and the inexpressible

-
,

sweet expectati on of happiness the unknown mysterious , ,

happiness filled him little by little and life seem ed to h im

,

enchanting marvellous and full of lofty meaning

, .

Th e same melancholic note and vague expectation of

a better future may be observed in the many novelists
and poets of t h is period of reaction Some of them were .

banished or deported the ot h ers were left paralysed by

,

the political regime and t h e consequent deep depression

of society Having l ost all hope in finding their way in
.

the dense mass of life t h ey tur ned their attention to the

,

problem of the individual inner side of man Fe w of them .

carried the flame of the old idealism or had courage

t o be active fighters but one of such idealists was
,

V Korolenko
. .

was born ( m 1 85 3) “1 SOU t h West ern

VLA D I M IR K O R OLEN K O
Russia His childhood passed in .

a little provincial town on the Russian P olish border -

.

Like many of the Russian writers he could not obtain any ,

higher education on account of the political situation and ,

the movements in which the students took part First he .

 LIE SK OV 1 55

was e x pelled from the M oscow A gricultural School and

was afterwards arrested and sent into e xile He spent .

more than six years in a far—away corner of Siberia su ffer ,

ing greatly from loneliness and privation When allowed .

to retu rn to Russia he settled down at N izhn i—N ovg orod ,

wher e he edited a review t h e popularity of which has

,

subsisted to the present time in Russia .

Th e deep humanitari an ide al ism which fill all the ,

stories of Korolenko did not prevent h im from remaining

,

a true artist of realism an d carrying on the traditio n s

,

of the old re alistic sc h ool His stories I n B ad Society and

.

Th e B l in d M usician derived from his impressions of child

h ood transport us into the life of the P olish border dirty
, ,

little towns miserable people but at the same time the

,

stories are full of b righ t colours and an irresistible charm

and beauty Th e stories taken from Siberian life The
. ,

Dream of M akar are more gloomy but the deep sympathy ,

of the auth or with every person he describes the bright ,

light of hope which h e carries all t h rough the dark forest

of life make us feel in Korolenko a warm and t ender
,

heart and an irresistible impulse towards the higher ideal

of love and mercy .

Korol enko stands alone in the level lain of literature

of the eighties and the nineties Th e 0 d representatives
.

of the land nobil ity were non existent except OERT EL -

,

( 1 855 1 90 8) who wrote about t h e ancient but decaying glory

-

of the country squires ( Th e Garden in s) the triumphant march,

of the new growin g middle class ( Ch anging Guards) and ,

peasantry His vivid sketches give us a complete picture

.

of the l ife in the agricultural line of the s outhern provinces .

,

de icted before by the slightly romantic pen of DA N fLEVSKY

(1 p 29

( 1 83 1 1 89 5 ) who started his l iterary career

-

N LI ES K O V
'

d uring the period of reforms by criticizin g ,

the Liberals (N owhere) afterwards turned his attention on

,

simple stories of clerica l life and religious moral proble ms .

His style was very ori ginal and in h is stories we can see a
,

strange mi xture of a true n arrative with a fierc ely imagina

tive faculty .
1 56 B OB OR Y KI N VER ESA EV

born 1 83 6 was not a deep writer and did

P B O B OR Y KI N
'

i
i ot try to s l v e moral and political questions h
With a photograph ic accura c y and profound gift of observa
tion be depicted the di fferent stages of evolution of Russian
,

life His style of writin g was j ourna listic but nevertheless

. ,

he gave a vivid image of the turbulent life of Russian

society Th e rise ( f t h e capitalistic class its corrupted
.
,

psychology and greed for money the gradual merging of ,

the in t e ll ige nt cia into the ranks of the bourgeoisie ,

were described by B ob orykin in his many n ovels ( Even ing

Sacrifice B usin ess M en Chin a town )
, ,
-
.

P OTA PEN K O S H ELL E R

described the life of
A VSEEN KO ,
the middle
,
classes
M I C HA I LO V STA N Y U KOVI CH ,
,
idealising a new type
of a practical man of average ideas and ambition Th e , .

later writer St an yukovic h made his name in literature

,

by writing stories depicti ng the life of sailors of the N avy

( where he himself se rved as an offi cer) .

who wrote under the name of VER ESAEV

V S M I DO V I C H
,

stands quite apart from the rest of his

.
,

contemporaries B orn in 1 86 7 he received his medical

.
,

education in two universities and all through his life ,

never ceased to be a practical physician in addition to his

literary occupation He took part in fighting the cholera .

epidemic and went with the Army du rin g the Russo

Japane se War Th e Diary of a Doct or written under the
.
,

impression s of his medical practice raised a storm of ,

indignation in medic al circles Ve resae v shared t h e .

”
psychology of Chekhov saw people with no road , no ,
“

banner and did not believe in t h e ideals of the people s '

party In his novels On the Tur n of th e Trail and Those

.

wh o Grew Cold he provides a series of types who were

, ,

left on the road of life with no light in front but still ,

clinging to the old idealism B ut Ve resaev went further .

than Chekhov Like Gorki he saw n e w men arising from

.
,

among t h e ruins of the old These fresh men full of energy .

,

and ideals were the M arxian Socialists As a pure Marxian .

himsel f he did not believe in free individual will but ,

thought that all mankind is drawn alon g by a terrific ,

1 58 G ORK I

Gorki may be compared was found in the lowest strata of

human society .

Th e second half of the X I Xt h century was a period

of rapid industrial and capitalistic progress Th e primitive .

village commune which had been t h e hope of the Russian

,

i n t ellectuals before and after t h e liberation of t h e serfs ,

was falling to pieces ; a new class of people artisans —

,

workers town proletariate came into play Th e ideas

, , .

of Karl M arx gradually replaced the old Russian communal

Socialism Gorki was a child of his age He was a self
. .

made man and in his works we do not find any learned

didacticism Y oung simple bracing like t h e fresh wind
.
, ,

of t h e st eppes full of j oy resolution and anger full of

, , ,

brigh t colours and new ideas t h e stories of Gorki opened ,

up a new and wonderful world .

