Short Histories of the Literatures
of the World
Edited by Edmund Gosse
LITERATURES OF THE WORLD.
Edited by EDMUND QOSSE,
Hon. M. A. of Trinity College, Cambridge.
A succession of attractive volumes dealing with the his-
tory of literature in each country. Each volume will contain
about three hundred and fifty i2mo pages, and will treat an
entire literature, giving a uniform impression of its develop-
ment, history, and character, and of its relation to previous
and to contemporary work.
Each, i2mo, cloth, $1.50.
NOW READY.
RUSSIAN LITERATURE. By K. Waliszewski.
BOHEMIAN LITERATURE. By Fkancis, Count LOtzow,
author of " Bohemia: An Historical Sketch."
JAPANESE LITERATURE. By W. G Aston, C. M. G.,
M, A., late Acting Secretary at the British Legation at Tokio.
SPANISH LITERATURE. By J. Fitzmaukice-Kelly, Mem-
ber of the Spanish Academy.
ITALIAN LITERATURE. By Richard GAimExt, C. B.,
LL D., Keeper of Printed Books in the British Museum.
ANCIENT GREEK LITERATURE. By Gilbert Murray,
M. A., Professor of Greek in the University of Glasgow.
FRENCH LITERATURE. By Edward Dowden, D. C. L.,
LL. D., Professor of English Literature at the University of
Dublin.
MODERN ENGLISH LITERATURE. By the Editor.
IN PREPARATION.
American Literature. By Prof. W. P. Trent, of the Univer-
sity of the Sou'-h.
German Literature.
Hungarian Literature. By Dr. Zoltan Be Sthy, Professor
of Hungarian Literature at the University of Budapest.
Latin Literature. By Dr. Arthur Woolgar-Verraix, Fellow
and Senior Tutor of Trinity College, Cambridge.
Modern Scandinavian Literature. By Dr. Georg Brandes,
of Copenhagen.
Sanskrit Literature. By A. A. Macdonell, M. A., Deputy
Boden Professor of Sanskrit at the University of Oxford.
D. APPLETON AND COMPANY, NEW YORK.
A HISTORY OF
RUSSIAN LITERATURE
BY
K. WALISZEWSKI
AUTHOR OF THE ROMANCE OF AN EMPRESS,
PETER THE GREAT, ETC.
y
OF TL.., . ,
UNIVERSITY
califor^
NEW YORK
D. APPLETON AND COMPANY
1900
Authorized Edition
1 6-4-/0
TfV35
PREFACE
In the year 1834 the great Bielinski, on his maiden
appearance as a hterary critic, bestowed the following
epigraph, borrowed from one of his fellow-critics, Sen-
kowski, on his first essay : —
'' Do we possess a literature ? "
^^ No, we have nothing but a book-trade ! "
Eighteen months later, he began to publish a half-
yearly Review under this somewhat confusing title, —
Nothings about Nothing.
Hence we may conceive what the country of Pouch-
kine, of Gogol, of Tourgueniev, and of Tolstoi has gained
by the labour of the past half-century.
For this labour has not confined itself to the amass-
ing of a treasure-house of conceptions, exquisite or
stately. It has endowed the nation that conceived them,
and Bielinski himself as well, with the conscious pos-
session of a national genius, the anterior manifestations
of which had escaped appreciation, because they had
been judged from the aesthetic point of view only,
and not from that historical standpoint which alone be-
fitted them. In Russia, more even than elsewhere, the
theory of evolution, applied by Taine — in how brilliant
a manner we all know — to English literature, remains
the only one whereby the sense of a literary develop-
vi PREFACE
ment which, during the march of history, has experi-
enced such strange checks and forward impulses, can be
efficiently revealed. The volume of the literary patri-
mony of Russia, increasing in proportion to the political
fortunes of the country, attracted first the curiosity, and
presently the admiration, of Western Europe.
It is a far cry, now, to the days when Sir John Bow-
ring's articles in the Foreign Quarterly Review came as a
revelation. But the notoriety then so rapidly acquired
is still unfairly apportioned. The works of Krylov have
been translated into twenty-one languages. Those of
Pouchkine still await a worthy translator, both in
England, in France, and in Germany. Such authors
as Lermontov and Chtchedrine are practically unknown
to foreign readers.
These special circumstances have dictated the plan
of my work. I have thought it right to avoid excessive
generalisation. Russian literature has not yet acquired,
in the eyes of the European public, that remoteness
which would permit of my summing it up in certain
given works and salient figures. I have likewise felt
unable to avoid a certain amount of detail. It is
not possible to speak to English readers of a Eugene
Onieguine, as I should speak to them of Hamlet. My
Russian readers, if such there be, will doubtless reproach
me with having paid too scant attention to some one or
other of their favourite authors. My excuse is, that even
in such a book as this, I have not chosen to speak of
anything save that which I personally know, and am
capable of judging.
PREFACE vii
I expect to elicit yet other reproaches, in this direc-
tion. The form assumed, in the lapse of time, by such
personages as Hamlet or Eugene Onieguine, is the two-
fold outcome of an original individual conception, and of
a subsequent and collective process. These, first super-
posed, become inter-pervading, and end, to the popular
imagination, in complete fusion. This collaborative
process, the secret and existence of which escape the
notice of the great majority, constitutes a great difficulty
for a writer addressing a public other than that in the
midst of which the types he evokes have sprung into
being. Try to forget all that the lapse of years, and
the action of endless commentaries, the ingenuity, the
tenderness, the worship of millions of readers, have added
and altered, in such a figure as that of Gretchen. You
will see how much of the original remains, and you will
realise my difficulty in speaking to my readers of Tatiana,
if by chance (and it is a very likely chance) the charac-
ter of Tatiana be unknown to them. I dare not venture
to flatter myself I have completely overcome this diffi-
culty.
Further, I do not close my eyes to my own de-
ficiencies as an interpreter between two worlds, in each
of which I myself am half a stranger. While other
qualifications for the part may fail me, I bring to it,
I hope, a freshness of impression, and an indepen-
dence of judgment, which may, to a certain extent,
justify the Editor of this series in the selection with
which he has been good enough to honour me.
Will Mr. Gosse allow me to associate with him, in
viii PREFACE
this expression of my gratitude, those Russian friends
who have helped me towards the accompHshment of
my undertaking, — among them MM. Onieguine and
Chtchoukine, to whom a double share of thanks is due.
Their knowledge and their couftesy have proved as
inexhaustible as their libraries, which rank among the
wonders of this fair city of Paris, where they have fixed
their home, and where I myself have been so happy as
to be able to write this book.
K. WALISZEWSKI.
December 1899
CONTENTS
CHAP. PAGE
INTRODUCTION I
I. THE EPIC AGE .... ... 8
II. THE RENAISSANCE 47
III. THE FORGING OF THE LANGUAGE . . . .65
IV. THE BONDAGE OF THE WEST— CATHERINE II. . . S8
V. THE TRANSITION PERIOD — KARAMZINE AND JOU-
KOVSKI 128
VI. THE NATIONAL EVOLUTION — POUCHKINE . . -154
VII. THE EMANCIPATING MOVEMENT— THE DOCTRINAIRES 1 89
VIII. LERMONTOV, GOGOL, AND TOURGUENIEV . . . 227
IX. THE CONTROVERSIALISTS — HERZEN AND CHTCHE-
DRINE 299
X. THE PREACHERS— DOSTOIEVSKI AND TOLSTOI . . 33O
XI. CONTEMPORARY LITERATURE 403
BIBLIOGRAPHY 441
INDEX . 447
ix
A HISTORY OF
RUSSIAN LITERATURE
INTRODUCTION
The Slavs, like the Latins, the Celts, and the Germans,
belong to the Aryan or Indo-European race. Oppressed
for many years by the Western peoples, which drew the
word slave from the appellation " Slav," scorned by their
German neighbours, who would not regard their race in
any other light but that of " ethnological matter " {etJino-
/^^?>r/^^'r5/'<?^),they probably owed their inferiority solely
to their geographical position. Modern civilisation, like
that of the ancients, built itself up almost independently of
the Slavs. Yet they have raised their protest against a
too absolute decree of exclusion, and they have right on
their side. The Slav nation did not, indeed, hollow out
the channels of the double movement, intellectual or
religious. Renaissance and Reform, from which the
modern era issued, but it opened them in two directions.
Copernicus and John Huss were both Slavs.
The Slav race, the latest comer into the world of
civilisation, has always been at school, always under
some rod or sway. Whether it be the Oriental and
material conquest of the thirteenth century, or the West-
ern and moral one of the eighteenth, it merely under-
goes a change of masters. Thus the evolution of the
2 RUSSIAN LITERATURE
individuality of the race was no easy matter. Modern
Russia still labours at the task, and it has other work to
do as well. Modern Russia is an empire a thousand
years old, and a colony, the age of which is not, indeed,
as has been asserted, that of one hundred and fifty years,'
but of four centuries precisely. And the colonists of
the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, who recom-
menced, in the neighbourhood of Perm and towards
the Upper Kama, the interrupted work of the old Novgo-
rod merchants, have made but little relative progress.
Odessa, with its 405,000 inhabitants, dates from 1794.
Between the Novgorod merchants and their sixteenth-
century successors came the Mongol invasion. This
does not suffice to explain the prolonged check in the
organic development of the huge body which it left in
life. Previously, indeed, gaps, periodic suppressions of
growth and evolution, had been manifest, and they were
repeated after the disappearance of this particular cause.
They would seem to be the result of some constitutional
vice, connected as much with race and climate as with
the course of historical events. Under these inclement
skies, history appears to have brought about an acci-
dental mingling of elements, the ill-controlled action of
which, when they chanced to harmonise, gave birth to
violent outbreaks of energy, while, when they disagreed,
the result became apparent in sudden stoppages of pro-
gress. The outcome has something of the American in
it, and yet something of the Turkish. Thanks to its geo-
graphical situation betwixt Europe and Asia, thanks to its
historical position betwixt a series of anvils, whereon
the Byzantine priest, the Tartar soldier, and the German
free-lance have taken turns to hammer out its genius,
Russia, young and old at once, has not yet found its
THE RUSSIAN RACE 3
orbit nor its true balance. Here we see a waste ; there
extreme refinement. Men have called it rotten ere it
was ripe. But that must not be said. Prematurely ripe
on one side, indeed, with a distracting medley of savage
instincts and ideal aspirations, of intellectual riches and
moral penury. But Nature must be given time to per-
fect her own work.
There is much for her to do. The mixture of races,
and their strugglesagainst hostile conditions of existence,
against the climate, against foreign invasion, have called
another problem into existence. How to fuse into one
amalgam such contradictory elements as strength and
weakness, tenacity and elasticity, ruggedness and good-
nature,insensibilityand kindness. Theperpetual struggle
which has tempered and hardened the Russian to his
inmost soul has rendered him singularly susceptible to
external emotions. He knows — no man better — how to
suffer. No man knows better than he what suffering
costs; and this makes him compassionate. Under an
exterior that is often coarse enough you may find a
man of infinite tenderness. But press him not too far.
Count not too much upon him. He is prone to terrible
revulsions !
The same causes have developed his practical inclina-
tions. In his case — in art as in life — realism is no
theory ; it is the application of natural instincts. Even
in poetry and in religion the Russian has a horror of
abstractions. No metaphysical spirit, no sentimentality
whatsoever;greatresourcefulness, perfect tact as regards
both men and matters, and in all his ideas, his habits,
and his literature, a positivism carried to the point of
brutality. This, in brief, appears to me to be Russian
psychology. But to all this, and from the same causes
4 RUSSIAN LITERATURE
alwa3^s, is linked a marked proneness to melancholy,
''Sadness, scepticism, irony," said Herzen, **are the
three strings of Russian literature." He added, ** Our
laugh is but a sickly sneer ! " Some weep ; some dream.
In these last, their melancholy inclines them to a hazy
mysticism, which either triumphs over the realistic in-
stincts, or else allies itself with them in strangest union.
Of such a union Dostoievski was the product.
Finally, we must inquire of the climate, of the race,
and of its history, wherefore this Russian, who is a
conceiver of ideas, a realiser of artistic forms, should
be possessed of scant originality in his methods of
thought, while showing much in his methods of trans-
lating the thoughts of others, in his sentiments, his
tastes, his gestures. In such matters, indeed, his origi-
nality reaches the point of oddity, and goes beyond it,
even as far as that indigenous samodourstvo which, in
certain of its forms, borders closely on madness. This,
again, is natural, because psychological development has
degrees of its own, and the emotional faculties are here
naturally on a lower plane.
To sum it up. A people and a literature standing
apart; geographically, ethnographically, historically, out-
side the Western European community. No doubt the
three great elements of Western civilisation, the Chris-
tian, the Graeco-Norman, and the German, are to be
found at the base of this eccentric formation, but in very
different proportion, combination, and depth. Both the
nation and its literature have, indeed, alike received the
triple baptism which freed Russia from all the primitive
barbarisms — the apostolate of Cyril and Methodius, the
Varegian conquest, the Byzantine civilization. But the
hold of the conquerors, whether of Norman or of German
THE RUSSIAN LANGUAGE 5
origin, was weak and transient ; so weak and so tran-
sient, indeed, that their very origin is now disputed.
Cyril and Methodius bore with them the germ of the
Eastern Schism, and by that schism, as well as by the
influence of Byzantium, Russia was actually cut off
from the Western European world, and isolated in a
solitude which was to endure for centuries. From the
Crusades down to the Revolution, bhe bore no part in
any of the manifestations of European life. She slum-
bered on, hard by.
All this will be recognised by my readers in the
literature we are about to study together. Somewhat
of it is evident even in the language used by Dostoi-
evski and Tolstoi. A wondrous instrument it is, the
most melodious, certainly, in the Slavonic circle, one of
the most melodious in the universe ; flexible, sono-
rous, graceful, lending itself to every tone and every
style, simple or elegant at will, subtle and refined,
energetic, picturesque. In its diversity of form and
construction, partly due to its frequent inversions,
it resembles the classic languages and German. Its
power of embodying a whole figure in one word marks
its kinship with the Oriental tongues. The extreme
variability of the tonic accent, which lends itself to every
rhythmic combination, a markedly intuitive character,
and a wonderful plasticity, combine to form a language
unrivalled, perhaps, in its poetic qualities. But the in-
strument was made but yesterday. There are gaps in
it ; some parts are borrowed ; we find discords here and
there which the centuries have not yet had time to fill,
to harmonise, to resolve. This tongue finds soft and
caressing words even for those things which partake
the least of such a character. Voina stands for war ;
6 RUSSIAN LITERATURE
vo'ine for the warrior. But should the warrior be
called to defend his country, threatened by an in-
vader, he becomes Khrabryi, Zachtchichtchaioiichtchyi !
Can we not hear the hoarse whistling yell of the bar-
barians ?
This language is the offspring, too, of Peter the Great
and the Reform. Later on I shall speak of its origin.
In its alphabet we recognise perverted forms of both
Greek and Roman letters, and others of strange appear-
ance, which neither these two classic alphabets nor that
of the German tongue possess ; and a residuum, also
perverted, from the ancient liturgic or Cyrillic Slav
alphabet — the Tower of Babel, never-ending.
Modern Russia belongs to the Oriental family of
the Slavonic languages ; but of all these languages it is
the one which contains the greatest number of elements
pertaining to other families. Thus the vowel a, spe-
cially characteristic of the Finnish tongue, has replaced,
in many words, the primitive o of the Slavonic roots.
The Tartar invasion has left its impress both on words
and on the construction of sentences. In the depart-
ment of science, the German invader has won a decided
victory ; and Dobrolioubov, the great critic of the
" fifties," was able to say, and without undue exaggera-
tion, that the literary language of his country had
nothing Russian about it.
But the Russian tongue it is ; and being also the lan-
guage of a colonising nation, it admits of no divergence
nor any provincial corruption. There is hardly any
patois in the country. But it is a new language, without
any deep root in the country's history, and the literature
of which it is the organ is likewise new, and devoid of
historic depth. Hence, apart even from the manifold
THE RUSSIAN LANGUAGE 7
causes already enumerated, we have an alternation of
periods of rich and rapid expansion with others of the
sterility born of exhaustion. Of this fact we shall see
clear evidence. Hence also a predisposition to new
formulas, and to the wiping- out of the old ones, to
thorough-going radicalism in things literary, to haughty
scorn of all traditions and conventions, and even of
propriety.
CHAPTER I
THE EPIC AGE
Popular Poetry
In Russia the epic age was prolonged up to the threshold
of the present century. The heroic legend of Platov
and his Cossacks pursuing the retreat of the hated
Khrantzoiiz (Frenchman) is still in the mouth of the
popular bard, the strings of whose rustic lyre yet ring
in certain remote corners of the country, in defiance
of Pouchkine and his followers. This phenomenon is
natural enough. From the point of view of literary
evolution, five or six centuries lie between Russia and
the other countries possessed of European culture. At
the period when Duns Scotus, William of Wykeham, and
Roger Bacon were barring the West with that streak of
light whereat such men as Columbus, Descartes, Galileo,
and Newton were soon to kindle their torches, Russia
still lay wrapped in darkness. An explanation of this
long-continued gloom has been sought even among the
skulls latelv unearthed in the neio:hbourhood of Moscow.
These appear to have revealed that, in the primitive in-
habitants of that country, the sensual elements were so
excessively developed as to exclude the rest.
The Tartar conquest of the thirteenth century should
be a much more trustworthy event on which to reckon,
in this connection. It destroyed the budding civilisation
8
THE DAWN OF CHRISTIANITY 9
of the sphere influenced by Kiev^ But even then, the
empire of the Vladimirs and the Jaroslavs followed far
indeed behind the progress of the European world. In
1240, when the hordes of Baty thundered at the gates
of Kiev, nothing within them portended the approach-
ing birth of a Dante, and no labours such as those
of a Duns Scotus, nor even of a Villehardouin, suf-
fered interruption. The tardy dawn of Christianity
in these quarters, together with the baptism of Vladi-
mir (988), and the Byzantine hegemony, which was its
first-fruit, in themselves involved a falling behind the
hour marked by the European clock. The Byzantine
culture had a value of its own. Previous to the Renais-
sance, it imposed itself even upon the West. But it had
little communicative power. To the outer world its only
effulgence was that of a centre of religious propaganda,
and this fervour, strongly tinctured with asceticism,
checked, more than it favoured, any intellectual soarings.
Here we find the explanation of another phenomenon —
that the poetry of this epoch, and even of later times,
has only been handed down to us by word of mouth.
In this part of the world, and up till the close of the
seventeenth century writing and printing were con-
trolled by the Church — a Church resolute in her
hostility to every element of profane culture. In the
Domestic Code {domostroi) of Pope Sylvester, a con-
temporary of Ivan the Terrible, the national poetry
is still treated as devilry — pagan, and consequently
damnable.
Thus the harmonious offspring of the national genius
has lived on in the memories of succeeding generations.
But hunted, even in this final refuge, by ecclesiastical
anathemas, it has retreated, step by step, towards the
lO RUSSIAN LITERATURE
lonely and bitter regions of the extremest North. When
modern science sought to wake the echoes of the old
songs first warbled under the '* Golden Gate" of Kiev,
the only answer came from the huts and taverns of the
White Sea. The oldest of all the collections of Rus-
sian verse, that of Kircha Danilov, dates from the eigh-
teenth century only, and is of dubious value. The wave
of melody has rolled across time and space, gathering,
as it passed, local legends, passing inspirations, and the
enigmatic fruit of foreign fiction and lyrics. Then it has
divided, evaporated, and lost itself, finally, in the sand
and mud.
The work done for the West by the Icelandic Sagas
was thus delayed, in Russia, by some four or five cen-
turies. The only written traces of the glory of Ilia
of Mourom, the great hero of the cycle of Kiev, are to
be found in German, Polish, or Scandinavian manu-
scripts. It was an English traveller, Richard James,
whose curiosity induced him, at the beginning of the
seventeenth century (1619), to note down the original
forms of the Russian lyric ; and as a crowning disgrace,
the first imitators (in the following century) of this Eng-
lish collector (Novikov, Tchoulkov, Popov, Bogdano-
vitch) were forgers. They took upon themselves to
correct the outpourings of the popular inspiration !
Did ancient Russia possess concurrently with this
oral poetry a literary verse, allied with the Nibeliwgen-
lied and the Chansons de Geste ? One specimen exists, the
famous "Story of the Band of Igor." But this is but
a solitary ruin. I shall refer to it later.
In our own day, the popular poetry brought to light
by the labours of such Russian savants as Kiriei6vski,
Sakharov, Rybnikov, and Hilferding, and revealed to
POPULAR POETRY II
the Western world by the translations and studies of
Ralston, Bistrom, Damberg, lagic, and Rambaud, has
emerged in all its wealth. It was an astonishment and
a delight. The fragments of French popular songs
collected in 1853, the gwerziou of Lower Brittany, the
Chants des Paiivres of the Velay and the Forez, the
national poetry of Languedoc and Provence, form but
a povei-ty-stricken treasury in comparison. But there
is no possibility of any comparison. The prolongation
of the epic period in the lower strata of the Russian
world, until the moment of its paradoxical encounter
with the sudden development, literary and scientific,
which took place in the upper strata, has produced a
result which I believe to be unprecedented in human
history. At the gates of Archangel the Russian col-
lectors found themselves face to face with the authentic
depositaries of a poetic heritage dating from prehistoric
epochs. One night in a railway train still carries them
into the heart of the twelfth century.
But this inheritance, rich though it be, is not abso-
lutely intact. Some Russian savants, such as Mr. Srez-
niewski, have gone so far as to doubt its authenticity. It
was the absence of certain historic links, the presence of
certain features corresponding with the popular poetry,
and even with the poetical literature, of other nations
which stirred their scepticism. We find no symptom, in-
deed, of the recorded historic life of the period anterior
to the Tartar conquest, and that conquest itself is only
reflected in imagery of excessive faintness. On the other
hand, we easily recognise in Polkane, one of the heroes
of the poetic legend of Bova, the Pulicane of the Reali
di Francia, a collection of Italian epic poetry.
Mr. Khalanski has gone so far as to contest the
12 RUSSIAN LITERATURE
commonly accepted fact of the migration of this poetry
from south to north. He founds his theory on the
absence of any corresponding movement among the
Southern peoples. But no German emigrants were needed
to carry the songs of the Edda across the continent
of Europe ; and as to the phenomena of concord, or even
fusion, with the poetry of the West, they are sufficiently
accounted for by the special character of the Russian
epopee. This epopee was, until quite recent times, a living
being, who dwelt, like all living beings, in communion
with the world about him.
To sum it up, Russian popular poetry, as we know it,
is neither homogeneous in character nor precise in date.
It is the complex product of a series of centuries, and of
an organic development which has continued down to
our own days. It reflects both the ancient Russian life of
the Kiev period, the later Muscovite period, and even the
St. Petersburg period of modern times. It has likewise
absorbed some features of Western life.
As to form, we find two chief phases — the polymor-
phous metre, of seven, eight, or nine feet, and the line of
three or six feet, in which the simple trochee is followed
by the dactyl : —
As to substance, we have three leading categories —
heroic tales or bylines^ songs on special subjects, and
historical songs ; all with one common characteristic, the
predominance of the Pagan spirit. The influence of Chris-
tianity is hardly to be discerned. And this one feature, both
from the point of view of culture, and more particularly
from that of literary evolution, opens an abyss between
Russia and Europe. The anathema of the Church falls
THE BYLINES 13
on every legend, Christian or Pagan, with equal severity.
Hence, partly, arises that profound and imperturbable
realism which seems to have saturated the national lite-
rature from the outset, and which still predominates in
its development.
The Bylines.
The word byline seems to be derived from bylo, "has
been." Sakharov was, indeed, the first person to use it,
after an ancient manuscript which has now disappeared.
Yet it is found in the " Story of the Band of Igor " as
equivalent to the expression *' narrative." In the seven-
teenth-century texts the word used is staryna = ^^2.]\W-
quity."
The bylines gravitate in two distinct cycles round the
two centres of ancient Russian life — Kiev and Novgorod.
In the Kiev cycle, the legendary figures cluster round
Vladimir. Yet a certain number of bylines evoke yet
more ancient heroes, of origin and prowess alike fabulous.
Volga Sviatoslavitch is the son of a princess by a serpent ;
he is the personification of wisdom and cunning. In the
case of Sviatogor the ruling quality is strength. He is
so huge that the earth can scarcely carry him — a feature
also to be found in the Rustem of Persian story. These
personages, like the Titans of the Greek legend, symbolise
the struggle of man with the elements. But this Slav
myth is far from possessing the fulness of those which
have descended to us from the Germans and Scandi-
navians. There was no priestly caste among the Slav
pagans to garner up those religious traditions which
have formed the basis of every great school of poetry.
With Vladimir, a gleam of chivalry appears. He and
those about him are giants, but jolly companions and
14 RUSSIAN LITERATURE
mighty drinkers as well. At this point the epic links
itself with history, for the Vladimir known to history
actually was a great feast-giver. Yet the link is a frail
one. The bylines know naught either of this sovereign's
introduction of Christianity, or of the energy and skill
which, according to the chroniclers, marked his initiatory
efforts. The Vladimir of poetry confines himself to per-
petually inventing fresh exploits for his heroes, to feed-
ing them royally, and to marrying them off. He has no
personal heroism. His deeds of prowess do not exist,
and his usual bearing strikes us as somewhat effeminate,
and even cowardly. When the Tartars besiege Kiev, he
almost goes on his knees to Ilia, the destined saviour of
the empire. Ilia requires a good deal of pressing, and
is not far wrong, for the sovereign's behaviour betrays
a general lack of generosity, not to speak of common
honesty.
He covets the spouse of one of his heroes, and drives
husband and wife to despair and death. This legend is
evidently a mere variation of the biblical story of David
and the wife of Uriah the Hittite, and the polygamous
Vladimir bears the sins of a whole series of sovereigns,
down to Ivan the Terrible. But the inspiration of the
poem is all the more significant.
Ilia is a peerless comrade, the favourite hero of the
bylines. His personal appearance, qualities, and brave
deeds, are generally supposed to typify the ideal personi-
fication of the national temperament and genius. The
peculiarities of the hero warrant this belief. In the first
place, he is of peasant blood ; and at the feast he forces
the lords of Vladimir's court to give place before the
moujiks of his company. This humility of origin is not
exceptional in the circle about the prince. Another
VLADIMIR 15
member of it, Aliocha, is the son of a pope ; and an-
other, Soloviei Boudimirovitch, the son of a shopkeeper.
Both of these fraternise with Dobrynia, who belongs
to a princely family. Ilia and Dobrynia exchange their
crosses as a sign of friendship. These traits are true to
the instincts and traditions of a nation in whose bosom
a real aristocracy has never succeeded in taking root.
Ilia — like one of his forerunners in the prehistoric
cycle, Mikoula Selianinovitch — is a cultivator of the
soil, and except for the Russian bard, I believe none but
the rhapsodist of the Finnish Kalevala would have be-
stowed a leading heroic role on a tiller of the ground. Yet
in some other traits of character, and certain of his exploits.
Ilia so nearly approaches the epic and mythologic world
of neighbouring countries, as to seem merged in more
than one of their representatives. Until the age of thirty,
he remains inactive ; and here the influence of the
Christian myth is clearly visible. Later on he fights
with a fabulous robber, Soloviei (the Nightingale), who
has wings, and bends the mightiest oaks by the mere
weight of his body. But danger alarms Ilia, and the
expedients he invents to escape it carry our minds
to Hector fleeing before Achilles, and to Rama, seized
with terror in the presence of Kabhanda. At the time
of his greatest feats. Ilia is no longer young, and his
white beard reminds us of Roland. He hesitates long
before he succours Kiev ; he is perpetually disputing
with Vladimir, and with and around him the whole turbu-
lent and quarrelsome band of the legendary heroes of
Europe and Asia, Rustem, Achilles, Sigurd, Siegfried,
Arthur, with all the Olympian demi-gods, from the
Hindoo Indra to the Thor-Wotan of the Germans, and
the Peroune of the Russians, rise before our eyes. But
1 6 RUSSIAN LITERATURE
dissimilarities crop up forthwith. When, at long last,
Ilia consents to deliver Kiev, it is neither lest he should
be accused of cowardice, like Rustem, nor to wreak a
personal vengeance, like Achilles. He is too much of a
philosopher, too good-natured, for that. The Palatine
Ogier, whose son has been slain by Charlemagne, de-
mands the murderer's head as the price of his co-opera-
tion against the Saracens. Ilia is incapable of making
such a bargain ; nor does he obey any instinct of per-
sonal devotion to Vladimir. Indifferent alike to the point
of honour and to the hope of glory, he raises his eyes
above them both. That redoubtable arm is only lifted
to defend the widow and the orphan, or for the common
weal.
The manner in which this conception has been
utilised by the Slavophil party will be easily divined.
And assuredly the comparison which certain Western
writers, following their lead, have delighted to establish
with the Greek heroes and the noblest paladins of the
Chansons de Geste, redounds to Ilia's advantage. Yet even
here the comparison is irrelevant. The Greek heroes
were not Christians, and the paladins were the merest
miscreants. This latter type only assumes an ideal
aspect in the Romances of the Round TablCy and there
it at once appears in conjunction with that pregnant
belief, the source of true Christian chivalry, that the
noblest fashion of employing strength is for the defence
of the weak. Ilia, too, has his origin in this belief. The
final elaboration of his type is certainly of later date than
the Romances of the Round Tabky and in its best, which
are not always its most apparent features, it undoubtedly
is a Christian type.
Apart, in fact, from his humanitarian instincts, there
ILIA 17
is nothing knightly about IHa. He is too coarse for that,
too commonplace, and, above all, too pacifically inclined.
He only fights under compulsion, and when it is inevi-
table — never for the pleasure of the thing. And this
peculiarity makes him the faithful representative of a race
the accidents of whose historical fate has rendered it
warlike, but which has never been swept away by one
of those floods of martial ardour which stirred the
Western countries during the Middle Ages.
Ilia is a mighty eater and a heavy drinker. On the
very eve of a battle we see him get drunk, and remain
for twelve days in a state of vinous stupefaction and
consequent incapability of action. If his wine does not
actually overwhelm his senses, he grows noisy and in-
tolerable. When sober he is cautious and calculating, not
caring either to exert his strength unnecessarily, or to
expose it to ordeals involving too much risk. When he
has once made up his mind to face a danger, and has
contrived to surmount the shudder which, in his case,
always accompanies such a decision, he is much given to
joke and banter, a trait which survives in the Russian
peasant to this day.
The type, on the whole, is a sympathetic one — but
quite exceptional even in the legend — set far up on the
height of the popular inspiration. Ilia's followers do not
reach his ankle. They are lost below him — very much
below him — in a confused medley of rogues, blunderers,
boasters, and cowards, of whom he himself has but a
poor opinion, seeing he generally has to do their work
for them. Their merit is their strength — a physical
vigour which enables them to triumph over everything,
even over common sense. They run their heads against
fortress walls, and the walls crumble before them.
1 8 RUSSIAN LITERATURE
Barren of ideals as of ideas, they represent, in the popu-
lar conception, the lower grade of heroism, the elemen-
tary forces of Nature, of the earth, of the wind, of the
heavy fist.
Tourgueniev has placed this terrible declaration in
the mouth of Potioughine, the grumbler in Smoke:
'^. What is known as our ^ epic literature ' is the only one
in Europe or Asia which does not afford a single
example of a typical pair of lovers. The hero of Holy
Russia always begins his relations with the being to
whose destiny fate has linked his own. by mercilessly ill-
treating her. . . . Look into our legends. Love never
appears in them but as the result of a charm or spell.
It is absorbed with the liquor that brings forgetfulness ;
its effect is compared with soil that is dried up, or
frozen."
Yet numerous female figures flit across these legends.
They possess but little charm. They are triumphant,
often, with an air of superiority which raises them above
the masculine element ; but this they owe neither to
their attraction nor to the love they inspire. Ilia of
Moiirom is overthrown by a giant Polenitsa {Polenitsas
is the generic title of these viragos), who prowls over
the steppe, shouldering a club weighing several thou-
sand pounds, defying the bohatyry (heroes) — and who
turns out to be his own daughter. Vassilissa, the
daughter of Mikoula, combines strength with cunning
to rescue her husband, Stavre Godounovitch ; but the
legend is dumb as to her beauty and that of her fellow-
women. And this neglect suffices to distinguish the
Polenitsas from the Amazons, as well as from the Val-
kyries. Men fight with them, they are frequently over-
come by them, but they never pay court to them.
RUSSIAN WOMEN 19
The woman of modern Russia does not share this
peculiarity of her legendary predecessor. Yet certain
features of the legendary type do appear, even in
the most recent artistic creations, both in poetry and
romance. Whether the author be Pouchkine, Tour-
gueniev, or Tolstoi', whether it be a question of love or
of action, of doing good or of finding the right way, the
initiative is most frequently allotted to the woman. She
inspires, guides, rectifies — and is fond of putting herself
forward.
But this type is not the only one, either in history or
legend. It proceeds from the pagan tradition. Byzan-
tine Christianity has added the woman of the Terein.
This lady has *^ long hair and a short understanding," a
narrow intelligence and an erring flesh. The Penelope
of these parts, Nastasia, wife of Dobrynia, wearies of
waiting for the husband whom the war keeps from the
conjugal hearth, much more quickly than the fair Greek,
and forgets all too soon that she has sworn she will not
marry Aliocha.
The figures evoked by the cycle of Novgorod are
quite different — a race of merchants, of pilgrims to
che Holy Land, of navigators, and builders of towns.
Quarrelsome and pugnacious they still are, but only
within the walls of their own city ; and they still lead
expeditions into Moslem countries, but only for the sake
of traffic. "The Venetians of the Russian Crusade,"
a certain writer has justly called them. Their history is
embodied in two legends, of which many variations
exist. That of Sadko only shows us the somewhat vulgar
figure of a devout and pushing merchant. The hero of
another, Vassili or Vaska, son of Bousslai, is a burgher,
unsurpassed even by Ilia in stormy and quarrelsome
20 RUSSIAN LITERATURE
temper, who makes the town ring with the tumult of his
freaks and bloodthirsty rages. Just as he is about to
destroy his fellow-citizens, his father intervenes. Where-
upon Vaska shuts him up in a cellar. Vaska's whole
hfe is one tissue of follies and crimes. To expiate these,
he goes on pilgrimage to Jerusalem, and dies, on his
return, by attempting a dangerous leap and striking
against a rock — the image of the fate his pride has
courted.
Popular Songs.
The first singers of bylines are believed to have been
professional bards, attached to the court of the Varegian
princes. Their tradition seems to have been carried on
by the skoromokhy of the Muscovite epoch, against whom
the pious and scrupulous Tsar Alexis waged merciless
war. For a long period they were the great entertain-
ment of the noble houses. Their present descendants
are only to be found in the huts and taverns of the
province of Olonetz.
In hut and tavern, from one end of Russia to the
other, simple melodies are still sung, recalling or accom-
panying the recital, in a confused traditional medley, of
the common events of the popular life and of Christian
and Pagan festivals. Christmas Koliada^ Roussalnaiay
in honour of the Slavonic nym.phs {roussalki), harvest
songs {dojinki)y betrothal songs {svadiebnyie piesni)y and
funeral songs [pokhoronnyie).
Incantations [zagovory) against drought and hre hold
a considerable place in this national poetry, and so do
riddles {zagadki) and proverbs {posslovitsy)^ which en-
shrme the popular wisdom as drawn from all its nume-
rous sources — half Pagan^ half Christian, ancient, modern.
SONGS 21
To these the bylines bring their share, as do the Scrip-
tures, more especially the Psalms and Ecclesiastes, and
further and more recent contributions are supplied by
the epigrams of Kapnist, the fables of Krylov, and the
humoristic verses of Gogol.
It may easily be conceived that these songs, resound-
ing as they do all over a huge stretch of territory, Great
Russia, Little Russia, White Russia, are not absolutely
uniform. They reproduce the divergences of historical
existence. Their common feature is a profound melan-
choly, which broods even over the betrothal songs, and
of which we perceive the echo in most of the modern
poets.
*'We all sing in sadnesss. . . . The Russian song is a
melancholy plaint," so writes Pouchkine.
Nature and history have alike dealt hardly with this
people. A severe climate, an ungrateful soil, an unattrac-
tive landscape, poverty, serfdom, the Byzantine yoke,
the autocratic regime, have all combined to make up a
troubled existence, a rugged fatherland, a home devoid
of charm. For a lengthened period, the only remedy the
Russian could discover against these many enemies was
that he found in his glass — intoxication. The primi-
tive bards have lovingly sung the praises of this arch-
consoler. The poets who have succeeded them — their
superiors in inspiration and culture — have sought
some other expedient, and have discovered none — save
death.
Yet the nation endowed with this ungrateful country,
this inhospitable home, has loved both with a tenderness
which I do not fear to call unexampled — so strong, so
passionate, so jealous, so devoted does it appear to me.
Perhaps this is because, in order to love what has so
22 RUSSIAN LITERATURE
little that is lovable about it, the Russian has been con-
strained to idealise the object of his love, to re-create
it, as it were, by faith and imagination ; and he has thus
succeeded in converting his love into a religion, a wor-
ship, a fanaticism.
The national literature, like the popular poetry, is
saturated with this principle.
Historical Narratives.
These gravitate round Moscow, reconstructing more
especially the dramatic period dominated by the great
figure of Ivan the Terrible. Certain anecdotes reported
by Collins in his Travels in Russia in the middle of the
seventeenth century are founded on ancient skazJd
(recitals) concerning this sovereign. Some, indeed, of
these narratives plunge even into the Tartar epoch, and
are thus connected with the Kiev cycle. The form is
almost that of the bylineSy and the inspiration is fre-
quently analogous— the mythical element being wedded
to the historical groundwork. Ivan keeps open table
like Vladimir, and some of his boyards perform fabulous
exploits as improbable as those ascribed to Ilia.
In every poetic evocation of the "Terrible," the ruling
idea is the glorification of his conquest. To the poets he
is above all things the Tsar who captured Kazan, Riazan,
and Astrakhan. Yet the popular inspiration is not con-
tent with mere commonplace and superficial praise. It
dissects the Tsar's character, lays bare his personal psy-
chology, and does not ignore its contradictions and
dissonances ; but it makes the best of them. It is
fully aware of the man's cruelty, and even takes care
to depict it in frightful colours, but at the same time
HISTORICAL NARRATIVES 23
justifies it. It finds the explanation for this cruelty
in the Tsar's struggle against the aristocratic oligarchy.
In this quarrel the whole heart of the people goes with
the sovereign and against the boyards ; and indeed his
Russian surname {Grozny i) does not so much mean the
'' Terrible" as the ''Dreaded."
The popular poets rise in arms against the false
Demetrius, and hold him up as a traducer of the national
beliefs and customs. Their descriptions of the siege of
the monastery of Solovietsk in the time of Alexis, betray
a certain sympathy with the raskol. Other ballads of
the same epoch celebrate the exploits of Stenka Razine,
the Cossack rebel. These form part of a whole pictur-
esque cycle, enshrining a series of similar exploits, in
which the followers of the famous partisan (mere rob-
bers, in fact) play the heroes' parts, after the quaintest
and most suggestive fashion.
In Kirieievski's collection, one whole volume is de-
voted to Peter the Great ; but the popular verse has not
done justice to the Reformer. None but the external
features of his mighty work — such as his sanguinary
extermination of the Streltsy and his wars — are noticed,
and only one attractive phase of his character — his sim-
plicity — is extolled.
Seated on the main staircase of the Kreml, the
Krasnoie-KryltsOy the Tsar challenges the nobles sur-
rounding him to single combat with theft* fists. The boy-
ards make no answer. One young soldier, only, accepts
the challenge. But the Tsar lays down his conditions.
'' If I win, thy head will be cut off 1 "
'' So be it."
The soldier wins. The vanquished Tsar offers to
reward him with lands and gold. The hero's reply is
24 RUSSIAN LITERATURE
typical, and identical with that of the legendary bohatyry
Potok, to Vladimir, in similar circumstances.
" All I ask is permission to drink without payment
in the Tsar's taverns ! "
As the modern era approaches, this poetic current
narrows, loses its depth, its freshness, and its brightness.
When Alexander I.'s time comes, we have nought but a
turbid stream, rolling down formless heaps of mud — not
a reflection of Austerlitz, Friedland, or Tilsit. Moscow
appears, like a flash, in the flames kindled by the hand
of the Khrantzouz. The popular imagination lingers lov-
ingly over the rugged figures of the Hetman Platov and
his Cossacks. They are the heroes of the great historic
drama. But historical truth, sincere emotion, and even
originality, are utterly lacking in these ballads. The
death of Alexander I. inspires one of these poet-narrators
with a mere transcription of the Marlborough song,
which had been already applied, in the form of a filthy
parody, to the death of Patiomkine. Artistic poetry de-
layed long in coming to claim the inheritance of these
degenerate bards.
Religious Verse.
The religious songs contemporary with this last
evolution of popular poetry possess a special character,
for they have their springs in written literature, and like
it, they belong totthe Church. And indeed they do not
date earlier than from the seventeenth century. These
songs, concerning the beginning and end of the world,
the last judgment, St. George, are for the most part — like
the above-mentioned literature, which was first popu-
larised in the Southern Provinces — of Southern origin.
One string of this lyre — and it is constantly struck — is
THE BAND OF IGOR 25
sacred to the Raskol, and is used, more especially, to call
up the figure of Antichrist. Invisibly, and even visibly,
according to the teaching of certain sects, the reign of
Antichrist begins, in Church and Empire alike, from the
seventeenth century onward.
One form taken by this poetry is that of legends,
prose narratives of a religious nature, drawn indifferently
from the Holy Books and from apocryphal sources.
The Devil hindering Noah from building his ark, Solomon
taking into his head to found a monastery in hell, and
such incidents, furnish forth these recitals. I have re-
served a special place for the ^^ Story of the Band of
Igor." This ballad cannot indeed be classed with others.
It is unique.
The Ballad of the Band of Igor.
It has been, and is still, a subject of passionate
discussion. The text of the poem was not discovered
until 1795, in a fourteenth or early fifteenth century
manuscript, and this nothing but a copy — since the work
is believed, by those who accept it as authentic, to date
from the twelfth century. The copy itself no longer
exists. It was burnt, together with the whole Moussine-
Pouchkine library, in the year 1812. A transcript was
made for the Empress Catherine II., and this is all
that remains to us — little enough, in the case of so
priceless a relic, the sole remaining waif and witness of
a vanished and shadowy literary past.
Is it the work of a single author who has failed to
•leave his name behind him ? Or does it, like the bylinesy
represent the conjoint labour of several generations of
poets ? These questions afford matter for cogitation.
26 RUSSIAN LITERATURE
At the present day, the hypothesis of an individual
authorship prevails, coupled with the admission of the
existence of an ingenious grouping of elements, common
to all the popular poetry of that period. This would
not appear to be an isolated case. An almost equal
variety of subject, coupled with a curiously similar
inspiration, has been remarked in an old work known
as the Khalitcho' Volhynian Chronicle. The very form
of the poem seems to indicate it as the work of an
individual. The author is constantly speaking in the
first person, sometimes to invoke the memory of some
forerunner of his own — whom he calls Boiane, and
our knowledge of whose existence we owe to him —
and sometimes to express his own admiration or sorrow,
for he has not a touch of the Homeric calm.
He tells us the story of the expedition led by Igor,
Prince of Novgorod-Sievierski, charged by Sviatoslav,
Prince of Kiev, to drive back the Polovtsy. Up to
the time of the Tartar invasion, the Polovtsy were the
greatest enemies of Russia. Igor begins with a victory,
but, in a decisive battle, he is utterly beaten and carried
into captivity. This event is attributed, in the chronicle
known as that of Ipatiev, to the year 1185, and in that of
Lavrentii, to the following one. Both chronicles agree
with the poet in ascribing the responsibility for the
disaster to a quarrel between the princes. The poet
adds some inventions of his own. Sviatoslav, who has
not left Kiev — these Kiev princes are stay-at-home fellows,
and generally send some one else when there is fighting
to be done — sees the awful disaster in a dream. He hears
the moans of the vanquished, mingled with the croaking
of the ravens. Waking, he learns the facts, does not
bestir himself, but sends messengers to the other neigh-
THE BAND OF IGOR 27
bouring princes beseeching them to rise, '^for the sake
of the Russian soil and the wounds of Igor." Mean-
while, laroslavna, the wife of Igor, shut up in the castle
of Poutivl, mounts the walls, and " mourns like a lonely
cuckoo at sunrise." She is ready enough to go forth I
*' I will fly like a bird towards the Danube. I will dip
my sleeve of otter-skin into its waters, and I will lave
the wounds on the mighty body of Igor ! "
The denouement is a triumph, though not of an
over-heroic nature. Igor escapes from his prison. The
Polovtsy pursue him, but Nature herself abets his flight.^.
The woodpeckers, tapping on the tree-trunks, show him /
the way to the Doniets ; the nightingales warn him of >
the approach of dawn. He reaches his home, and the \
Danube bears the voices of the daughters of Russia, /
singing the universal joy, across the sea to Kiev (sic).
Though this arrangement of the episode is weak
enough, both historically and geographically, it proves
great wealth of imagination, and a tolerably intense
poetic feeling. Certainly there has been an exaggera-
tion as to the sentiments of a higher order — the love
of the Russian Fatherland, the aspirations towards
national unity — which some have chosen to discover in
the work. Yet I cannot share the absolute scepticism
of certain commentators as to these points. Surprising
as the idea that such conceptions and emotions should
have existed round about Kiev and Novgorod, towards
the year 11 85, may now appear to us, we are forced to
admit that the Chronicle of Nestor shows us something
of the same nature, at a much earlier date.
And apart from this, the poem, whether its authorship
be individual or collective, is a work of art, and occa-
sionally of very subtle art. Its methods, of expression
28 RUSSIAN LITERATURE
are classic ; in the descriptive portions similes are fre-
quent. The rolling telegas (waggons) of the Polovtsy
scream in the darkness like a flight of wild swans. The
invading army is likened to a cloud, which pours a
murderous rain of arrows.
Another favourite poetic artifice is the personification
of the elements. After Igor's defeat, the grass withers,
the trees bend under the weight of the mourning that
overshadows Russian soil. laroslovna confides her grief
to the sun, to the wind, to the Dnieper. There is a fine
lyric flow in her lament.
Some other passages, though they appear instinct
with an equally seductive inspiration, are almost unin-
telligible. Even to Russian readers, other than archaeo-
logists, the poem is only accessible nowadays through
translations. The considerable divergence between the
language of the original and that which obtains in
modern Russia, the probable corruptions existing in
the text, and the allusions it contains to contemporary
events now scarcely known, have crammed it with in-
comprehensible enigmas.
Thus indeed may we explain the doubts which have
arisen as to the authenticity, the nature, and even the
literary value of the work. Some competent judges
have imagined the whole thing to be an imposture, like
that which victimised Pouchkine when, in all good faith,
he translated Merimee's Servian Songs — a modern work
in the pseudo-classic style, or even an imitation of Ossian.
They have pointed out suspicious features, evocations of
Stribog, the sea-god, and Dajbog, the sun-god — neither
of them very probable on the part of a court poet writing
two centuries after the introduction of Christianity. This
mythological clement runs through the whole texture of
THE BAND OF IGOR 29
the work, round the figure of Troi'ane, — whom some critics
beheve to be the Tsar-Troian of Bulgarian and Servian
legend, contemporary with the elfs and the roussalky ;
while others see in him the Roman Trajan, whose
memory lingered long in Dacia, near the home of the
Southern Slavs. And what, we are asked, is to be
thought of certain features evidently borrowed from
Greek literature ? The invocation to Boiane, with which
the poem opens, is almost a reproduction of a passage
from Euripides.
If I may give my own impression, I would first of all
put aside, in common with all Russian critics, the purely
personal conjectures of the learned Professor Leger, of
the College of France, who sees in this Story of the Band
of Igor an imitation of the Zadonchtchi7ta.
This latter work is generally, and, as I believe, justly,
taken to be an oral popular production of the Tartar
epoch, but, unlike it, inspired by the Slovo Polkou
Igorievic, I agree with the majority, as to the authenti-
city of the SlovOj though it has been greatly tampered
with by copyists, translators, and commentators. Like
Bielinski, and contrary, this time, to the majority, I re-
fuse to regard the Story of the Band of Igor as a second
Iliad. I do not even place it, as a work of art, on a par
with the poems of the Round Table Cycle. This work,,
as it stands at present, excels them in that simple wild-.,
flower freshness, full of colour and perfume, which made 1
so great an impression on Bielinski. It is behind them|
too — far behind, especially as regards the principal
figure, that of Igor, w^hich is utterly lifeless and dim. On
the whole, it shows great wealth of form, and an abso-
lute poverty of idea. Russian life in the twelfth century""
.could furnish bul* little of that.
so RUSSIAN LITERATURE
None the less does this poem constitute an infinitely
precious link between the oral poetry and the written
literature of the epoch preceding that of Peter the Great,
of which I must now give a brief summary.
Written Literature Prior to the Reign of
Peter the Great.
The value of this literary inheritance is almost purely
historical. As art, it has hardly any at all. Written
literature and Christianity, one bearing the other with
it, entered Russia from Byzantium, by way of Bulgaria,
with the apostles of the ninth century, Cyril and Metho-
dius. They translated the Holy Books into the Slav
language, and invented the Slav alphabet, or Kirillitsay
so called to distinguish it from the Glagolitsa {Glagol^
the word), another and more complicated alphabet,
adopted by the South-Western Slavs.
The Gospel of Ostroinir, prepared about 1050 by the
Scribe Gregory for a Novgorod burgher, and the re-
ligious works of SviATOSLAV ( 1 073-1 076), are the most
ancient existing monuments of the Slavo-ecclesiastic lan-
guage and the national literature. During this period
the national education was entirely concentrated in the
churches and monasteries, and was consequently im-
pressed with the religious and Byzantine stamp. From
the literary point of view, the Greek influence continued
down to the close of the sixteenth century, at which
period Western and European culture entered Moscow
through Poland.
The first writers proceeding from this school were
monks and compilers. They do indeed mention the
presence among them of learned men and philosophers,
RELIGIOUS LITERATURE 31
but it would hardly be safe to take this for an established
fact. The Sborniki (Collections) of Sviatoslav, which
possess a very high reputation, the Zlatooust (*' Golden
Sayings " of Chrysostom), the Ismaragd (emerald), the
Margarit (jewel), the Ptchely (bees), are a mere farrago
of orisons and homilies.
Another group (called Paleia, from the ancient Greek
paSapa) consists of versions of biblical history, in which
the apocryphal books occupy a considerable space.
These versions preserved their authoritative quality
till the very threshold of the eighteenth century.
Some of these ancient works, however, bear signs of
a certain amount of artistic culture. They give evidence
of a study of rhetoric. Certain passages in the S/ovo
(discourse) of the Metropolitan Hilarion (middle of the
twelfth century) are masterly, and we must go to Karam-
zine to find anything to compare with them. This dis-
course, and the Story of the Band of Igor^ constitute the
gem of this period.
The essential feature of this religious literature, from
the earliest sermons to Peter the Great's famous Eccle-
siastical Regulations^ is the struggle of Church teaching
against Pagan tradition, and the superstitions and heresies
therewith connected, and also against the dualistic cur-
rent which flowed from the Latin Church. The Raskol
of the eighteenth century has deep roots that run full
four centuries back. The Strigolniki of the fourteenth
century and the Jidovstvouiouchtchyte (Hebraists) of the
fifteenth century may be looked on as the ancestors
of the modern dissenters. Hence in all the writings of
this period, even those on profane subjects, we perceive
a controversial tendency.
Amongst the profane writers of the epoch prior to
32 RUSSIAN LITERATURE
the Tartar conquest (eleventh to thirteenth century),
the foremost place belongs to Nestor. Unhappily we
are not sure that the chronicle which bears his name
was written by him.
He was born about the year 1050. At the age of
seventeen he was in the PietcJiersky'Monastyr{^^Wo\'\2.'$X.Qxy
of the Caves ") at Kiev, and had assumed monastic garb.
In 1091 he was commissioned, with two other monks, to
exhume the relics of St. Theodosius. He died about
HOC. These few lines contain all that we know of his
biography. The works presumed to be his are The Life
of Boris andof Gleby the Life of Theodosius ^ and the Russian
Chronicle {Poviest vremiennykh Liet),
His right to the title of the first of the Lietopisiets
(chroniclers) has been contested by Tatichtchev. This
historian, a contemporary of Peter the Great, has repro-
duced, in his own History of Russia^ a fragment of a
chronicle called that of Joachim, discovered by himself
in an eighteenth-century copy, and which is said to
be the first chronicle of Novgorod dow^n to the year
1016. This Joachim, Bishop of Novgorod, died there in
1030. The original of the chronicle has never been
found. But this is also the case as regards the chronicle
ascribed to Nestor, whose name, indeed, only appears on
a single copy, that known under the name of KhliebnikoVy
and dating from the fifteenth or sixteenth century. This
supposed work by Nestor is a history of the beginnings
of Russia, starting, after the Greek pattern, with the
Deluge. The ruling "spirit of the chronicle, and the
quality which renders it a singularly expressive docu-
ment, is a mixture — amazing for that epoch — of the
deepest religious feeling wdth the most ardent patriotism.
This fact is worth remembering. Russian literature, and
NESTOR - 33
Modern Russia herself, are both the daughters of this
union. Nestor believes that every country has its guar-
dian angel, and that the wings of the angel which watches
over the fate of his own land are of exceptional span.
The chronicler is something of a poet too. Hear what
he says of the death of Saint Olga : '^ She beamed on
Christendom like a morning star. She shed over it a gentle
dawn. Amidst the infidels she shone like the moon in the
darkness. . . . Now she has risen before us to the Russian
heaven^ where y worshipped by the sons of Russia ^ she prays
God on their behalf!'
The poet has epic power. His story unrolls itself
slowly, calmly, with numerous digressions. He uses
the Slavo-ecclesiastic or Old Bulgarian tongue, with
some traces — more especially in the passages recording
the local legends — of the old popular languages of the
North.
This chronicle goes no farther than the year mo.
The continuation of its story, to be found in the
Collection of Ipatiev, is the anonymous Chronicle of
Kiev (down to 1200). For the years between 1201 and
1292 we have the Volhynian Chronicle, also anonymous,
the earlier portion of which is supposed to have been
lost. And after 1292 the Chronicle of Souzdal^ or
Chronicle of the North, is our chief historical authority.
The complete collection of the Lietopisy also contains
four chronicles of Novgorod, covering the period between
1016 and 1716.
All these works possess the same character. Every
event is considered from the religious standpoint, and all
comments are of a moralising tendency. If, according
to Nestor, the Guardian Angel permitted the Polovtsy to
invade his country, it was as a punishment for the sins
34 RUSSIAN LITERATURE
committed by her sons. This primitive bond of resem-
blance fades out after the division of the country into
principaHties {pudiely)^ and the consequent development
of local colour among its chroniclers. The Novgorod
chroniclers are curt, dry, precise. They talk like busi-
ness men. Those of the Southern regions abound in
picturesque imagery, and their story is full of detail.
After the unification of the principalities under the
Muscovite hegemony, a new type appears — the An-
nals of Sophia (Sofiisku Vremiennik), and the chronicles
known as the Chronicle of NiconCy and that of the Resur-
rection ( Vosskressenskaid). The resolute and far-seeing
political spirit which created this hegemony is strongly
discernible in these chronicles. The Nestorian Chronicle
contains certain poetic legends which have been taken
by some persons to be the relics of an ancient epic, and
the Volhynian Chronicle mentions bards who sang the
exploits of their princes.
Until the Tartars appeared, all literary culture was
concentrated at Kiev and Novgorod. After the Tartar
invasion, we find signs of it in the North-East, at Vladimir,
Rostov, Mourom, laroslavl, Tver, and Riazan. But still
it only existed in monastic life. What with the universal
turmoil, the Mongol tyranny, and the quarrels between
the various princes, the monastery was its only possible
refuge. In the fourteenth century there were two hun-
dred of these establishments, the only spots where men
read, and even where books existed. But books, and
the spirit they inspired, were alike instinct with an ever-
growing and savage asceticism, which went far to sup-
press secular literature of any kind.
In the fifteenth century, Moscow was a metropolis
in two senses, the political and religious ; but it had
MOSCOW 35
hard work to become a centre of intellectual activity.
There was, indeed, some stirring of men's souls just at
this period ; the terrible conditions of existence, both
public and private, provoked a certain uprising of the
critical spirit. The stock-in-trade of the literature of
that day consists of religious precepts and epistles {poout-
cJienia, posslania). The Metropolitan Foti'i (1410-1431)
excelled in this line. He was a malcontent, not a writer.
Besides, he was Greek by birth, and by no means skilful
in the use of the Russian tongue. In the sixteenth
century, another Albanian Greek, Maximus, summoned
to Russia to catalogue the Grand-Duke's library, and
translate books into the Slav language, travelled much
farther along the road thus opened by his fellow-
countryman. Maximus the Greek, summing up the
work of his predecessors, gives us a full catalogue of
all the shortcomings, religious, moral, and intellectual,
under which the contemporary life of the country
laboured.
Born in 1480, he had lived at Florence just after the
execution of Savonarola. Better for him if he had
forgotten it. Accused of having corrupted the sacred
books, he was imprisoned in monasteries for five-and-
twenty years, and died unnoticed in 1556, at the Laura
of St. Sergius. His justification is enshrined, even more
clearly than in his compositions in his own defence, in
the reports of the Council convoked at Moscow in 1551
by Ivan the Terrible, according to his agreement with
the metropolite Macarius.
These are known as the Stoglav (the Hundred Chap-
ters). All the Bishops in Russia assembled, at this
Council, listened to the address, divided into thirty-
seven heads, wnth which the Tsar saw fit to open the
36 RUSSIAN LITERATURE
debate, and they might have fancied they heard Maximus
speaking through the sovereign's mouth. He repro-
duced every item of the plea formulated by the foreign
monk. The decision of the Council was a foregone
conclusion. Maximus was left in prison, but the
creation of a certain number of schools was decided
on in principle, and the opening of a printing-press was
decreed by ukase. From this press issued, between
1563 and 1565, a Book of the Apostles and a Book of
Hours, But the Muscovites, docile followers of their
monkish teachers, took printing to be a work of the
devil, and the following year saw the press destroyed by
fire, during a riot. The two printers, Ivan Feodorov and
Peter Timeofieiev, only avoided death by crossing over
the frontier. They first of all worked at Zabloudov,
under the protection of the Polish Hetman Chodkiewicz,
then successively at Lemberg and Vilna, and finally
at Ostrog, where the first Slav Bible was printed in
1581. But a new printing-press had already been set
up at Moscow, w^here a Psalter appeared in 1568.
At the same time the monastic spirit won a triumph
by the popularisation of a book the authorship of
which was long attributed to a contemporary of Ivan
the Terrible — the Pope Sylvester. According to the
latest investigations, only the fifty-second and closing
chapter of the Doinostro'i can properly be ascribed to
this priest. The others were put together at various
periods, and arranged in order before the composition
of the last. The ideas and principles expressed reflect
those of several centuries of historical life. The word
Domostroi signifies " House-master." Compared with
the works of the same nature originating in other
Western countries (such as Regimento delle Dojine^ and
IVAN THE TERRIBLE 37
the Menagier de Paris (1393), the Domostrot is distin-
guished by a far more comprehensive moral teaching,
and also by a very special utilitarian tendency. The
directions and counsels it contains, which cover the
v^hole of Russian life, spiritual, domestic, and social,
are all founded on essentially practical motives. A
man should not get drunk, because that involves a
risk of spoiling one's clothes and being robbed of one's
money. The Doinostro'i even goes the length of recom-
mending the use of certain innocent deceptions. It
defines, after the most exact fashion, the respective
duties and positions of husband and wife. The wife is
to be kind, silent, hard-working, obedient, and she is
to submit to physical punishment, administered by her
husband, gently and without anger, ^^ while he holds her
decently by the handy" and always in private, so that
nobody shall see or know of it. The husband has
supreme power over the house and family, but all the
internal government is in his wife's hands. She is the
first to rise in the morning ; she rouses the servants,
and sets every one an example of hard work.
The Domostroi W2is not printed until 1849. IVAN THE
Terrible himself made an attempt in the same direc-
tion, after having left posterity a literary legacy of
quite a different order. His Code^ or Precept, was in-
tended for the Monastery of St. Cyril at Bieloziersk.
This was a place of exile for disgraced Boyards and
Kniazi, who, as a rule, carried their lay customs with
them, and disseminated them largely. The Tsar opens
with a modest and pious expression of his doubts as
to the propriety of his intervention. Can it be right
that he, ''stinking dog" that he is, should teach God's
servants a lesson ? But he forthwith recalls the fact
SS RUSSIAN LITERATURE
that during a visit to the monastery he had an-
nounced his intention of some day retiring to it him-
self. The monks, therefore, must surely count him as
one of themselves. That is their clear duty ! And
thereupon he starts off hot-foot, his pen, as sharp as
any hunting-spear, pouring forth a violent diatribe
against the dissolute life of the community, in which,
no doubt, he suspects his latest condemned exiles,
Cheremetiev and Khabarov, to be deeply involved.
More interesting from the historical, and even from
the literary point of view, is Ivan's correspondence with
Prince Kourbski, one of his principal collaborators, who
had fled to Lithuania after being defeated in battle.
The commanders who served Ivan the Terrible, like the
generals of the French Republic, went to the scaffold if
they failed to march to victory.
The free country of Poland was at that period a
land of refuge for her Muscovite neighbours. Kourbski
did his best, during his exile, to spread the Orthodox
P'aith, but with this effort he combined certain classical
studies. He applied his mind to Latin, grammar, rhe-
toric, and dialectics, and thus armed, he addressed his
former sovereign in letters intended to impress him
with his own ignorance, and with the injustice of his
behaviour. Ivan was not the man to be overawed by
such learning. His replies utterly scorn the example of
oratorical artifice set him by his correspondent. With-
out affectation, and careless of all style, they simply pour
out his rage and hatred in a torrent of passionate in-
vective, and we perceive that the master of rhetoric,
the triumphant dialectician, is the Tsar. What Kourbski
and such traitors say of his cruelty is puerile, and their
claim to call down God's judgment on him is absurd.
IVAN THE TERRIBLE 39
He loathes bloodshed, and would never permit it, if the
crime of Kourbski and his like did not force his hand.
God will discern the true culprit !
^'What you write me," answers Koursbi, ''is ridicu-
lous, and it is indecent to send such writings into a
country where men know grammar, rhetoric, and philo-
sophy."
The correspondence extends over a period of sixteen
years, from 1563 to 1579, and comprises four letters from
Kourbski and two of Ivan's replies. The post travelled
slowly in those days ! There has been much splitting
of hairs over the value of the arguments advanced in this
epistolary tournament, and the process still continues.
Kourbski also wrote a History of Ivan the Terrible,
which is interesting as being the first Russian attempt
at learned composition modelled on the classics. The
work is full of detail, and has a picturesqueness of style
which recommends it, but it lacks calm, and is totally
devoid of impartiality.
From the close of the seventeenth century onwards,
a new influence becomes evident in the intellectual
development of Russia. The presence of the Jesuits,
brought to Kiev by the Polish conquest, makes that city
a centre of culture of a comparatively enlarged nature,
and the seat of a school of advanced teaching, trans-
formed, after 1701, into an ecclesiastical college.
One curious peculiarity of the teaching of Kiev, and
of the literary movement which preceded it, is that
though both were Latin and Roman in origin, they both
fought chiefly against Rome. Their chief aim was the
defence of orthodoxy. Apart from that, they are essen-
tially scholastic in character. Like everything Polish of
that epoch, they pertain to the Middle Ages. Beside the
40 RUSSIAN LITERATURE
rhetoric, so beloved of Kourbski, poetry holds an hon-
oured place at Kiev, and gives birth to a bevy of com-
positions wherein religious drama (mysteries) holds the
most prominent position. This particular element soon
penetrates as far as Moscow.
Towards the middle of the seventeenth century,-
Southern Russia is severed from Poland. Then the
intellectual and literary influence of the southern focus
takes the migratory form. In 1649, during the reign
of Alexis Michailovitch, the Boyard Rtychtchev sends
for Little-Russian monks to manage a school he has
established near the monastery of St. Andrew. But
before long the local, orthodoxy takes fright at these
instructors. A struggle begins between the Greek and
the Latin system of instruction, and lasts until Peter
the Great decides in favour of the latter, and re-models
the Greek Academy at Moscow on the Kievian lines.
This institution, founded in 1682 by the Tsar Fiodor
Alexieievitch, appears fated to undergo periodic changes
of name and management. In its Greek period it was
chiefiy occupied — under the direction of the famous
Patriarch Nicone, assisted by one of the monks sum-
moned by Rtychtchev, Epiphane Slavetsky — with in-
augurating the correction of the Sacred Books. The
result of this work, which its opponents held to be
suspicious and irreverent, was the Raskol.
At last, with the appearance of the learned men of
Kiev and the establishment of schools, profane science
took root at Moscow. Its first steps were modest indeed.
Literally, it had to begin with the alphabet. The first
national alphabet had been published at Vilna in 1596.
It was not till 1648 that the grammar of MeMtii Smotrytski
was printed at Moscow. This was followed, early in the
KOTOCHIKHINE 41
eighteenth century, by those of Fiodor Pohkarpov (1721)
and Fiodor Maksimov (1723), which remained the authori-
ties until the pubHcation of Lomonossov's work (1755).
A few attempts at bibUography and lexicography
accompany these elementary productions, together with
some accounts of travel, chronicles, and the TcJieti-Minei
('^ Ecclesiastical Years"), a very popular work of encyclo-
paedic hagiography, by Danilo Touptala (St. Demetrius
of Rostov). It seems, in this book, as though Orthodox
and ascetic Russia, standing on the threshold of a new
epoch, were casting back a glance fraught with terror
and regret. Yet even in these pages the modern spirit
stirs. The author follows Western models. He has
both Simeon the Metaphrast and the Bollandists under
his hand. Danilo, indeed, who was born in 165 1, in the
province of Kiev, of a noble Cossack family, and lived
both at Vilna and at Sloutsk, was himself the child of
Little-Russian soil and Polish culture. The foreign and
Western element also made itself evident in two literary
productions of very dissimilar natures. Russia under
Alexis Mikhatlovitchy by Kotochikhine, and The Russian
Empii^e in the Middle of the Eighteenth Centuryy by
Jourii Krijanitch.
Kotochikhine and Kroanitch.
Kotochikhine, an employe in the Foreign OfBce
(Possolskoi Prikaze)y who took refuge at a later period in
Poland, and afterwards in Sweden, where he wrote his
book, is a second Kourbski, with a wider intelligence.
He struck the first note in that literary concert of accusa-
tion and divulgation which in our day has made the name
of such men as Herzen, Chtchedrine, and Pissemski.
42 RUSSIAN LITERATURE
He boldly lays his hand even on the family matters of
his sovereign, revealing his moral poverty, his coarse
habits, his lack of education. He denounces the ignor-
ance, the bad faith, the robbery, rampant on every step
of the social ladder. He has been taxed, in Russia, with
spite and prejudice ; but he is too objective and too cold
to deserve this reproach. He never declaims, he merely
quotes facts, and he is authoritatively confirmed in two
quarters — by Pope Sylvester with his Domosti^oi^ and by
Peter the Great with his reforms. His end was tragic.
In 1667, when he was only thirty-seven, he went to the
scaffold in expiation of a murder committed in Stock-
holm, the circumstances of which have never been
clearly ascertained. The manuscript of his book was
only discovered in the Upsala Library in 1837.
Kotochikhine, like his modern imitators, confined
himself to pointing out the evil without suggesting any
remedy. The Servian Kruanitch, on the contrary, is a
doctor for every disease, ready with both diagnosis and
prescription. He was a reformer, a Catholic priest
who had studied at Agram, at Vienna, and at Rome,
where, while writing a book on the great Schism, he was
bitten with the mania for reuniting the two Churches.
He reached Moscow in 1658, bubbling over with splen-
did plans. Three years later we find him at Tobolsk,
in the depths of Siberia. What caused this disgrace ?
We know not. It lasted till 1676, and in his distant exile
the unhappy man composed all his works — a grammar
and a book on politics, which was published, but not
until i860, by Bezsonov, under the title already men-
tioned. It gives us, in a series of dialogues, a complete
plan of political and social reorganisation on Western
lines, and a fancy picture of a reformed Russia.
KRIJANITCH 43
Krijanitch's work being, like that of Kotochikhine,
proscribed and ignored, counted for naught in the intel-
lectual movement of the times. Yet it heralded the
advent of a new world. When the Protopope Avva-
koume raised his protest against the correction of the
Sacred Books, the knell of ancient Russia was ringing
in his ears. The purging of the original texts was only
one of the many signs of the crumbling of the old foun-
dations, religious and social. When this was under-
taken, the critical spirit entered the charmed circle
wherein for centuries the national spirit had slumbered
on its bed of idleness, of ignorance, and of superstition,
and the outer air swept in through the breach opened
towards Europe. The Russia of Alexis woke to the
memory of a past when she had seen Greek artists at
Kiev, German artisans at Novgorod and Pskov, Italian
architects even in far distant Vladimir, and held fami-
liar intercourse with the Christian princes of the West.
The foreign immigration had recommenced even under
Ivan III., at the close of the fifteenth century. The
thread of tradition was taken up again, when that Tsar
chose Sophia Paleologus, a Greek princess brought up
at Rome, to be his partner. When she brought over
Fioravanti, the Italian architect. Western art once more
took up its quarters on Russian soil. Early in the follow-
ing century, Herberstein already mentions a beginning
of European life at Moscow — the German *^ Faubourg."
One of the most curious traits in the character of Ivan
the Terrible is his mania for things English. At one
time we find him dreaming of an interview with Queen
Elizabeth, and obstinately clinging to his dream. Later,
and this at the close of his life, his heart is set on marry-
ing Mary Hastings. At certain moments of moral con-
44 RUSSIAN LITERATURE
vulsion, the idea of retiring permanently to England
tempted him, and even haunted his fevered brain.
Under Alexis, the German, or rather the cosmopolitan
'* Faubourg," attained civic rights. Its special life be-
came an integral part of the local existence. Yet the
civilising influence still needed a conductor, and the part
devolved on the Little-Russian element. This possessed
a twofold principle of relative knowledge and anti-
catholicism^ which facilitated its mission. The first
workers of the renaissance which was to transform
Moscow issued from this group, but their labour must
be judged more by the spirit than by the letter of their
writings.
The Renaissance.
One of the Little-Russian priests who arrived in the
capital at this period, SiMEON POLOTSKI, had all the air
of a court abbe. He gave lessons in literature in the
sovereign's family, and wrote verses for special occa-
sions. These monks of Kiev introduced the art of
poetry as well as the elements of Western science.
Simeon, who was tutor to Alexis, and then to his brother
Fiodor, also wielded a decisive influence over the
education of Sofia, sister of Peter the Great, and his
predecessor at the head of the state. His books on
religious controversy are interspersed with scientific
digressions. His views on cosmology are somewhat
peculiar. He believed the sky to be a great crystal
sphere, wherein the stars are fixed. He also thought he
knew the sun to be a hundred times larger than the
earth, and that the universe measured exactly 428,550
versts. He was a poet^ and wrote plays — Nebuchadnezzar
and The Prodigal Son^ which were played at court and in
ROMANCES 45
the schools. In The Prodigal Son we have a thinly veiled
criticism of the over-despotic conditions of family life.
In 1672, Johann Gottfried Gregori, a German, installed
himself in the Faubourg with his troupe of performers.
Moscow had a theatre, and before long she had a school
of dramatic art. Natalia Narychkine, the second wife of
Alexis, opened the gates of the Kremlin to the actors.
Unknown rivals and forerunners of Racine set the story
of Esther and Ahasuerus on the stage, and Sofia intro-
duced the works of Moliere.
After the drama comes the novel. This form of
narrative had long been familiar and popular in Russia.
Until the sixteenth century, it preserved the Byzantine
type, in the form of adaptations of the apocryphal
legends, which had a large circulation. It ultimately
underwent the Western influence, and received, by way
of Poland,. the elements, strangely corrupted and traves-
tied, of the Romance of Chivalry. But presently, in a
group of anonymous works, of which The Adventures of
Frol SkobieieVy the seducer of Annouchka, daughter of the
Stolnik {dapifer) Nachtchokine, is the most characteristic,
we observe a perfectly fresh type. Not a trace of
fancy have we here, but the sharpest observation of
contemporary life, a reproduction, faithful to triviality,
of its least attractive aspects — in a word, all the essen-
tial features of the modern realists. Frol, a profes-
sional pettifogger, openly dubbed a thief and rogue by
Annouchka's father, attains his end by dint of boldness,
cunning, and bribery. He carries off the fair lady and
wins the pardon of the indignant Boyard, who leaves
him all his fortune. In spite of the evident influence of
the German Schelinen- Romanes we here find an undoubted
vein of originality, which, checked by the general current
46 RUSSIAN LITERATURE
of foreign importation, will scarcely reappear until the
time of Gogol. Frol Skobieiev is the lineal ancestor of
Tchitchikov in Dead Souls ; and this Russian romance of
the seventeenth century may be taken to be a literary
treasure not equalled by any other works of the periods
of Peter the Great and of the great Catherine.