( GORKI is the pseudonym ) was born in

A LEXI S P E S H KOV '

1 86 8 in N iz h ni N ovgo rod on the River -

Volga His father a poor upholsterer died soon after

.
,

his birth and his mother went to live with h er parents

, .

P esh kov s stern grandfat h er gave him his first education

’

, ,

which consisted of reading P salms enforced with blows .

While a young boy he was sent in a cobbler s shop and soon ’

ran away and entered into service on a river steamer

, .

His master the cook encouraged his reading on which

, , ,

the boy was very keen Later on he became a b ake r street .

,
’
po rter hawker and at last found a refuge as a lawy er s
, ,

clerk B ut the spirit of unrest overtook him again and he

.

j oined the homeless tramps to wander all over Russia .

He passed along the shore of the B lack Sea right down to

the Caucasus and it was there that he published his first
sketch of tramp life in 1 89 2 His reputation as a writer .

grew rapidly and soon after so me more publications he ,

became the most popular author in Russia Korolenko .

,

whom he met on his return to N N ov gorod de epl y influenced .

,

him . In 1 9 0 5 he took part in the revolution and had to

ee fro m Russia Since then he lived in Italy where
fl
.
,

e continued to write After the Revolution of 1 9 1 7 Gorki .

,

Pet urn ed to Russia and devoted himself t o spreading

e ducation among the people .
 G ORK I 1 59

I love my dear friend this tramp s life

, Sometim e s ,
’
.
i
I am cold sometimes hungry but t h e freedom is great
,
—

N obody lords it over me I am my own master This .

is what one of Gorki 3 heroes says A sedentary life in .

.

a town or village cannot satis fy a tramp An instinctive .

desire for freedom contempt for every kind of culture

, ,

laws obligation communal morality make Gorki s

, , ,
’

tram p a kind of N ietzschean superman In his numerous .

sketch es from l ife we always see the figure of this in depen

dent tramp slightly ideal ized and unm istakably a reflection
,

of the writer himself Th e spirit of unrest pervades .

every one of his types Th ey are cosmic in their impulses

.
,

organically blended with t h e whole universe From the .

artificial structure of society they escape into the great

kingdo m of N ature w here they find a rest and satisfaction
, .

I n distinction from Ch ekhov N ature predominates in ,

Gorki s words We feel her presence always she is one

'
.
,

with all human feelings and it is a mystical closeness

between man and nature Gorki h as a kind of Hel l enic .

sense of nature his descriptions are always e x pressive and

,
”
personified Th e sea laughed
. Th e wind caressing t h e ,

mighty bosom of the ocean etc .

In M al va we see a girl indi fferent and even sick of life ,

who loves nature more than any man that she met Urban .

culture seems to a tramp a big dung hill on which the people

is su ffocating Th e men have built town s houses live
.
, ,

there in herds pollute t h e earth are su ffocating press

, , ,

each other— what a life

’
(K on oval ov ) .

Gorki s tramps are sincere they speak as they think , ,

and lack the hypocrisy of civilized man They do not .

complain and are not depressed They t ake life as it comes .

in all its manifold complexity of good and evil Som e .

times they are cruel but in general generosity is prevalent

, .

In the story Emelian P ily a i we see a derelict of society

who is waiting t o kill a merchant and does not stop to ,
.

save a girl from drowning Chelkash a thief drunkard .

, ,

smuggler a homeless tramp shows his generosity towards

, ,

his companion a stupid cowardly peasant Gavrila by giving

, , ,

him all the money he got by stealing .

1 60 G ORK I

idealism and love of s ome kind of goodness and right

Th e
way in life is seen in every tramp I n Twen ty six M en .
-

a n d On e Girl we are transported in a stu ffy damp and ,

dark cellar where bakers work from morning till night

,
.

Th e monotono us and hard work would kill everyt hing

human in them if they had not one bright ideal and love
, ,

personified in a girl who came occasionally to visit them .

A new man cynical and corrupted but handsome appears

, , ,

among the twenty six N O girl can resist him but the -
.
,

twenty six are sure that the On e will remain pure ’

-
.

They bet on her and lose A strong and bold .

man took their ideal of purity the ideal which was a ray of ,

light in their gloomy life and all of them were left again ,

in the darkness P erhaps in this story Gorki wanted to

.

show how the best stories of humanity the faith that ,

inspires many is often soiled by handling in dirty hands

of corrupted persons .

In another story Th e Orl ovs we see a cobbler and his , ,

wife living a miserable life A cholera epidemic awakens .

the Orl ovs who devote themselves to work in a hospital

, ,

with a great enthusiasm B ut Orl ov weakened by his .

,

previous life soon cools down and plunges again in the

,
'
waste sea of tramps life .

Kon oval ov A Trio Creatures that on ce were M en and

, , ,

many small stories give some more pictures of tramps life

’

, .

F oma Gordy éy ev is a powerful story about the peculiar

class of Volga merchants Th e same egoistic wild types .
,

of human shame as we see in the plays of Ost rovski are

, ,

described by Gorki .

Th e ideal of many Russian writers which we saw in ,

Ch ekhov to find a general unifying feeling of life — a God

,

of a li ving man is seen here and there in Gorki s writings

,
’
.

I discovered in myself many good feelings and desires ,

a fair proportion of what is usually c alled gob d : but a

feeling which could unify all this— a well founded clear cut - -

thought embracing al
, e p h enomena of life— I did not
find in myself let us try ; maybe imagination
will help man to rise for a moment above the earth and find
t h ere his true p l ace which he has lost ( Th e Reader)
, . .
1 62 G ORK I

absence in life of any light and love of the non —existence ,

of a basis for action dominates in this novel B ut ,

.

at the same time over this immeasurable ocean of evil

, ,

loneliness of soul disbelief and bitterness Gorki rises as

, ,

an optimist believing in bright glorious future : the ,

new workers in li fe having hearts filled with love ,

they will plough up t h e field of God and l ike a

new shining sun the earth will prosper for all and every
, ,

body will b e happy in the new glorious current of life .

Gorki s work is not yet over Latterly he has published

’
.

in Russ ia a play S l ovotekov the Workman which describes

, ,

the workman s life under the present Russian Government

’

and in this he touc h es on the two tendencies of Russian

political life Th e play has not yet been published in
.