In any case, it constitutes an extremely interesting and
significant phenomenon. It consummates the rupture,
partial at all events, with those superannuated traditions
which trammelled the Russian genius for so long a
period. The evolution which in Italy was foreshadowed
by Dante and realised by Petrarch, the conquest of
literature by life and our common humanity, with all
its contingent circumstances, is accomplished, in the
Fatherland of Peter the Great, on the very eve of the
advent of the great Reformer, while the special tendencies
to which Gogol, Tourgueniev, and Dostoievski were to
impart their full scope begin, already and simultaneously,
to make themselves felt.
Simeon Polotski, dying in 1680, was replaced as court
poet by his own pupil, Sylvester Miedviediev, who had
spent a considerable time in Poland.
Following his predecessor's lead, he founded a school
for the teaching of Latin, and he also succeeded him as
leader of the party opposed to the Greek tradition.
The end of the struggle was tragic and unexpected.
Miedviediev, the favourite of Sofia, was mixed up in the
quarrel between the Regent and her brother, and in it
he lost his life. The Greek party enjoyed a momentary
triumph. I have demonstrated elsewhere the manner
in which this transient victory brought the victors to
confusion. I will here describe how Miedviediev was
avenged by the author of his punishment.
CHAPTER II
THE RENAISSANCE
The thinking world of Russia at the end of the seven-
teenth century, has been compared to a great raft
floating unanchored, drawn, indeed, eastward towards
Asia, by the current of its natural traditions, but sud-
denly cast in an opposite direction by some violent and
merciless eddy. This idea still lingers in Western litera-
ture. It is as false as most stereotyped assertions of
the kind. The eastward tendency is, on the contrary,
a quite modern phenomenon in the history of Russian
civilisation. It dates from yesterday, and its nature,
so far, remains purely political, economic, and industrial.
From a more general point of view, the tendency of
the national life, though drawn even at Kiev, as at
Novgorod, from the Byzantine East, was to develop
itself in quite the contrary direction. Kiev entered
into relations with Germany, and even with France.
Novgorod opened the Baltic roads towards the West.
The Tartar invasion checked all these puttings forth,
but it did not replace them with any in a different
direction. The "intellectuals" of the sixteenth century
did not attempt, during their quarrel with the despotism
resulting from the Mongol conquest, to seek refuge in
Asia. W^e know whither Kourbski fled. In the follow-
ing century, Peter the Great neither sent for the
Italian artists, who had then already rebuilt Moscow,
48 RUSSIAN LITERATURE
nor for the Little Russian monks, who, before his time,
had laboured to reform the schools. He simply hurried
forward, with his eager spirit, the slow progress which
was already carrying his bark steadily westward. He
swelled the sails, he made the rowers pant for breath,
and grasped the helm with steady hand ; but the vessel's
course was laid already.
Some impenitent Slavophils do indeed still cast as a
crime in the great Reformer's teeth, that he broke the
link which should, according to their view, have bound
the progress of their country's civilisation to the original
manifestations of the national genius. But this rupture
is purely imaginary. The threads which bound the
Russia of the seventeenth century to her semi-oriental
origin bind her to it still. We shall trace them even
in the Russian literature of this present century. They
are scarcely apparent in that which was contemporary
with Peter the Great. But this is the common story
of every modern literature. There is not one w^hich,
like that of the Greeks, is the direct and organic out-
come of the national inspiration. The Renaissance
makes them all, in the first place, the adopted children
of Rome and Athens, and after this each goes back to,
and discovers, the secret of its own origin. Russia has
perforce followed this law. In her case, the period of
Peter the Great was no more than the hasty accom-
plishment of that tardy Renaissance, the first symp-
toms of which I have described in the preceding
chapter. Yet one difference exists, and one cause of
inferiority, between the Russian evolution and that of
its Western rivals. The Greek culture, instead of per-
colating through the Latin medium alone, has been
fain to reach the Muscovite through several — the
PETER THE GREAT 49
Polish influence, then the German, the French and
Enghsh.
The personal share of the Reformer in this process
is clearly expressed and summed up in the great scien-
tific institution which he planned, and which was not
established until after his death. The Slavo- Latin
Academy at Moscow did not satisfy him. He desired
to have another at St. Petersburg, modelled on Euro-
pean lines, and according to the plan suggested to him
by Leibnitz. But his second German adviser, Wolff,
was in favour of a university, and a third argued that
in a country where schools were lacking it might be
wise to begin with a Gymnasium. After prolonged
hesitation, which must have tried a man of his tem-
perament severely, Peter resolved to combine all these
desiderata, and planned an institution to combine all
the three types suggested. But the university remained
a mere paper plan, and the gymnasium met with woeful
difficulties. In 1730 there were only thirty-six pupils
on the books, and twenty of them were non-attendants,
for Peter, always short of men, was employing them
elsewhere. In 1756 the roll dwindled to nineteen. The
academy alone prospered. Academicians are always
to be had. Some came from Germany, and some even
from France.
These, in the Reformer's eyes, were pioneers, whom
he expected to open up the country to cultivation. In
the furrows they ploughed, the seed for future harvests
was to be sown broadcast. First he would have trans-
lations, — and the great man worked at them himself,
swearing at German prolixity meanwhile. To the native
writers he assigned, for the moment, a less dignified part.
They were, like himself, to put themselves to the Western
50 RUSSIAN LITERATURE
school, and then to second his efforts to bring the lessons
there learnt into practice. Every branch of literary pro-
duction was forced to serve this double end. Thus a
dramatic piece played in the Red Square at Moscow
was nothing but a paraphrase of the official announce-
ment of a victory over the Swedes, and a sermon preached
in the Cathedral of the Assumption was a commentary
on a decree published the day before its delivery.
Sometimes these theatrical representations slipped
from the hand which generally directed them, and went
into opposition ; this more especially in the case of the
'^ interludes," burlesque dialogues, which were generally
played in private houses, though, following the demo-
cratic habits of the place, the public of every class had
free access to the performance. On these occasions the
popular opposition to the reforms, and chiefly to the
reform in the national dress, so hateful to the lower
classes, was expressed in the boldest sallies. Peter took
no heed, and rather challenged his adversaries on their
own ground than gave any hint of the future severities
of the censorship. However much his temperament,
his taste for rough undignified amusements, his inclina-
tion to exaggeration, may have led him in the direction
of those masquerades and buffooneries and those licen-
tious parodies, wherein he spent his wits and prostituted
his dignity (and I have elsewhere admitted the excess of
which he was guilty in this respect), he certainly nursed
thoughts of a higher nature through it all. He desired
to drag his people out of the old Byzantine rut. He
meant to enfranchise the public mind, even at the expense
of horrid profanation. The national genius sat huddled
under the shade of the national cathedrals. Peter was
resolved to drag out the priest, even if he had to cast him
PROKOPOVITCH : JAVORSKI 51
into the kennel. The most eminent writer, even of that
period, was still a bishop, a prelate given to worldly
matters, suspected of being a Protestant, if not a free-
thinker. The one literary work which stands out above
the contemporary medley of compilations and hasty
adaptations is the Ecclesiastical Regulations. This is, above
all things, a pamphlet directed against the monastic life
of that epoch. The name of its author was Feofan
PROKOPOVITCH.
In this struggle within the very walls of the temple,
two priests, of similar origin, widely different in feeling
and education, stood face to face. Stephen Javorski
(1658-1722), a Little-Russian by birth, brought up in the
Polish schools at Lemberg and Posen, succeeded the last
Patriarch, Adrian, in 1702, as '' temporary guardian " of
a throne that was never to be filled again. A man of
poor education, except in church matters, he began by
swimming with the new current. Then, taking fright, he
fought against it, calling all the dignity of his sacerdotal
vestments, and of the traditions they represented, to his
aid. Peter was thus fain to seek some more determined
adept in reforming ideas to oppose this backslider.
Feofan Prokopovitch (1681-1736), the son of a Ki^v
merchant, had also made a stay in Poland, and even went
so far as to accept the tinion, with the habit of the
Basilian Fathers at Witepsk. Yet he was deemed worthy
of Rome and of the Missionary College of St. Athanasius.
But the neighbourhood of St Peter's influenced his
borrowed Catholicism in a manner very different from
that which had been expected. Within two years Feofan
went back to Kidv and to the bosom of the Orthodox
Church. Yet not in vain had he travelled across Europe,
and been brought into touch with her intellectual life.
5 2 RUSSIAN LITERATURE
He taught theology at Ki^v, but he forsook the scholastic
methods, and followed those of the Protestant doctors.
Gerhard was his master, and he drew his inspiration from
Auerstedt. At the same time, he utilised his leisure time
in composing verses, plays, and a dissertation on poetry,
which was published after his death in 1756.
We must observe, that at this moment Peter was
only just beginning his career, and that no sign of his
future work had yet appeared. The helm of the great
ship, still worked by a temporary crew, had hitherto felt
no strong hand upon it. And yet this lonely monk was
already steering his frail bark towards the light. It was
not until 1709 that he attracted the Tsar's attention, by a
sermon preached on the occasion of the victory of Pol-
tava. He was summoned to St. Petersburg, and from
that time we see him the Tsar's mouthpiece in the pulpit
and the press, the semi-official interpreter and apolo-
gist of his master's policy. He will help him in all his
plans for reform. Preaching on the Tsarevitch's birth-
day, October 18, 1706, he will sum up the work already
accomplished, and compare the ancient condition of
Russia with her present state. To establish the sove-
reign's right to choose his own successor, he will write
that Pravda voli Monarche'i (''Truth of the Sovereign's
Will ") which has become the corner-stone of the political
edifice left by the Reformer to his heirs ; and in 1721, in
his Ecclesiastical Regulations^ which prefaced the final
suppression of the Patriarchate and the institution of the
Holy Synod, he will lay the foundations of the reor-
ganisation of the Russian clergy.
Appointed Bishop of Pskov in 171 8 (against Javorski's
will), he became the second member of the Holy Synod
in 1 72 1, and in 1724 he was made Archbishop of Nov-
PROKOPOVITCH 53
gorod. His position in the Church, supported as he
was by the Tsar's favour and authority, was really un-
rivalled. He succeeded in obtaining the suppression of
the Kamieqne Vieri ('^ Stone of the Faith"), a religious con-
troversial work in which Javorski formulated the protest
of the ancient Church against her would-be reformers.
The author was to have his revenge. In 1729, when
Peter was dead, the Kamieqne was published, and made
a stir which was felt beyond the Russian frontier. Two
Germans, Buddaeus and Mosheim, replied to the argu-
ments of a Spanish Dominican, Ribeira, who had followed
the Duke of Liria, ambassador of the Most Catholic King,
to St. Petersburg, in a dispute which was destined to last
over the whole of the first half of the eighteenth century.
This was a direct blow at Prokopovitch. To defend the
position thus threatened, he deliberately threw himself
into the thick of the struggles and political intrigues which
were another legacy from the great Tsar's reign, and
which were to continue till the accession of Catherine
II. Nevertheless he remained in the forefront of the
intellectual movement of his day — not without a certain
alarm and simple surprise at the unforeseen extent of
the horizon he himself was labouring to unveil, and the
knowledge thereby acquired, together with a different
and altogether secular sense of anxiety with regard to the
mystery beyond this life, which his newly-awakened ima-
gination painted in colours hitherto unknown.
" Oh^ head ! head! thou hast groivn drunk with learn-
ing ; where wilt thou rest thee now ? " Thus he was heard
to murmur on his death-bed. He had lived the life
of a modern man in his fine house on the Karpovka,
an affluent of the Neva, on whose waters a flotilla
of boats always lay, in readiness to transport him to
54 RUSSIAN LITERATURE
some one of his other residences. At Karpovka he had
a Hbrary of 30,000 volumes, and a school for secondary
education, which was the best of that period. Here
he received the most eminent men of the day — D. M.
Galitsine, Tatichtchev, Kantemir, and the foreign mem-
bers of the Academy, one of whom, Baier, dedicated his
Museum Sinicuin to him. Up to the very end, he never
ceased to take his part in every manifestation of literary
and scientific activity ; he wrote verses to greet the
dawn of a new art in Kantemir's first satire, and he
was the protector of Lomonossov. The only thing lack-
ing to his glory was to have known and appreciated
Possochkov.
In Possochkov we have another Russian who turned
to the West without waiting for Peter and his reforms.
He was a peasant, born about 1673, in a village near
Moscow. How did he learn to read, to write, to think ?
It is a mystery. He felt the stirring of the springs
of water destined to flow over this remote country,
hidden under its crust of barbarism, and forthwith
he too launched his little boat. Instinct made him a
mechanician and a naturalist. He was soon to be a
philosopher. Meanwhile, while he eagerly studied the
properties of sulphur, of asphalt, of naphtha, he earned
an honest competency by selling brandy. He came of
an industrious race. By 1724, Possochkov had bought
a landed property and set up a factory. Thus, though
unknown to the Reformer, he was bearing his share in
the Reform — I mean, in the general progress which was
its aim. Yet he was conservative, after his own fashion.
In the Precepts for my Sotiy which constitute his first
attempt at authorship, he still appears wedded to the
traditions of the Domostroiy and exalts ancient, at the
POSSOCHKOV 55
expense of modern, Russia, wherein many things, and
more especially the pre-eminence given to foreigners,
displease him. But these very Precepts were a sort
of vade mecum for the use of his son during a tour in
Europe, w^hich he proposes to make with his father's
full consent.
And Possochkov went further yet. As the close of the
great Tsar's reign approached, he seemed to rouse himself
out of the half-slumber which had prevented him from
reahsing the new world created around him. And w-e
see him paying homage to Peter in a book which is a
creation in itself — a book dealing with poverty and riches !
We must not forget that at this moment Adam Smith
had only just seen the light in England, and that the
physiocratic school had not yet appeared in France. In
spite of its strange medley of bold ideas, truisms, and
absurdities, Possochkov's work is absolutely original.
It was a bold stroke on his part to found his argu-
ment on the principle that the wealth of all empire lies,
not in the sovereign's treasury, but in the possessions
of his subjects. To increase these last in Russia, the
former adherent of the Domostroi now deems a radical
reform in manners and customs indispensable. His
study of the national resources has convinced him that
idleness, drunkenness, and theft constitute an intolerable
obstacle to their natural development. But how is this
obstacle to be removed ? By the means conceived by
Peter himself. Schools ! Schools everywhere, for every
one. Like all other theorists, whether autodidact or
neophyte, Possochkov is a Radical. He demands com-
pulsory and universal education. He does not even
except his brother peasants. He considers, besides, the
question of improving their condition. By suppressing
56 RUSSIAN LITERATURE
serfdom ? No, he does not go those lengths. Himself
a landed proprietor and a fabtory-owner, he owns serfs,
and could not well do without them. So he juggles
with the difficulty, and comes to the very odd conclu-
sion that in this matter the best way of easing the law
is to strengthen it ! If the serf becomes the master's
chattel even more completely than before, he stands the
chance of better treatment !
Some indulgence must be granted to neophytes.
None the less did Possochkov deserve a welcome from
the great man whose views he had come to share,
though somewhat tardily. But it was too late ! Peter
was dying. And in the eyes of his successors the man
who cared so little for the Imperial Treasury was no
better than a traitor. Possochkov was arrested, shut up
in a casemate in the fortress of St. Peter and St. Paul,
and there died the following year. Peter, who had thus
missed his co-operation, was chiefly assisted in matters
of national economy by Vassili Nikititch Tatichtchev.
Tatichtchev was a Dielatiel (literally, a maker)^ a com-
pletely new type, with all the constitutional qualities and
faults of his kind, which have endured down to the present
day. An engineer, an administrator, a geographer and
historian, whose lengthy sojourns in foreign countries
(more especially in Germany) had brought him into
close touch with the intellectual progress of the West,
Vassili Nikititch Tatichtchev (1685-1750) was rich in
gifts and resources. But he stands convicted, during
his mission in the province of Orenburg, of an in-
curable taste for peculation, and the only defence he
can make is to quote this maxim, ^Mf a man judges
justly, it is only fair he should be paid." After being
sent in semi-disgrace to Stockholm, and having exposed
TATICHTCHEV 57
himself to fresh judicial proceedings at Astrakan, whither
he was despatched as governor by Elizabeth, Tatichtchev
died just as he had snatched an acquittal from the too
facile good-nature of his sovereign. Russians know how
to die. This national virtue has been splendidly ex-
tolled and illustrated by Tolstoi and Garchine. The
believer performs the final duties of his faith as calmly
and serenely as if he were going to a baptism or a mar-
riage. Even amongst atheists, we seldom see a case in
which the terrors of death drive a man to deny his con-
victions. Tatichtchev, perceiving that his end drew
near, set his domestic affairs in order, and then, mount-
ing his horse, betook himself to the neighbouring ceme-
tery to choose his grave and warn the priest. The next
day he passed away. His death had been better ordered
than his life.
In his works, both literary and scientific, we notice a
lack of rule and proportion which was still common among
the writers and savants of his country. At one moment
he conceived a plan for a National Geography, so huge
that his spirit recoiled in alarm from the idea of carrying
it into execution. At another he undertook to produce
a lexicon of history, geography, and politics. He car-
ried it no further than the letter L. As a historian he
was more especially a collector of materials, and his
work is still valuable, because it contains fragments of
chronicles, the originals of which have entirely disap-
peared.
His views are those of a self-taught man, who has
done no preparatory work, and has had to fight his own
way. But he was the first man in Russia to realise the
necessity of including, in any history, the whole life of
the country concerned, its habits, customs, and tradi-
58 RUSSIAN LITERATURE
tions. This fact places a great gulf between Tatichtchev
and his immediate forerunners, the ancient chroniclers.
His contemporaries considered him a free-thinker,
and Peter has the credit of having combated certain
slips of judgment noticed in his collaborator by argu-
ments of his own, not unconnected w^ith the employment
of his legendary doubina (thick stick). Yet Tatichtchev's
scepticism does not appear to have gone beyond that of
which Prokopovitch himself showed himself capable in
the discussion of the authenticity of a certain icouy attri-
buted to the brush of St. Methodius. He clung to his
Western Rationalism, and combined with it a constant
effort to reconcile faith with reason. Walch's Dictionary
of Philosophy, then popular in Germany, was the expres-
sion, and marked the limit, of his boldness.
He also wrote commentaries on the ancient Russian
laws — the Rousskaia Pravda and the Soudiebnik. The
gifts of his fellow-countrymen were still essentially of
the polygraphic and encyclopedic order. But the most
complete expression of the ideas of Tatichtchev is to be
found in his Conversation zvith Friends on the Utility of
Knowledge and of Schools, and his Will — further pre-
cepts given by a father to a son. In the first of these
works he indicates the existence of a twofold opposition
to the diffusion of light among the masses — one that of
the clergy ; the other that of a certain school of poli-
ticians who look on ignorance as a guarantee of docility.
Boldly he strikes at these twin adversaries, invoking, to
confound the first, the example of Christ and his apos-
tles, who were all teachers, and demanding of the last,
" Would you take fools and ignorant folk to manage and
wait on your household ? " Both on this point and on
others his Precepts, which are contemporary with those
UTILITARIAN LITERATURE 59
of Possochkov (1719 and 1725), speak out boldly. Tati-
chtchev, though he always regards religion as the neces-
sary foundation for education, whether public or private,
turns his back resolutely on the Domostroi. Domes-
tic authority, as represented by the whip — even when
used gently and in private — is utterly repugnant to him.
He divides life into three parts — military service, civil
service, and finally retirement to the country, to be
employed in caring for w^hatever property a man may
possess. This leads him to formulate certain teachings,
which show his agreement with Possochkov's view of
the necessary connection between the economic progress
of a country and the raising of its intellectual level.
My readers will observe the utilitarian character of
all this literature. This is the special mark of the
period in which art has not, as yet, its appointed place.
One event occurs, however, and one current is formed,
which, from the literary and artistic point of view, would
appear to indicate that the process of evolution was
approaching its natural close. I referred to this event
when I mentioned a contemporary theatrical migration.
From the German Faubourg the actors found their
way into the court. From the Kreml they passed on to
the public square. After 1702, the new German troupe,
led by Johann Kunscht of Dantzig, gave performances
in the Red Square at Moscow, and was obliged to use
the Russian language. The repertory consisted, for the
most part, of translations, but Peter commanded that
allusions to contemporary events, in a sense favour-
able to his policy, should be interpolated. Vladhnir^ a
tragi-comedy by Prokopovitch, which was performed at
Kiev in 1702 and at Moscow in 1705, teems with such
allusions.
Co RUSSIAN LITERATURE
Had Prokopovitch any knowledge of Shakespeare ?
Possibly, through Philipps' Thcatrum Poetarum (1675).
•n the religious drama, the comic element only appears
as an accessory, in the form of burlesque interludes, but
.L is an integral part of the work of the bishop-playwright,
rhe interest of this piece is concentrated on the struggle
in Vladimir's soul between the habits and beliefs of
paganism and the teachings of the new faith, and con-
stitutes a bona-fide attempt at psychological drama.
The current to which I have adverted is the appear-
ance, on the heels of the translators employed by Peter,
of the Imitators. It, too, had an earlier source. Of this
I have indicated some symptoms in the time of Ivan the
Terrible. All the Reformer did was to hurry it forward
and increase it. His personal genius was, as is well
known, imitative to the highest degree, and literature
was fain to follow his lead.
This period was one of Indian file, and the honour of
leading the way fell to a foreigner. The poetic work
of the Moldavian prince, Kantemir, whose father allied
himself with Peter in 1709, and thereby lost his prin-
cipality, is of a date posterior to that of the great Tsar's
reign. In his days, men fought and were beaten top often
to leave much time for sacrificing to Apollo. The man
of letters had no chance of asserting himself among
the bevy of soldiers and craftsmen whom the mighty
fighter carried in his train. Antiochus Dmitri£vitch
Kant£mik, who was born at Constantinople in 1708,
and died in Paris, after a sojourn of some years in Lon-
don, in 1744, was himself no more than a dilettante. By
profession he was a diplomatist. His first literary at-
tempt was a satire. Through all the vicissitudes of future
times, this form of expression was to predominate in the
KANTEMIR 6i
literature of his adopted country, and to afford, in every
period, proofs of superior originality and more direct
inspiration. In an engraving inspired by the death of
Peter the Great, and representing a cat borne to the
tomb by mice, the celebrated iconographist Rovinski
has discovered a number of features which bear no re-
semblance to the Western models. Pictorial details and
letterpress are alike of local growth, from the mouse of
Riazan, Siva (^' grey one "), which, draped in a sarapJiane,
weeps as it skips v prissiadkou (bending its knees), and
seems to symbolise the hypocrisy of the priesthood, to
the reminiscences, so evident in the funeral cortege, of
the burlesque masquerades which were one of the pecu-
liarities of the famous reign.
Kantemir's first satire, composed in 1729, attacked
the opponents of education, and more particularly the
personal enemies of Prokopovitch, whose pupil the
author was. The young man found himself forthwith
enrolled under the banner of progress, and torn between
politics and literature. This did not hinder him, two
years later, from joining Tatichtchev in the composition
of the famous address in which the Russian nobles, after
having raised the shadow of an agitation in favour of
constitutional reform, besought the Empress Anne to
take up autocratic power once more, and cut off men's
heads according to her own goodwill and pleasure. But
to this adventure the master urged his pupil, and it
ensured Kantemir the prospect of a brilliant career. At
the age of two-and-twenty he started for London, with
the rank of Resident. There he did little diplomatic
work, but he translated Anacreon, Horace, and Jus-
tinian. In 1738 he passed on to Paris, made the acquaint-
ance of Montesquieu, and worked at a Russian version
62 RUSSIAN LITERATURE
of the Lettres Persanes, But soon Maupertuis gave him
ideas for an essay on algebra, and Fontenelle tempted
him, in his turn, to translate his work on the " Plurality
of Worlds." He was fast losing himself in this labyrinth
when death laid its hand upon him.
He had begun by moving in the track of Boileau,
while he believed and declared himself to be following
Horace and Juvenal. The-philosophic ideal of Horace,
vaguely floating betwixt the doctrine of the Stoics and
that of the Epicureans, gave birth to his sixth and eighth
satires. To be content with little, to live apart, '' with the
Greek and Latin poets for company," to reflect on events
and their causes, and steer a wise middle course in all
matters — this was his fancy. The Empress Elizabeth's
method of government made it somewhat of a necessity.
The poet had no fortune of his own, and his salary was
most irregularly paid.
His poetry is chiefly valuable from the historical point
of view. I discern a certain amount of imagination in it,
but no charm of any kind. Occasionally his language is
strong, but for the most part it is trivial even to the point
of vulgarity. Further — and this may be forgiven in a
foreigner — he has not a shadow of originality, not a touch
of personal sentiment nor of national feeling. Though
superior to most of his Russian contemporaries in his
power of understanding and appreciating the Western
world, and capable of grasping and appreciating the
real meaning of the civilisations he studied, Kant^mir
was unable to add anything of his own to them.
The form of verse he employs, a syllabic metre of
twelve feet, is clumsy and stiff. But let us not forget
that at that moment Trediakovski was engaged on the
first study ever made of the elementary principles of
KANTEMIR 63
Russian versification, and had just realised the necessity
of replacing the syllabic by the tonic line. And even
he could not succeed in adding example to precept.
Kantemir attempted it, with some measure of success, in
his fifth satire, and thereafter, in his Letter to a Friend on
the Composition of Russian Poetry^ he took his turn at
theory instead of practice, and was much less suc-
cessful.
He made attempts on other lines, philosophic odes,
odes on special subjects, fables, epigrams. He even
began a Petreidy which, mercifully perhaps for the
Reformer's reputation, was never finished. He always
came back to his satires, with the sensation, so he
declared, " of swimming in familiar waters, never making
his readers yaw^n . . . flying like a general to victory ! "
His chief victory was that he came in first in the race,
and had no competitors. The soil of Russia, though
cleared for cultivation by the efforts of Peter the Great,
must needs undergo two further processes before the
art of poetry could spread and blossom freely on its
bosom. I refer to the patient preparation involved in the
labours of Trediakovski, and of that other gifted toiler in
the field of intellect, Lomonossov. It was by no means
an ungrateful soil. I have before me, as I write, some
lines written by an unknown poet, in 1724, on the subject
of the tragic fate of Mons, Catherine the First's beheaded
lover. In them I find, long before Rousseau's time, real
feeling, lyric and sentimental, grown up, like a wild
flower, how we cannot tell, — a garden spot in this land
of brutal realism. But this would appear to be a very
isolated instance.
Russia, as she drew closer to the Western countries,
was necessarily forced to obey the Western laws of lite-
64 RUSSIAN LITERATURE
rary development, and follow her predecessors through
the same regular course and series of culture. The
establishment of a court and a court aristocracy was
destined, just at this precise period, to favour the birth
of a form of literature which, in France, reached its
highest point during the reign of Louis XIV. — the
Classic.
CHAPTER III
THE FORGING OF THE LANGUAGE
One winter evening in 1732, in a room in the wooden
palace where the Empress Anne held her court, a man
knelt beside the fireplace, close to which the sovereign's
armchair had been drawn on account of the bitter cold.
He was reading aloud a set of verses, half-panegyric,
half-madrigal. When his voice ceased, her Majesty beck-
oned him towards hen He obeyed without changing
his posture, dragging himself along on his knees. The
Empress gave him a friendly tap on the cheek, and he
retired backwards, followed by glances half-scornful,
half-jealous, from the assembled company. Once in his
own chamber, he noted the event in his journal. It
w^as destined to become the depository of less pleasant
memories. A few years later, he attended at court to
take orders for a poem to celebrate some special occa-
sion. A Minister whose anger he had roused had his face
slapped in far rougher fashion, and his body most merci-
lessly beaten. Half-dead with pain and fright, he was
left to spend his night in prison, and there compose the
lines commanded by his employer. Then the following
day, w^ilh his face swelled out of knowledge and his back
beaten raw, he was forced to put on some burlesque
disguise, take part in a court display, and there recite his
poem. He died poor and forgotten, and was only re-
membered by the next generation as the author of the
66 RUSSIAN LITERATURE
unlucky Telemachida^ the lines of which Catherine II.
caused the habitual members of her circle at the Hermi-
tage to recite as a task.
This man was Vassili Kirillovitch Tr£diakovski
(1703-1769). Compare the biographical details given
above with what we know of the behaviour of Swift, who
wrung an apology from Harley and then "restored him
to his favour," and refused the advances of the Duke of
Buckingham, and at once we realise the gulf between
these two provinces of the literary world ! The man thus
handled by his contemporaries and their descendants
deserved a better fate. Born at Astrakan, on the con-
fines of Asia, in 1703, we find him, in 1728, plodding
along the road from the Hague to Paris, wild with the
longing to see and learn, living we know not how, begging
for knowledge, rather than for bread. He was the son of
a pope, had been taught at Astrakhan by the Capuchin
missionaries, and had afterwards studied at the Slavo-
Graeco- Latin Academy at Moscow, where he wrote two
plays, a Jason and a TituSy w^hich were performed by
the pupils of the establishment, and an elegy on the
death of Peter the Great. A disagreement with his
superiors — he was always quarrelsome — pecuniary diffi-
culties, and the irresistible charm of the nev/ outlook
opened to him by the Reform, combined to drive him
abroad. By the favour of the Russian Minister in Paris,
Kourakine, he attended the lectures delivered at the
University by Rollin, and won his diploma. This enabled
him to snap his fingers at the Muscovite Academy. He
returned to Russia, and found employment of the kind
indicated in the opening lines of this chapter. It was not
till 1733 that he was appointed secretary of the St. Peters-
burg Academy, and this dignity did not screen him
TREDIAKOVSKI 67
from the ministerial bludgeon, for the terrible experience
I have related above took place in 1740. In 1735 a
^^ Society of the Friends of the Russian Language " was
formed in connection with the St. Petersburg Academy,
and Trediakovski inaugurated its proceedings by an
address on *' The Purity of the Russian Tongue." He was ^
the first to point out to his comrades the necessity for a (
good grammar and an authoritative system of rhetoric
and poetry. Ten years later, under Elizabeth, we find him
higher up the ladder, Professor of Latin and of Russian
Elocution at the Academy and University ; but nothing
but his sovereign's imperative command obtained his
nomination to this post, contrary to the will of the Com-
mittee of the Academy, entirely composed of foreigners,
who 'Mid not choose to have a Russian in their com-
pany." For eighteen years Trediakovski gave the greater
part of his time and all his best efforts to his professional
duties. He trained Popov and Barsov, the first Russian
professors of the University of Moscow, and, like Lomo-
nossov, did his utmost to serve the interests of science
and of the national education.
He wrote as well, unluckily ! He translated Boileau's
Art PoiHiquCy Telemaque^ and some of uEsop's fables into
verse, and did Horace's De Arte Poetica and Tallemant's
Voyage a I lie d' Amour into prose. He produced an
ode on the taking of Danzig, and various other poems
on special occasions, besides a considerable number of
essays on the art of poetry, on versification, the Russian
tongue, and various historical subjects.
Both verse and prose have been the theme of his
fellow-countrymen's spiteful wit down to the time of
Pouchkine, who was the first to understand and plainly
say, that underneath the poet, at w^hom ali men scoffed,
68 RUSSIAN LITERATURE
there lurked a philologist and grammarian of the fore-
most rank. According to the author of Eugene Onieguiney
Trediakovski's views on versification are more profound
and more correct than those of Lomonossov himself.
And even as a poet, the author of the TeleviaeJiida is
superior to Soumarokov and Kheraskov, the two literary
stars of the succeeding period.
Nevertheless, for over fifty years the hexameters of
the Telemachida were the bugbear of several generations
of poets, and in 1790, Gnieditch, the Russian translator
of the Iliad, w^as extolled for having dared to '' snatch
the verse of Homer and Virgil from the stake of infamy
to which Trediakovski had nailed it."
Trediakovski was essentially a theorist, gifted with a
quite remarkable intuitive power. His public advocacy
of the use of the tonic accent {oudarenie) in poetic metre
is sufficient proof of my assertion. He lacked inspira-
tion and aesthetic feeling ; but what an ungrateful task
was his, when we recollect that he was driven to explain
to his readers that when he spoke of the God of Love
he did not intend any disrespect to the doctrine of the
Trinity ! His literary faith was that of Boileau. Poetry,
according to him, began with the Greeks, passed through
a brilliant period with the Romans, and . . . '' at last
Malherbe appeared." He believed this. While he wove
laborious lines in the tongue of Malherbe, he felt himself
a proud participator in the glories of a modern Athens.
And had he desired to use his own language, what diffi-
culties still lay in his path !
Which language was he to employ, in the first place ?
There were three in current use — the old Slavonic tongue
of the Church, the popular speech, which differed from
it considerably, and the official language, one of Peter
LOMONOSSOV 6g
the Great's creations, originally adopted at his Foreign
Office, stuffed full, by the scribes employed there, with
German, Dutch, and French words, and forced by supe-
rior orders on the translators of foreign books. It was
a second Tower of Babel, and within it Trediakovski
and his partners struggled desperately, till Lomonossov
appeared upon the scene.
The personal character of the unhappy Popovitch
(" son of a priest ") also affected both his life and his re-
putation. He felt outrage cruelly, and was incapable
of raising himself above it by his consciousness of real
dignity and worth. Thus he sought compensation of a
less legitimate nature, was servile to his superiors, and
unbearably arrogant in his deahngs with others. The
advent of Lomonossov and the successes of Soumarokov
w^ere more bitter to him than the cudgellings of his earlier
days. He had grown into the habit, amidst his many
insults, of proclaiming himself the foremost of living
poets. He lost his head now, quarrelled with' his
rivals, insulted, and finally denounced them. In 1759,
thoroughly beaten, he retired from the Academy, and
led the life of a recluse, almost of an outcast, until
1769.
The career and work of Lomonossov are, in a sense,
the continuation of the career and the revolutionary
work of Peter the Great. But to render this continua-
tion possible, a second revolution was necessary. The
inheritance left by the Reformer was built up by foreign
hands, out of materials largely foreign in their origin.
After his death, under a prolonged gynocracy, with one
Empress who came from Livonia or Poland, another
from Germany, these foreign auxiliaries broke their ranks,
pushed to the front, made themselves the masters. We
70 RUSSIAN LITERATURE
have seen how they would have shut the door in Tre-
diakovski's face. It was not until 1741 that the native
element rose in revolt and recovered the upper hand,
driving out the Brunswick family and placing Eliza-
beth, Peter's own daughter, in power. In 1746, a Little-
Russian named Razoumovski was appointed president
of the Academy of Sciences, and a year later, a fresh
regulation admitted Russians to this learned assembly.
Without this distinct order they would have remained
outside ! At the same time, Latin and Russian w^ere
declared the only official languages of the institution.
Thus its doors were opened to the native Russians.
Trediakovski entered with Lomonossov ; then came
Krachennikov, a botanist ; Kotielnikov, a mathematician;
and others besides, such as Popov and Kozitski. The
foreign members shrieked with horror, and some asked
leave to quit a country in which the natives actually
claimed to be at home.
There was some slight excuse for their protests.
Razoumovski, who had been deputed to preside over
their labours, was only eighteen years of age, and his
sole merit consisted in having a brother who, on private
occasions, did not go to the trouble of taking off his
dressing-gown to dine with the Empress. His place
was filled — and the change was for the better — during
the second half of her reign, by I. I. Chouvalov, whose
behaviour may indeed have been as informal, but who
did take a serious interest in intellectual matters. He
was known as the *' Russian Maecenas." Brought up
in French schools, a great gentleman and a courtier,
Chouvalov felt the need of some one to plan under-
takings which were beyond the natural scope of his own
powers and occupations, and help him to carry them
LOMONOSSOV 71
through. He did not find it necessary to seek such a
man abroad. The being for whose appearance Peter
had longed, when he expressed his hope that the mer-
cenaries, scientific and hterary, whom he had gathered
from the four corners of the earth, might be replaced,
at some not too far distant time, by sons of the Russian
soil, was under his hand. The whole process of evolu-
tion which produced our modern Russia — the work
of several centuries previous to the first reforms, the
gradual awakening of the mighty sleeper to a new
existence, the first contact with the Western world, the
gropings after the road that led towards the future — all
these things are personified in the advent and career of
this astounding inoujik,
A fisherman's family, a cabin close to the White Sea,
far away in the distant north-east, beyond Archangel ;
a corner of the earth wrapped in the twofold darkness
of the Northern winter and of a rude and coarse exist-
ence ; a lad helping his father to cast his nets. There
you have the home, the country, the childhood of
Michael VASSiLifiviTCH Lomonossov(i7ii-i765). The
region was not utterly dark and barbarous. Occasional
rays of light had fallen upon it from time to time.
Peter had passed through it on his way to serve his
first sea-apprenticeship in the inhospitable haven where
Chancellor cast his anchor. Already, at a yet earlier date,
British sailors had carried a breath of European civilisa-
tion to the spot. The inclement sky, the thankless soil,
the boisterous sea, had bred a strong and hardy race
of workers, among whom remoteness and isolation in
the depths of an historic particularism had perpetuated
the traditions of a freedom which had long escaped
the miseries of serfdom. The fisherman's son found a
6
72 RUSSIAN LITERATURE
peasant, Ivan Choubine, who knew enough to teach the
boy to act as reader in the church. From these humble
beginnings the child imbibed, and never lost, an intimate
knowledge of the Slavo-ecclesiastic language, and a deep
sense of religion. In the house of another peasant he
found Smotrytski's Slav grammar, Magnitski's arithmetic,
Simeon Polotski's Psalter in rhyme, and beyond the
foggy horizon that hemmed his humble existence, strange
lights, half guessed at, beckoned him more and more
imperiously.
At seventeen Lomonossov could bear it no longer,
persuaded Choubine to give him a warm kaftan and three
roubles, slipped out of his father's house, and started
for Moscow — for the light ! Conceive his journey, and
his arrival in the great town, where he did not know a
soul ! It was in January 1731, in the bitter cold. He
spent his first night in the fish-market, where he found
shelter in an empty sledge. We know not what provi-
dence carried him into the Academy school. The story
goes, that to rouse interest, he declared himself the son
of a priest. The Academy supported its scholars, giving
each of them an altine a day (a coin worth three kopeks
= three-halfpence). For three years Lomonossov lived on
his pay. Half a kopek for bread, half a kopek for kwasSy
the rest he spent on his clothes, on paper, ink, and books.
He bought books. He prospered. By the end of the
third year he looked like a Hercules, and he had learnt
Latin. He was sent to Kiev to complete his education
and study philosophy and natural science. Perhaps the
authorities were glad to get rid of him. He was hard-
working, but turbulent. He fell out with the teaching
authorities at Kiev, came back to Moscow, and was
thinking of taking orders, not knowing how else to
LOMONOSSOV 73
provide for himself, when a sudden message from St.
Petersburg commanded that twelve of the best Academy
students should be sent thither. The Gymnasium be-
longing to the Academy of the new capital was starved
for want of pupils. Lomonossov formed one of the
batch, and a few months later he was again chosen to
be sent across the frontier, and cast into the lap of the
German schools. He went to Marburg, then to Freiburg
in Saxony, studied physics, philosophy, and logic, but
contracted, meanwhile, those habits of dissipation and
debauchery which were to ruin his robust constitution
and hasten his death.
At the same time, he felt the poetic faculty stir within
him. The quite phenomenal scope and grasp of a mind
open to every impression made him the most powerful and
perfect type of those Russian intellects the capacity and
facility of which so astound us, even at the present day.
One is almost tempted to believe that the long period of
inaction imposed upon the race has caused it, so to speak,
to accumulate and lay up a store of potential activity
in connection with these faculties, which, where earlier
developed, seem, blunted by the wear and tear of cen-
turies. While Lomonossov listened to the teaching of
Wolff and Henkel he wove rhymes.
In 1740 he sent to St. Petersburg an ode, after the
style of Glinther, on the subject of the taking of Chocim
by the Russians. It made a great stir. A dissertation
on Russian versification accompanied the poem, elicited
a reply from Trediakovski, and was laid before the Aca-
demic Areopagus. This assembly, consisting of Germans
and Frenchmen, saw nothing in it. But in the outer
world every one blamed Trediakovski, and acclaimed
the advent of a great poet. Lomonossov won fame in
74 RUSSIAN LITERATURE
Russia, but in Germany he had debts, and a wife who
did not help him to economise. He had married his
landlord's daughter. He narrowly escaped going to jail,
wandered for a while from one region to another, and
finally, near Dlisseldorf, fell in with a Prussian recruiting
party, who made him drunk and carried him off to the
fortress of Wesel. His height and his broad shoulders
made him a welcome prize. He escaped, and contrived
to get back to St. Petersburg, leaving his wife and child
behind him in Germany. His father-in-law was a tailor,
and able to provide for them. At the end of two years,
having obtained the post of Assistant-Professor of Phy-
sical Science, he was able to send for his family, which
his chosen spouse, Elizabeth-Christine Zilch, like the
good German she was, forthwith increased. He taught
physics and chemistry as well, besides natural history,
geography, versification, and the laws of style. In 1745,
on the departure of Gmelin, a German, he succeeded to
the chair of Chemistry. In 1757, he entered the Chancery
of the Academy, and instantly challenged the Germans
who still remained, and claimed to continue to rule it.
He invented all sorts of reforms and contrivances, cal-
culated to deprive them of the management of the
institution.
The death of Elizabeth, which ruined Chouvalov's
credit, and restored, to a certain degree, the power of the
foreign party, checked all these plans and ambitions.
Lomonossov's boldness in the struggle had only been
equalled by his activity, and the support he had received
from Chouvalov had never been of a nature which in-
volved any compromise with his ow^n dignity. Swift
himself might have been responsible for the terms in
which he repulsed an attempt made by his ^' Maecenas "
LOMONOSSOV 75
to reconcile him with Soumarokov : *^ I will not look
like a dourak (fool), not only before the great men of
the earth, but before God himself ! " But he had been
more quarrelsome, and, above all, more violent, than
Trediakovski himself, breaking out perpetually into
insults and boorish sallies which betrayed the native
coarseness of the man. He was once temporarily ex-
cluded from the Academy, and deprived of part of his
salary, for having abused his German colleagues and told
them they were thieves. The salary amounted to fifteen
roubles (;^3) a month, and his injured colleagues, who
were less poorly paid, w^ould have preferred his receiving
some corporal punishment. But to this Elizabeth would
not consent. He died in the enjoyment of a reputation
destined to a fate the very opposite of that of Tredia-
kovski. In each case, Pouchkine has intervened, and
revised the ill-founded judgment passed by a public
opinion insufficiently instructed, even at the present day.
In his lifetime, Lomonossov heard himself likened to
Cicero, to Virgil, to Pindar, to Malherbe. To his imme-
diate posterity he was the greatest national poet and
wTiter, ^' an eagle," " a demi-god." Even Pouchkine gives
him liberal praise, declaring he constituted in his own
person, "the first Russian University." But he refuses
to acknowledge his poetic gifts. He wall only allow his
verse to be an awkw^ard imitation of German poets,
already discredited in their own country, and will not
ascribe merit to any of his poems, except certain transla-
tions from the Psalms, and a few imitations of the grand
poetry of the Sacred Books, whence the former church
reader drew a happy inspiration. Lomonossov, it must
be said, regarded this portion of his own work with
considerable scorn, whence Pouchkine argues that its
ye RUSSIAN LITERATURE
influence on the national literature could not be other-
wise than harmful.
This, if I may dare to say it, shows a lack of instinct,
both psychological and historical. The best work is
often unconscious work. Lomonossov, by profession a
naturalist, a chemist, and, above all, a teacher of physics,
was a man of letters in his rare leisure moments only.
And it is worth while to notice the care taken to arrange
how those moments were to be employed.
On April 20, 1748, an order from court desires Pro-
fessor Lomonossov to translate into Russian verse, and
within eight- and-forty hours, a German ode by the
Academician Staehlin, which was wanted '' for an illu-
mination." On September 29, 1750, Trediakovski and
Lomonossov receive orders, after the same fashion, to
produce a tragedy.
It is not for me to estimate, in this place, the value of
the latter as a savant. His theories as to the propagation
of light would appear, at the present day, to be false ;
but others, on the formation of coal, have been accepted
by modern scientists. In an essay on electric pheno-
mena, published in 1753, he seems to have outstripped
Franklin. During the later half of his life, he applied
himself specially to the study of the national language,
literature, and history, and it is more particularly as a
poet that he has dwelt in the memory of the two or
three generations that came after him. Both in litera-
ture and in poetry he is a harbinger, and the sonorous
and harmonious verse which is the pride and delight of
the readers of Eugene Onieguiney is simply the verse of
Lomonossov quickened by a superior inspiration. There
is the same full tone, the same masculine power, the
same rhythm.
LOMONOSSOV 77
The didactic spirit general at that period, the pre-
dominance of reflection over inspiration, the classical
allusions, Mars and Venus, Neptune and Apollo, offend
our modern taste. But tastes will alter. Over and above
that, the mighty breath of poetry sweeps through the
whole of Lomonossov's work — odes, epigrams, epistles,
satires, and even the inevitable Petreidy which the poet
commenced, and in which he exhausted every form of
the poetic art. He was not an ai^tist^ but he belonged
to a heroic period — a period of enthusiasm, of pas-
sionate patriotism, and virile energy. He succeeded in
giving these feelings a popular expression, and from this
expression, in its best and most inspiring forms, the soul
of Pouchkine himself has drawn breath and sustenance.
To this mere moujik Pouchkine owed the very lan-
guage of which he made so magnificent a use. The
peasant came on the scene just in time to blend the
three heterogeneous elements infused into the national
literature by history, the Church, and the reforms, into
one harmonious stream. And in this respect, also, he
performed his work unconsciously. Theoretically, he
believed himself to be perpetuating the separation of
these elements, by classifying all discourses into three
orders of style — the highest, the middle, and the lower
style, each with its own suitable choice of words and
expressions. On the first level he naturally placed the
pompous panegyrics, carefully formulated in the lengthy
periods demanded by the Latin syntax, which he com-
posed for Peter and Elizabeth, and which were to draw
down Pouchkine's displeasure. But in his scientific writ-
ings, his notes, his draughts, even in some of his poems,
he forgot his theory, chose the words and expressions
best suited to his purpose, regardless of the limits within
7Z RUSSIAN LITERATURE
which he himself had undertaken to restrict them, and,
Hke Monsieur Jourdain, ended, without being aware of
it, by writing a language drawn from every source,
which spontaneously mingled and harmonised every
contribution, simple, curt, vigorous, opulent — that which
has become the language of Pouchkine, and of every
other Russian.
He wrote a book on rhetoric after that of Gottsched,
and, like him, only succeeded in formulating the pseudo-
classic principles of that period. But on this work
followed a Grammar (1755), in which the author proved
himself an original thinker, recognising that languages
are living organisms, and deducing other principles, far
in advance of his times, from this conception.
Lomonossov's attempts at history were merely inci-
dental, undertaken at the request of Elizabeth or of
Chouvalov. But he could do nothing by halves. He
soon installed himself as master on this new ground,
and thence defied Miiller, who would have described
Rurik as a Scandinavian prince. The ancestors of the
founder of the Russian Empire could not have been any-
thing but Romans ! Lomonossov undertook to convince
his opponent, and also to prevent him from dubbing
the famous Siberian leader, Yermak, a robber, or choos-
ing, as the subject of his essays, a period so distressing
to the national feelings as that of the " Demetrius " im-
postors. He has left us a History of Russia carried, on
these principles, up to the death of Jaroslav, and a short
chronological and genealogical manual. He deserves that
this should not be too much remembered, nor his tra-
gedies either. The great playwright of those days was
Soumarokov, and he was no Corneille.
The vocation of Alexis Petrovitch Soumarokov
SOUMAROKOV 79
(17 1 8-1 777) was decided by the theatrical performances
which were the chief entertainment of the court of
Anne I. These were given, as a rule, by Italian actors.
But on Sundays an addition was made in the shape of
Russian *' interludes/' specially written for the occasion,
and played by the pupils of the Cadet Corps. This, until
the later half of the eighteenth century, was the only
school in which the elements of a general education were
to be found. There Soumarokov, with many of his com-
rades, pursued the study of the French classics ; later
on he joined the army, and served until 1747, when a
tragedy of his composition, which was acted by other
cadets, won him the reputation of a great writer.
Elizabeth's courtiers and officials were forced, on
pain of punishment, to attend these theatrical perfor-
mances. Yet, until 1756, there was no stage in the
capital specially affected to the Russian drama. The
first theatre of this nature was opened in the provincial
city of Jaroslav. There a man named Volkov, the son
of a shopkeeper, engaged a troupe of actors, and built a
room large enough to hold a thousand spectators. He was
summoned to St. Petersburg, and kept there. Soumaro-
kov, who had meanwhile produced three more tragedies,
one of them a Hamlet^ was appointed manager of the
Russian theatre thus tardily opened. In reality the
management was in the hands of the Imperial Procura-
tor. Soumarokov fell out with him, migrated, in 1760, to
Moscow, quarrelled with the governor there (P. S. Salty-
kov), and deafened Catherine II., who had succeeded
Elizabeth, with his complaints. She sent him word, at
last, that she would open no more of his letters, for that she
"would rather see the effect of passion in his plays than
in his correspondence." He died poor and forsaken.
8o RUSSIAN LITERATURE
In spite of their Slav or Varegian nameS; there is even
less connection between his heroes and the ancient Rus-
sian world, than between those of Racine and Voltaire
and the old Greeks and Romans. They are Frenchmen
in essence, the Frenchmen of Corneille, of Racine, of
Voltaire, minus the masterly disguise cast over them by
those authors. The imitation of French models is the
keynote of all Soumarokov's work. From Shakespeare,
whom he only knew, indeed, through German transla-
tions, he borrowed no more than the semblance of a
subject just then becoming popular. Apart, indeed,
from the soliloquy in the first act, his Hamlet bears
no resemblance to that of the English poet. From
Corneille, from Racine, from Voltaire, he borrows their
hasty psychology, carrying it even farther from Nature
than in their case. His Khorev, his Trouvory his Deme-
iriusy are mere abstractions, artificial personifications of
some single idea or sentiment, which probably has no
correspondence whatever with their natural or probable
physionomy.
In the same way he exaggerates and parodies Moliere,
till comedy becomes a farce, criticism of habits and
customs degenerates into mere pamphleteering, and
epigram develops into insult.
Yet it is only just to remember his education and
surroundings, and Pouchkine's severe treatment of him
betrays a further forgetfulness of the laws of histori-
cal perspective. Foreign literature in the Russia of the
eighteenth century was not a bud carefully grafted on
the native trunk. It was the plant itself, suddenly set in
a soil that was poorly prepared for its reception. In
spite of this drawback, it was to grow, and grow vigor-
ously, and, as it absorbed and assimilated the juices of the
SOUMAROKOV 8i
earth in which it was planted, it was speedily to eliminate
all foreign elements near it. But we cannot wonder that
the earliest fruits were unsatisfactory, ugly to look at,
scentless, and flavourless.
The literary attempts of Soumarokov and his contem-
poraries, it must be further observed, fell on a period of
transition in Western literature, during which the pseudo-
classic style itself was growing corrupt and debased.
Soumarokov was far more haunted by the glory of
Voltaire than he was disturbed by the successes of his
rival Lomonossov. Though he composed odes to the
number of eighty, so as to outstrip Lomonossov in that
respect, though, like him, he translated Psalms, and ex-
ceeded him in piling up platitudes, couched in fervent
dithyrambs, in honour of the virtues of Elizabeth, it was
on Voltaire that his mind was set when he wandered
from the lyric drama to the eclogue, from idyl to
madrigal, from epigram to epitaph. There is perhaps
much to criticise in this. But criticism did not exist
in a society which, intellectually peaking, was in the
embryonic state, which possessed far more appetite than
taste, and looked less at the quality than at the quan-
tity of the dishes set before it. In 1759 Soumarokov
conceived the idea of founding a literary periodical, the
first seen in his country, modelled on those of Steele and
Addison, and thus opened a path which was not to be
retrodden till Bielinski appeared upon the scene, nearly
a century later. The best Soumarokov could achieve
in this publication was to imitate Boileau, in a purely
external criticism, directed against faults of language, of
grammar and syntax, and strongly coloured by personal
likes and dislikes. Thus Lomonossov was most fre-
quently attacked, for having turned the language of
82 RUSSIAN LITERATURE
Moscow into an "Archangel patois^* and Soumaro-
kov's temper, which was swayed by his wounded vanity,
was allowed its full play.
But it was vanity alone that had made him a man
of letters, and how exasperating were the conditions,
moral and material, under which he worked ! He edited
a review. His occasional collaborators, Trediakovski,
Kozitski, Poletika, generally left all the labour to him,
and at the end of the first year his subscribers had all
deserted him. He managed a theatre. Out of his salary
of 5000 roubles he had to bear all the expenses of pro-
duction, and three parts of the seats were occupied by a
non-paying audience ! One day he was fain to warn
Chouvalov that there would be no performance, be-
cause there was no costume for " Trouvor " to put on !
The public, whether it paid or not, was coarse in its beha-
viour, talked loud, and " cracked nuts " during the per-
formance, and took much more interest in the dresses
of the actors and the persons of the actresses, than in
the action of the piec^.
These causes aggravated Soumarokov's natural sus-
ceptibility until it became a real malady. He took it
into his head to compile a book of comparative extracts
from his own odes and those of Lomonossov, to prove
that he himself was the only person who knew how to
imitate Malherbe and Rousseau. In 1755 the Mercure
de France published a detailed and very laudatory
account of one of his tragedies. This sufficed to con-
vince him that in future he would take rank with Vol-
taire. He sent some of his works to Ferney, received
a batch of compliments in return, and thought himself
qualified to share the throne of the literary world with
its master. In Russia, at all events, he claimed despotic
SOUMAROKOV 83
powers. In 1764 he desired leave to travel abroad at the
expense of the Crown. " If Europe were described by
such a pen as mine, an outlay of 300,000 would seem
small. . . . What has been seen at Athens, what is now
to be seen in Paris, is also seen in Russia, by my care.
. . . In Germany, a crowd of poets has not produced
what I have succeeded in doing by my own effort."
His effort, great as it was, received a poor reward.
Chance did Soumarokov a bad turn when it made him
a would-be rival of Racine and Voltaire. His true
literary vocation was quite different. In the course of
his many attempts in different directions, he touched on
the form of literature in which Kantemir so delighted,
and himself found it to possess a strong and inspiring
charm. There is nothing very wonderful about the form
of his satires, fables, and apologues ; yet there is such
distinctness in his pictures, such vigour in his ideas, such •
intensity in his feeling, that even in the present day the
national genius betrays his influence in traits which have
become proverbial. He draws us pictures of local life,
thrust clumsily enough into the setting already borrowed
by Kantemir from Boileau, but far fresher and more
lively — his ideas — the humanitarian notions of his own
period, quite unsuited to the native Russian system,
introduced, nevertheless, some conception of liberty,
of tolerance, of intellectual progress, and, through
everything runs a deep, sincere, ingenuous feeling of
patriotism, attachment to his fatherland, and national
pride.
Notice, in the Chorus to the Corrupt Worlds the
story of the bird that flies back from foreign climes,
*' where men are not sold like cattle . . . where patri-
monies are not staked on a single card. . . . Yet the bird
84 RUSSIAN LITERATURE
returns as fast as its wings will carry it, and joyfully
perches on the branch of a Russian birch-tree."
The description of the death of '^ Trouvor " is a mere
transcription of that of Theramene. The soliloquy of
Demetrius (^' The diadem of the Tsars seems to tremble
on my brow") recalls that of Richard III., which Pouch-
kine, in his turn, was to remember. Yet the author of
Trouvor and Demetrius has not scrupled to direct his
satire against the combination of French habits and
literature which had taken root in his country. Lomo-
nossov's works, jealous though he was of him, convinced
him that the national literature was nearing a brighter
future. He perceived the rise of the new sap, rich
in originality. And it may be, indeed, that but for the
approaching period of exaggerated occidentalism arising
out of another German reign, that of Catherine the Great,
of Anhalt and Zerbst, his own effort might have won a
different result, and the nationalisation of the patrimony
created by the moujik of Archangel might have been
accelerated by half a century.
Soumarokov himself had no direct heirs. His colla-
borators in the department of the drama were Fiodor
Volkov (1729-1763) and Dmitrievski. Of the literary
work of the first named (who also distinguished himself
as an actor, an architect, a decorator, and stage-carpen-
ter), the only specimen remaining to us is a masquerade,
The Triumph of Minerva, published in 1763. Dmit-
rievski began by playing the female parts in Volkov's
company. After having spent two years abroad, he suc-
ceeded the manager as leading actor. I find him some
time later a member of the *^ Academy of Science," of
the *' Free Society of Economy," and of the *' Society of
Friends of Russian Literature." A man who had trodden
PRINCESS DOLGOROUKAIA 85
the soil on which VoUaire first saw the Hght could not
remain a mere player. He composed plays, made adap-
tations, and WTote a History of the Theatre in Russia^ the
original of which has been lost, but on which another
actor, ]. Nossov, founded a summary which has been
highly valued.
The scientific movement of this period, being distinct
from the literary, does not come within the scope of these
pages. Apart from the labours of Lomonossov and
Soumarokov, it is only represented by the work and
originating effort of a few meritorious foreigners —
Miiller, Schlozer, Bilfinger.
A good many memoirs have come dow^n to us from
the reign of Anna Ivanovna. The most deserving of
mention are those of Princess Dolgoroukaia, Prince
Chakhofskoi (1705-1772), Nachtchokine (died 1761), and
Danilov. Natalia Borissovna Dolgoroukaia (1713-
1770) was the heroine of a drama which drew many a tear
from Russian eyes, and inspired a whole pleiad of poets,
Kozlov among the number. She was likewise the proto-
type of an historical element wherein some observers
have perceived — and, it may be, rightly perceived — the
ideal side of modern Russia — the sublime counterbalance
to certain moral failings which mar the glory of her
mighty progress. She seems, almost a century before
their time, to herald the approach of those wives of the
Decembrists of 1825, who besought permission to follow
their husbands to Siberia and share their fate. She
was the daughter of Field-Marshal Boris Cheremetiev,
the valiant comrade in arms of Peter the Great, and up
to the eve of the catastrophe which was to render her an
object of eternal pity, her future promised brilliantly.
She was eighteen, radiantly beautiful, one of the greatest
86 RUSSIAN LITERATURE
heiresses in Russia, and betrothed to Ivan Dolgorouki,
the prime favourite of the reigning Tsar, Peter II.
Before her wedding-day dawned, all these joys had been
swept away. The Tsar's death, the favourite's disgrace,
the persecution that overwhelmed his entire family, con-
fiscation, banishment, cast the unhappy woman on to a
path of misery, which she was to tread, through sorrow
upon sorrow, until her life closed. She followed her
betrothed, whom she was resolved to make her husband,
to Berezov, a village far away on the Siberian moors.
She slipped furtively into the dungeon — a mere hole
dug in the frozen earth — where he was slowly dying of
hunger, bringing him food and her caresses. Not long
after, she saw him die in unspeakable anguish at Nov-
gorod, and she herself lived on, that the two children
born of their few hours of love might not be left mother-
less.
Elizabeth's accession recalled her to Moscow, but
the world saw her no more. As soon as her children's
education was completed, she repaired to Kiev, cast her
betrothal ring into the Dnieper, and took the veil. Her
memoirs were written in her convent cell. We look in
vain for a complaint ; only in the few lines she wrote
when she felt her end approaching, we read, " I hope,
every Christian soul will rejoice at my death, and say,
^ Her weeping is ended.' " Insensitive ? No ! Nor a pas-
sive victim either ! Proud, indeed, passionate, very irri-
table, incapable of forgetting that she was a Dolgoroukaia,
nor that Biron, the favourite of Anne, whom she believed
to be the author of all her sorrows, had made her uncle's
boots, a detail, by the way, in which her memory played
her false. Passing along the Oka River on her way to
Siberia, she bought a live sturgeon, and made it swim
MEMOIRS 87
behind her boat, so, she declared, as to have a companion
in her captivity. But though she never lost her feminine
sensitiveness and her patrician pride, she did not rebel.
She proved herself a true Christian by her resignation
and by her endurance ; she showed herself the worthy
daughter of a race which centuries of torture have in-
structed in the art of suffering. We shall find this trait
repeated.
The most striking feature of the other memoirs to
which I have referred is the alarming vacuum as regards
things moral, in which the authors, and the whole society
they describe in their reminiscences, appear to have lan-
guished.
The personages drawn by Danilov seem to have
served Von Visine and Catherine II. as models for the
comic types to which I shall presently refer.
CHAPTER IV
THE BONDAGE OF THE WEST— CATHERINE II.
Even in certain manuals published in foreign countries,
the reign of the Northern Semiramis is described as the
*' Golden Age" of Russian literature. The only justifica-
tion for this title lies in the amount of gold distributed by
the Tsarina among her French and German panegyrists.
The period of her reign is filled by a twofold labour, the
beginnings of which date farther back, and have been
already indicated in these pages. In the first place, we
have the hasty and feverish absorption of the huma-
nitarian ideas, symptoms of which we have already
noticed in the works of Soumarokov. The national
mind comes into contact, though still indirectly, and
by percolation through other countries, with English
thought. This external process is accompanied by
another, internal, or more secret, whereby a conscious
national individuality is gradually elaborated. This
development is assisted by the philosophical ideas
which have been imported from abroad. Soumaro-
kov's quarrels with individual foreigners generally led
him into wholesale opposition to France. His suc-
cessors showed more discretion. They summed up the
total of their exotic importations, and separated those
worth keeping from those which, even in their native
home, had already been cast aside. The natural conse-
quence was a feeling of disenchantment and self-exami-
CATHERINE 89
nation. This found expression, among the learned, by
the pubUcation of chronicles and other documents bear-
ing on the past history of the nation, and of books
containing the collected treasures of its literature ; the
foundation of a "Russian Academy," charged with the
duty of preparing a dictionary and a grammar of its
language; and the organisation of exploratory journeys
throughout the interior of the country. The same cause
gave rise, in the domain of literature, to a number of
works inspired by national subjects and idealising them
beyond all measure.
Thus two currents were formed, which, under the
names of Occidentalism, and of Nationalism, or Slavo-
philism, continue to flow even in the present day. In
the celebrated Set of Questions addressed to Catherine
by Von Visine, and looked on as an indiscretion by
the Tsarina, the disquieting problem arising out of
them — that of reconciling these two extremes — was
made apparent. The Tsarina knew nothing, and cared
little, about it. She began by favouring both move-
ments ; then, when they grew inconvenient, she opposed,
and even checked them absolutely, or something very
near it. Especially she encouraged the pseudo-classic
literature at the expense of those original produc-
tions springing from the popular instinct, of which
we have noticed the first-fruits in Frol Skobieiev. It
would not be just to cast the whole responsibility on
her. The same phenomenon may be observed in all
quarters, as the natural and inevitable result of the Re-
naissance, and the artificial culture it imposed. In this
manner Germany went so far as to forget her own native
language. For two centuries, German authors wrote
first in Latin and then in French. And the intellectual
90 RUSSIAN LITERATURE
capital of the country, richer than that of Russia, suf-
fered even more by this neglect. Yet, under an
autocratic regime like the Russian, every phase of life
depends more or less on the sovereign — either on his
influence or on his will. And when the ruler is himself
a writer, he has power, at all events, to regulate the pro-
gress of literature with a despotic hand, even if he does
not absolutely determine the direction of its develop-
ment. Russia was bound to go through her classical edu-
cation, but the stage need not have been such a long
one, and might have been less prejudicial to her natural
faculties.
Like the worthy descendant of Peter the Great she
claimed to be, Catherine began by opening her doors
and windows to every wind of heaven. She defied the
tempest, held disputations with Novikov, and admitted
Diderot to her most intimate circle. When the Ency-
clopedist's violent gestures grew displeasing to her, she
held her familiar conversations with him across a table,
and so continued to enjoy the ideas he communicated
to her. To her all this was a mere intellectual sport,
useful for the entertainment of leisure hours. The only
places, indeed, that were open to this current of fresh
air were her own palace, and those of a few of the
nobles who surrounded her. The people's huts, and
even the dwellings of the country gentlemen who had
been attracted to St. Petersburg, were still impene-
trable, hermetically sealed, every chink closed by tradi-
tion, bigotry, and ignorance. The outer breeze might
blow in, therefore, and do no harm. Within those
luxurious halls, it could always draw jeering notes
from Frederick II.'s flute, and weave them into some
gay country dance. Liberty, when it entered that
CATHERINE 91
circle, became mere license, an elegant screen for
debauchery.
But presently the West began to thunder in real
earnest. Instantly Catherine took fright. Let every-
thing be closed! Shutters, padlocks, triple locks on
every door ! Let no one move abroad I One man,
]§adichtchev, a candid earnest soul, persisted in remain-
ing out of doors, listening eagerly to the whirlwind,
noting down the clamour, which now terrified the
sovereign. "To prison with him!" she cried. He was
condemned to death. She commuted his sentence,
sent him to Siberia, and the Western and humanitarian
current was stopped short. The other, the Nationalist
current, still remained, and the reaction now begun
seemed likely to be favourable to it. Unfortunately,
among Slavophils of the stamp of Novikov there existed
a compromising leaven of humanitarian views. Novikov
was a " populariser." He distributed pamphlets and
founded schools. So he, too, went to prison, and
Catherine breathed freely once more. She was to have
peace at last. By the end of her reign scarcely any
one wrote. Under Paul I. nobody dared to speak.
This epoch corresponds, in the history of the evolu-
tion of the national genius, to a childish illness, natural
in itself, but aggravated by accidental circumstances ;
the most harmful of which was acclaimed by contem-
porary philosophers, and is acclaimed by some of their
present descendants, as a benefit sent from heaven.
Even during the period of great literary activity which
preceded the final check, Catherine's excessive Occi-
dentalism interfered with the normal development of
the tree, which was disturbed by the constant and exag-
gerated system of grafts imposed upon it. Catherine
r
92 RUSSIAN LITERATURE
was only a German, who had learnt Russian while she
ran barefoot about her room, but who knew French
far better. She wrote a great deal, she shared the
literary itch of her time, and in this sense she certainly
did a useful work of propagation. But in vain do we
seek for a single original idea in all her writings. She
gives us an heroic imitation of Voltaire, and even of
Shakespeare, and is surrounded by a legion of plagiarists,
all the humble slaves of Encyclopedic philosophy, of
Ossianic poetry, of bourgeois comedy, and of a whole
seraglio of foreign Muses, upon whom they wait as
shrill-voiced eunuchs, and no more. Even Di^rjavine
has none of the dash, the conviction, of Lomonossov,
nor his sonorous language.
The first specimen of the Tsarina's literary activity
was a *^ Miscellany " ( Vssiaka'ia Vssyatchind), a news-
paper published under her direction (1769-1770) by her
private secretary, Gregory Vassilievitch Kozitski. At a
later period she turned her attention to the drama, wrote
a series of comedies, plays, and operas, and, in 1783, went
back to journalism, and inserted satirical articles, notably
the Realities and Fictions {Byli i Niebylitsy) published
in The Interlocutor (Sobiessi^dnik) and in other journals.
When the French Revolution broke out, Semiramis put
away her inkstand.
There is a literary character about a great deal of
her private correspondence, and she composed for her
grandsons a little library (the Alexandro-ConstantinCy as
she called it), wherein figured instructive tales inspired by
Montaigne, Locke, Basedow, and Rousseau, a collection
of proverbs, and some allegorical stories founded on the
national legends.
In her Notes on Russian History j and in a refutation
CATHERINE 93
of the Abbe Chappe's Voyage in Siberia^ published under
the title of The Antidote j she also touched on science.
She must have had numerous collaborators, for she
could never write with ease in any language. Novikov
is supposed to have had a hand in some — the least in-
ferior — of her comedies ; and this hypothesis would
seem to find confirmation in the history of her relations
with the celebrated writer.
Her plays numbered about thirty, I believe. All that
now remain to us are eleven comedies and dramas,
seven operas, and five proverbs. In spite of Diderot's
assertion to the contrary, none of these possess the
smallest artistic value.
Catherine gave out, in fact, that in these dramatic
efforts of hers she only pursued three objects. First,
her own amusement ; second, the feeding of the national
repertory, which was sorely starved ; third, a means
of opposing Freemasonry. " O Temporal O Mores! "
gives us the picture of a sham devotee, Mme. Khanjak-
hina, who kneels in wrapt devotion before the sacred
pictures when her creditors come to ask for their
money, beats her servant-girls with her missal, and
runs from one church to another to collect gossip.
All this is easily recognised as a pleading in self-defence,
directed against those who were scandalised by the
free and joyous life led by the august writer. Another
comedy, Mine, Vortchalkhind s Wedding-Dayy repeats this
theme with some variations. The remainder, all of them
written after the author's quarrel with Novikov, are much
weaker. In one of these. The History of a Linen-Basket^
Catherine has adapted some scenes from The Merry
Wives of Windsor,
At the head of two of her pieces, Rurik and Oleg^ she
94 RUSSIAN LITERATURE
has written Imitated from Shakespeare. She had read
the EngUsh tragedian in Eschenberg's German transla-
tion, and had done her best to reproduce as much of her
model as she had been able to comprehend — no more
than some purely external features. Apart from these,
her Ruriky composed during her anti-revolutionary
period, is the outcome of the Encyclopedic spirit, and
expresses ideas and sentiments as foreign to the soul
of Shakespeare, probably, as to that of any Varegian
prince.
The other plays, written at the period of those
dreams of expansion which the Tsarina and Patiomkine
nursed in company, belongs more to the domain of
politics than to that of art or national history. In it we
are shown Oleg making his victorious entry wathin the
walls of Constantinople.
This was yet another way of fighting the Turks. To
wage war with the Freemasons both in the press and on
the stage, Catherine went back to the fortress of her
^* enlightened despotism." The Freemasons who ven-
tured to found schools and hospitals struck her in the
light of most presumptuous rivals. Was not that her
affair ? She did not treat her enemies fairly, and was
apt to confound such men as Novikov with Cagliostro.
Three of her comedies, Chamane of Siberia^ The Deceiver^
and The Deceived^ belonged to this category.
The sovereign's relations with Novikov had their
origin in a somewhat lively controversy between the
Micellanies and The Drone {Trout^gne). Novikov edited
this last journal. Catherine was anxious to win over
the laughers to her side. Naturally cheerful, with-
out a shadow of sentimentality, and a marked taste for
buffoonery, she worshipped Lesage, preferred Moliere
CATHERINE 95
to Racine, and especially enjoyed the comic element in
Shakespeare. When Novikov, in The Drone, attacked
the traditional vices of the political and social life of
Russia, which the Reform had done nothing to extirpate,
Catherine acknowledged the justice of his complaint, but
objected to the tragic view he took of matters. The
officials did wrong to steal, that was certain, and the
judges did wrong to take bribes ; but all the poor
wretches were exposed to so many temptations ! When
argument failed her she grew angry, reminded her
opponent that not so very long ago his behaviour
would have brought him into imminent risk of« making
acquaintance with the country of Chamaney and answered
him in the most conclusive manner by suppressing The
Drone (1770).
The publicist, thus silenced, grew convinced, more
or less sincerely, that bitter criticism, pitiless satire,
acrimony and anger, were not the best moralising agents
he could choose. He made overtures of reconciliation,
to which Catherine wiUingly responded. They met, they
came to an understanding, and collaborated in a new
publication. The Painter {Jivopisiets), and also, probably,
in the comedies O Tempora ! O Mores I and The Wedding-
Da.}^, in both of which Novikov's pet ideas, his hatred of
Gallomania and his anxiety concerning the miserable • ^
condition of the Russian peasant, are clearly seen. -J
But this work in double harness was not destined to
be of long duration. In 1774 The Painter, accused
of being connected with Freemasonry, was suppressed
in its turn, and the budding progress of the Russian
press suffered a check. The St. Petersburg Messenger,
which began to appear in 1779, shared its predecessor's
fate before two years were out ; and the Interlocutor of
96 RUSSIAN LITERATURE
the Friends of the Russian Tongue^ which replaced it in
1783, marks a return to the official journalism of the
preceding period. In this publication Catherine in-
serted one of her most curious works, under the title of
Realities and Fictions. In it we find a series of hard-
hitting articles, with no connecting link save a general
tone of humorous banter directed against the society of
that day. They are always full of gaiety, go, and youth,
— the imperial authoress was then fifty — of wit which
entertains itself, and seems sure (sometimes without
sufficient reason) that it will amuse others, together with
a close knowledge of every social circle, even the lowest,
and an evident moral intention which surprises us in
the case of the heroine of a romance which had already
reached so many chapters. The satirical touch seems
heavier here than in the comedies ; the morality more
easy-going. We are far from the days of Novikov.
But Catherine must have some one to contradict
her. The journal was supposed to be a tilt-yard, where
all opinions were free to meet. She found Von Visine.
He drew up his famous Set of Questions^ and inquired,
among other things, " Why buffoons, wags, and harle-
quins, who in times gone by had no occupation except
to amuse people, were now given places and honours
which did not seem intended for them ? " The question
was a direct thrust at Narychkine, one of the sovereign's
intimate friends. She considered it very impertinent,
and the author was obliged to apologise humbly, and
to renounce all future efforts of the kind. Princess
Dachkov, w^ho now entered the lists, fared no better.
At the first thrust, Catherine put a stop to the encounter.
She wrote to Grimm, ^^This journal will not be so good
in future, because the buffoons have quarrelled with the
CATHERINE 97
editors. These last cannot fail to suffer. It was the
delight of the court and the town."