English .

During the last thirty years we can observe a very

"

great change in the whole aspect of Russian literature .

This c h ange is also noticeable in t he literature of Western

Europe but in Russia it assumes much more conspicuous
, ,

and extreme forms Art and literature are the reflections

.

and at the same time the expression of leading ideas of

, ,

the life process As life rapidly passes through a series

-
.

of changes followed by indust rial political and social

, ,

revolutions the same course is refl ected in literature

, .

Th e transition of a feudal agricultural country like ,

Russia into a modern indust rial state involved a precipitate ,

complication of customs an acceleration of evolution and ,

a great breakdown of old traditions B ut at the same time .

, ,

we must bear in mind that all these changes were going ,

under the old autocratic political system and to this ,

fact may be attributed those grotesque contrasts that

we observe in modern Russian literature Gorki and .

Andreev two men writing at the same time but what a

,

contrast in their ideas and form of e x pression !

It looks as though the broad and large river of Russian
literature were breaking up into a multitude of small
gushing streamlets runnin g in all directions and entirely
,

disconnected .

Th e new industrial classes were growing steadily and

 G ORK I 1 63

overtaking t h e class of the landed nobility Th e people .

itself was gradually emerging from its inertness and ign or

ance was ac q uiring a sense of dignity personality and
, ,

strength Th e role of the in t elligen cia as a nurse of the

.

people was practically over : the baby could stand on its

,

own feet and express his own desires Th e in t e ll ige n c ia .

felt itself lost an d useless in the midst of events With .

frightened eyes they looked upon this incomprehensible

progress of life listened to mysterious voices and were
,

contemplating the new forces rising into being Th e result .

as we see in R ussia and elsewhere was a general tendency ,

to isolate oneself from life to surround oneself wit h a fence ,

of ae stheticism individualism anarchism mysticism and

, , ,

what not ? Th e names of Oscar Wilde F N ietzsche , .

,

Huysman M M aeterl inck Andreev Sol ogub B a l mont

,
.
, , , ,

Speak for themselves to illustrate t h ese modern tendencies

,
.

Th e individual became the goal in itself and the j ustification

of life in life itself Th e old idols were destroyed the.
,

faith shak en ; and the intellectuals were left like blind

men in the desert Do not seek the distant goal take the
.
,

nearest to you enj oy life as if nothing were happening in

,

the world this was t h e new gospel of life Th e words of

,
.

M M aeterlinck can better illustrate t h is idea

. We live
wr ites M aeterlinck in Wisdom an d Destiny in the bosom ,

of great inj ustice ; but there can be I imagine neither , ,

cruelty nor callousness as though inj ustice had ended ;

, ,

else should we never emerge from our circle It is impera; .

tive that there should be some who dare speak and think , ,

and act as though all men were happy .

This Pam assian aloofness this a ristocratism of mind , ,

is perhaps better expressed by Sol ogub : I take a piece

of life coarse and poor and create a sweet legend because
, , ,

I am a poet remain stagnating thou dull commonplace

,

life or rage with a fu rious fire

,
over t h ee life I — t h e poet , , ,

will erect the created legend of all t h at is c h arming an d

beautiful !
was one o f t h e 13rst R ussian wri t ers ,
D M ER EZH KOVS KI
‘

L who broke with the traditions of

Russian literature He was born ( 1 866) of an aristocratic
.
1 64 MER EZH KOVSKI

family and received a good education Th e first poems .

that he wrote were in fluenced by the prevailing liberal

ideas but soon ( 1 892 ) he passed into t h e camp of symbolists
,

and proclaimed the j oy of life above all and the ,

sovereign rights of the individual as higher than the

c om mun ual idea Th e influence of classical Epicurean
.

literature and of N ietzsche are very marked in all of his

his works A trilogy consisting of three nove ls : j ulian
.
,

th e A postate Leon ardo da Vinc i and P eter an d A l ex is is one

, ,

of the masterpieces of M er ezh kovski There he describes .

three transitional periods whence according to N ietzsche

, ,

or Carlyle the superman or the hero arises Th e idea that .

runs all through the three novels is the undying struggle

between the antique Paganism and Christianity Christ .

and Anti Christ are the thesis and antithesis of life evolution
- -

but we see M erezh ko vski on the side of P aganism Th e .

novels are written in a clear realistic style are full of move

, ,

ment and give us a wonderful picture of historical events .

Th e personages are very numerous and well defined and

the whole matter is thoroughly studied by the author .

A few years later we see a total change in M erezh kovski s

o utlook I n his essay Th e Coming H am he appeals to the
.

p urified Christianity as the only one salvation from

a n approaching bourgeoisie the conglomerate of medio
,

c rit y ,as J 8 M ill called it which will bring the ruin of

. .
,

moral and aesthetic ideals by spreading the positivist

m aterialistic doctrine of life Only the true spiritual .

Christianity purified from the influence of Church and

,

St ate could save the world We must notice that this

.
,

was written after 1 9 0 5 whence the materialistic doctrine

,

of M arx secured a stron g footing in Russia .

Th e most brillia n t e x pounder of modern Russian thought

is undoubtedly Leonid Andreev Although he cannot .

solve the numerous questions that troubled the mind ,

does not give any real ideals nor find a rational explana
tion of existence he is wi dely read and admired by his
,

contemporaries who saw in him the inte rpretation of their

,

ow n sickliness of mind and troubled spirits His heroes .

have lost all connection with the whole of mankind are ,

 1 66 A N DREEV

which like the B eing in Grey and in t h e Lif e of a M an follows

and strangles every human being Th e art of Andreev .

is quite peculiar In every story he gives an illustration

.

of some idea the c h aracters have no real living individual

ity but seem to wear painted masks representing hyper ,

trophied passion or qualities His dramas resemble a .

pantomime with masks intentionally grotesque .

In the story Th ought we see how t h e whole being of ,

man is condens ed into an intense operative thought the ,

labour of ever increasing and deepening trying to grasp ,

the whole universe and finally passing t h e line which

,divides the n ormal from the abnormal To prove the .

independent and masterly position of his thought Dr , .