The buffoons — her own self — grew serious and grave,
replaced Realities and Fictions by Notes on Russian
History, -^nd the journal did actually lose the greater part
of its readers. The spirit of these articles is that of
The Antidote, with the same evident anxiety to defend
the threatened prestige of the nation, and the same
use of scientific arguments which are quite beside the
mark. Thus she wanders on, irrationally and impertur-
bably, till the year 1784, when her taste for literature
is quenched, for some considerable time, by the death
of the handsome Lanskoi'. The pedagogic works to
which I have already referred belong to the last period
of the Tsarina's life. In them she drew liberally on
Locke and Rousseau, while simultaneously applying the
theory of the superiority of education over teaching,
borrowed from the two great writers, to the bringing
up of her grandsons.
Catherine served the cause of science and literature
less by her writings than by an initiatory instinct which
was frequently happy, and by her really royal gift of
grouping individual efforts. The famous Dictionary of
Languages and Dialects, published at St. Petersburg in
1 787-1 789, with the assistance of the Russian Academician
and traveller Pallas, the German bookseller and critic
Nicolai, Bacmeister, and Arndt, was produced in this
way, and is a landmark in the history of linguistic study.
Further, though in a limited circle, and under the form
of a somewhat capricious dilettantism, she propagated
a taste for science and literature among people whose
favourite pastime had hitherto consisted in watching
wild beasts fight, or fighting with their own fists. And
98 . RUSSIAN LITERATURE
finally — though for only too short a time — she inaugu-
rated a regime of liberty in press matters, which Russia
v^ was never to know again.
I have already explained the manner in which Cathe-
rine's intervention and her influence may have been
harmful. A consideration of the works of Von Visine
will enable my readers to judge this point more clearly.
The greatest writer of this period was a German.
His ancestors served under the banner of the Teutonic
Order of the Sword-bearers, and were numbered among
the most doughty foes of the Slav race. The family
settled in Russia in the days of Ivan the Terrible,
and Denis Ivanovitch von Visine (1744-1792) was
born at Moscow. To another German, at whom, in
a biographical essay, he pokes rather spiteful fun, he
probably owed the fact of his becoming a playwright.
A performance of a piece by the Danish dramatist,
Holberg, given in St. Petersburg during the reign of
Elizabeth, appears to have settled his vocation. In
1766, while performing the functions of Secretary to
the Minister, I. P. lelaguine, he wrote his Brigadier,
The reading of this comedy met with so brilliant a
success that all the great people in St. Petersburg, in-
cluding the Empress, desired to hear it. But the author
was at that moment in the throes of a religious crisis,
which is said to have been brought about by the discourse
of the Procurator of the Holy Synod, Tch^bichev, who,
though he represented the highest ecclesiastical authority
in the country, was an atheist. His influence over Von
Visine's mind was successfully overcome by that of
Samuel Clarke, in whose theological works the writer
delighted. He even went so far as to translate some
chapters of the Treatise on the Existence of Cody and
VON VISINE 99
grew calmer in the process. But idleness fell upon his
pen. He climbed the professional ladder, became sec-
retary to the Minister for Foreign Affairs, N. S. Panine,
in 1769, grew rich, and travelled abroad. He sojourned
at Leipzig, at Lyons, at Montpellier, and finally at Paris,
whence he wrote Panine a series of letters which have
attracted much attention, but which do not constitute
a masterpiece. It was not till 1782, after an eclipse
lasting sixteen years, that he reappeared on the literary
horizon, with the Set of Questions which so upset Cathe-
rine's temper, followed by another comedy. The Minor ^
which at once carried him to the very front. A year
after he was abroad again ; the death of Panine, the
displeasure of the Empress, and other worries, together
with his own dissipated life, had ruined his health. At
forty he was a mere wreck. Paralysis laid its hand on
him ; then, in 1786, he planned a fresh attempt at inde-
pendent journalism, was checked by a formal veto from
the censorship, and died at last in 1792, in the midst
of a second crisis of moral prostration and religious
fanaticism, resembling that which was to mark the last
days of Gogol.
Von Visine's talent is essentially satirical. Even when
he was a student at the Moscow University, his witty
sayings won him constant successes, and his Brigadier
may be taken as a prelude to Gogol's manner, though
with much less art, and a complete absence of the ideal.
The sense of his satire strikes us as being purely negative.
The author has intended to demonstrate the fatal effect
of French habits and education, but he overwhelms
his characters, whether representing the ancient or the
modern society, whether affected by this education or not,
with an equal share of ridicule for their moral baseness.
loo RUSSIAN LITERATURE
The Brigadier himself, a type of the old school, who
reads nothing but the ^' Military Regulations/' and never
thinks of anything but his Uhine, is not very likely to
attract much sympathy. The figure of his wife places
us in the difficulty of not knowing whether to admire
her for her goodness and simplicity, or to despise her for
her folly and stinginess. The character placed in con-
trast with these unattractive types — Ivanouchka, the
Brigadier's son, brought up by French tutors — has no
solid qualities to serve as background to his ludicrous
features. The intrigue is weak, and vulgar farce takes
the place of comic power. In this copy of seventeenth-
century models, Holberg and Dryden, Von Visine only
contrives to give the impression of his own laborious
search after coarse effect, and a revelation of a condition
of easy morals, the effect of which, from the beneficial
point of view, is hard to discover.
The Minor follows on The Brigadier^ just as the second
part of Dead Souls was to follow on its predecessor, as
the result of a similar effort on the author's part to fill
up the void caused by the negative system which, in the
first instance, they both employed. In this second play
we have, besides Mme. Prostakova, who has learnt no-
thing and forgotten nothing, and who is shocked when
she hears that one of her female serfs has ventured,
being ill, to go to bed (" she actually has the impudence
to think she has birth ! ") ; and besides her son, Mitro-
fanouchka (the Minor), who has gained nothing from his
coarse and stupid tutors except an absolute absence of
the moral sense, other more ideal figures — Sofia, a young /
lady intended to become the wife of Mitrofanouchka,
but who reads Pension's book on education, and dreams
of a very different kind of husband ; her uncle, Staro-
VON VISINE loi
doume, who has perused the Instructions to the Legis-
lative Commissio7iy and absorbed all the principles therein
contained ; and, finally, Pravdine, the good tckinovik, the
representative of ^^enlightened despotism," who inter-
venes at the close of the play, like a Deus ex inachindj
to clear up the plot and put everything in its place.
Unluckily, while in The Brigadier we were left to choose
between two equally repulsive realities, our choice in
The Minor must be made, to all appearances, between
reality and fiction. Mme. Prostakova and her son are crea-
tures of flesh and blood, frequently to be met with in the
society of that day. But a consultation of the memoirs
of the period suffices to convince us of the unlikeli-
hood of the existence of such a character as Sofia — not
to mention the young lady's insufferable pedantry — or
Pravdine, a model functionary, who finds himself sorely
puzzled to reconcile his ideas with his tastes, and his
attachment to the good old times with his enthusiasm
for the Reform. This will also be noticed in the case
of Gogol's heroes.
As regards workmanship; the play gives proof of a
more thorough study of the Western models, and hence
it somewhat resembles a harlequin's cloak. The geo^
graphical examination, during which Mitrofanouchka
reveals his stupidity, is copied from Voltaire's Jeannot et
Collin,
The ideas expressed by Starodoume belong in great
measure to the Nationalist doctrines of that period, and
have much in common with those of the modern Slavo-
phil theory. The view taken of the Western world is
correspondingly narrow and imperfect. Von Visine him-
self only regarded the philosophical current of his time,
which both attracted and alarmed him, as a corrupting
I02 RUSSIAN LITERATURE
element, and quite overlooked the principle of freedom
it involved. Thus, when he first meets it, he " invokes
every text in the Bible to exorcise the foreign devil,"
as Dostoievski puts it. His letters from France betray
this mental inclination, and the determination at which
he had already arrived to set up a new sun, to rise over
the Eastern plains in opposition to the setting sun of the
West. ^^We are beginning. They are near their end.
To us belongs the future, and the choice of a form of
national existence appropriate to our national genius."
Here we have the watchword of the Akssakovs and
Khomiakovs of the future. As a traveller. Von Visine
was much what he was as a dramatist. We notice the
same lack of direct observation, and the same industrious
effort to replace this want by easy plagiarism. His criti-
cisms of and invectives against French society, which
have been admired as specimens of the straightforward-
ness and clearsightedness of the Russian mind, are simply
copied from Duclos' Consider-ations sur les Mceurs du Steele,
from Diderot's Pensees Philosophiques, and from some pam-
phlets emanating from the German press of that period.
As a journalist. Von Visine has given us his best effort
in the Set of QiiestionSy to which Thave already referred.
In the articles prepared for the newspaper, the publi-
cation of which was stopped by the censor, Starodoume
reappears on the scene, full of nai've astonishment be-
cause the Instructions to the Legislative Commission have
not resulted in the framing of any law. The future had
yet other surprises in store for him. Even in this depart-
ment Von Visine was an incorrigible imitator. The
letters of Dourikine, which he intended for the same
newspaper, may be found word for word in the works of
Rabener, from which they were copied.
LOUKINE 103
The success of The Minor was stupendous. After the
first performance, Patiomkine called out to the author,
^^ Die now, at once ! — or never wTite again ! " Such tri-
umphs were not to be repeated on the Russian stage for
many a day.
In the hands of Jakov Borissovitch Kniajnine (1747-
1791), the author of a Dido copied from Metastasio and
Lefranc de Perpignan, and of some pseudo-classic works,
such as Rosslav and Vadiin^ the Russian drama fell
back into the rut in which Soumarokov had run. And
indeed Kniajnine was Soumarokov's son-in-law. Vadim
attained the undeserved honour of attracting Catherine's
displeasure. The play celebrated the exploits of a mili-
tary leader who fought with Rurik for the independence
of Novgorod. Kniajnine's comedies are mere adapta-
tions of French pieces.
In Chicaneryy by Vassili lakovlevitch Kapnist (1757-
1824), a piece which shared the ill-luck of Vadirn^ and
could not be presented to the public till after Catherine's
death, there are some pleasing features. But it is
not so much a play as a pamphlet in dialogue, contain-
ing a bold and violent attack against the judicial circles
of the day. Paul I., who liked violence of any kind,
authorised its performance, and considered it ^' did a
public service." But though the play entertained the
public vastly, and though a considerable number of its
lines, which lashed the members of the national magis-
tracy severely, have become proverbs, history does not
tell us that a bribe the less has passed into the Russian
magistrates' hands since its sensational appearance.
Far more interesting, from the artistic point of view,
is the contemporary attempt of Vladimir Ignati£-
viTCH LOUKINE (1757-1824) to accHmatise '^middle-class
8
I04 RUSSIAN LITERATURE
comedy " in Russia. The idea might well seem strange
in a country which, at that time, possessed no middle
class whatever. But this effort was concerned with sub-
ject rather than with form, and especially with the with-
drawal of the classic buskin, and the continuation of that
process of evolution of which Richardson had been the
inaugurator, and Diderot the kindly theorist. With these
Loukine also associated an inkling of independent lean-
ings in the direction of the Nationalist movement. He
thought it desirable that a man of the people should
speak from the stage in his own tongue, and not in
that of Racine as transposed by Soumarokov. This
view he ventured to express in his prefaces, prefixed,
unluckily, to translations and adaptations from the
French. For he was nothing but an imitator, after all,
^' serving up Campistron, Marivaux, and Beaumarchais
in the Russian style," as Novikov puts it. He did not
know how to put his own theory into practice. Though
he fought with the holders of the old formulae, he never
could succeed in drawing his own feet out of their shoes,
and he suffered, besides, from the inferiority, not of his
talent — for that, on both sides, was poor or altogether
lacking — but of his social status. He was of humble
birth, his rank in the official hierarchy was modest, and in
Russia, until quite lately, literature has been an essen-
tially aristocratic province.
Loukine's fate strongly resembled that of Trediakovski,
and the struggle he commenced was not to be decided in
favour of his views until the appearance of Karamzine,
who, appealing to Lessing and Shakespeare, succeeded
in introducing, or rather reintroducing, the first element
of realism, the germ of all future growth, into the litera-
ture of his country.
DIERJAVINE 105
Yet this essentially national and popular element did
contrive, even in Catherine's lifetime, and with some
slight help from her, to make its appearance on the stage
under another form, exceedingly fashionable at that
period — the comic opera. Thus labelled, the satirical
spirit of the race, and that love of parody which in all
Russians, as in Peter the Great himself, is but another
form of the critical spirit, gave birth to a succession of
works closely allied with the type produced in later days
by Offenbach. We see the same grotesque and facetious
travesty of the ancients, the same light and cynical opinion
of mankind, the same kindly and sympathetic glance,
cast, in spite of all, on the lower strata of the populace.
The whole effect is confused. Lessons to proprietors on
their duties to their serfs are mingled with the defence
of serfdom itself. But this chaos of feeling and ideas
obtains in all the literature of the day. Ablessimov
(1724-1784) was for many years the favourite writer in
this line. Dierjavine himself tried his hand at it, but
there was nothing of the playwright about the author of
Felitsa.
The glory of Dierjavine, like that of Lomonossov,
met with varying fortunes. To-day the latter is held the
greatest of the Russian poets of the eighteenth century,
and full justice is not done to Lomonossov unless we
also class him among men of science. Until the advent
of Pouchkine, that great demolisher of reputations, Dier-
javine's importance was steadily on the increase. The
words ''great poet" were pronounced regardless of
chronology and comparison, and he was even called
'' a god." Pouchkine fell upon the idol, and Bielinski's
assault was still more violent. The "god" was torn
from Olympus, and was denied even the title of '' artist."
io6 RUSSIAN LITERATURE
As a matter of truth, he was, Hke all the writers of his
generation, a dilettantey who only haunted Parnassus
from time to time, as other more tempting or more
lucrative vocations — those of the courtier or the minis-
terial functionary — permitted. In these circles he has
left regrettable memories, which have served as weapons
for the severity of his posthumous detractors. The
publication of his Memoirs, in 1857 (their frankness
is great, even too great), cast a flood of light on this
part of his career, and darkened the shadow that already
brooded over the rest.
Gabriel Roman ovitch Di£rjavine (1743-18 16), the
scion of an ancient Tartar family, made his first studies at
the Gymnasium of Kazan, where, if his recollection may
be depended on, *^ religion was taught without a catechism,
languages without grammar, and music without notes ! "
Yet here he learnt sufficient German to enable him to
go through a complete course of poets — Gellert, Hage-
dorn, Heller, Kleist, Herder, and Klopstock — in the
original. This done, and his general studies completed,
he entered the army, like everybody else, and spent
twelve years in the barracks of the Preobrajenski Regi-
ment.
His Odes to Tchitalgat (a mountain of that name),
inspired by, or even translated from, Frederick II. (Fre-
derick II.'s verses were the wretched poet's model!),
an Epistle to Michelsohn, the victor of Pougatchov,
and the beginnings of an epic poem entitled The
PougatchovchtchinUy all belong to this period. Follow-
ing the plan drawn up by Tatichtchev, the author of
these efforts passed into the ranks of the civil em-
ployes of the Government, and made rough draughts
of financial regulations, while he sang the charms of
DIERJAVINE 107
Plenire, a fair Portuguese whose happy husband he
became. In 1778 he contributed to the St. Petersburg
Messenger^ inserting in its columns two rhymed pane-
gyrics of Peter the Great, an epistle to Chouvalov, and
the famous Ode to Sovereigns, which was later to earn
him the reputation of a Jacobin. His literary reputa-
tion was not established until the publication, in 1782, of
Felitsa — a poem founded on a tale by Catherine II., in
which a good fairy of that name, who represents Happi-
ness, rewards a virtuous young prince. This good fairy
could be none other than Catherine herself. Dierjavine
hinted the fact, and was rewarded with a gold snuff-box
containing five hundred ducats. Soon afterwards, how-
ever, Felitsa invited the poet to retire from the adminis-
trative career, wherein he did not show sufficient docility.
*' Let him write verses ! " He wrote them for Zoubov
and for Patiomkine, the rival favourites, and by this
shady device contrived to gain forgiveness, and even to
enter the sovereign's intimate circle as her private sec-
retary. But one day, as he was working with her, the
second secretary, Popov, was called in.
*^ Remain here ; this gentleman is too free with his
hands."
Zoubov and Patiomkine sufficed Catherine at the
moment. Yet she forgave him, but fancied such an act
of clemency deserved another laudatory poem. None
came. On close acquaintance, Felitsa ceased to inspire
the poet. They parted, and Dierjavine, banished to the
Senate, climbed the slippery slope no more, until the days
of Paul and Alexander I. He had grown wise. The
man who had been called a Jacobin, the apologist of the
humanitarian ideas attributed to ^^ Felitsa," President of
the College of Commerce in 1800, Minister of Justice in
J
1 08 RUSSIAN LITERATURE
1802, sent forth verses against the enfranchisement of the
serfs, and succeeded, in 1803, in getting himself dismissed
as a ^^reactionary " ! He spent the last thirteen years of
his life on his own property of Zvanka, where he wrote
his Memoirs, and, when more than sixty years of age,
turned his attention to the stage. In 181 1 he founded,
at St. Petersburg, in conjunction with A. S. Chichkov,
the ^'Society of Friends of the Russian Tongue," which
in itself was an attempt to react against the new literary
tendencies, represented by Karamzine and Joukovski.
He is said to have realised the inanity of this attempt
before he died. On the 8th of January 1815, at a public
gathering at the College of Tsarskoie-Sielo, he heard one
of the pupils read some verses of his own composition.
He congratulated the young author, and sighed, " My
day is past I " The pupil's name was Pouchkine. I
greatly fear the story must be ascribed to some accom-
modating flight of the imagination, for when we read
the verses in question, we find that they contain a
lofty eulogy of Catherine II., her grandson, and of Dier-
javine himself. The workmanship is in Dierjavine's
own style, and nothing about it betokens the future
author of Eugene Onieguine,
In Catherine's time poetry was not — it has scarcely
been, even up to the present day, in Russia — what
other conditions of existence have made it in other
countries — the natural blossoming of the national life, a
delight, an ornament. In its origin especially, it was a
weapon of attack and defence, which some chosen
spirits took up against the calamities of the common life.
Thus it is that satire is the dominant note, that com-
plaint runs through and pervades its every accent, that
the gloomiest pessimism underlies it all. And even this
DIfiRJAVINE 109
need not have prevented Dierjavine from becoming a
great poet. But he was, above all things, a man of
his own time. His work is like a mirror, wherein we
see every aspect and every phase of Catherine's reign
reflected. This being so, it gives us an equal proportion
of patches of light and pools of darkness, much spirit,
a certain dignity, no personal feeling for beauty, and
no moral sense whatever. Dierjavine only saw beauty
through other men's eyes, and frequently lost sight of
goodness altogether. Now and then his voice rings with
an accent of dignity, but he always produces the sen-
sation that we are listening to a well-conned lesson.
Oftener yet his muse seems to have wandered into evil
resorts, where degradation of character is swiftly followed
by debauch of talent.
Until he wrote Felitsa^ he remained the pupil of
Trediakovski and the imitator of Lomonossov. But
this last author towered far above the stature of his imi-
tator's talent. Dierjavine had the sense to acknowledge
it, and, advised by some of his friends, he condescended
to Anacreon, taking Horace and Ossian on his w^ay. He
knew neither Latin, Greek, nor English. His friends,
Lvov, Kapnist, and Dmitriev, more educated, though
less gifted, than himself, set themselves to overcome
this difficulty. Their assistance even extended to very
copious corrections, which may still be traced on the
poet's manuscripts.
Felitsa, like most of his poems, is a mixture of satire
and ode. Catherine is extolled, contemporary habits are
criticised. The general tone betrays the humourist.
The goddess of Happiness descends from heaven and
becomes a Tartar princess, whose virtues are sung by a
murza. This tmirza^ who reappears in another poem
no RUSSIAN LITERATURE
{The Vision of the Murza^ 1783), was, we are told, sin-
cere. Was this still true when, at a later date, he lauded
the exploits of ^'the Russian Mars" (Patiomkine) and of
Zoubov? It would be hardly safe, indeed, to seek the
origin of this personage on the Russian steppe. I think
we are more likely to find it in two numbers of the
Spectator (159 and 604), where, under the same title,
The Vision of Mirza, Addison has used the same allegory
to convey an identical idea, — the luminous transparence
of life under the light of the imagination.
In the Odes on the Capture of Warsaw (1794) and the
poems dealing with Souvarov's exploits in Italy, the
imitation of Ossian is closer yet. In fact, the poet ^' of
the clouds and seas" is actually mentioned by name.
At the same time we perceive a progressive accentuation
of the note of melancholy philosophy and philosophic
moralising, of the inclination to ponder on the mysteri-
ous depths of human existence, of longings for a higher
ideal of greatness and happiness, of meditation on death
and eternity, and appeals to truth, justice, and good-
ness. This is the dominant tone in the Epistles ad-
dressed to his early and life-long friends Lvov, Kapnist,
Chouvalov, Narychkine, and Khrapovitski. Taking his
work as a whole, a poetic festival at which the mock
Scottish bard thus elbows Horace, Anacreon really rules
the feast, and Diogenes, screened by Epicurus, often
makes himself far too much at home.
In the dramatic efforts which Dierjavine sent forth at
the very end of his life, his views were of the most ambi-
tious nature. He dreamt of a theatre which should be a
school like that of Greece, and he claimed to establish
it on a wide popular basis, drawn alike from the history
and the poetry of the nation. The publication, in 1804,
DIERJAVINE III
of a collection of Bylines by Klioutcharev inspired him
to the composition of a Dobrynia, in the fourth act of
which he introduced a chorus of young Russian girls.
At the same time, to the great scandal of the ** Society
of Friends of the Russian Tongue," the veteran poet, like
Joukovski, went so far as to compose ballads on popular
subjects. But his heart was with the classics, and he
did not withstand the temptation to clap a mask, bor-
rowed from Corneille, upon his Dobjynia, and so dis-
figure the character completely. But indeed, as I have
already said, he had no scenic talent.
Still, when Pouchkine denies him, generally and
absolutely, every artistic gift, he goes too far. The ex-
grenadier's language gives him a splendid opening.
" Dierjavine," he writes, "knew nothing either of the
grammar or the spirit of the Russian tongue (in this he
was inferior to Lomonossov); he had no idea of style nor
harmony, nor even of the rules of versification. . . .
Reading his work, you would think you were read-
ing a bad translation of an uncouth original. Truly his
mind worked in Tartar, and never had time to learn to
write Russian " (Letters to Baron Delwig).
I feel a natural shyness about contradicting such an
authority. Yet the "Tartar's" language strikes me, in
places, at all events, as being very expressive, plastic, and
powerful, if not exceedingly correct. His verse, though
less full than Lomonossov's, has more simplicity, more ~1
freedom, much greater flexibility, and, in the use of the new
metres, which broke the old classic uniformity, a fertility ^
of resource by which Pouchkine himself appears to me
to have profited. I believe that the man himself, the
tchinovniky the courtier, has compromised the poet's cause
in the eyes of this judge.
112 RUSSIAN LITERATURE
In the department of lyric poetry, Dierjavine has had
a host of imitators, most of them forgotten at the present
day, such as Kostrov (lermiel Ivanovitch, died 1796),
Petrov (VassiU Petrovitch, died 1800), an imitator of
Addison, and, as a result of five years spent in England
while translating Milton's Paradise Lostj a fervent ad-
mirer of English poetry. The bard of Felitsa wrote
no epic, though the whole of his literary work may be
regarded as an historical evocation of Catherine's reign.
He left the honour of following in Homer's footsteps to
Kheraskov.
If we desired, with a view to comparative study, to
possess a map whereon the style of the Iliad^ that of
the Alneidy that of Jerusalem Delivered, and possibly
of the Henriade as well, are set forth side by side, with-
out the employment of the smallest artifice likely to
result in their confusion, w^e could do no better than
to glance at the Rossiad or the Vladimir of Michael
Matvi£i£vitch Kh£raskov (1733-1807).
This poet has conscientiously made his zephyrs blow
and his dryads weep in the forests round Kazan, and
industriously amalgamated the features of Agamemnon
and Godefroi de Bouillon in the person of Ivan the
Terrible. The Rossiad is a history of the conquest
of Kazan, with which the writer has connected the
more modern enterprises of Catherine's reign, and to
this bond a great proportion of its success was due.
Kheraskov was a scholar, an academic student, who had
strayed into the domain of poetry. He had been a
soldier (he belonged to an old Wallachian family),
curator of the Moscow University, and director of the
theatre of that city, and wielded considerable literary
influence by means of two periodical publications, to
NOVELS 1 1 3
which the best writers of the time contributed. In
1775 he became a Freemason and supported the propa-
ganda of Novikov and his German master, Schwartz,
obtaining a professorial chair for the first, and farming-
the printing of the University to the second. His epic
poems have a strong flavour of mysticism. In the
Rossiad there is a struggle between good and evil ;
in Vladimir^ a struggle between Pagan instincts and
Christian faith, with, here and there, a victory won by
the better element, thanks to the intervention of occult
forces, less connected with the Gospel than with the
Kabala, which put forw^ard in the most unevangelical
fashion, and on the esoteric principle of the opposing of
evil by evil, the struggle of lie against lie, working out
the final triumph of truth and virtue.
Those who have the curiosity to look will find the
same ideas and tendencies in numerous novels by Khera-
skov, imitated from Fenelon and Marmontel. They are
also to be observed, in a generalised and popularised
form, in the strange application by other contemporary
Russian writers of their studies of the sensualist novels
imported from France. It must not be forgotten that
in Russia Gogol was destined to be taken for an imitator
of Paul de Kock ! These Russian adapters accept these
novels as satires, and superadd a moral intention. Thus
we see Tchoulkov and Ismailov making astonishingly
realistic attempts to Russify the popular type of Faublas.
Richardson's novels also found many Russian readers,
and some few imitators, at this period. Among these
last was Fiodor Emine, author of the Adventures of
Miramondy which some have taken to be an autobio-
graphy. Miramond is a sort of Telemachus, travelling
under the care of a mentor, a near relation, it would
114 RUSSIAN LITERATURE
seem, of the author's. The journey is an eventful one ;
master and pupil find it hard to agree, and the internal
discord which is the general and characteristic feature
of contemporary literature becomes very evident. The
strife and distressing contradiction between what the
WTiter has culled from every foreign hand, and what he
desires to retain of his own native possessions, is still
more visible in the Douchenka (*^ Little Psyche ") by Hyp-
politus Fiodorovitch Bogdanovitch (1743-1803), a poem
which made a tremendous stir at the time of its appear-
ance, and had the honour, at a later period, of inspiring
one of Pouchkine's first poetic efforts.
The Douchenka proves, on a closer examination, to be
nothing but a versified adaptation of the "Amours de
Psyche et de Cupidon " of La Fontaine, who, as we
know, borrowed his subject from '^The Golden Ass" of
Apuleius. To this Bogdanovitch has merely added a
few episodes of revolting obscenity, together with a cer-
tain personal sentiment in his conception of Psyche.
Douchenka is a depraved and vulgar flirt, to whom
Zeus consents to restore her physical loveliness for the
sake of the beauty of a soul which charms him, even as
it is, and does not appear to be without charm in the
poet's eyes. Bogdanovitch lived on intimate terms with
Kheraskov, Novikov, and Schwartz. Vassili Ivanovitch
Maikov (1728-1778), who, writing in the same heroi-
comic style, has descended to indecent parody, was
also a member of this circle. His lelssei (or ''Angry
Bacchus ") is a mere piece of filthiness.
La Fontaine had a better pupil in the person of
Ivan Ivanovitch Khemnitzer (1745-1784), the first of the
Russian fabulists, if the fables of Kantemir and Sou-
marokov are taken for what they really are — satires.
FOREIGN INFLUENCES 115
This foreigner — he came of a German family, probably
belonging to Chemnitz, in Silesia, who wrote German
verses in his youth, and developed into a mere dilettante
in Russian literature in his riper age (he was Consul-
General at Smyrna when he died) — shared his French
master's peculiarities, his almost childish nature, his
shrewd intelligence, and his simple good-heartedness.
Simpler, less of an artist than La Fontaine, less senti-
mental than Gellert, he is almost the only Russian fable-
writer w^ho possesses a touch of originality.
Foreign literature was at that time rolling into 1
Russia like the flood after a storm, in foam-flecked
waves, W'hich stirred the mud upon the soil beneath,
and hollowed out great pits upon its surface. From j
the year 1768 onwards, Catherine allotted 5000 roubles 1
yearly from her privy purse, for translations from foreign
languages. She put a hand to the work herself, in a ^
translation of Marmontel's Belisaire^ and Von Visine,
Kniajnine, and Kheraskov shared the labour. A per-
manent committee of translators sat at the Academy
of Sciences. Various societies were formed for the
same purpose. Rekhmaninov, a land-owner in the
Government of Tambov, translated and published the
works of Voltaire. The director of the College of Kazan,
Verevkine, undertook the whole of Diderot's Encyclo-
pcedia, Russian extracts from French authors, The
Spirit of Voltaire, of Rousseau, of Helvetius, had a large
circulation. This propaganda had no political effect,
and its humanitarian value strikes us, at this distance
of time, as utterly insignificant. The very noblemen who
crow^ded to pay their court at Ferney, and pressed their
own hospitality on Rousseau, protested against the
enfranchisement of the serfs, prematurely proposed by
ii6 RUSSIAN LITERATURE
two members of the ^' Legislative Commission," Korovine
and Protassov. The negative side of French philo-
sophy, its religious scepticism, was the only real attrac-
tion it held for them. This involved no sacrifice on
their part. At the close of the eighteenth century no-
thing in the political and social organisation of Russia
had changed, but the country swarmed with free-thinkers,
and this state of mind brought about a natural reaction,
a sudden swelling of the mystic current which accident
had momentarily driven into the muddy bed of local
Freemasonry. Radichtchev and Novikov personified
these two phases of the intellectual life of the period.
Born of a noble family, and educated in the Pages'
School, Alexander Nikolai£vitch Radichtchev (1749-
1802) is a typical though somewhat eccentric specimen
of a generation of well-born men, who drank from
the goblet of philosophy, and turned giddy in conse-
quence. At Leipzig he spent four years. While lend-
ing an inattentive ear to the instructions of Gellert
and Platner, he was applying his whole strength to the
study of Voltaire, Rousseau, Helvetius, and Mably. After
his return to Russia, a perusal of the Abbe Raynal's
Histoire des Indes and of Sterne's Sentimental Journey
threw him into a state of violent excitement, wherein
good judges, Pouchkine among the number, have
thought they perceived symptoms of madness. His
Journey to St. Petersburg and Moscow y published in 1790,
was the expression of these feelings. The author has
borrowed the general form of his narrative, and even
some characteristic episodes — such as that of the monk
of Calais, easily recognised under the lineaments of a
philosophic church chorister — from Sterne. From Vol-
taire he draws his libertine scepticism, his hatred of
RADICHTCHEV 117
fanaticism, and scorn of prejudice. His philanthropy
comes from Rousseau and Raynal ; his cynicism from
Diderot. If to these we add, and reconcile as best
we may, his professions of orthodoxy, joined to tirades
against the priests and their never-ending impositions on
human credulity, and his apologies for autocratic power
followed by revolutionary outpourings, we obtain a com-
plete idea of the book.
Radichtchev goes farther than Voltaire and Rousseau.
He would grant the freed serfs the ownership of the soil
they till, but he leaves the carrying out of this reform to
the Sanwdierjaviey and, except in the matter of date, he
proves himself a true prophet. He shows a great deal of
sympathy for the lower classes, declaring his conviction
that their morality is higher than that of their superiors ;
but this does not prevent him from expressing astonish-
ment when a peasant woman is faithful to her word. Such
a case, he avers, is rare in that class. He is full of contra-
dictions, and the object to be attained never seems to
be clear before his mind. But had he really any object
at all ? He cannot have believed that Catherine would
permit the circulation of his treatise in the year 1790.
The days of her dalliance with philosophy were long gone
by. She might have suppressed the book without touch-
ing the writer, who was, as he afterwards proved him-
self, harmless enough. But the widow of Peter III., a
very woman at times, in spite of her fondness for being
called Catherine the Great, crushed this fly with a sledge-
hammer. Radichtchev spent ten years in Siberia, where
he employed his time, after permission to write had been
restored to him, in composing another work, filled with
quotations from Locke, Newton, and Rousseau, entitled
On MaUy on Deaths and Immortality^ and which might
ii8 RUSSIAN LITERATURE
surely have sufficed to mollify the sovereign. He was
recalled to Russia by Paul I., and Alexander I. appointed
him to a new Commission on Legislation, for which he
drew up a plan of judicial reform, embodying trial by
jury. It was his fate to be always either before or be-
hind his time. Zavadovski, president of the commis-
sion, inquired with a savage smile, whether he pined for
the Siberian landscape. The unhappy man, whose ima-
gination was overwrought, and whose nerves had not
recovered from his past sufferings, lost his head. He
went home and poisoned himself (September 2, 1802)
by swallowing a huge glass of alcohol at a draught.
He had wielded no influence. When he was sent to
Siberia, hardly any one noticed the disappearance of the
humble Custom-House employe. His work had lain in
those regions. His departure made no more stir than
a stone when it falls into the water. Pouchkine was
to pass through a short period of youthful infatuation
and enthusiasm for the Journey. On cooler reflection, he
compared the work to a broken mirror, which deforms
everything it reflects. He made reservations as to its
substance, and applied harsh judgments to its form,
which was perhaps superfluous. Radichtchev did not
know how to write, and had never given himself time to
learn to think. He was always a diiettantCy and a man of
ill-balanced intellect, quite unfit to perform the work of
an apostle.
A genuine apostle, with all the faults and all the
virtues of his office, was Nicholas Ivanovitch Novikov
(1744-1818). He was a born preacher. He began by
preaching a crusade against the enslavement of the
national intellect by its Western teachers. But he met
the fate which was inevitably to overtake the members
NOVIKOV 119
of the extreme Nationalist party. His absolute and
vehement denial of the existence of any loan borrowed
from a foreign source led him, by way of the clear sheet
he insisted on, to utter vacancy. He took alarm, and
retired for refuge into religious mysticism, without caring
this time to inquire whether the edifice which sheltered
him had been built by foreign hands or not. At the
same time he realised that before Russia could possess
any original culture, the national soil must be stirred to
its very depths. Under the influence of this idea, the
theorist in Novikov made way for the man of action,
the publisher bowed before the educator, and thus began
the finest period of a career w^hich, if it had lasted longer,
might have advanced the progress of a work which
is still in its preliminary stage, by a good half-century.
But Novikov was stopped half-way. I wdll endeavour
to sum up his history ; it was full of incident, and much
of it is still obscure.
I have already described the early disagreement
between the editor of the Drone and Catherine II.
Novikov, a man of noble birth, like Radichtchev, had
previously served in the army, and had acted as Secretary
to the Commission of Legislation. In 1769, journalism
began to attract, and soon entirely absorbed him. The
Russian periodical press of Elizabeth's time, although
modelled on that of England, France, and Germany,
preserved an officially academic character, which con-
lined it exclusively to literary and scientific subjects.
Catherine cast it headlong into the social and political
vortex. The first blows exchanged between these inex-
perienced warriors missed their aim. With arms bor-
rowed from Addison and Steele, they fought against
windmills — I mean for or against men and things who
9
120 RUSSIAN LITERATURE
belonged to a foreign and absent community. If, taking
Catherine's Miscellanies^ we look closely at the list of
prejudices to be eradicated in the Zainoskvorietchie (a
suburb of the ancient capital, beyond the Moskva), we
shall find it a hastily arranged plagiarism on the Spec-
tator^ wherein the embroidery swears with the canvas
of its foundation. Novikov was the first to touch the
raw place. In his Drone (1769-1770) he attacked actual
and surrounding realities, official venality, judicial cor-
ruption, the general demoralisation. His hand was
heavy, his drawing coarse. '^A Russian sucking-pig,
who has travelled through foreign countries to improve
his mind, is generally no more than a full-grown pig
when he comes home." His blows fell in such a pitiless
shower that Catherine thought it time to interfere. As
soon as the game grew earnest, it ceased to entertain
her ; and besides, Novikov forgot to spare the sovereign's
friends the philosophers, whom she still regarded with
affection. When he tested their doctrines by his own
half-savage common-sense, he made discoveries which
were very annoying to Voltaire's imperial pupil. A truce
was commanded ; and that over, the fight, favoured by
fresh intermissions in the Tsarina's liberalism, went on
from 1769 to 1774, supported on each side by an almost
equal number of combatants, some of whom, indeed,
frequently passed over from one camp to the other.
The whole of this satirical press, the literary vassal of
the Tatler and Spectator^ was swept in one direction
by the same insurrectionary tendency. Just as in Eng-
land there was a general uprising against Pope and
Dryden, so in Russia there was a revolt against Gallo-
mania and French classicism, and in this matter both
parties stood on common ground. After 1774 there was
NOVIKOV 121
another truce, for which Novikov himself was respon-
sible. He was passing through the mental convulsion
to which I have already adverted. In the last numbers
of 7'he Purse {Kochelek)hQ had reached practical Nihilism.
Happily Schwartz stood close beside him, ready to hold
out the hand which saved him at the very edge of the
abyss.
The introduction of Freemasonry into Russia dates
from the time of Elizabeth, but the first Grand Lodge
was not opened in St. Petersburg until 1772. It was
connected with the Scottish Masons, and the rites fol-
lowed the Scottish form, the simplest and purest of all.
Schwartz introduced Continental forms, which, though
stained with illuminism and charlatanism, were better
suited, by their mystic tendency, to the bent of the Rus-
sian nation. Novikov had been affiliated to the English
brotherhood since 1772, and its influence had already
directed him into that path of fruitful activity which has
rendered him the most meritorious toiler of an epoch
the relative value of the workers in which has not yet
been fairly apportioned. He had made some attempts
to popularise knowledge, had published an Historical
Lexicon of Russian Writers^ a Russian Hydrography y and,
under the title oi An Ancient Russian Library ^ a col-
lection of historical documents. Schwartz, whose ac-
quaintance he made in 1779, after his removal from St.
Petersburg to Moscow, was the very guide needed to
draw out his best efforts and full powers in this direc-
tion. The spark which fires all grand enthusiasms was
kindled in the Russian's breast by the enthusiastic Ger-
man dreamer.
Of a sudden, Novikov began to found schools, print-
ing-works, and bookshops, and to disseminate religious
122 RUSSIAN LITERATURE
handbooks. He was a forerunner of Tolstoi', and more
practical than he, for hospitals and dispensaries were in-
cluded in his programme. At the same time he managed
the Moscow Gazette j and saw its subscribers increase from
600 to 4000. In 1782 he founded the ^'Society of the
Friends of Learning," which, taking advantage of the
short period of literary freedom, inaugurated in 1783
by a ukase soon to be rescinded, was transformed, two
years later, into the '* Typographical Society." There
were swarms of printing-presses at Moscow, and
Novikov used them to produce an enormous mass of
pamphlets, which inculcated his new tenets : the possi-
bility of agreement between faith and reason, between
intelligence and sentiment, the necessity of agreement
between religion and instruction. To this anything but
original doctrine he added some bold and novel ideas
of his own, proclaiming, amongst other things, the right
of the weaker sex to a superior education. His own
belief, as a whole, always lacked clearness and con-
sistency, while his brother-masons, among whom Ivan
Vladimirovitch Lapoukhine (1756-1816) was the most
remarkable, lost themselves in a heavy fog of theo-
sophic fancies and obscure, though artistic, allegories.
Yet, taken altogether, they did introduce a vivifying and
healthy principle of self-examination, mental effort, and
independence, into the national existence.
Catherine herself encouraged their exertions, until
the day when she fancied she perceived a mysterious
correspondence between them and the revolutionary
movement beyond her borders. It was a grievous and
unpardonable mistake in a woman who piqued her-
self on her clear-sightedness. The Freemasonry of
that period, essentially international here as elsewhere,
NOVIKOV 123
assumed in Russia a frankly reactionary character, the
fervent pietism of its members driving it in exactly
the opposite direction to the philosophic and humani-
tarian current which was to bring about the Revolu-
tion. Catherine, who was quite at her ease, and sure
of her way amidst the shabby windings of ministerial
chanceries, was utterly incapable of steering a course
amidst the far more complex mazes of the moral
phenomena that shook the very soul of her century.
The moment came at last, when agitation of every
kind grew hateful to her. Orders were given that no-
body should budge. And in January 1792 Novikov was
arrested at his country-house at Avdotino, whither he
had gone to rest, and conducted, between two hussars,
to the fortress of Schlusselburg. His philanthropic in-
stitutions, his printing-works, his bookshops, w^ere all
forcibly driven out. Paul I. at the beginning of a reign
which was to increase the population of the Russian
dungeons, was moved to open the noble martyr's prison
doors. Legend goes so far as to assert that he im-
plored his pardon on bended knee. Extravagant the
story sounds, and it can hardly be true, for of all he
had lost, the only thing Novikov recovered, besides his
liberty, was leave to end his life in idleness at Avdotino.
He had no forerunners, and no direct heirs, in his
own country. A fraction of his inspiration, minus his
high morality, descended to that friend of Catherine's
better days. Princess Dachkov, who was another of
her victims, and on w^hom, nevertheless, devolved the
honour — a strange one — of leading the scientific move-
ment of her time.
The movement to which I refer was restricted in
scope and poor in result. Although the reactionary
124 RUSSIAN LITERATURE
current had triumphed at the St. Petersburg University,
and native teachers, Sokolov, Zouiev, Ozieretskovski,
Protassov, Devnitski, ZybeHne, Veniaminov, Trebotarev,
Tretiakov, and Strakhov, had taken the place of the old
foreign staff, no literary works appeared to replace those
of Miiller and Bernouilli. Speeches on great occasions,
and the scientific propaganda of the periodical press,
exhausted the efforts of these new savants. Yet the
existence of a scientific press, and the creation, in 1785,
of the '' Russian Academy " for '' the purification and
perfecting of the national language," constitute a con-
siderable step forward, for the times, and in this pro-
gress the chief share belongs to Catherine Romanovna,
Princess Dachkov (1743-1810).
This lady, the daughter of General R. I. Vorontsov,
and the intellectual pupil of Bayle, Voltaire, and Montes-
quieu, had galloped at Catherine's side, in 1762, along
that road from St. Petersburg to Peterhof which w^as
to lead the future Semiramis of the North to power and
glory. She subsequently contributed to several news-
papers, wrote a comedy by command of the Empress
for the Hermitage Theatre, and, without any such com-
mand, dabbled feverishly in politics, a department in
which Semiramis considered herself all -sufficing. A
coldness resulted, and in 1769 the Princess was seized
with a strong inclination for foreign travel. She
visited Paris, made a longer stay in Scotland, where
she knew Robertson and Adam Smith, and where her
son obtained a University degree. In 1781 she re-
turned to Russia, and, as she began her meddling
again, Catherine, in 1783, offered her, as ^'a bone to
gnaw," the Presidency of the Academy of Science.
She showed considerable coyness, but ended by accept-
PRINCESS DACHKOV 125
ing, and held the post for twelve years, combining
with its duties those of the editorship of the Inter-
locutovy and, at a later date, those of the Presidency
of the '' Russian Academy," which was, in a sense, an
offshoot of the journal in question. The Interlocutor
caused fresh disagreements between the Princess and
her sovereign, and the publication of VadimCy in 1795,
completed the quarrel. The Tsarina's quondam friend
retired to the country in disgrace, and there wrote her
Memoirs, the French manuscript of which was pre-
served by Miss Wilmot (later Mrs. Bradford), a dame de
compagniey whom she had brought back with her from
Herzen. She published an English version of the work
in 1740.-
The author of these Memoirs is remembered as hav-
ing possessed a disagreeable temper, but a soul open to
all noble feelings. She did all that lay in her power to
encourage a school of history, of which, at this period, u
Chtcherbatov and Boltine were the most eminent ex-
ponents. I have not mentioned her beauty, because I
have nothing agreeable to say on that subject.
The school to which I have just referred was more
controversial than scientific in its essence. Its chief
function was to support the author of The Antidote, by
defending the defamed past of the nation against all the
Abbe Chappes of the West. Prince Michael Mikhai-
lovitch Chtcherbatov (i 733-1 790) was, as his History of
Russia from the Most Ancient Times, and more especially
his more popular essay On the Corruption of Russian
Manners (which did not see the light until 1858), will
prove, the theorist of the group. And his theories led
him much farther than the author of The Antidote de-
sired — even so far as the wholesale condemnation of the
126 RUSSIAN LITERATURE
work of Catherine and Peter the Great, the defence of
which was forthwith undertaken by another historian,
GoUkov, in ten huge volumes, flanked by eighteen supple-
ments. Chtcherbatov's point of view is very much that
of the modern Slavophils, and also that of Dierjavine,
as exemplified in some of his odes. As for Golikov, he
is nothing but another dilettante^ without knowledge,
method, or critical instinct. Chtcherbatov has a certain
amount of knowledge, and a great deal more judgment.
He has studied the history of other nations, and intro-
duces the comparative method into the historiography of
his country. He has kept company with the best authors,
and can quote Hume more or less appropriately ; but
his judgment is obscured by his uncompromising dog-
matism, and his knowledge is counterbalanced by a style
at once incorrrect and insufferably dull.
Ivan Nikitich Boltine (1735-1792), Patioumkine's fav-
ourite comrade, has added lustre to his name by the
publication of two volumes of notes on Chtcherbatov's
Russian History , and two more on the Ancient and
Modern Russian History written by a French physician
named Leclercq. He belonged to an ancient family of
Tartar origin, was an eager collector of ancient manu-
scripts, edited the Rousskata Pravda (Ancient Russian
Code) with lelaguine and Moussine-Pouchkine, and
may be described as the sophist of the Slavophilism of
his day.
The Slavophil theory had fervent advocates at this
period, but its opponents were not less passionately
eager. Among these, the youthful Karamzine, who was
ultimately to change his views, was a prominent figure.
Partial justification of the theory certainly exists in the
numerous memoirs which have come down to us from
PRINCESS DACHKOV 12/
the period of the great Tsar's reign, and give us an in-
structive picture of a moral corruption which might
well invalidate the idea that any good was likely to result
from the labours of Peter and Catherine. The recol-
lections of Princess Dachkov and of Dierjavine present
particular interest in this connection, but their state-
ments must be accepted with caution. The memory of
Catherine's former friend may have been confused by
anger, and that of Dierjavine by the weariness of old
age.
Taking it all in all, this " Golden Age," except in the
department of history, can only be marked in the annals
of learning by leanings, presumptions, and pretensions,
none of which it ultimately justified.
CHAPTER V
THE TRANSITION PERIOD— KARAMZINE AND
JOUKOVSKI
According to the terminology sanctioned by long use,
the period at which we have now arrived is currently
denominated the Romantic Epoch. I still have some diffi-
culty in admitting the appropriateness of this title. The
literary evolution so described in Western countries does,
indeed, possess certain analogies and affinities with the
current which tended, at the same period, to drag Russian
literature out of the classic rut and borrowed paths in
which it had hitherto trod. But from the very outset
this current took, and kept, a quite special and distinct
direction. My readers know what the Romantic move-
ment was in England, in Germany, and in France, and
how it successively and contradictorily combined a return,
purely literary in the first instance, to the traditions of
chivalry and of the Middle Ages, with the defence of the
liberal and humanitarian ideal against the anti-revolu-
tionary reaction, in the first place, and with the defence
of the national principle against the cosmopolitanism re-
sulting from the Revolution, in the second. None of the
elements of this combination existed in Russia, or, at
all events, none of them had the same character there.
To the Russians chivalry was only known through French
romances, and their sole memory of the Middle Ages was
128
THE TRANSITION PERIOD 129
of a gloomy abyss in which the national existence was
engulfed, and suffered agonising trial.
The conflict between the liberal and the reactionary
principle also assumed quite a different complexion in
Russia. Instead of working from the bottom upwards,
as was the case elsewhere, the emancipating current
flowed from the upper strata of society to the lower.
We have seen Catherine at the head of the philosophic
propaganda. Alexander I., was to follow her in the
part, during the earlier portion of his reign, and the
opposition he then met with came from the literary
circles of the country. In Russia, until towards the
middle of the present century, literature was the spe-
cial field of a small class, imbued, by its aristocratic
origin, with a strongly conservative spirit. And finally,
both the point of departure and the general direction
of the nationalist current in Russia were totally dif-
ferent from those taken by the same movement in other
countries. This current was evident even under Cathe-
rine's rule, when the political integrity of the empire
was not threatened in any way. It corresponded, not
with the need to defend the house against intruders, but
with the desire to possess a house at all. Of the three
literary leaders who, at the moment now under observa-
tion, were preparing the way for Pouchkine — Karamzine,
Joukovski, and Batiouchkov — the first two belonged, for
political purposes, to the camp of reaction, while the
third belonged to no camp at all. In literature, the first
was a pupil of the sentimental school, the second was an
eclectic, the third a classic of a special type. All three
really belong to a period of transition, which was to lead
up to the evolution of the approaching future.
The intellectual life of Russia is so closely interwoven
I30 RUSSIAN LITERATURE
with its political and social existence, both in this period
and that which follows upon it, that this chapter must
begin with a comprehensive glance at the incidents com-
mon to them all.
Intellectual and Social Evolution.
We all know how Paul I., after having been carried
away, for a moment, by that wave of chimerical liberalism
on which his frail bark had floated in the days of his
presumptive heirship to the Russian crown, promptly
cast anchor in a shallow which proved to cover the
most dangerous of reefs. The history of this eccentric
sovereign has yet to be written, and his real personal
psychology evolved from the present chaos of contra-
dictory interpretations. One fact seems clear. But for
the coup detat which strangled his regime, that regime
would have choked the intellectual life of Russia. The
death-rattle was already in the throat of the latter.
Alexander I. inspired it with the breath of his young
enthusiastic soul, so ill prepared for the responsibility
power involves, and gave it air. Europe, long exiled,
returned once more to the house she had for a moment
thought her own. But the expression of her face had
changed, and so, she fancied, had the expression of
her host's. On both sides, ideas which had formerly
hovered in the spiritual regions of the absolute were
suddenly embodied in the real and contingent, rendering
every contact more tangible, every inevitable shock more
painful. Then came hostile meetings and bloody en-
counters on other battlefields than those on which pre-
ceding generations had exchanged innocuous blows.
Nothing is so realistic as war, and for a long time
ENGLISH INFLUENCES 131
Alexander I. was almost the only person who did not
realise the new, positive, concrete element imported
by it into the national life. He dallied with his dream.
Up to about 182 1 he played with liberalism, much as
Catherine had played with Voltairianism. Until 181 1
he defended Speranski and his reforms against the mili-
tary party, which represented the conservative element,
and was supported by the whole, or very nearly the
whole, of the best intelligence of the country. Speranski
was always an isolated figure, and when the passage of the
Niemen and the conflagration of Moscow had proved the
triumphant military party in the right, all sides were soon
fused in one outbreak of warlike enthusiasm. Conser-
vatives, liberals, nationalists, mystics, all rubbed shoulders
in the ranks of the army that marched on Paris. At
Paris Alexander I. held on his w^ay, and publicly an-
nounced, in Mme. de Stael's drawing-room, the approach-
ing abolition of serfdom. At the Congress of Aix, in
18 18, he was still full of his dreams, and openly expressed
his idea that Governments should place themselves at
the head of the liberal movement. That very year he
caused Novossiltsov to draw up a plan of liberal insti-
tutions for Russia. At the same time he favoured the
diffusion of knowledge and the creation of popular
schools on the Lancaster model. The English agents
of the Bible Society, which had established itself in
Russia, had given him the first idea of these institutions,
in 1813.
From this epoch we may date the predominance of
English influence in the literature of the country. It
was exercised, in the first instance, in a manner more
practical than literary. Nicholas Tourgueniev and
Admiral Mordvinov studied English authors — the one
132 RUSSIAN LITERATURE
for the preparation of his Essay on the Theory of Taxa-
tiofiy the other for his widely-known plans for economic
reform. Walter Scott and Byron followed, in Russia,
the footsteps of Adam Smith. German poets and philo-
sophers — Posa with his humanitarian tirades, Kleist
and Korner with their political fancies, Schelling with
his theories — travelled in their wake. There was a
generation of Russian Gottingemsts, and French influ-
ence had for the moment entirely disappeared. It was
only to know a partial recovery in the persons of Ber-
anger and Lamartine, of Paul-Louis Courier and Saint-
Simon.
Until 182 1, Alexander I. lived in perfect amity with
this fresh irruption of foreign elements, and the conse-
quent intellectual ferment within a somewhat restricted
sphere. His tolerance, and even his protection, were
extended even to those semi-literary and semi-political
secret societies, the inception of which seemed a con-
tinuation of his own dream. There were more poets,
like Ryleiev, than men of action in their ranks, and
poets did not alarm him ; they were comrades of his own.
In fact, since 181 1, Araktcheiev had taken Speranski's
place, and the Holy Alliance dates from 1815. The
man and the facts ruled the situation, and the effort
to reconcile their presence with tendencies which, else-
where, the sovereign always appeared to regard with
favour was singularly paradoxical. But Alexander made
no such effort. He dreamt his dream alone, on the
empyrean heights of his autocracy, and left the realities
below him to fight it out, only stipulating that there
should be no disturbance of his own personal peace.
All the reforming projects, whether of Speranski or of
the foreign philosophers, were mere plans, and there-
KARAMZINE 133
fore, still and always, dreams. Not one of them, indeed,
had been put into actual practice. It was not until
182 1 that the military party succeeded in convincing
the sovereign that Ryleiev and his friends would soon
cease to confine themselves to chanting the dawn of a
new era in inferior poetry. Then Catherine's grandson
took fright, loosed Araktcheiev, like a watch-dog, on
the harmless band of singers, and himself sought refuge
in the arms of Mme. de Kriidener.
In this shelter death overtook him, and a fresh
catastrophe was the result. Ryleiev and his friends con-
vinced themselves that the moment for putting their
dreams into action had arrived. Hence the unhappy
incidents of December 25, 1825, — a childish attempt at a
coup d'etat^ put down with a savage hand, a gallows or
two, a long procession of exiles along the Siberian roads,
and the accession of Nicholas I.
One of those who blamed the attempt and applauded
its repression was Nicholas Mikhailovitch Karamzixe
( 1 766-1 826). Born of a noble Tartar family {Karamurzd)y
he entered the halls of literature in 1785, by the gate
of Freemasonry, the cloudy and sentimental aspect of
which was to attract his feeble and undecided character.
He was the friend of Novikov, and assisted him with
his popular publications. Already his taste for English
literature was increasing. Among the members of the
Di'oujeskoie Obchtchestvo (Society of Friends of the
Russian Tongue) he was nicknamed Ramsay. In 1789,
he visited foreign countries, the bearer, it has been
thought, of a Freemasonic mission and subsidies. He
travelled through Germany and Switzerland, sojourned
in France and England, and wrote some Letters from a
Russian Traveller y the publication of which, in the Moscow
134 RUSSIAN LITERATURE
Journal^ which he began to edit just at that time (1791),
attracted considerable notice to their author. They
prove his powers of observation to have been singularly
scanty and hazy. All the traveller discovered in Ger-
many w^as a succession of worthy individuals — not a
symptom of the philosophic and literary life of the
period. He met Kant, but confused him with Lavater,
just as he confused Rousseau with Thomson. He
turned his whole attention to the manners and customs
of the ancien regime in France, and utterly ignored the
Revolution. But wherever he went, he waxed enthusi-
astic and melted into tenderness, after the fashion of his
time, and did not forget, while in Switzerland, to read
Heloise again, and drop tears upon the pages.
The spirit of the future historian is also manifest in
these letters. We note a determination to look on the
past history of the nation as the subject of a romance,
and discover a succession of charming pictures in its
incidents. He was convinced that the application of
the methods of Robertson to the study of Nestor
and Nicone would bring about a most alluring result.
Russia had her own Charlemagne — Vladimir ; her Louis
XI. — the Tsar Ivan Vassilievitch ; her Cromwell —
Godeonov ; and over and above all these, a sovereign
such as no other country had possessed — Peter the
Great.
Two novels, published one after the other, in 1792,
Natalia y the Boyard's Daughter y 2LndPoor Lisa^ are a partial
exposition of this patriotic faith. In them Karamzine
drew up a complete code of sentimentalism, inspired by
Richardson and Sterne, and accepted by several succeed-
ing generations. Nothing is wanting here : we have the
correct love of Nature and of rustic life, scorn for wealth
KARAMZINE 135
and greatness, thirst for immortal glory, melancholy,
tenderness. And all this is discovered in the daily life
of the old Boyards, — the author deliberately overlook-
ing the existence of the Tereni^ within whose narrow
prison walls Natalia would not have found it easy to
experience the sudden thunderclap of emotion which
causes her to fall in love with Alexis. Historically
speaking, all the characters and habits of life depicted in
the first of these two novels are absolutely false, and the
modest, dreamy Lisa, whose story is revealed to us in the
second — the humble flower-girl courted by the great
nobleman, who desires to cast himself and her into the
arms of Nature, is not a vision very likely to appear on
the banks of the Moskva. Yet Lisa has drawn tears
from many eyes, and for many a year the lake near the
Monastery of St. Simon, where her dream found its
ending, was a place of pilgrimage.
Apart from the matter of truthfulness, to which,
doubtless, the novelist hardly gave a thought, other good
qualities, already evident in the Letters from a Traveller^
justify, in a measure, his great success. These are a very
lively and delicate feeling for Nature, a great charm in
his descriptions of landscape, and, above all, a simpli-
city, vigour, warmth, and luminosity of style, such as no
Russian pen had up to that date produced. On this
account alone, the appearance of these novels, was a
real event. Karamzine, like the true virtuoso he was,
enriched the language of Lomonossov with a bevy of
foreign expressions and phrases for which he discovered
equivalents in the popular tongue and in the literary
documents of past times. This attempt of his was not
allowed to pass without vehement opposition, apparently
led by Alexander Siemionovitch Chichkov (1754-1841).
10
136 RUSSIAN LITERATURE
He, however, was supported by authorities of far
greater weight, among them the great Krylov himself, by
a powerful organisation within the ranks of the Society
of Friends of Russian Literature, and a militant news-
paper. The reactionary order of things inaugurated, just
at this period, by Catherine was another indirect support.
The arrest of Novikov in 1792 brought about the sup-
pression of the Moscow Gazette^ in the columns of which
paper Karamzine's first work had appeared. The author
of Poor Lisa replaced his newspaper by publications of a
more purely literary character — The Aglaia (1794-1795),
The Aonides {i'jc)6-i^()<^\ both of them imitations of the
poetic almanacs then common abroad. In these Pouch-
kine printed his earliest poems. But even the poets
*^ found the censure, like a bear, barring their path "
(the phrase is Karamzine's). He greeted the dawn of
Alexander I.'s liberating rule with two odes. And mean-
while his talent was tending in a fresh direction, where
it was to find a more complete and definite development.
In the European Messenger^ published by the inde-
fatigable editor in 1802, another novel. The Regent Marf ay
or the Submission of Novgorod^ appeared simultaneously
with purely historic essays from the same pen. At that
moment the young writer was still employed in trans-
lating Shakespeare's Julius CcBsar from Letourneur's
French version, and the English poet's influence is
visible in Marf a. But the novelist was already giving
place to the savant, and the general direction of his
thought was altering completely. Hitherto his published
work had always, even when touched with republicanism,
tended to the defence of liberal and humanitarian views.
^'The blood of a Novgorod burgher flows in my veins,"
he would say. This liberalism, which was very genuine,
KARAMZINE 137
prevented him from leaning too pronouncedly in the
nationalist direction. ^^We must be men, not Slavs,
before all else/' he was heard to assert. I believe,
indeed, that his sincerity on this point was not untouched
by that spirit of opposition which has always been a
characteristic and generic trait in the most autocratically
governed of all the civilised nations. As liberalism had
reached the highest spheres of the government, the
opposition must necessarily change its tone. And of a
sudden, Karamzine came to regard Russia, past and
present, as a world apart, which was not only severed
from the European West by the special conditions of
its historical existence, but which ought so to remain.
And, aided by his powder of fancy as a novelist, and his
knowledge and feeling as a scholar, he set himself to trans-
port that poetic and ideal view of the reality which had
made the fortune of his artistic work, into the history
and politics of his country. People talked to him of
the abolition of serfdom. But was the condition of the
serfs really so wretched ? When the barbarity of the
ancient customs which had forged their chain was
blamed, he grew indignant. Safe in his triple armour
of heroic optimism, soaring patriotism, and romantic
hallucination, he took his way athwart the gloomy
horrors of past centuries, to confound their detractors
by calling up the national ideal in all the glory of an
apotheosis.
Journalism had long been a weariness to him, but he
had married without possessing any private fortune, and
depended for most of his income on this source. He
succeeded in obtaining the post of historiographer to
the crown, with a salary of 2000 roubles, retired to
Ostafievo, a property belonging to his father-in-law, and
138 RUSSIAN LITERATURE
fell furiously to work. His course was somewhat un-
certain, frequently diverted and driven into byways
by contemporary events. In 1811, at the request of
Alexander's sister, the Grand-Duchess Catherine Pav-
lovna, he presented his famous Alemoir on Ancient and
Modern Russia to the Tsar. This was a return to the
militant and active policy invoked by all Sp6ranski's
opponents. Struck, in the course of his studies, by the
long periods of inertia which characterised his country's
past history, Karamzine had erected this condition into
a law of its existence. He was the author of that strange
theory of ^'historic patience" which has since been
incorporated with the Slavophil doctrine. The main-
tenance of the autocratic system was an integral part
of this theory, which barred the way to all constitutional
reforms.
Alexander was at once offended and flattered. Thanks
to the influence of Catherine Pavlovna, the latter senti-
ment won the day, and Karamzine's intervention counted
for something in Speranski's fall, and the collapse of
his plans.
In 181 2, the historian's house at Moscow was burnt,
and in it the library he had spent a quarter of a century
in collecting. All he saved was a couple of copies of
his history. " Camoens has saved his Lusiady* he wrote
to a friend. The Empress Marie Feodorovna offered
him the use of one of the imperial country-houses near
St. Petersburg. He hesitated. Now that his theories
had won the day and were personified by Araktcheiev,
they seemed less close to the ideal he had conceived.
He allowed himself to be persuaded, however, and reached
St. Petersburg in February 1816, with eight volumes of
his General History of Russia^ and a firm resolution to
KARAM2INE I39
ignore the all-powerful favourite of the period. But
Araktcheiev was not the man to permit this. The Em-
peror refused Karamzine an audience, and the grant of
60,000 roubles necessary for the printing of his book
appeared to depend on a preliminary visit to the favou-
rite. Karamzine demurred at first. *^ We will sell our
lands," he wrote to his wife. But he thought the matter
over, and ended by doing more than submit. Another
letter, written just after his visit to Araktcheiev, de-
clares his conviction that he had found in him " an
intelligent and high-principled man." He received his
60,000 roubles, and the ribbon of St. Anne into the
bargain. And his recantation does not appear to have
been indispensable, for in a little over three weeks the
edition of the first three volumes of his History, number-
ing three thousand copies, was all bought up.
The historian's character resembles that of the man.
An enormous amount of analytical labour, a very notice-
able art in the employment of the material collected, and
an excellent moral intention. These are the qualities we
must place to the credit of his work. We find quite twice
as many defects. His view of the past is invariably
influenced by his present sensations ; he is absolutely
resolved on a sentimental idealisation — the optimism, of
Leibnitz as parodied by Thomson (Karamzine had trans-
lated The Seasons) ; and he is almost utterly oblivious of
the internal development and the moral and intellectual
life of the masses. From this last point of view, Karam-
zine is inferior to Tatichtchev. Yet his work, with its
classic architecture and pompous rhetoric, holds a con-
siderable place in the literature of his country. For
many years it served as a model. It influenced Pouch-
kine, and even Ostrovski. Four more volumes appeared
I40 RUSSIAN LITERATURE
between 1816 and 1826, carrying the story up to the
accession of the first Romanov in the seventeenth century.
A short time before the pubUcation of the fourth volume,
Karamzine passed quietly away, surrounded with marks
of kindness from the imperial family. Nicholas bestowed
a pension of 50,000 roubles on the widow and children,
and on his tomb Joukovski's fervent verse celebrates
^' the holy name of Karamzine."
His influence on Russian literature may be compared
to that of Catherine on Russian society. It was a
humanising influence. He introduced a philosophic
standpoint, a high moral sense, philanthropic views, and
tender feelings : all this without any unity or ruling
thought, and without any deep conviction. His direct
literary heirs, who carried on in poetry the work his
novels had sketched in prose, were Dmitriev and
Ozierov.
Ivan Ivanovitch Dmitriev (1760-1837) has left an
autobiography which reveals a curious two-sidedness in
his career. On the one side we have his public life, on
the other his literary existence, the two never mingling,
as in Pouchkine's case, but each running its own course,
and hardly ever coming into contact with the other. In
1794 we see the poet on the banks of the Volga, fishing
and dreaming, and bringing home sterlets and verses to
his sister, who copies them and sends them to Karamzine
for one of his publications. Thus appeared the Patriot's
Voicey the Ode on the Capture of Warsaw^ Yermak — a
narrative in rhyme of the conquest of Siberia — and a
few fables. The following year the poet disappears,
and until 1802 we have only the tchinovniky employed first
in the Senate, and afterwards as assistant to the Minister
of Crown Lands. Then comes a change of residence,
OZIEROV 141
a meeting with Karamzine at Moscow, and the Muses
reconquer their adorer. He translates La Fontaine's
fables. This is the pearl of his literary performances,
and a considerable factor in the artistic improvement of
the language. At this point a fresh whimsical adventure
occurs to complicate the translator's life. He, Karam-
zine's pupil, finds himself suddenly adopted by Chichkov's
circle as the champion of the classic tradition and the
school of Dierjavine, against Karamzine and the new
school, which he at that moment appears to represent !
His absolute lack of individuality favoured this usurpa-
tion of his person. The worst of it is, that to it he owed
a great portion of his renown, and even of his success in
the administrative career. In 1807, he became curator of
the University of Moscow, and in 181 1, he was appointed
Minister of Justice. He had then ceased to write, and
he never was to take up the pen again.
Ladislas Alexandrovitch Ozierov (1769- 1816)
began by writing French verses, and afterwards produced
Russian odes, epistles, and fables. These continued till
1798, when his first tragedy, laropolk and Oleg — a mere
plagiarism of French models in the style of Soumarokov
and Kniajnine — was performed. The cold reception
given it by the audience was calculated to warn the author
that he was behind his times. He fell back on Richard-
son and Ducis for his CEdipus at Athens^ and next, in
1805, on Macpherson for his unlucky Fingal^ and at
last attained success, in 1807, with his Dmitri Donsko'i.
This is certainly the worst of all his tragedies, but it
swarms with allusions to contemporary events. Every
one recognised Alexander I. in the character of Dmitriy
who successfully repulses the Tartar onslaught, and
Napoleon I. in that of Mamau When 181 2 came.
142 RUSSIAN LITERATURE
the work appeared prophetic, and was lauded to the
skies. As a presentment of history it is utterly silly.
Will my readers imagine a tender-hearted and philo-
sophic paladin warbling with a virtuous and sentimen-
tal chatelaine^ and then convince themselves that their
appropriate names are Dmitri and Xenia, and their
correct location and period somewhere between Souz-
dal and Moscow, during the fourteenth century ?
Ozierov was never to repeat this triumph. Tried by
many vexations, including an unhappy love affair, he
buried himself in the country, wrote a play, Polyxena^
followed by another entitled Medea^ and passed away,
at last, in a state of partial lunacy. It was only right
that his name and work should be mentioned here. By
his choice of subjects and his manner of handling them,
and in spite of a very moderate talent, he contributed
almost as much as Joukovski to the development of
which Pouchkine was shortly to become the definite
exponent.
The glory of having introduced Romanticism into
Russia was claimed by Vassili Andr£ievitch Joukovski
(1786-1852). This was a mere illusion. Can my readers
imagine a writer of the Romantic school who winds up
his literary career with a translation of the Odyssey?
The only features of that school which Joukovski was
capable of understanding and assimilating, were those
which, as exemplified by Tieck, Novalis, or Fouque, cor-
responded with the dreamy melancholy of his own tem-
perament. The great aims and objects attributed to
the new poetry by the two Schlegels escaped him en-
tirely, and the scepticism of Byron and the irony of
Heine, in later years, were both sealed books to him.
His love of vague distances, of the terrible and the fan-
JOUKOVSKI 143
tastic, his intense mysticism, which betokened an exces-
sive development of feeling at the expense of reason,
closed his eyes to these horizons of contemporary
thought.
Practically, he simply carried on the work of Karam-
zine, whose political ideas and didactic and moralising
tendency he shared. Thus it came about that in 1830
he found himself left out of the current on which the
younger generation of literary men was floating. He
misjudged Gogol, and only met the author of Dead
Souls after the period of his intellectual bankruptcy,
on the common ground of a pietism not far removed
from madness. The only quality of the Romantic poet
which he possessed was his subjectivity, but this was his
to a remarkable degree, and in such a manner as to
make him the first Russian wTiter w^ho gave ideal ex-
pression to the subjective life of the human heart.
In his eyes, poetry and real life were one — the external
world and the intellectual world mingled in one match-
less sensation of beauty and harmony.
The very birth of Joukovski was a page of romance.
A country land-owner, Bounine, of the obsolete type of
the ancient Russian Boyard, owned a Turkish slave
named Salkha. A child was born, and adopted by a
family friend, Andrew Grigorovitch Joukovski. The
boy was afterwards entrusted to the care of his natural
father's sister, Mme. louchkov, who resided at Toula.
She lived in a literary and artistic circle, in which
concerts and plays were frequently organised. Before
young Joukovski had thoroughly mastered the principles
of Russian grammar, he had become a dramatic author,
having written two plays, Camillaj or Rome Delivered, and
Paul and Virginia^ both of which were duly performed.
144 RUSSIAN LITERATURE
In 1797 Mme. louchkov sent him to the University School
at Moscow, and not long afterwards his first verses 'began
to appear in the Hterary miscellanies of the day. They
were sad and melancholy even then. The death of
Mme. louchkov, which occurred just at this time, in-
spired the youthful poet with an imitation of Gray's
Elegy under the title of Thoughts on a Tomb. But verses
had a poor sale. The editors gave translations a far
warmer welcome. To bring in a little money, Joukovski
translated all Kotzebue's plays and several of his novels.
After this he tried the administrative career, and failing
in it, took refuge for a while with his adoptive family,
returning to Moscow in time to undertake the editorship
of the European Messenger. According to the custom of
the period, he filled the whole paper with his own work
— literary criticisms, more translations from Schiller,
Parny, and Dryden, and a few original compositions,
romances, epistles, and ballads. In 1810, the generosity
of Bounine enabled him to buy a small landed property
to which he retired, and there, for a while, he lived a
splendid idyl. His near neighbour, Pletcheiev, a rich
land-owner with a mania for music, was the possessor
of a theatre and an orchestra. Joukovski wrote verses,
which Pletcheiev set to music, and Mme. Pletcheiev
sang. There was an uninterrupted series of concerts,
plays, and operas.
Suddenly the idyl turned to elegy. The melancholy
poet fell in love with one of his nieces, Marie Andreievna
Protassov, and soon he was fain to shed genuine tears.
The young girl's mother would not hear of an illegiti-
mate son as her daughter's husband. The terrible year
1812 opened, and she insisted on his entering a regiment
of the National Guard. He did not distinguish himself
JOUKOVSKI ^ 145
at the Borodino, but after the battle he wrote his first
great poem, The Bard in the Russian Campy which opened
the gates of glory to him.
It was only an imitation, and a somewhat clumsy
one, of Gray's Bardy with a strange medley of romantic
sentiment and classic imagery — lyres that rang warlike
chords and warriors dressed in armour. But the public
did not look too closely at such trifles, and its enthusiasm
was increased, after the taking of Paris in 18 14, by the
appearance of an Epistle of five hundred lines addressed
to the victorious Tsar. The Empress, surrounded by her
family and intimate circle, desired to hear it, and the
reader, A. I. Tourgueniev, could hardly get to the end
of his task. His voice was drowned in sobs and plaudits ;
he was sobbing himself ; and throughout the country
the cry went up that another great poet had risen in
the footsteps of Lomonossov, and there would be fresh
master-pieces for all men to admire.
But the country waited long. Tourgueniev even
went so far as to chide Lomonossov's poetic heir.
"You have Milton's imagination and Petrarch's ten-
derness — and you write us ballads ! " At that moment
Joukovski was forced to play the great man rather
against his will. In spite of himself, he was pushed to
the head of the Karamzine party, then in full warfare
with Chichkov's Biessieday and became the pillar of the
rival society of the Arzamas, He drew up its reports
in burlesque hexameters, which seem to indicate that,
in his case, melancholy was much more a matter of
fashion than of temperament. But the great work
which was obstinately demanded of him came not.
Settled at court, first as reader to the Empress, and
later as tutor to her children, Joukovski gradually
146 RUSSIAN LITERATURE
•
built up his reputation as an excellent pedagogue, and
continued to prove his ability, conscientiousness, and
good taste as a translator. From 1817 to 1820 he super-
intended the education of Alexander II. Between 1827
and 1840 he translated, from Riickert's German version,
Magharabati's Indian poem, Nal and Diamaianti, In
1841, overwhelmed with kindnesses, and considerably
enriched in pocket, he went abroad, married, at sixty,
the daughter of the painter Reutern — she was nineteen
— fell into a nest of pietists, was on the brink of con-
version to the Catholic faith, and finally plunged into
mysticism. His ill-starred passion for Mdlle. Protassov
may have had something to do with this catastrophe.