Kerzh e n c ov kills his friend in the presence of his wife To .

escape punishment he simulates insanity B ut while in

, .
,

prison an idea comes into his head

, it is quite possible
that Dr Ke rzh en c ov is really insane He thought he was
. .

pretending but all the while was really a madman And .

. this leads him in despair : I loved the human thought

my freedom I never knew anything higher than my
'

t h ough t — and the thought deceived me

'
In this story .

r
,
Andreev endeavours to show the peril of isolation Th e .

1 hu man thought is a collective product and may become a

dangerous weapon in the hands of an egoistic indi vidual .

Th e problem of faith is expounde d in the story Th e

Life of Vasil i Fivey ski a kind of modernized B ook of I ob .

Over the whole of the life of Vasili Fiv ey skithere impended

a cruel and mysterious destiny — thus the story opens .

Like t h e biblical Job he struggles with his destiny and

,

makes a superhuman e ffort to preserve his faith even in ,

the most dark periods of life His life is a successive .

number of misfortunes His beloved son was drown ed .

and his wife for sheer despair began to drink With a

, , .

revolting heart the priest goes in a cornfield t o find a rest

,

t o his soul and there facing the high burning sky he says
, ,

I believe Another child is born but this child is an

.
,

idiot On e day his besotted wife set fire to the house

.

and dies from burns B ut the priest still keeps his old
.

faith He isolates himself His faith increases every day

. .
,
 A N DREEV 1 67

till one day he believes in his ow n power to do miracles .

A workman died and his body is ready to be buried And .

he directed his steps t o the black silent waiting c oflin ,

!

, .

Th e people overcome wit h terror run away from the church

, ,

an d in the ominous silence sounded his powerful propheti c al

voice I t e l l you arise An outburst of despair follows
when he sees the ghastly reality of the immovable corpse .

Then why have I believed ? Then why hast Th ou

kept me in prison in slavery in chains , the priest cries ,

aloud Death comes in time to put an end to his misery

. .

Th e duality of t h e bestial instinct of man and his

“

ideal aspirations the deep psychological realism and

,

analysis of social evil is presented in t h e stories Th e Gulf ,

and I n th e F og .

Th e h orrors of t h e war are depicted in a ghastly story ,

R ed Laugh M adness and Horror !

. is the cry of a
su ffering humanity protesting against the absurdity of the \
'

war Th e real and unreal norma l and insane are inter 3

.
, ,

mixed in this story which has a ve ritable Edgar Allan Poe

,

touch in it .

Th e 1 9 0 5 Revolution also found a reflection in A n drée v s

'

work A very good sketch of t h e collective psychology

.

and fatality of the revolutionary movement is given in

the story Th e Govern or A symbolical story I t Was
,
.
, ,

shows us a cosmical aspect of the revolutionary movement

wh ere the persons are only powerless marionettes carried i
,

t ,

by the irresistible current Th e S even Wh o Were H angedgb .

written after the revolution is a work of artistic merit

and full of emotion and sympathy Th e in dividuallg
,

-
.

psychology of each of the seven martyrs is exposed with

a wonderful clearness Th e Darkn ess is a story of an
.

idealistic revol utionary who saw the ugly reality of life ,

and is struck by a new idea how he can be good w hen

‘

so many people are bad And he plunges into darkness

. .

Th e optimistic tendency is exposed only in the play ,

Towards th e Stars in which we are transported to a mountain

,

observat ory where an idealistic rationalist professor is

,

working In the valley below a revolution is in full swing

. .

Th e professor s only son an active revolutionary is

’

, ,
1 68 A N DREEV

mutilated in prison and becomes insane B ut the idealism .

of his father keeps him above all personal su ffering Like .

a gardener life plucks t h e best flowers but their fragrance

, ,

fills the earth Is Giordano B r uno dead ? Only

.

beasts die those who have no persona l ity Only those

,
.

who kill will die ,

There is no death to the .

M an no death for the Son of Eternity !

,

A very powerful but fantastic tragedy K ing Hunger , , ,

gives us the picture of the social unrest Th e tragedy of ,

.

revolution as a result of the eternal struggle of poor and

,

rich is given in a sym bolica l way Every personage

‘

, .

wears a mask and is rather a walking shadow than a ,

living creature Th e whole play is a ghastly Chiaroscuro .

of the future .

Individualistic anarchism versus social life was always

a characteristic feature of transitional periods In the .

play Savva we see such an anarchist who would destroy

, ,

the whole fabric of present society to make room for a

new happy world There will be no more rich people .
,

because it will be no more partitions nor houses nor , ,

money Th e weak sick and peace lovin g people will

.
, ,
-

perish and only the brave and free people will rem ain on
the earth ! Savva starts his work of destruction by
putting a clockwork bomb be h ind a sacred image in a
church Th e plot is discovered before the explosion
.

occurs and the image is safely removed and replaced

,

after the e x plosion Instead of destroying the idol of .

Religion Savva helped to produce a miracle Th e social

, .

instinct wins and the reformer who wanted to destroy

e verything without givin g anything in return loses
, .

Th e field of literary achieve m ent of Andreev is exten ~

sive and broad N o problems of human mind have been .

neglected by him Th e lonelin e ss of men in the midst of .

a great town is described in Curse of a B eas t B th e Win dow

y , ,

S erg e P etrovich ; the tragedy of death— in Th e War and

the Gran d Sl am ; the psychology of children— in P etka in
the Coun try Th e A ng el etc , , .

Th e tra g edy of the human soul is given in many stories

an d dramas Th e symbolical drama Th e Lif e of M an
.
, ,
1 70 SOLOGU B

This acceptance of intuitive fait h and love as the basis

of life is very characteristic of the development of A ndrée v s
'

thought .

Th e commonplace life is represented by A n dréev in

numerous plays suc h as Gaudeam us an d Day s of Our Lif e
,
'
, ,

where h e describes the student s life A nf isa P rof essor , ,

Stor itsy n etc gives true realistic pictures of the life of

, .
,

Russian educated classes .