In 1847, nevertheless, he gave the world his fine
translation of the Odyssey, and two years later that of
an episode in Firdusi's Persian poem {Shah Mamet\
Rustem and Zorav — this also after Riickert. Death over-
took him at Baden-Baden, just as he was beginning work
upon the Iliad,
He was a distinguished scholar and a noble-souled
man. Joukovski's was the hearth at which the flame
which burnt and shone in the heart of the '■'■ Liberator
Tsar " during the earlier part of his reign, was kindled.
Did he possess and conceal a poetic genius the revelation
of which w^as prevented by some unexplained circum-
stance? This has been believed. I doubt it. Joukovski's
lack of originality amounted to an entire absence of
national sentiment. The ancient chronicles of his coun-
try inspired him with only one feeHng — horror ; the
Slavonic language of the sacred books, ^'that tongue
of mandarins, slaves, and Tartars," exasperated him; and
even that he used, with its crabbed chas and chtchas^
sometimes struck him as barbarous.
BATIOUCHKOV X^: 147
He wrote no master-piece, but by interpreting and
disseminating those of English and German literature,
he largely contributed to the literary education of his
country. And Alexander II. was not his only pupil.
Pouchkine, after having risen in revolt against the blank
verse adopted by this master, adopted it, in later years,
as his favourite method of expression, and Batiouchkov
owed more than mere instruction to the great poet,
who never made his mark, but who was something
better than a genius — a kind, and generous, and helpful
friend.
Although CONSTANTINE NiCOLAIEVITCH BATIOUCHKOV
(1787-1855) moved in the same orbit as Joukovski and
Karamzine, he belongs to a separate category. As a prose
writer he follows Karamzine, but as a poet, and even as
a translator of anthological or erotic works, he goes his
own way. He stands alone. He has none of Joukovski's
sentimental idealism. He is a classic, but of the pure
Greek type, in love with Nature as she is, conscious of
her real beauty, treading the ground firmly, and enjoy-
ing life, even to its bitterness, like some intoxicating
beverage. In his person, as in that of Krylov, soon
after, the national poetry at last reaches the stratum of
fruitful soil in which it was to take root and blossom
forth. Batiouchkov only skims along the surface of
this soil, but though his life was long, how short was
his career ! His was the first in that series of unhappy
fates of which Joukovski's haunting thoughts of tombs
and weeping shades would seem to have been the
presage. He has himself compared his condition to
that of the most unhappy of modern poets, and his
lines on the dying Tasso are almost an autobiography.
First of all, war laid its hand on Batiouchkov, and
148 RUSSIAN LITERATURE
dragged him across Europe. He was of noble family,
and therefore, of necessity, a soldier. He was struck by
a bullet at Heidelberg ; and at Leipzig, in 1813, he saw
his best friend, Petine, fall dead beside him. From time
to time he had sent fine, though somewhat free, transla-
tions from Parn}^, TibuUus, and Petrarch to the European
Messenger^ and had also sung an unhappy love affair
of his own, in verse still somewhat halting, and in
which "slopes gilded by the hand of Ceres," and very
archaic in form, look clumsy enough, wedded to the
first expression of an exceedingly beautiful poetic in-
spiration. All through Germany, and afterwards in Paris,
whither victory led him, he lived in a dream of triumph,
celebrating the crossing of the Rhine or the ruins of
some manor-house laid waste, and moved to pity for
France, "who paid so dearly for her glory." His return
home, after a short visit to England, was a sad one.
Araktcheiev inspired him with the conviction that the
net cost of victory is the same in every country. His
dejection soon reached such a pitch that he felt himself
incapable of giving happiness to the young girl he loved,
and he betrayed the first symptoms of a mental distress
which was destined to increase. In 1816 he published
a few more verses in the Messenger^ and in the following
year a complete collection of his poetry ; but he was
already looking about for means of leaving a country
the air of which, thanks to Araktcheiev and his likes,
choked him — so he declared. In 1818, thanks to
Joukovski's influence, he was nominated to a position
in the Russian Legation at Naples, and returned thence,
four years later, a hopeless lunatic. Joukovski took the
tenderest care of him, but all his efforts were, unhappily,
in vain. No ray of reason ever crossed the gloom, and
KRYLOV 149
for three-and-thirty years the poet's miserable existence
dragged on.
Though still farther removed than Batiouchkov from
the literary group from which the genius of Pouchkine was
to spring, Ivan Andr£ievitch Krylcv (i 768-1 844) was
nevertheless the undoubted product of the same sap, the
same intellectual germination in the national soil, and
is directly connected, in his best work, with the popular
mind, of w^hich Frol Skobeiev was an expression. Born of
a poor family at Moscow — his father was a subaltern
officer, and his mother, we are told, supported the whole
family by reading the prayers for the dead in the houses
of the rich merchants of the city — he belonged, by his
origin, to the people. Yet, considering his surroundings,
he was singularly precocious. His Kofeinitsa (fortune-
teller by coffee-grounds), a comic opera which some
critics think superior in originality to his later produc-
tions, was written before he was fourteen. This work,
which did not at present attain the honour of publication,
but was exchanged w^ith a bookseller for a bundle of
French books, including Racine, Moliere, and Boileau,
was to be the parent, some five years later, of a Philomena
and a Cleopatra^ both of them sad failures. The author,
whose works were now printed, and more or less read,
moved in the circle of Kniajnine and revolved in the
orbit of Novikov, borrowed from foreign authors with
the first, and decried them with the second. The two
comedies signed with his name in 1793 and 1794, The
Rogues and The Author y are nothing more than adapta-
tions.
In 1797 we find him in the country, in the house of
Prince S. F. Galitsine, where he occupied an indefinite
position, half salaried tutor, half family friend. Four
ISO RUSSIAN LITERATURE
years afterwards he was dismissed, and disappeared. He
had, and always was to have, the instincts of luxury,
something of that free-living nature so common among
his compatriots. At this period, so the story goes, he
began to gamble, in consequence of having won a con-
siderable sum (30,000 roubles), and led a wandering life,
going from the gaming-tables of one town to those of
another. He was not to reappear till 1806, and then
with his first three fables, imitations, it must be said, of
La Fontaine. Like La Fontaine, Krylov was slow to
find his true path ; like him, he was never to leave it, once
found, except for some theatrical attempts which were
not crowned with success.
Yet he resembles the French fabulist more by his
career, his temperament, and character than by the
nature of his intelligence. There was the same care-
lessness and improvidence in both cases. If the Russian
fable-writer did not squander his fortune, it was only
because he was born a beggar. La Fontaine's favourite
weakness was a too great devotion to the fair sex. Krylov
died of an indigestion, after living (riches came to him
with glory) the life of a sybarite. He was lazy, greedy,
selfish, careless in his dress, neither lovable nor loved,
in spite of the popularity his fables won him. But he
was never a dreamer, like La Fontaine. He was far
more positive, and had not even the indulgent good-
nature of his master. He is never taken in. He lifts
all masks, and looks into the bottom of men's hearts.
Finally, and especially, he is essentially a satirist, and
this feature, which distinguishes him from most fabulists,
seals him an original and national writer. Epigram, in
La Fontaine's case, is a smile. Krylov's epigrams grind
their teeth. The first are almost a caress ; the second are
KRYLOV 151
something like a bite. The Frenchman's fables are quite
impersonal ; the Russian's teem with transparent allu-
sions to contemporary individuals and things. Krylov
shows us a *^ quartette of musicians " — a monkey, a goat,
a donkey, and a bear — who only succeed in making a
deafening discord. Nobody hesitates to identify the party
with the ^' Society of Friends of the Russian Tongue,"
with its four coteries and its habitual quarrels. Then
he gives us Demiane and his well-known soup, with
which he plies his guests till they are sick, and every
one recognises the most verbose poet of the day.
La Fontaine's archness is thus turned into asperity,
and in this, again, Krylov gives proof of a powerful
originality, more Russian than humane, and essentially
realistic. Even in his imitations he remains true to the
national spirit, to its simple, practical, commonplace con-
ception of the world. With his very scanty education
and very narrow intellectual horizon, he not only knows
the life of the mass of the people down to its most secret
corners, with all its habits, ideas, and prejudices, but all
these habits, ideas, and prejudices are his own. His
original fables are, as it were, a counterpart of the pro-
verbs and legends of his country. His language, plastic
and vigorous, with a touch of coarseness, is absolutely
that of the people, without the smallest infusion of book
lore.
This original quality of Krylov's was so striking,
that when the question of his monument was mooted,
it proved stronger than the classical tradition, in a
country where even the effigy of Souvorov, that most
original of men, was set up for the admiration of pos-
terity, in a public square, disguised as the god Mars!
Nobody dared to dress up Krylov as Apollo ! Care-
II
152 RUSSIAN LITERATURE
lessly seated on a bench in the Summer Garden, his
figure retains, even in the bronze, the massive features,
the ungraceful outhne, and the huge frock-coat which
concealed his vast proportions.
Among his two hundred fables, not fewer than forty-
six are borrowed directly from ^sop, Phaedrus, La
Fontaine, Gellert, and Diderot. At the head of most
editions, The Fox and tJie Raven closely follows La Fon-
taine's text, with descriptive amplifications and poetic
developments which greatly mar the simplicity of the
original. Krylov, like Pouchkine, took great pains to
find sources of inspiration, and equal pains to conceal
them. The subject of The Three Moujiks has been
detected in an old French fabliau, which had already
enriched Imbert's collection. In the case of The Brag-
gart, the original idea has been attributed both to Gellert
and to Imbert. I do not feel disposed to blame the
Russian fabulist on this account. La Fontaine himself
drew on ^sop's fables, and, as for originality, those of
La Motte, which are original, are none the better for
that. Krylov has stamped his work, in a very sufficient
manner, with his own personal genius. His best fables
may be said to demonstrate certain ideas which can
fairly be called his own. The Lions Education, The
Peasant and the Snake, and The Ducat reflect his ideas
on education, which, as will be readily imagined, are
not very broad. In the days of Araktcheiev and his
acolyte, Magnitski, Krylov warned his fellow-citizens
against the dangers of too much learning ! A second
category, to which The Oracle and The Peasants and the
River belong, shows up the faults of the national ad-
ministrative and judicial system. A third touches, in
artless glimpses that bewray the philosophy learnt in
KRYLOV 153
huts over which the tide of invasion swept, on current
poHtical events, and on the figure of the great Napoleon.
Of this series, The Waggon and The Wolf and the Dog-
Kennel are the most characteristic specimens.
I am forced to confine myself to these few remarks.
Krylov's works have been translated into tw^enty-one
languages — all the Indo-European and several Eastern
tongues. There are seventy-two French translations,
thirty-two German, and only twelve English. He was
introduced to English readers by W. R. S. Ralston, but
the most complete English version is that of Mr. Harri-
son (1884). The first national poet of Russia was also the
first whose genius conquered the world at large.
CHAPTER VI
THE NATIONAL EVOLUTION— POUCHKINE
The first verses of Alexander Sergui^ievitch Pouch-
KINE (1799-1837) were written in 1814, At that moment
the whole literary and political world, from one end of
Europe to the other, was in a ferment. In England,
Byron — in whose voice spoke, if we may so say, the
voices of Godwin, of Paine, of Burns, of Landor — was
raising his mighty cry of liberty. In Italy, Manzoni and
Ugo Foscolo were re-creating Dante's dream of unity.
In France, wounded national pride and the rebellious
spirit of independence sought consolation and revenge
in the poetic fictions of Chateaubriand, Benjamin Con-
stant, Senancourt, and Madame de Stael. In Germany,
a people still wild with pride and joy was celebrating its
enfranchisement over Wieland's newly-made grave. All
this was of the very essence of Romanticism, and of all
this, in Russia, there was hardly a sign. There the world,
intellectual and literary, had remained in a state of in-
coherence, wherein the gross sensualism and epicurism
of the French sceptics, the naturalist philosophy of
Schelling and Oken, Slavophilism, and mysticism, rubbed
shoulders with the ideal humanitarianism of Schiller, the
teachings of Adam Smith, and vague notions of consti-
tutional liberalism. But in the midst of this chaos, a
new language had arisen, a wondrous instrument, which
only awaited the master-hand that was to attune it to
POUCHKINE 155
Ir
every voice, external and intgrnaJ-^and out of its bosom
had sprung a new mental personality, with its own
special method of being, thought, and feeling — Russia,
already embodied in the genius of Krylov, and soon to
be seen in Pouchkine, Gogol, and Tourgueniev.
Did Pouchkine really represent this personality ?
There have been prolonged doubts on the subject, even
in Russia. With the exception of Gogol, the poet's con-
temporaries and his natural judges, like the first literary
critics in Russia, Nadiejdine and Polevoi, have not
looked on him as much more than imitator, a Westerner.
To a German, Varnhagen von Ense, belongs the honour
of having declared his conviction of the falsehood of
this verdict, and it has been reversed, by degrees, in
the opinion of the country. Russia, as I write, is pre-
paring to celebrate the poet's centenary, amidst a general
concourse of enthusiastic homage, which has never been
exceeded in the history of the glories of any nation.
Nevertheless, a French writer has recently reopened the
case, and has ventured to come to a definite conclusion,
which, in his own words, ^' should sever the poet from
his own nationality, and restore him to humanity at
large."
M. de Vogue will permit me to say that I fail to per-
ceive the interest of such a restitution. I incline, in
fact, to the opinion that the more personal, original, and
national the creator of ideas and images is, the more
likely is he to interest the human community in general,
whatever may be the country to which he belongs. And
it appears to me that to deny the possession of these
qualities to Pouchkine, is simply to degrade him to
the rank of such writers as Soumarokov. He deserves-
better than this. His work is, indeed, so heterogeneous,,
156 RUSSIAN LITERATURE
*
so charged with foreign elements^ and so naturally
affected by the transition period of which I have just
given a sketch, as to justify, to a certain extent, the con-
tradictory judgments to which it constantly gives rise.
But, on the other hand, it is ruled, and in a sense
saturated, by one capital creation, Eugene Onieguine,
which alone occupied nine years (1822 to 1831) of a life
that was all too short. Now failure to comprehend
the essentially national character of this poem is, pro-
perly speaking — I do not fear contradiction on this point
from any Russian living — failure to understand it at aril.
I will explain myself later on this subject. I must now
begin with a few features of the poet's biography.
The poet's life is indiSsolubly bound up with his
work. He lived every line he wrote. And indeed his^
character, his temperament, his racial features, are as
powerfully evident in his origin as in some of his writings.
He was a Russian with a trace of African blood in his
veins. His maternal grandfather, as we all know, was
Peter the Great's famous Negro, Hannibal, whose adven-
tures he undertook to relate. The poet's father, Sergius
Lvovitch, a typical nobleman of the time of Catherine II.,
with fine manners, varied knowledge, Voltairian opinions,
and the perfect dociHty of the true courtier, gave him
French tutors at a very early age, and these did their
work so well, that in 1831, at the age of thirty-two, their,
pupil could still write to Tchadaiev, ^' I will speak to
you in the language of Europe ; it is more familiar to
me than our own." This boast of his was a slander on
himself. My readers shall judge. At ten years of age,
when living at Moscow, in a very literary circle, and see-
ing daily, in his father's house, such men as Karamzine,
Dmitriev, and Batiouchkov, the urchin, as was to be
POUCHKINE 157
expected, wrote French verses and borrowed from the
Henriade, At fifteen, at the College of Tsarskoie-Sielo,
an institution devoted to the education of the youth of
the aristocracy, he was still rhyming in French : —
Vrai demon par l^espieglerie^
Vrai singe par sa mine,
Beaucoup et trop d Stourderie,
Ma foil voila Pouchki7ie !
There were still French masters in this college, among
them one De Boudry, who, under this name, concealed
a very compromising kinship ; he was own brother
to Marat, and his views coincided with his family rela-
tionship.
But in 1 8 14 the European Messenger published imita-
tions in Russian verse of Ossian and Parny, the initials at
the foot of which scarcely concealed the identity of one
of the most insubordinate pupils in the College. There
was much more writing than studying done in that
establishment. Even periodical sheets were edited by its
members. Among a group of young men who subse-
quently made their mark either in politics or literature
— A. M. Gortchakov, the future Chancellor, and A. A.
Delwig, the future poet, both belonged to it — Pouchkine
(distinguished himself by his indefatigable diligence as a
publicist, and his excessive idleness as a student. Karam-
zine and Joukovski thought highly of his verses, but his
teachers opined that he *' had not much of a future be-
fore him." In his own family circle this latter opinion
necessarily prevailed. When ^' M. de Boudry's" pupil
left college in 1817, he was at once received into the
Arzamas y and so plunged into the thick of the political
and literary fray. Ryleiev belonged to the coterie, and
158 RUSSIAN LITERATURE
the time he spent in it was by no means occupied in
opposing Chichkov and his classic theories.
Yet Pouchkine's position in the cHque was chiefly-
connected with hterature. In 1818 he read his com-
rades the opening verses of Rousslane and Lioudmila.
Joukovski and Batiouchkine were astounded. *'This is
something new!" they cried. The Chichkov party
raised an indignant outcry. ''A parody of Kircha
Danilov ! " they declared. But the poem was more
than that. Some years previously, in a still childish
effort entitled The Little Town {Gorodok), Pouchkine,
hke Byron in the celebrated note published by Moore,
had been moved to make a list of the books he had
read, and of his own favourite writers. In it Moliere
is bracketed with Chenier, and Beranger with Ossian.
All these are to be traced in Rousslane and Lioudmilaj
but with them many other things — reminiscences of
Wieland and Herder, to wit, and the evident influence
of the Italian poets. The groundwork of the poem is
borrowed much more from Ariosto's humorous epic
than from the Kircha Danilov collection. Mere mar-
queterie, on the whole, and only moderately good.
Where was the novelty, then ? Herein : the application
of the Italian poet's ironic method to a national legend,
an attempt at which had already been made by Hamil-
ton and others in England ; but Hamilton, in his fairy
tales, had only made use of a fantastic element already
worn thin by fashion. Pouchkine — and this was his
mistake — undervalued the treasure he had just dis-
covered. Growing wiser as time went on, he was to
hit upon the true method of the popular story-teller —
simplicity.
The poem was not published until 1820, and before
POUCHKINE 159
it appeared a thunderbolt had fallen on the young
author's head. Numerous other manuscript verses of
his were in general circulation, among them an Ode to the
Dagger^ suggested by the execution of Karl Sand, who
had murdered Kotzebue, epigrams on Araktcheiev, and a
Gabrielidy imitated from Parny's War of the Gods, which,
for profane and licentious obscenity, far surpassed its
model, but which departed from it, more especially, in
its total freedom from any ulterior philosophic intention.
Poetry of this description, simply and coarsely ribald,
is, alas ! of very frequent occurrence in Pouchkine's
work, though it does not appear in any of the *' complete
editions." In these the erotic poems are either omitted,
or so much expurgated, by dint of pruning and arbi-
trary correction, that the original sense is completely
altered. Thus in the four-line stanza addressed to
Princess Ouroussov, the line —
" / have never believed in the Tritiity "
is turned into —
" / have never believed in the Three Graces " !
Some special collections of the poet's erotic verse
have been printed abroad with his name on the cover ;
and however his biographers may have endeavoured to
disguise the fact, it is certain that his disgrace in 1820
was largely connected with the Gabrielid. Parny's imi-
tator narrowly escaped Siberia. By Karamzine's good
offices, his punishment was commuted to banishment to
the Southern Provinces, and the adventure, in the result,
set an aureole of glory on the exile's brow. Pouchkine's
Russian contemporaries, like Voltaire's in France, were
disposed to confuse liberty with license. But the young
i6o RUSSIAN LITERATURE
man's retirement from St. Petersburg had a most salutary
effect, removing him from very harmful company, and
replacing its influence by two others of a very different
nature — the Caucasus and Byron. Between 1820 and
1824, the great poet of the future was destined to reveal
his power in works which were to cast a merciful shadow
over his early errors. All of these, The Prisoner of the
Caucasus y The Fountain of Baktchissarai^ The Gipsies, and
the first cantos of Eugene Onieguine, are the result of this
twofold inspiration.
It would be too much to say that the manner in
which he has drawn upon them shows perfect discern-
ment. He belonged too entirely to his period, his race,
and his surroundings for that. He certainly had better
stuff in him than that which goes to the making of a
sybarite in life and poetry. He had noble instincts,
splendid flights of enthusiasm. His education, his origin,
his surroundings, were always to conspire together to
clip his wings. From the Caucasus, this time, he takes
the scenery of his poem, fascinating but cold, with no
apparent hold either on the soul of the man who de-
\scribes it, nor on the characters he sets down in its
midst. From Byron he borrows elements of expression,
occasionally elaborate, but still simple in form — sub-
jects, phrases, and tricks. At Kich^niev and at Odessa
he scandalised the inhabitants, and drove the authorities
to desperation, by his eccentric demeanour and his
pseudo-Byronic freaks, his adventurous rides across
the mountains, his gambling, his duels, his excess and
violence of every kind. There is a legend that during a
duel with an officer (Zoubov) he ate cherries under his
opponent's fire. This trait appears in one of the tales
included in the Stories of Bielkine (1830), one of his
POUCHKINE i6i
most popular works, and would thus seem to be
autobiographic. The details of his last and fatal meet-
ing with Dantes-Heckeren prove that he was quite
capable of it. His physical courage was foolhardy and
indomitable. He is also reported to have lived for some
time with a tribe of gipsies. And in all this I see more
extravagance and wildness — Abyssinian or Muscovite —
than romantic fancy. Byron was never either a gambler
or a bully. He would never have bitten a woman's
shoulder in a crowded theatre, in a fit of frantic jealousy,
nor punted at a gambling-table with his own verses at the
rate of five roubles for an alexandrine ! His Russian
rival was always, for the reasons I have stated, to
spend his vital energy in feats of this description, and
reappear after them, worn out and exhausted, just when
the noblest causes appealed to him for help.
The Prisoner of the Caucasus is a Childe Harold with
more human nature about him, who allows himself to
hold tender converse with a fair Circassian. The dra-
matic struggle between the harem system and a man's
love for a single woman forms the subject of The Foun-
tain of Baktchissaratj and it is also the subject of the
Giaour. Aleko, the hero of the Gipsies^ who flies from
the lying conventionalities of society, is Byron himself,
but a disfigured Byron, capable of introducing all the
weaknesses and prejudices of the world from which he
has banished himself, into the gipsy camp. In this fact
Pouchkine's apologists have endeavoured to discover a
repudiation of the Byronian ethics, and the poet's con-
version to nationalism. He never gave it a thought !
Writing to Joukovski in 1825, he says, "You ask what
is my object in The Gipsies? My object is poetry."
He had imitated Byron externallvy because he was
1 62 RUSSIAN LITERATURE
Byron-mad at that particular moment. He had not
followed him in the internal development of his poem,
because he never was to comprehend the real founda-
tion of the Byronic inspiration.
The English poet was a man of the eighteenth century,
in love with a humanitarian ideal, bitterly surprised to
see it bespattered with blood and mud, and venting his
disappointment on humanity at large. Pouchkine was
a Russian of the nineteenth century, in love, for a pass-
ing moment, with liberty, because Chenier had sung its
praises in verse which he thought beautiful ; ready, when
he left St. Petersburg, to overthrow the whole world
because his banishment had been preceded — so it was
said — by an application of corporal punishment, the re-
ports concerning which, more than the thing itself, drove
him furious ; but who soon calmed down, confined his
ambition to a constitutional monarchy, and, after 1825,
became an unconditional supporter of the monarchical
system — politically speaking, in fact, a thoroughgoing
opportunist. From the ethical point of view, all that he
was ever to assimilate of Byron's spirit was his individual
independence with regard to social tradition and habits,
and some tricks besides, such as the mania for not
appearing a p7'ofessionaly the affectation of talking about
cards, horses, and women, instead of about literature, and
certain strong pretensions to aristocratic descent, con-
cerning which he explains himself in the celebrated piece
of writing entitled My Genealogy (^Moia Rodoslovnaia), in
which he proudly claims the title of bourgeois ^ but of a
line that could reckon back six centuries in the annals of
his country.
The GipsieSf indeed, corresponds, in the poet's career,
to a turning-point which was to lead him far alike from
POUCHKINE 163
Byron and from Southern climes ; and this coincidence
is doubtless not merely accidental. The influence of
surroundings always affected this impressionable nature
strongly. When about to leave Odessa, he bade farewell
to the sea, and to '' the poet of the sea, powerful, deep,
gloomy, unconquerable, even as the sea itself," in lines
which are among the finest he ever wrote ; and thus he
revealed the mysterious link which, in his poetic thought,
bound the man and the element together. Fresh dis-
grace awaited him. At St. Petersburg he had outdone
Parny ; at Odessa an English traveller introduced him
to Shelley, and soon he went farther than the author
of Prometheus Unbound. He felt strong leanings to '' ab-
solute atheism," and was so imprudent as to state the
fact in a correspondence which, naturally, was inter-
cepted. He was treated as a hardened offender, and
sent in disgrace to the care of his father, who lived in a
lonely village in the Government of Pskov.
This banishment was infinitely more severe. Mikhai-
lovskoie v.as very different from Odessa, and the elder
Pouchkine took his responsibility as jailer quite seriously.
The poet's letters were opened. He was obliged to give
up seeing his friends. At last Joukovski interfered, and
to such purpose that the son was at all events left alone
in the village, his father taking his departure, and leaving
the local police to watch the behaviour of his perverted
child, with whom he refused to hold any intercourse
whatever. Friends began to make their appearance,
and the poet was able to mingle some entertainment
with his literary labours, w^hich still continued. His
liaison with Mme. Kern dates from this period. At the
same time he was passing The Gipsies through the
press, beginning his Boris Godounov and carrying on
1 64 RUSSIAN LITERATURE
his Eugene Onieguine. I am eager to reach this latter
poem.
The subject is sUght. Spread out over seven thousand
lines, it gives us a confused sense of emptiness. In a
country place, where Onieguine has retired for the sake
of solitude, he encounters the artless love of Tatiana, a
young girl living in a neighbouring manor-house. He is
inclined to look down upon her ; she takes the initiative,
and writes to him, offering her love. Here we have a
first indication of national originality, the direct outcome
of local tradition. See the Bylines. Onieguine is not
touched. In the most correct fashion, he contrives a
tete-a-tete with the young girl, and sententiously informs
her, ^^ I am not the man for you/' They part, lose sight
of each other for several years, until, at a second meeting,
the scornful hero finds himself in the presence of a fair
princess, flanked by a gouty husband and surrounded
by a circle of adorers. He recognises Tatiana. This
time it is he who writes, and the sense of his letter may
be easily divined. She replies in her turn, '^ I cannot
give myself to you. I have loved you, I love you still.
But I am married, and I will keep my faith."
There we have the whole story, if we add the episode
of the duel with Lenski, Onieguine's friend and the
betrothed of Tatiana's sister, whom the hero kills, nobody
quite knows why, unless it be to demonstrate that he
could be odious, which might have been suspected with-
out this incident. Can any one conceive an epic poem
(for this is very nearly what we have here) in French,
German, or English on such a theme? But it was
written in Russian. It could not have been wTitten in
any other language. The subject is like those land-
scapes on the steppe, into which God has put so little.
POUCHKINE 1 65
and in which men who know how to dream can see
so much.
Pouchkine's poem is full of digressions, a constant
commentary on the story, apparently very Byronic, but
in reality very different, both in substance and in form.
Form and substance are affected, in the case of both
poets, by the fact that one belonged to a country where
men speak much and unconstrainedly, and the other to
a country where expression is rare and reserved. The
dwellers on the steppe are, as a rule, a silent race.
Occasionally some special circumstance may unseal their
lips ; then comes something like a torrent which has
broken its banks. They grow talkative and prolix to
excess. But they are doomed to continue within the
narrow and commonplace intellectual horizon that hems
them in, with all the paltry ideas and interests it involves.
There was no Hellespont for Pouchkine to cross at
Mikhailovskoie. The only water he met with on his
walks was a narrow rivulet, which he could cross dry
footed. We see the consequence in a strong touch of
the commonplace in parts of his work. To European
readers the interest of his poem centres in the character
of Onieguine. Now this ''Muscovite dressed up as Childe
Harold" — as Tatiana is fain to call him, wondering
whether she has not to deal with ''a parody" — this
disenchanted man of pleasure, is neither Childe Harold
nor Manfred, neither Obermann nor Charles Moor ; he
is Eugene Onieguine, a character so thoroughly and
specifically Russian that no equivalent to it can be found
in the literature of any other country. In Russian litera-
ture, on the contrary, it constantly appears. It appears
under the name of Tchatski in the work of Griboiedov, as
Pietchorine in Lermontov's, as Oblomov in Gontcharov's,
1 66 RUSSIAN LITERATURE
and Peter Bezouchov in Tolstoi's. And always we see the
same man. What man ? A Russian, I reply — a type which,
under Tourgueniev's hand, again, is to incarnate a whole
social category, the innumerable army of the Lichnyiie
lioudi, — superfluous men, — outside the ranks, and unem-
ployed, in a society within which they do not kiiow what
to do with themselves, and outside which they would
know still less ; a man of noble birth, whose ancestors
were enrolled in the active service of the Tsar, and who,^
freed from that service, is as much puzzled how to use
his liberty as an African native would be if he were
presented with an instrument for wireless telegraphy.
This Onieguine, this Tchatski, this Pietchorine feels he
is, and will be, a superfluity in the sphere in which his
birth has placed him, and cannot conceive how he is
to escape from it. He begins everything, and per-
severes in nothing. He tempts life, and even death,
with the idea that what lies beyond may be something
better. He is always waiting for something ; nothing
comes ; life slips by ; and when, at five-and-twenty, he
would fain fall back on love, the answer falls, '^ Too
late ! Look in thine own face. Already it is full of
wrinkles ! "
Dostoievski, who identifies this type with that of
Aleko, recognises in it, further, the eternal vagabondage
of the civilised Russian, parted by his civilisation from
the mass of his own countrymen. We see him wan-
dering hither and thither, taking refuge in Socialism or
Nihilism — like Aleko in the gipsy camp — and then cast-
ing them aside, in his pursuit of an ideal he will never
attain. The character will bear many other interpreta-
tions, so expressive, so comprehensive is it, and at the
same time so vague and undecided. Pouchkine, at all
POUCHKINE 167
events, has modelled it in the true clay, drawn from the
very heart of the national life and history.
I cannot share Dostoievski's opinion of Tatiana. Her
figure is charming. Is it really and essentially typical,
and Russian ? In its mingling of resolution with grace
and tenderness, it may be, although the farnous letter
in which she reveals her love is borrowed from the
Nouvelle Heloise, In several places Pouchkine has simply
translated from Rousseau. In her profound devotion to
duty, again, I will admit it. This trait in Tatiana's char-
acter is the legacy of distant ancestors. The obligatory
and universal military service which for centuries called
every man of the free classes away from his own fire-
side, had, as its inevitable consequence, the development
of certain qualities within the home, and the exaltation
of certain virtues in the women of the country. But
in Dostoievski's view, Tatiana's great originality lies in
the final feature, that of her heroic adherence to her
conjugal fidelity ; and I fear this presumption may call
a smile to my reader's countenance.
Pouchkine, after he had composed the first few cantos
of Eugene Onieguine^ wrote thus to one of his friends,
" I have begun a poem in the style of Don Juan!* A
year later he writes, " I see nothing in common between
Eugene Onieguine and Don Juan!" These changes
of view are common among poets. But Pouchkine was
right — the second time ! In vain do we seek, in the
Russian poet's work, for the religious, social, and political
p)hilosophy which is the basis of all the English poet wrote.
We do not find a symptom of Byron's vehement protest
against the cankers of modern civilisation, poverty, war,
despotism, the desperate struggles of ambition and appe-
tite. The picture of the soldier robbing the poor peasant
12
1 58 RUSSIAN LITERATURE
of what remained in his porringer never haunted the
brain of the recluse of Mikailovskoie. In him Byron's
excessive individuahsm, at war with society, was replaced
by a savage worship of his own individual self. In
Onieguine's eyes, as a Russian critic (Pissarev) has ob-
served, life signifies to walk on the boulevards, to dine at
Talon's, to go to theatres and balls. '* Feeling " is to envy
the waves the privilege of lapping the feet of a pretty
woman. Looking fairly at the matter, the hero's disgust
with life is very like what Germans denominate Katzen-
jamnier. And if, as Bielinski affirms, the poem is *^ an
encyclopaedia of Russian life," we must conclude that
Russian life, in those days, consisted in eating, drinking,
dancing, going to the play, being bored, falling in love
out of sheer idleness, and suffering — either from boredom
or from some love-affair. In the aristocratic sphere to
which the poet's observation was confined, this picture
may, historically speaking, be pretty nearly correct.
On the other hand, it was not Don Juan, but rather
Beppo, which Pouchkine had in view when he com-
menced his work, not without memories of Sterne, and
even of Rabelais. But by the time the first thousand
lines were finished, he had forgotten Byron. At that
moment there was a revulsion in the poet's ideas, arising
out of his experiences at Mikhailovskoie, and contem-
porary events in general. The catastrophe of the 25th
December 1825 found him still in his enforced retire-
ment. Most of its victims were his relations or his
friends. If he had been at St. Petersburg, he would
certainly have made common cause with them. Not
content with blessing the providential chance which had
saved him from this fresh adventure, he bethought him-
self that it would be as well never to run such risks
POUCHKINE 169
again. He tore himself finally away from the gipsies,
^^ sons of the desert and of liberty/' and sought shelter
in the theory of Art for. arfs sake.
This was to lead him to Goethe, and from Goethe to
Shakespeare. No more verses like those of Solitude^
written at Mikhailovskoie, were to brand the name
of ^'serfdom" with disgrace. No more appeals for
intellectual union with Sand or Radichtchev. The rup-
ture with the past was utter and complete. Sometimes
it was to cause the poet pain, as when the ^'enlightened
despotism," of which he had become an adherent, laid
its iron lingers on his own brow. ''The devil," he was
to write, " has caused me to be born, in this country,
with talent and a heart." But in vain w^as the turmoil of
thought and aspiration and revolt, in which he had once
shared, to call upon him to return. He never descended
from his Olympus.
Silence^ viad 7iaiio7i, slave of 7ieed and toil !
Thine insolent miirmurings are hateful to vie f
To the study of Shakespeare, into which he now threw
himself with avidity, he added that of Karamzine. In
the solitude of Mikhailovskoie the poet laboured to supply
the inadequacy of his "cursed education." An old nurse,
Arina Rodionovna, guided him, meanwhile, through the
wonderful mazes of the national legends. This resulted
in the conception of Boris Godounov, In the figure of
this throned pain.}enu Pouchkine has endeavoured to
merge the features of Shakespeare's Richard III., Mac-
beth, and Henry IV. Certain scenes in the play — the
election scene, and that in which Boris gives his parting
counsels to his son — are directly taken from the English
playwright. Taken as a whole, it is only a chapter out
I70 RUSSIAN LITERATURE
of Karamzine, arranged in dialogue form after Shake-
speare's style, and written in blank verse iambics of five
feet — a metre familiar to English and German poets.
But all that is best in it — the scenes in which Pouchkine
puts his old nurse's tales into his own words, introducing
the popular element, with its simple temperament and
wit and speech, the only ones which stand out with real
life and colour — must be ascribed to Arina Rodionovna.
The character of the impostor Demetrius, which has
brought bad luck to every one who has attempted it,
including'Merimee, whatever Brandes may say, is a com-
plete failure. Side by side with that mysterious puppet
Pouchkine had a vision — his letters prove it — of a Marina
who may have been historically genuine, and who cer-
tainly is psychologically interesting. ^' She had but one
passion^ and this was ambition, but this to a degree of
energy and fury which it is difficult to express. Behold
her ! after she has tasted the sweets of royalty, drunk with
her own fancy, prostitute herself to one adventurer after
another, now sharing the loathsome bed of a few, now
the tent of some Cossack, always ready to give herself to
any one who can offer her the faintest hope of a throne
which exists no longer . . . braving poverty and shame,
and at the same time treating with the king of Poland
as his equal!" The portrait is sketched with a master-
hand. Unfortunately, not a trace of it appears in the
single scene, clumsy and improbable, wherein the poet
brings the daughter of the Palatine of Sandomir face to
face with her adventurous betrothed. The two figures
in the play are the faintest of sketches, and, except for
Eugene Onieguine, the whole of Pouchkine's work, poems,
plays, and novels, is no more than a series of sketches.
Poltava was written in the course of a few weeks, the
POUCHKINE 171
author, it would seem, having thus endeavoured to rid
himself of a remnant of his Byronian ballast, although
his Mazeppa has nothing in common with Byron's. The
only Mazeppa Byron knew was the Mazeppa of Voltaire.
If the English poet had been aware — so Pouchkine him-
self declares — of the love, the mutual love, between the
aged Hetman and the daughter of Kotchoubey, no one
would have dared to lay a finger on the subject after
him ; but in Poltava this love, unexplained, without any
psychological reason about it, merely gives us the sensa-
tion of being brought face to face with another irritating
and useless enigma. All this time, Pouchkine was still
working at his Onieguine. He could only work when
the work flowed easily. If inspiration failed him, he
put the subject aside for a while, and looked about for
another. Thus, at this moment, Shakespeare's Lucretia
gave him the idea of a burlesque parody, which de-
veloped into Count Nouline — a very unpleasing story,
as I should think it, of a nobleman who has his ears
heartily boxed by a lady just as he lays his hand upon
her bed. This incident caught the attention of the St.