In the beginning of the Great War An dr eev wrote a ,

patriotic play in honour of B elgium F or K in g Law an d , , ,

Liberty and a story Th e Y oke of Wa r giving a diary of

, , ,

a plain man for wh om war seems to be a calamity

,
.

Andr eev is a great w riter expressing t h e t h oughts ,

and aspirations of t h e vast multitude living in our tran

sit ion al epoch Th e old id ols were broken and t h e man
.

was left in a dreary void of life To fill this dreary void .

,

he imagines many beautiful and glorious t h ings but even ,

in this imagination t h e thought of deat h of t h e reality ,

of life comes to him again and again and his fear grows
, , .

And h e began to be like a keeper of a museum of wax

figures In day time h e chats wit h the visitors and takes
.
-

money from t h em but at nigh t h e walks a l one overwhe lm ed

, ,

with terrible fear among these de ad soulle ss creatures

, ,

( Towards th e Stars) .

P resent society with its unceasing conflict of indi ,

v idual ist ic interests where B ell um omn ium c on tra omn es

,

seems to the lonely man to be a mysterious dreadful , ,

veiled B eing ready to crush him And h e listens to h is

, .

inner voice as the only guide in the midst of the horrible

reality of h uman life .

I n the field of fantasy and imagination Andreev was ,

followed by anot h er contemporary w riter Feodor Sol ogub , .

B y his unsurpassed magic of words he created a new ,

atmosphere and a genre of his own .

FEODO R Te r ER m x o v ( the real name of F SOLOGU B ) was .

born in 1 86 4 B y profession a .

schoolmas ter h e b egan t o be kn own as a p oet in

,

1 89 5 when he published his first bo ok of verse His

, .

success as a novelist was produced b v the publication of

 SOLOGU B B IE LY 1 71

Th e Littl e Devil in 1 9 0 5 and since then he h as written ,

n umerous tales some novels and dramatical plays

, , .

Together w it h M e re zh k ov s ki he may be ca l led the

.

founder of Russian M odernism but h is talent developed ,

q uite di fferently from the other modernists

’
Like the .

boy of Andersen s tale h e got in his eye a little pie ce of,

’
t h e devil s mirror in which everything is distorted
, In .

his nove l Th e Littl e Devil h e gives a type of a man m ean

, , , ,

n arro w minded corrupted w h ose li fe m iserable as h imself

-
, , , ,

is a continuous endea v our to satisfy his petty ambitions .

In h is blind selfishness he ignores t h e means and acts only ,

under the infl uence of h is bestial nature symbolized by , ,

t he little Devil Th is type can also be found in Ch ekhov

.

( Th e M an in th e Ca se) and An dreev (N o P ardon ) but nowhere ,

e l se i s h e depicted wit h such a powerful sense of contrast .

All the w ritings of Sol ogub present a curious mixture

of reality and fantasy and some of h is tales ( Turan din a ,

and ot h ers) can only be compared wit h th ose of Anatole

France In Th e Ch arms of N avai h e represents t h e horrors
'

of the reactions a n d the general absurdity of life contrasted ,

wit h the fantastical and mysterious happenings in the

e state of Triro dor surrounded by t h e silent boys
, .

Queen Ortr uda is anot h er novel written in a queer style ,

w h ere Sol og ub attains t h e extreme limit of imaginative

c reation .

Th e short stories and tales of So l ogub are of unsurpassed

charm In his stylisations of ancient Russian legends he
.

has but one rival— A LEX I S R EM I SOV .

Th e greatest representative of t h e mystical modernism

is undoubtedly B B UGA EV who writes under the name of
. ,

He was born in 1 880 and published ,

A N DR EY B I ELY his first verses in 1 90 4 He introduced
'

new methods of expression and his prosaic and poetic ,

s tyles are very peculiar His b ig novel P etersburg pub

.
, ,

l ish ed in 1 9 1 6 is a long drawn out work very artificial

, ,
-
,

a n d mon otonous but full of a certain musical charm of

,

words and symbolic conceptions .

Other modernist poets are very numerous in contem .

p o r a r y Russia All.sorts of schools of poetry decadents ,

1 72 B UN I N ; B UB I SHCHEV ; KU P RI N

ac meist s, futurist s ego futurists etc are to be fo und ,

-
, .
, ,

mostly ephemeral Th e greatest poets are K B ALMO NT . .

( born V B R usov ( born A B LOC K ( born

. .

V I V AN O V M ST RUVE Mm e Z H I PPI US They all belong

.
, .
, . . .

to the aristocrats of mind standing above common life , ,

singing the j oy of individual e x istence and immersing life

in a sea of unlimited imagination .

In spite of the development of modernist ic literature ,

the old realistic scho ol still persisted and worked along a

line of its own We have already described the w orks of .

Gorki Korolenko but their ideology be longs more to the

, ,

X IX century We cannot pass wit h out mentioning

.

( born in who is a poet and writer of the

silent desolation and r uin of old Russian tradi
tions His thought is all in the sweet recollections of
.

former happy days His sorrow is tender and his attitude .

to the l ife is full of d ocile reconciliation and submissiveness .

He wrote numerous sto ries of peasant life and he sung the

desolation of the ruined nests of gentlefolk On e of his .

last stories Gen tl emen f rom San Fran c isco written in 1 9 1 6

, , ,

is a short but masterf ul sketch of an American million

aire who , after a strenuous life goes to Italy and dies
, ,

there lonely Th e transatlantic liner which carries his

, .

body back to America presents a symbol of the vani t y of

human life .

A B um suc n e v and E CurRrxov are like B unin keen

. .
, ,

observers of life and possess a deep tender feeling of , ,

nature Their miniature stories and novels are full of

.

a certain freshness and j oy of life hidden under a thin veil ,

of sorrow .

Th e most prominent of the realists is AL EXAN D ER

KupR tN He was born in 1 87 0 an d had a military educa
.

tion Disgusted with military life he retired in 1 897 and

.
, ,

devoted his time to literature His first big novel The .

,

Duel written in 1 9 0 5 produced a sensation in society

, , .

His life was irregular and adventurous He studied life .

in taverns slums peasant c ottages factories lived with

, , , ,

fishermen smugglers and thieves His subj ects are

, , .

taken directly from life his style is fresh and clear and , ,
1 74 ARTSYB A SHEV SER GEEV~TSEN SKI

the Song of Solomon B ut this modern interpretation still

.

possesses the primitive Eastern atmosphere of brightly

coloured life full of passi onate love and h appiness Th e .

whole story is a gl orious apot h eosis of love ; for love is

divinely beautifu l for the woman who loves is a queen
, ,
”
for l ove 1 5 as strong as death !
Another writer w h o raises t h e q uestion of love is
M A RT S Y B A S H EV ( born in
. but what a contrast to
the idealistic Kuprin ! All his subj ects are full of erotic
tendencies and he approaches French naturalism in
,

de scribing the low instincts of the b ete humaine Th e .

heroes of his stories belong to the declassed elements of

'

modern bo urgoise circles full of sensual feelings desire , ,

of self —a ssertion and independence of actions Th ey are .

all moral anarchists dictating t h eir capricious will to the

mankind Sanin
. is his principal novel wh ich produced ,

quite a sensation in 1 9 0 7 when t h e Russian young genera ,

tion disillusioned in their revolutionary attempts directed

‘

, ,

their energy and thought 0 11 t h e problems of t h e individual .

P as h a Tuman ov and A t th e Last S tage written later raises , ,

the same qu estions treatin g wit h contem pt the idealism

,

and glorifying the cult of the flesh .

A K A M EN S KI and M K U ZM I N also write in t h e st yle

. .

of Ar tsybashev .

Th e healthy realism b ut slightly touched by modern ,

infl uence is represented by SER GE EV TSEN S KI In his

, .

first stories we see the influence of Ch ekhov and Andreev ,

b ut soon he founded h is own me t h od of expression and

style of writing Fl uctuation s is one of the best novels
.

It is written in an original style full of colour and move ,

ment and presents us a grey country life with its various

,

fl uctuations whe re the man is p owerless to accomplish

,

anything by himself A deep sorrow envelops all the .

thoughts of Sergeev Tsen ski who losing his way in life , , ,

appeals to nature for help and guidance Fields of mine .

,

here I stand facing you alone barefooted I cry unto you , , ,

do you hear me ? I stand among you lonely

and lost . I fe e
l you with all my heart like a
deep wound Only a word only a sing le word
.
, ,
 ZA I TSEV R OPSH I N 1 75

I know— you are alive B ut not everything is

.
,

empty before me you are silent still and your sorrow is

,

mi n e .
( Th e S adn ess of th e Fiel ds) .

B Z AI TSEV is also a painter of nature village and quiet

.
,

country life B ut he is less satisfied with life and sees

.

more desolation in nature A strong desire to fly awa y .

from t h is life into an unknown future is characteristic to

his heroes Whatever h appen to morrow I welcome
.
—
,

you t h e coming To morrow !

,
-

Among ot h ers writing about country life and village

, ,

should be mentioned M OU YZHEL R OD I ON OV G us e v , , ,

TE LES HOV SESA FI M OV I CH OLI GE R and A TOLSTOY ( a

, , .

new writer) have also contributed muc h to t h e

study of modern Russian life N ovikov and Sl ezkin are .

quite yo ung authors with a very promising future .

Our survey of modern Russian literatu re would not be

complete without mentioning B SAVI N KOV writing under .
,

the name of V R OP SH I N Some time ago h e was an active

. .

member of the Terrorist revolutionary party but after ,

t h e revolution of 1 9 0 5 a profound crisis happened not ,

only in him but in the wh ole of the Russian revolutionary

movement His novels almost autobiographical give us
.
, ,

t h e best illustration of t h e psychology of t h e later revol a

t ion aries His first nove l Th e P al e H orse appeared in
.
, ,

1 9 0 9 and was called by D M e rezh k ovsk i the most Russian

,
.

book of the period .

It takes the form of a diary written by a Terrorist .

Th is type was often described by the Russian authors .

Th e most striking figure of a revolutionary is given by

Stepniak in the nineties It was then a clearly defined
’
.

character with internal reasoning simpl y pursuing h is

, ,
’

ideal in whic h he h ad an absolute faith R opsh in s h ero .

is a di fferent kind of man He is no longer a believer . ,

his mind is unbalanced unsettled full of doubts and , ,

indecisions H am l et is m has spoken its last word in P al e

.

Horse .

Gogol wrot-e Dead S oul s, but the revolutionaries of

"

”
R ops h in could be called t h e living dead .
I under
”
stood says the hero of P al e Horse ,
,
that I do not want
1 76 R OPSH I N

to live any more I am tired of my words my thoughts

. , ,

my wishes I am tired of men and this life. In his .

isolation he despises and hates the people and sees no

reason Wh y is it righ t to kil l for the sake of an ideal
Wh o can
, ,
’ ’
for one s country and not for one s own sake
, ,

answer me ? He looks with contempt on his former

friend an ardent revolutionary Th e world to h im is '

.
,

simple as an alphabet Th ere are slaves on one side .

,

masters on the other Th e sla ves revolt against the .

masters It is right that a slave should kill I t is wrong

. .

that a slave sh ould be killed A day will come when the .

slaves shall conquer Then there will be a para dise on .

earth All men wi l l be equal all be well fed and all will
.
, ,
’
be free E x cellent indeed I don t believe in a paradise
. .

’
on earth and don t believe in a paradise in heaven I
, .

’
don t want to be a slave not even a free slave ! Th e ,

revolutionary is transformed int o a philosoph ical rationalist

with an admixture of a religious mysticism He broke .

with society and is standing alone in the night which

is incomprehen sibly silent I have walked a hard road .

Where is the end ?

.

he asks Suicide is t he .

"
only way left for a man who said : I am with nobody ,

because life gets its strength from society and the individual
perishes in his beautiful isolation It is what Andreev .

told us before ( Th ough t B l ac k M askers) , .

In 1 9 1 2 Ropsh in publish ed his next novel Th e Tal e

, ,

of Wh at Was N ot where he again describes the crisis of

revolutionary spirit the psychology of the crowd and the , ,
‘

powerlessness of an individual .

B ut we must rem ember that R opshin gave the changing

spi rit of the old Russian P eople Socialist P arty an d not -

the youn g Social Democratic supported by the ever -

,

increasing town proletariat and constan growing in

strength The present revolution undoubt
. will evolve
a new and fresh manifestation of Russian spirit .
1 78 I NDEX

Famil y H appi s ne I n fidel ( Th e)

F th s a d S s
a er n on .
I n fldel it S imulated
Father S / er I m ul le d a nd I nj ured ( The )
F ashio ab Sh o ( T h e)
n
Fashionable Wi e ( The )
Fet
Finaal
Fishe rman ( The )
postate
.

Fl uatuation s J ul i
a n the A
Foma Gord ey ”
For King 70 and Li
b erty Kamens k i, A nato l i
Foun dl ing ( The ) Kan te m ir A D m
Fou D y r a s Kapn ist, Vas
,

as
. .

Four S as s ( Th ) e on e K aramzin N Y
. .

F ig ate P ll d ( Th )
r a a a e Kh e mn its er, I v I v
. .

Fruits of Civil i ati ( Th

.

z on e) K h e ras kov, M ic h M at v
Fr uits f S ie ( Th )
.

o c n ce e Kh omy akov, A I Ste p'm .

K ie v Sc h oo ls 30
Garden ing: The) K in g H unger 1 68
Garne t N ec e ( Th e) K iss ( The ) 1 51
Garsh in, Vsevol ov M ikh . Kol ts ov, A l Vas . . 1 04
(l auded/ mus K onoval ov 1 61)
'

Gen tl emen fr om San ran ci sc o F Korol e n ko Vl adimir Gal ak tion

Gl ukh oi, Arsenik K obosh ik l un ( urig Kar . p . 34
Gnedich N ik l van Kozl ov l v van . . 95
Gog ol , ,l k Vas
. . ,

. . Kreu tzer S on ata ( The ) 1 37 , 1 43

G0 n c h nrov , 1 v Al ex . Krizh an ic l l , I url 34
Good I nten tions 85 Kry l ov I van A ndre
, 81 , . 1 08
Gor d 1 6 2, K udriavst e v 1 20
‘

Gorern or ( The; 1 87 K 11 ns h t l o gan 36

Gran d Sl am ( Th e) 1 68 p ,

K u rin A le x an der I v 1 7 2 1 7 . 1 74
Great coat ( The ) 1 07 K ur bs k i, A ndre w M ik l l . 51 8
Gribole dov , A l exandr Sena . 99 K uzm in , M ikh Al e x . . 1 74
Grig oro vich , Dm 1 31
Gul f ( I h e ) Laborious A n t ( Th e 68
;
i n?
( l uscv Be r ‘ i7 5 Lazh ec h n ik ov , I v v 84
I
. . .

Gustavus I I 1 dn e n ture of ) Leisure H our s 58

Leon ardo da I m et
’

1 64
H aml et of Shchigrov Len n on to v , M ikh Tut 1 02, 1 24
H
. .

amsun , Kn ut. Les k ov N ik Sem en

, . . 1 55
B g l Le tter of B arie ell e to Troumand
'
e e 5 in fl uence 50
H erzen Al exan der 1 Letters of a Russian TraoeII -rr 68
H il i
.

ar on Lif e of a M an ( The ) 1 66 . 1 68
H ipp us Z Lif e of Vasil i Fiy e rsh
'

. 1 66
c al Dictit mery
H istori f Itussio n Literary Drea ms
'

o 1 21
Writers Literary Re rre n of Recen t Years
'

1 21
H istor ical Eul og y of Cath erine I I . Littl e Devil ( Th e ) 1 7 1)
H is tory of th e Russ ian State 6 6 , 6 8 Littl e town Oko mov ( Th e ) 1 61
84 Lomo n os ov M ikh Vas 4 2. 5 8 , 69 . . 117
p
. .

H ouse of th e Dual ( The) 1 39 , 1 44 1 4 5 Lower De ths ( The ) 1 61

H ouse of I ce ( Th e ) Luoer ne 1 36
F
H ow to eath er one s e ~ t
’
Ly kov , B og dan 34
H ucksters Th e)
I l uys man M aeterl inck
M alk ov A oll on N iko] p
p
.

I a eda M al va
I diot M an in a Cas e ( The)
I or ( Tale of Expedit ion of ) M an ner s ( On )
I iad M ar sh ( Th e )
I n B ad Society M artha th e Governor 3
. W1 fe
I n th e Fog M arx , Karl
I n the Worl d M ax im, t h e Gree k
 I N DEX 1 79
PA GE
M emoirs of a B ill iard-marl er 1 35 Ostr ozh ski, rin ce P
M emoirs of a H unt sman, 1 1 9 Oziorov. Vl adisl av I van .

M emoirs of a Y oung M an
M emoirs o] a M adm an P al e Horse ( The)
M ere zh k ovski
M erzl iak ov A l Fiod
, . . P ash a. Tuma nov
M etap h g s ws P arn y . Evarist e D Des forg m
M e tre R ussian
, P asser -by ( The )
M ikh ail ov A l exandr Co n stant in . P atriotic M emoirs
Sh el l er P ash k ov
M il l io n Gr ie van ce s ( A ) P ete r an d A l exis
M in d y o ur own B usiness ” P eter th e Great
M in or ( Th e) P eters burg
M is ha s of Wit ( T
p he) P etersburqhe r ( Th e)
M ogil a P e ter
, P et ro v Vas . etr . P .

M ogil ians ki Coll eg e P ctka in the Coun tr y

M ol och P hil are t, atriarch P
M uizh el P h y siol oW
gical Studies
M osco w Sch ools P icture of Fel itsa
N oskov Vedomosti. P isems k i A l ex Feofll akt
. . .

M other P it ( The )
P l ough man ( Th e)
P odolin sk i
E
M usical B l aksmith ( The)
-
P og odin M lkh . et r P .

P ol e voi N ik A l . .

P
.

N adezhda N ikolaer na P ol onsk i, Y ak ov e tr .

N ade zh din, ik I v .
P ol ot ski, Sim eon
Y atl s on , Se men Y ak ov P oor B rute ( The)
N al a an d Damay an ti
.

P oor F
ol k

i , the B oy ar s Daughter
N at al a ’
P oor Liza
N avia ( The Charms of ) P or k B utche r ( Th e)

c r aso v, N 1 k A l .
P ortra it The )
N es t of N obil ity ( The) P ososh kov, I T12 kh on . .

N est or P ort of th e s tra its .

N etoehl a N erva n or a P ot ap en k o, ct r
N evski P ros ect ( The )p P overty n ot a Creme
N ico n , P
atriarch P ower of Da r kness ( Th e)
ice 1 71 13
}
Nie t zs c h e, Friedrich P ru
N ig ht ( The ) P rin ce M zch ae Remain
P rince S n owy/ an t
P
N o ardon P rin t in g in t roduce d int o R uss ia
N orthern B ee ( Th e ) p
P roko o vich f eo ian .

N ote s on A ng l ing P rovin c a i l Letters

N ovik ov . N ik I van P rovincial Sketche s
l ’suedo cl ass ic ism
. .

N c v ik ov
N owher e P sy ch ol ogy of Ch il dren ( The )
P 11 1; ach ov l e bellion oi
Obl omov P ur se ( Th e )
Ody ssey P ush k in“1 Al ex Serg . .

p
Oedi us at A the n s
Cert-c l , Al ex I van . Quar rel o f I ran
Og ariov N 1k P l a ton . Queen Ortmda
in ( T e Quietude
or er e g v him
Olig er, N ik I . . F
Red lower ( The )
On M an ners R es urrectwn
R emizov, Alexis
On the Turn of the Trail Re visor ( The )
Rhetor w
Ossian , I nfl uen ce of Ring ( The)
Ostr omir Gosp el
.

R odw nov , T A .

Ostrovskl , Al ex N ik . .
R onsh l n . V.
1 80 I N DE X

“
R ossiad ( ) Th e T h ose wh o Gre w Cold
Rusl an an d Liudmila Th oug ht
R ussia in tran sition Th ousan d S oul s ( A )
R ussian l an g uag e I ; urit y o f p Th ree De 1 t
Th ree Siste rs
R ussai n l iterat ure : ear l ies t
m y th ic 3 h e ro ic 31 Tide ( The )
R ussia n t h eat re Tiute he v, Fy od I van . .

E astern and Z oh rah Tol st oy , A l e xis Kon st a n t in

To l st oy , Al e xis N .

To l st oy , Le o \’ ih
Sal ty k ov , M ikh Evg ra
.

Towa rds th e S tars

. .

S avinkov B oris ,
Tran k v il ion , Cy ril
S avva
M a n ne rs outs ide
Tre diak ovs ki, Vas K ir
S c enes an d
M oscow 1 29 Trm A )
117 Turg en e v, I v Serg
S ch e l l ing ist s . .

Scot t , Sir W : in fl uen c e of . 84 T11 rovs lc1 , ( y ril

Tn stan ov q ki L Z
Sen t imen tal ism m R ussian l it erat ure 6 9 , . .

Sera ion p Twen t y s x i M e n an d on e Girl

Two H ussar s ( Th e )
-

P
S erge etrovich
Sergeev l sen ski
‘

U ncl e Van ia
Sc rafimov ich
S ever: wh o w e re Ha n gcd Th e)
U 1 1 11 ill in g S ca egoat p ( The )
Usej ut Dive rsion
S h adows, The
Sh c h e drin , N ik Ev g r:1 f
Va erin fl s
. . .

Sl ie ll c 1 , A l ex R oust
Ve ne tia n ‘ 1 1 1 ( Th e )
.

Sh e n sh in Afnn A f an I

Ve n evit in o v , D1 1
. .
,
l
Sig n s of th e Time .

e1 cs 1 1 e 1
Shuzha
K est m k E 1 r0 p y
’

Sketch es in M oscow
z
Sl avery ( On )
l al age ( Th e )
'

Sl avomk Grammar ‘

V ision of M urza
Sl e zk in , 1 1 1 1 1 1 75
V l adimir 1
Sl ovote koe, the Work man 1 62 .

Vladimir I I
S medovski Vall e y ( Th e ) 1 31 .

Y on Visin
Sm i l ov inh , V iken t i V 1 ke n t
'
1 56
Vo l /
.

a g e to I sl e of Love
Smotric k i, M el eti 3 2, t o
Sol ozub Ii iodor 1 58 17
'

S ong of the Pl ough man ( The ) 1 05 Wall ( The )

War and P ea
.

rc
Sour over th e Gra ve 0] th e Sl a v
l ic tors Wa r ( Th e )
Stan kovic h , N ik Vas Ward N o 6
Wh at a Time
.
.

St any uk ov ic h , Kon st an tin M ik h

Wh is pers o f P ar na ssus
.

S tar m ( The )
Str uv e, l et r B a n
' -
g i rd
Wh ite N ig h ts
“M l o Os c
.

ar
S tuden t ( Th e )
i
,

l id/
1 11 0 10 B y th e )
S ul amitc ( Th e)
S um a rok ov Al c\ ,e tr . P .
Woodman ( The )
S umme r The)
S vetl iana Y N ik M ik ha ilo
Yoke of War ( The )
.

Tal e of What was not ( Th e ) 1 7 11 Y oung Consr-rts ( Th e )

Tal es of Sebasto ol p 1 33 HO Yo ung H ar re ste r The )
Titl es of War
.
Yuri M il osl a vsk i
Tamir an d S el im H
Taras B ul ba Z ado nshch i1 1 a
Tat ish ch ev , V11 5 N ik . 41 a oskin , M ik h M n . 84
Tel egraf Zuitse v , B oris
Z
Tc l e h ov 1 73 Zh idy a t n Ln k a ll
p
,

Tel esko Zh ukovs k i, Vas A n dre . . 7 4, S7 , 88 , 8 9

Tet ernl kov, F10 1 10 1 Kuzmich 1 70

ST . STEPH EN S
'
PR I NTI N G WOR KS , B RISTOL EN GLAN D , .