Petersburg censure. The Emperor himself interfered,
and the author was forced to cast a veil over Count
Nouline's performances.
It was only a literary bauble, although, in later days,
some critics have chosen to discover in it a deep inten-
tion, a prelude to Gogol's novels on social subjects, and
a criticism of the habits of the day. In Onieguine
and Boris Godounov Pouchkine was putting out all his
strength, and already a new life was dawning for him, at
once an apotheosis and an abyss, in which his splendid
powers were to be prematurely engulfed.
On 2nd September 1826, a courier from the Tsar
172 RUSSIAN LITERATURE
arrived at Mikhail ovskoie, made the poet get into a post-
chaise, carried him off, full gallop, no one knew
whither, — and the villagers wondered, filled with terror.
Some weeks previously, Pouchkine had written to the
sovereign, beseeching his forgiveness in humble, nay,
even in humiliating terms. This was the Tsar's reply.
The courier and his companion travelled straight to St.
Petersburg, and once there, the poet was obliged, before
resting or changing his clothes, to wait upon the sove-
reign. There was a story, in later days, that in his
agitation he dropped a very compromising document —
an affecting address to the Decembrists — upon the
palace stairs. It is just possible. The poet frequently
behaved like a madcap. And the verses are still in ex-
istence. They would not, I imagine, have affected the
Tsar's inclination to mercy. Their optimism is anything
but fierce. The author, having backed out of the busi-
ness himself, was very ready to fancy it would turn out
well for everybody concerned. The interview was cour-
teous on the imperial side, humble and repentant enough
on the poet's, and he received permission to live in
Moscow or St. Petersburg, as best it suited him.
Alas ! his admirers were soon to regret Mikhailov-
skoie. He plunged into a life of dissipation and debau-
chery, — nights spent over cards and in orgies of every
kind, with here and there, when disgust fell upon his
soul, short periods of retirement to his former place of
exile, where inspiration came no more to visit him.
It was not till his betrothal to Natalia Nicolaievna
Gontcharov (1830) that he passed into a short period
of meditation, and experienced a fresh flow of crea-
tive power. He was able to carry on his Onicguiney
and, while writing a great number of lyric verses, to pro-
POUCH KINE 173
duce those popular tales in rhyme of which so many
illustrated editions now exist, and some of which, such as
The Legend of Tsar Saltane, are master-pieces. The little
dramatic fancies entitled The Stingy Kttight, Mozart and
Salieriy and The Stone Landlord, also belong to this pro-
ductive period. Their value seems to me to have been
overrated.
But once more, alas ! The marriage proved disas-
trous. The poet, who so sadly described himself as an
'^atheist" concerning happiness, and cynically referred
to his engagement as his " hundred and third love," was
evidently not suited to domestic joys. After a curtailed
honeymoon, the young couple plunged into the whirl-
pool of social gaiety, each going his or her own way, and
seeking amusement that was less and less shared by the
other. Soon anxiety was added to indifference. Pouch-
kine, who recklessly spent all he earned — very consi-
derable sums for that period — was in constant financial
straits. He accepted a well-paid sinecure, under the
Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and aspired to be Karam-
zine's successor as historiographer to the crown. His
desire was attained, and he plunged into the archives,
intending to produce a history of Peter the Great. But
Catherine's more recent reign, and the dramatic episode
of Pougatchov's rebellion were destined to take hold of
his imagination. On this subject he successively pro-
duced an historical narrative and a novel. The Captain's
Daughter. The narrative is dry. The novel has interest
and charm, both arising from its great simplicity and
intense feeling for reality. The figure, as exquisite as
it is real, of the old mentor serving-man, Savelitch, has
its niche in the gallery of types which will go down to
posterity. But whether influenced by Walter Scott, or
174 RUSSIAN LITERATURE
out of respect to the official authority with which he
had just been invested, the author never leaves the
track of ordinary commonplace. Of the political and
social problems which surged through the gloomy epi-
sode, of the eddies of popular passion which swept the
" Marquis of Pougatchov " to the front, the poet either
perceived, or hinted, nothing.
This period of Pouchkine's life was fertile in plans
and sketches, wherein the influence of English litera-
ture seems decisive, but wherein the poet's own creative
power and literary tact are too often at a loss. At one
moment he had an idea of imitating Bulwer and his
Pelham in a novel of contemporary manners, which,
with its chronicle of the doings of several generations,
would have been a precursor of War and Peace. Again,
he drew up in French, and with many mistakes, both in
spelling and grammar, the outlines of a play or poem
with Pope Joan for its heroine. The play seemed too like
Fausty so the author inclined to a poem, to be written in
the style of Coleridge's Christabel. But the plan was
never put into execution, and we are not tempted to
regret it.
The author of Eugene Onieguine was visibly approach-
ing mental exhaustion. In his new surroundings, his
inspiration was failing him, and his mental horizon nar-
rowing. In 1 83 1, the sympathy stirred in the West by the
Polish insurrection inspired him with an apostrophe in
rhyme, addressed to the ^' Calumniators of Russia," and
this is all he can find to put them to silence : *' Know you
how many we are^ from the frozen rocks of Finland to the
burning sands of Colchis ? " A mere appeal to brute
numbers, such as the present Emperor of China might
be tempted to make against a European coalition ; and;
POUCHKINE 175
after all, no more than a paraphrase of the well-known
sally by the same author, ''Naturally I despise my
country, from its head to its feet ; but that foreigners
should share this sentiment displeases me ! "
In the course of the following years a few rare flashes
of powerful and original inspiration, such as the Bronze
Horseman^ dedicated to Peter the Great, are preceded and
followed by more and more frequent returns to imitation
and adaptation. Meanwhile, the poet's letters, like his
verses, prove him to be in the grip of a steadily strength-
ening despair, and haunted by the gloomiest fancies. He
chose the place for his grave ; he prayed God not to
deprive him of his reason — ''anything rather than that."
In 1834 he wrote The Queen of Spades ^ a fantastic tale
after Hoffman, and the weakest of all his works. In
1836 he tried militant journalism with a paper. The Con-
temporary^ the editorship of which he undertook. It was
a barren sheet, uninteresting, colourless, and flavour-
less. The Government historiographer, who frequently
solicited pecuniary assistance, which never seemed to gQ,i
him out of his difficulties, champed his bit, and often
flew into a fury. His pleasures, his passions, his bad
companions, could not blind his eyes to the degra-
dation of his position as a self-surrendered rebel, and a
domestic prophet. It drove him frantic, and yet he had
not sufficient energy to shake himself clear. This tem-
pestuous condition of mind was sure to end in a catas-
trophe. It might have been that plunge into mental
darkness at the idea of which he shuddered, thinking,
doubtless, of Batiouchkine ; but it came by the bullet
fired by Dantes, a French Legitimist of Dutch origin,
the adopted son of the Dutch Minister, Baron von
Heeckeren. On January 27, 1837, ^^^^^ having received
176 RUSSIAN LITERATURE
anonymous letters reflecting on his domestic honour,
Pouchkine went out to fight his last duel. Mortally
wounded, he still had strength to deliver his own fire,
and to give a cry of triumphant rage when he saw his
adversary drop upon the snowy ground. At the risk
of being dubbed sacrilegious by many of my Russian
readers, I venture to express my conviction that this
tragic end of a career that was already hopelessly com-
promised did not rob Russia of a great poet, and this,
too, was the opinion of the best informed among his
contemporaries. Bielinski had declared that career
closed in 1835, from the artistic point of view, and had
indicated Gogol as the writer destined to replace the
author of Eugene Onieguine at the head of the literature
of his country. He never retracted this opinion.
In his own country, Pouchkine's glory, though un-
rivalled during his lifetime, has, like that of his prede-
cessors, undergone various vicissitudes since his death.
In the first instance, there came a period of natural and
inevitable obscuration, during the great political and
intellectual crisis that filled up the years between i860
and 1880. It then necessarily became evident that the
poet had given no thought to the essential problems
which, even in his lifetime, had passionately interested
an increasing number of the best intelligences. At that
period, in the eyes of the eager youth who followed
the teachings of Bielinski and Dobrolioubov, Pouchkine
took on the appearance of a sybarite, at once scornful
and puerile. Later, when the theory of Art for arfs sake
had recovered some followers, in a calmer condition of
society, where the delicate joys of existence were once
more enjoyed, his star rose again. It is now in its full
zenith.
POUCHKINE 177
When we compare Pouchkine with his peers, we
must acknowledge that he certainly does not possess
either the depth of Shakespeare and Goethe, the strength
of Byron, Schiller, and Heine, the passion of Lermontov
and De Musset, the fulness of Hugo, nor even that gift
of communion with the very soul of the nation which
enabled Mickiewicz to say, '^ I am a million ! " Pouchkine
frequently, however, surpasses them all in the exception-
ally perfect harmony between his subject and his form,
a miraculous appropriateness of expression, a singularly
happy mingling of grace and vigour, and an almost in-
fallible feeling for rhythm. Once or twice he almost
touched the sublime, but he never ventured to cross the
terrible threshold where so many poets have stumbled on
the ridiculous. Except for a few fragments such as TJie
Prophet (1826), a superb though somewhat incoherent
paraphrase of some verses from Isaiah, which Dostoievski
was fond of declaiming, he is essentially a "graceful"
poet.
His ardent, violent, impetuous nature was mysteri-
ously combined with a singularly calm creative power,
which had complete control of itself and its subject.
The very act of creation freed the poet from all his
other intoxications. The classic ecstasy, the romantic
over-excitement, were replaced, in his case, by " the
cold-blooded inspiration " of which he speaks in an ad-
dress to Joukovski. And it is in this that he was essen-
tially a realist. In Shakespeare's work, he set Falstaff
above every other character, because it appeared to him
the crowning type, that in which the poet had most
thoroughly displayed the scope of his genius ; and the
effervescent temperament and sceptical demonism of the
Don Juan of the Southern legends were transformed, in
i;8 RUSSIAN LITERATURE
his conception, into a voluptuous enjoyment of existence,
and a tranquil consciousness of beauty.
Did his work indicate, and even incarnate, the true
destiny of the Russian people, that harmonious fusion of
various and conflicting elements which is the dream of
some contemporary prophets ? Dostoievski thought so.
Grigoriev believed that nothing but the poet's death pre-
vented him from realising this compromise, the formula
of which, through gentleness and love, the national genius
would have been called to furnish. It is curious that in
this connection Dostoievski should have appealed to The
Banquet, which is merely a fairly close translation by
Pouchkine of some scenes from John Wilson's poem The
City of the Plague (1816). The aptitude and ease with
which the Russian poet reproduced these pictures of
English life, indicated, in his compatriot's view, an excep-
tional gift of comprehension. But among the couplets
with which the translator has enriched the original text,
I find a comparison of the plague with winter, which
certainly has no British character about it.
Pouchkine's universality, which has so exercised the
minds of some of his Russian admirers, is nothing more,
as it seems to me, than a feature of his Romanticism.
Romanticism, when it gave birth to historical poetry,
evolved a general conception that beside our present
ideal of beauty others may exist, in the limits of time
and space. This programme has been realised by Goethe
with his Tasso^ his Iphigenia, his second Faust, the
fellow-citizen of every nation, the contemporary of every
age ; by Thomas Moore — with his descriptive odes on
the Bermudas, his sentimental Irish Melodies, his poetic
romance, the scene of which lies in Egypt, his romantic
poem on a Persian subject, — with a fulness which Pouch-
DELWIG 179
kine does not even approach. None the less, he was one
of the greatest artists of any time, and to have possessed
him may well be a sulBcient glory to a young nation, and
a literature still in its beginnings.
His language, rich, supple, and melodious as it is,
still betrays the nature of his education. M. Korch has
lately pointed out its numerous inaccuracies and fre-
quent Gallicisms. The influence of French models is less
apparent in his verse, than in his prose narratives. The
wording of The Captains Daughter^ curt, clear, a little
dry, is essentially Voltairian. The line generally used by
the poet is an eight-syllabled iambic, a metre common to
much popular poetry. He also frequently uses rhyme,
and even the alternate masculine and feminine rhyme,
marked by the tonic accent {je?ta, masculine rhvme ;
knigay feminine rhyme), but in this respect he has not
shown remarkable artistic skill. As early as 1830 the
author of Eugene Onieguitie was surrounded by a com-
pact group of pupils and imitators. Very severe on him-
self, inclined to be indulgent to others, affable as a rule,
except to a few St. Petersburg journalists, he considered
Baratinski's work superior to his own, and submitted
what he wrote himself to the judgment of Del wig.
Baron Antony Antonovitch Delwig (i 798-1 831)
left the College of Tsarskoie-Sielo at the same time as
Pouchkine, and after an examination the results of which
were almost as unsatisfactory. He, too, had spent his
time in rhyming verses, and, in 18 14, made his first public
appearance in the European MessengeVy with an ode on
the taking of Paris. Aided by the good-natured Krylov,
he found shelter for his unconquerable indolence and
precocious epicurism in a modest appointment as sub-
librarian, and continued to feed the almanacks with his
I So RUSSIAN LITERATURE
lyric poems, of which Pouchkine held a high opinion, on
account — so he averred — of their wonderful divination of
Greek antiquity, through German translations and Italian
imitations. Delwig, of course, had learnt neither Greek
nor Latin at the college. In 1829, he was proposing to
publish a newspaper of literary criticism, but his health,
already weak, gave way completely, and he died of con-
sumption in quite early manhood.
Eugene Abramovitch Baratinski (1800-1844) began
life in stormy fashion, being obliged to leave the Pages'
Corps, and forbidden to follow any profession but that
of arms, and only as a private soldier. He was servitig
in the Light Cavalry of the Guard when Delwig, without
even giving him notice of his intention, pubhshed some
of his verses. They were inspired by that specifically
Russian form of Byronism, mingled with Anglo-French
sentimentalism, which had been introduced by Joukovski,
and adopted by Pouchkine in his first productions, — a
dreamy, disenchanted, melancholy form it was. The
condition. of things imposed on the country by the rule
of Araktcheiev was eminently calculated to encourage a
form of inspiration destined, in Lermontov's hands, to
attain such remarkable power and fulness. Before
Baratinski was promoted an officer, he was hailed as a
great poet. This did not take place until 1825, after he had
done a long spell of garrison duty in Finland, where he
wrote his poem Eda, which has a Finnish heroine. He
was never to lose the impression of the severe scenery
which had inspired this work. Two other poems of an
epic nature. The Ball Tind The Gipsy Girly are dated from
Moscow, whither the author — having married a wife and
left the service — w^as able to retire, in 1827. But, after
his stern experiences in his own land, foreign countries
BARATINSKI i8i
had an irresistible attraction for him. He had the de-
light of spending the winter of 1843-44 in Paris, in
intimate intercourse with Vigny, Sainte Beuve, Nodier,
Merimee, Lamartine, Guizot, and Augustin Thierry, and
even of seeing Italy, — a dream he had cherished ever
since his childhood. He wrote little in those days, and
that little entirely in the lyric style. On his road to
Naples he wrote The Steam-Boaty one of his last poems,
and perhaps the best of all, and he cied happy, as if in
realisation of the popular saying, on the shores of the
famous bay.
Pouchkine called him ^' our first elegiac poet." The
ingenious mingling of playfulness and passion, meta-
physics and sentiment, in The Bally filled him with ad-
miration. '* No writer has put more sentiment into his
thought, and more thought into his sentiment," he de-
clared, and twitted the public of his day with not appre-
ciating at its proper value a work the maturity of which
placed it above that public's level. The poet of The Ball
was, in Pouchkine's judgment, a thinker, and on this
account, especially, he held him to be a very great and
very original intelligence. This judgment we may fairly
ratify, although we must not overlook the surroundings
amidst which it was pronounced. I doubt whether
Baratinski's originality would have been much admired
in Paris.
Russia possessed, just at this time, another thinker,
of very different powers, who had not the good fortune
to be admired by Pouchkine. The orbit of this short-
lived star was not that in which such men as Baratinski
and Delwig revolved. He might, perhaps, have drawn
closer to them, had not his course been so suddenly in-
terrupted. My readers will have guessed to whom I refer.
1 82 RUSSIAN LITERATURE
Alexander Sergui£i6vitch Griboi^dov(i795-i829)
had one advantage over Baratinski and Delwig, that of
a very thorough education. The year 1812 did, indeed,
break up his studies, and forced from him the subse-
quent remark that it had taken him four years to forget
the four he had spent in a hussar regiment. He cast
aside his uniform in 1817, but did not leave the social
circle in which his birth and his uniform had placed
him. And thus, when he began to think and write, he
naturally found himself far removed from the briUiant
constellation of which the Arzamas was the centre, and
Pouchkine the bright particular star.
The Biessieda held out inviting arms to him. Prince
Chakhofskof, that insipid and prolific playwright, assisted
him in his first attempts, and the whole sheeplike band
of the Chichkovists attended on his steps. Before these
bonds could be broken, he was to leave St. Petersburg,
and enter the diplomatic career.
He went to Persia, then to Georgia, found time for
labour and meditation, and in 1823, the manuscript of
his comedy The Misfortune of being too Clever {Gore ot
ouma) was passed from hand to hand in St. Petersburg.
The effect may be compared to that produced in
France, forty years previously, by Z^ Mariage de Figaro.
The circumstances, too, were similar. The play could
not be performed in public ; it was played in private
houses, and during the Carnival, the students gave scraps
of it in the open streets. For a moment, the success,
brilliant as it was, of the first cantos of Eugene Oiiieguiiie
found a rival, and Pouchkine seems to have felt
some annoyanje ; for, prompt as his admiration for his
fellow-poets generally was, he spoke of this work with
great severity. His criticisms found a speedy echo, and
GRIBOIEDOV 183
Griboiedov, disheartened and embittered, betook himself
back to Georgia. He was arrested in 1826, on suspicion
of having connived at the attempt of the Decembrists,
was set at Hberty, served as Paskievitch's attache during
the Persian campaign, and only returned to St. Peters-
burg in 1828, armed with a treaty of peace and a tragedy
— The Georgian Nighty inspired by Shakespeare, and
a very ordinary performance. He was sent back to
Persia as Minister Plenipotentiary, and was stabbed
to death during a popular insurrection at Teheran, on
January 30, 1829.
He had made his first appearance as a Shakespearian
translator, and long nursed a plan for adapting the
whole of the English playwright's work to the Russian
stage. But even as a schoolboy he was dreaming of
the comedy which has shed glory on his name, and
noted its analogy with Wieland's Dwellers in Abderaj
and Moliere's Misanthrope. The close of The Misfortu7ie
of being too Clever is in fact copied, almost wholesale,
from the French dramatist's master-piece. ^^ I go to
seek some spot in the universe where I may find a corner
which will shelter a feeling and wounded soul. My coach !
my coach I " And yet Tchatski, who speaks these lines,
is not a misanthropist. He is rather, as the modern
critic puts it, a misotchi?ie. If, like Alceste, he has
conceived a ^'fearful hatred," it is less a hatred of
humanity, than a hatred of a certain social condition,
local in its essence, limited, and remediable. What
offends him in this condition, is the craze for foreign im-
portations, and the tyrannical influence of the tchine, both
of them absolutely contingent peculiarities, and which
strike him as odious because he has seen other states
of society in which these things do not exist at all, or
13
1 84 RUSSIAN LITERATURE
at all events are not considered elements of happiness.
He is five-and-twenty, and has just left Germany and
France behind him. Alceste is forty, and has left
life behind him. Moliere's comedy, besides, may be
summed up as a study of character. The special feature
of Griboiedov's piece is its presentment, strongly carica-
tured, of a fashionable Muscovite drawing-room in the
year 1820. Into this drawing-room Tchatski falls like
a thunderbolt. What ideas does he bring with him ?
A confused medley, the pattern of the intellectual fer-
ment of that period. Thinkers and artists alike, in the
fatherland of Tchatski and of his creator, were then
attaining a more and more vivid perception of the truth,
and a more and more simple interpretation of what they
saw. It was the birth of original literature and of the
natural school — I do not use the word naturalist^ for
that, in Russia, would be a heresy. But reality, in this
case, was not attractive. The clearer the consciousness,
the more evident became the sense of the national
deficiencies and blemishes, and the more eager the
longing to supply the first and wipe out the last. But
how ? A twofold answer came from the two currents,
Western and Nationalist, which still swayed men's
minds.
Should there be a concentric movement towards
European civilisation, with an appropriation of the tradi-
tional rules of its development ? Or should that civilisa-
tion be equalled, and even surpassed, by an independent
application of internal formulae ? Men hesitated as to
which horn of the dilemma should be grasped, but the
certainty and agreement as to the impossibility of main-
taining the status quo were absolute. Outside the walls
of Muscovite drawing-rooms, where idolatry of the tchine
GRIBOIEDOV 185
still reigned, the call for reform was universal. The pro-
gramme of both parties included the raising up of the
lower classes, now wedded to ignorance and barbarism,
under the bondage of serfdom. And thus the movement
towards the emancipation of the national literature was
complicated by social and political elements. Many
minds confused the intellectual current with the projects
of social reform it bore upon its bosom. Griboiedov,
who makes his Tchatski proclaim his preference for the
national dress, his love for the past history of his country,
his admiration for the instances of heroism and moral
nobility it contains, bore the reputation of being a fore-
runner of Tchadaiev, that earnest Westerner whose voice
was shortly to be heard. In opinion, if not in fact, he
was certainly a Decembrist, the comrade of Ryleiev in
that secret society *^ The Salvation Alliance," which at
one time numbered all the best intelligences of the day
within its ranks. Here young officers, Pestel, Narych-
kine, Muraviov, Orlov, elbowed popular poets like Ryleiev
and Bestoujev, and aristocrats such as Obolenski, Trou-
betzkoi., Odoievski, Volkonski, Tchernichev — all soon to
be proscribed.
Ryleiev, when he joined the Russian army in Paris in
1813, seriously took himself to be a liberator. Some
years later he was to protest, in lines which, though
poetically weak, were full of ardent feeling, against the
infamy of the Holy Alliance, and appeal from Arak-
tcheiev to the free burghers of ancient Novgorod. The
suppression of the secret societies in 1821 had the natural
result of accentuating the political character of the ten-
dencies apparent in them, and which, as a rule, went
no further than a hazy constitutional liberalism. That
presided over by Ryleiev was secretly reconstituted and
1 86 RUSSIAN LITERATURE
ramified in the provinces, in all directions, until the ill-
starred attempt of 1825.
A little of all this appears in Griboiedov's comedy,
though the medley is somewhat incoherent, and exces-
sively obscure. Any satisfactory examination of it pre-
supposes the use of a powerful lantern. I regard it as
an impossible play, for acting purposes, at the present
day, and one not easy even to read. It came too early
for its own contemporaries. In the Russian drawing-
room, where Tchatski breathlessly pours out his con-
fused notions, he is taken for a madman. Herein lies
the comic element of the piece. And it is a prophetic
element as well. Before very long, Tchadaiev was
actually to spend some months in a madhouse, and
before that time came, Ryleiev was to expiate on the
scaffold the ^' misfortune of having been too clever," in
a society not yet ripe for the shock of revolution.
Ryleiev himself was really no more of a revolution-
ary than Griboiedov. Revolutions are not made with
speeches, and, like Tchatski, neither of them knew how
to do more than preach. From 1823 to 1824 the famous
Decembrist was quietly occupied in editing, with Bestou-
jev, a literary paper call The Northern Star, which repro-
duced the artistic theories of the Globe, in the articles by
Sainte-Beuve and Jouffroy, then appearing in that paper,
and paid a periodical tribute to the ^' practical liberalism "
of the French and English Romanticists. Chance had a
great deal to do with that armed attempt, which was no
more than a scuffle, in the year 1825.
Griboiedov, more prudent, more easily disheartened,
too, having felt his way by means of his comedy, retired
discreetly into the background. It was not till after his
death that the piece was staged, and then only after
GRIBOIEDOV 187
liberal cutting. If the truth must out, the friendly recep-
tion it received from the general public, both on its first
appearance and subsequently, was chiefly due to its ludi-
crous qualities, the caricature it offered of a well-known
social circle, the satisfaction it gave to the satirical instinct
of the majority.
But other prophets were at hand, less prone to failure
and compromise. Soon, over Pouchkine's tomb, the voice
of Lermontov was to rise, expressing, in more virile
accents, a new spirit of independence and revolt. The
current of emancipation, checked for a moment, was to
flow without further stoppage, in a stream of steady de-
velopment, towards undoubted if partial triumph. From
1830 to 1870 the whole literary and political history of
Russia is summed up in the victorious stages of this
march of justice, light, and liberty. I shall now endea-
vour to indicate them briefly, turning my attention, in
the first place, to those labourers in the great work who
have lavished . on it the most arduous and most con-
scious effort. Scientists, philosophers, historians, literary
critics, or artists, poets, and novelists, I shall show their
common endeavour to seize and retain the truth, under its
thick-laid covering of ignorance and false conception, and
watch them as they gather, in the literature (now become
legendary) of divulgation and accusatiotiy a sheaf of truths
— poignant, cruel, cutting as rods — w4iich, day by day,
and year by year, are to uncover and probe and wither
the miseries, the baseness, the shameful spots, that stained
the nation's life. Then, following on these inquisitors,
these accusers, these judges, I will show the bearers of
a message of clemency, of peace and faith, preachers
who reply to these violent and despairing negations
with their own sure and resolute affirmations — prophets
1 88 RUSSIAN LITERATURE
of a new religion, which, they are firmly convinced, is
not only to raise the whole level of the nation, intellec-
tual and moral, but to lift it to a destiny far exceeding
that to which any other nation has yet aspired.
Chronologically speaking, the succession of pheno-
mena I have described is certainly not absolute. Yet it
is exact enough o*n the whole, and I shall adhere to it,
so as to bring out features which might otherwise appear
confused, and to give more clearness to the general pro-
cess of an evolution which has endued the fatherland
of Pouchkine and Lermontov with the intellectual and
moral physionomy it now wears in the eyes of all the
world.
CHAPTER VII
THE EMANCIPATING MOVEMENT—
THE DOCTRINAIRES
The intellectual ferment which had preceded the acces-
sion of Nicholas, and prepared the way for the attempt
of the Decembrists, was quenched in a flood of blood, and
hidden under a heavy stone. Seventeen distinct offices
of censure laboured in concert to bury the ferment of
budding thought. All discussion of political and social
questions was forbidden, and learning was hemmed
within the boundaries of official history, and a closely-
watched literary criticism. A most unnecessary pre-
caution ! Criticism, represented on the Northern Bee by
two renegade liberals, Grietch (1787-1867), and Boul-
garine (i 789-1 859), and on the Reader s Library by a
literary clown, Senkovski (1800-1858), who signed his
articles with such pseudonyms as " Baron Brambaiis "
or Tioutioundji' Oglay did much more in the way of
official service than in that of pronouncing literary
verdicts. Its whole endeavour was spent in combating
liberal ideas, and every manifestation of art or literature
which appeared to be connected with them.
Such were the first-fruits of the new regime. These
three stars long reigned over the official world of letters
in St. Petersburg. But at Moscow a nucleus of liberal
and pseudo- romantic opposition continued to subsist.
189
190 RUSSIAN LITERATURE
In The Son of the Fathejdand, Alexander Bestoujev (1795-
1837), the friend of Ryleiev, and author — under the
nom de plume of Marlinski — of novels which caused the
sentimental maidens of the period to quiver with delight,
fought, and fought actively, in the cause of Pouchkine
and the younger literary school. In The Telegi^aph^ a won-
derful self-taught writer, Nicholas Alexieievitch Polevoi
( 1 796-1 846), who, until a ripe age, traded as a Siberian
merchant, and then suddenly felt the call of a literary
and scientific vocation, held lively controversy with
Nicholas Trofimovitch Katchenovski (1775-1842), a pro-
fessor of history, and founder of an historical school
steeped in scepticism, yet the ofHcial champion of pseudo-
classicism and of the statu quo in literature,. politics, and
social matters.
Polevoi's scepticism went further, — too far, indeed.
His encyclopaedic excursions, just touched with liber-
alism, into literature, history, jurisprudence, music,
medicine, and the Sanskrit tongue, often led him to
confuse pedantry with knowledge, and then heap scorn
on both. Nevertheless, his Sketches of Russian Literature
mark an era, for they let in a first breath of fresh air
upon the mildewy routine of the old-fashioned aesthetic
formulae. His attempt at a history of the internal de--
velopment of the Russian people, after the manner of
Guizot and Niebuhr (-^/>/<?;j of the Russian PeopUy 6 vols.
1829-33) is, on the other hand, a failure.
And its author was not to remain true to his colours.
In 1834, The Telegraph was suppressed, in consequence
of an article which declared a play by Nestor Koukolnik
to be a bad one. This Koukolnik (1809-1868) was a
poor playv/right and a worse novelist. His piece, The
Hand of the Most High has Saved the Fatherland^ was cer-
POLEVOI 191
tainly not worth all the evil Polevoi' took the trouble to
say of it. But Koukolnik^ with his inflated rhetoric and
pompous patriotism, held the favour of the powers that
were. Polevoi' had a family to support, and four thou-
sand subscribers whom he must keep, to that end. He
made up his mind to hide his colours in his pocket, de-
parted to St. Petersburg, and there rallied the band com-
prising Boulgarine and Grietch to the support of another
review.
Moscow lost nothing by his desertion. The Tele-
graph was speedily replaced by The Telescope^ which, in
1836, published Tchadaiev's famous philosophic letter.
Already, since 1825, in the ancient capital — where the
terrorism of Nicholas I. was less apparent than in St.
Petersburg — a certain current of philosophical ideas and
studies, issuing from the great flow of contemporary
German thought, had been growing amidst the youth
of the university. The frontiers were not so well guarded
against the entry of contraband literature as to prevent
the doctrines of Kant, Schelling, and Hegel from elud-
ing the vigilant eyes of the officials, and under their
influence, the struggle between Occidentals and Slavo-
phils woke again, and grew hotter than ever. Not a
symptom of this appeared in the press. The secret was
concealed in whispered conversations, and in the more
or less inviolable intimacy of personal correspondence.
Then all of a sudden the voice of Tchadaiev broke, like
a clap of thunder, on the silence. Was it a cry of re-
ligious terror only, as some have asserted ? Not that,
indeed ! It was also, and above all other things, a cry
of protest against the conventional optimism of a society
insufhciently aware of its proper destiny, against the
official fiction of a civilisation still barren of ideals. It is
192 RUSSIAN LITERATURE
impossible to overrate the sensation which this new and
surprising voice created in the coteries of Russia.
A man of the world and a traveller, like Tchatski,
Peter Iakovl£vitch Tchadaiev (i 793-1855), had for
some time been carrying an intellect much inclined to
paradox, a discontented temper, and a brilliant humour,
from one drawing-room to another. Under cover of
a correspondence with a friend, a lady, he had already
made a partial sketch of his ideas. The letter published
by The Telescope was not his first. Others were already
being handed about in manuscript. In them their author
posed as the representative of the second great current
of French influence, which La Harpe, the teacher of
Alexander I., had been the means of introducing into
Russia, and which had impressed its mark on that
monarch's youthful liberalism, as well as on Speranski's
plans for reform. It contained the germ of a bitter
scepticism with regard to Russian life, combined with
a decided leaning to Catholicism. The Catholic propa-
ganda, which may be reckoned back to the reign of
Peter II., in the persons of the Abbe Jubet, Princess
Dolgoroukaia, and the Duke of Liria, had its hour of
brilliant triumph under Paul I. It had succeeded in
planting the influence of the sons of Loyola in the
sovereign's own circle. The split between the upper
class of society and the clergy, engendered by Peter
the Great's reforms, the religious and moral disorder
which produced the Raskoly favoured its action, and in
the minds of Russian readers of Le Maistre, Bonald,
and Chateaubriand, the Jesuit's doctrine was blended
with the idea of civilisation, and even with a certain
liberalism in which they would gladly have sought
satisfaction. «
TCHADAIEV 193
Tchadaiev had fought through Napoleon's wars. He
had spent the years between 1821 and 1826 abroad,
had Hved on intimate terms with Schelling in Germany,
and entered into friendly relations with Lamennais,
Ballanche, and the Comte de Circourt, in Paris. The
conception of the past and future of his country, to
which he had allowed the influence of these surround-
ings to lead him, may be thus summed up : Up to the
present, Russia has been no more than a parasite branch
of the European tree, which has rotted because it drew
its sap from Byzantium, useless to the cause of civilisa-
tion, a stranger to the great religious structure of the
Western Middle Ages, and afterwards to the lay enfran-
chisement of modern society. ^^ Alone in the worldy we
have given it nothings taken nothing from it, we have not
added one idea to the treasury of thinking humanity, we
have given no help towards the perfecting of human reason,
and we have vitiated everything that wisdom has bestowed
upon us, . . . VVe bear in our blood a principle that is
hostile and refractory to civilisation. We have been born
into the world like illegitimate children, . . . We grow, but
we do not ripen. . . . We advance, but sideways, and
towards no special goal. ..."
Never in the history of the human conscience did the
instinct of self-study lead up to so severe a verdict. I have
related how and wherefore, in pamphlet or satire, detrac-
tion was destined to preside over the first lispings of free
thought in the midst of that great workshop of moral and
social reconstruction, which the Russia of Peter the Great
had now become. Everywhere the labourers who pull
down walls clear the way for the architect. Even Gogol
and his comrades belong to the first-named category.
Yet Tchadaiev' s pessimism was confined to that which
194 RUSSIAN LITERATURE
concerns the present and the past. Russia, in his view —
I quote from one of his letters to Alexander Tourgueniev
— *' is destined to supply, some day, the solution of all
the intellectual, social, and moral questions which Europe
now discusses." Already, in this Occidental^ we note the
haughty schemes of the Slavophil, and the gorgeous
dreams of Dostoievski. Still one condition must be
fulfilled, he thinks, before this mission can be accom-
plished — to enter into communion with the nations
of the W^st. But how ? By union with the Western
Church. This reconciliation, indeed, appears to his
imagination on a mighty scale, borrowed from the vision
of Dante ; he dreams of a pope and an emperor, of
equally enlightened faith and wisdom, who should join
hands, and so govern the whole world.
It might have been objected that his conception of a
European progress based on the unity of the Christian
Churches, had proved a failure as early as the sixteenth
century, and that Russia, in adopting a principle already
abandoned by a good half of Europe, ran a grave risk
of losing her bearings. But nobody argued. It was
thought simpler to take strong measures with him. The
Telescope was suppressed, the editor exiled to Vologda,
the censor who had allowed the letter to pass dismissed,
and its author made over to the care of a mad-doctor.
And even all this severity did not allay the almost general
irritation. Freed from his strait-waistcoat, the philo-
sopher sought refuge in Paris, and in A Madman s
Apology^ and other writings, which were not published
till after his death, he endeavoured to justify his con-
clusions, while he somewhat diminished the excessive
bluntness and paradoxical fulness of their expression.
He had taken such pains to strike hard, that he had
TCHADAi'EV 195
certainly failed to strike home. Even in the ranks of
the university students, his doctrines encountered pas-
sionate resistance and contradiction. But out of the
very crash a spark sprang forth which was to illumine the
intellectual horizon of that epoch. Herzen, Bielinski,
and the Slavophils of the future, Khomiakov, Kirieievski,
and Akssakov, all felt the shock, and caught the flame.
A new impulse was imparted to the study of the national
history and of philosophy. After the year 1840, Moscow
had two Hegelian parties, and the national literature, in
the persons of Nadiejdine and Bielinski, soon mounted
to the highest peaks of contemporary thought.
Meanwhile the school of the independent Slavophils
— Khomiakov, the two Kirieievskis, and the two Akssa-
kovs — formed another body of teaching, the legacy of
which was to be gathered up and increased by two gene-
rations of thinkers. The current of ideas thus developed
was first of all to find its strongest and highest expression
in the domain of critical literature, because all other
fields of investigation were vetoed by the censure, and
because, under its watchful eye, discussions on artistic
subjects lent themselves better than any other form of
writing to that intellectual cryptography which even now
remains a law of necessity to the Russian press. For
the same reason, and with the same object of finding a
necessary outlet, the Russian novel has held, and still
holds, an exceptional position, by no means in harmony
with its natural destiny, in the national literature.
In 1836 The Telescope was edited by Nicholas Ivano-
vitch Nadiejdine (1804-1856). He had made his first
appearance as a writer in the European Messenger^ under
the pseudonym of Niedoumko. His encyclopaedic know-
ledge, guided by a mind of excessive clearness, penetra-
196 RUSSIAN LITERATURE
tion, and strength, soon permitted him to treat various
branches of science, and almost to equal the best Euro-
pean specialists of his day. The most varied subjects,
ethical and historical studies, philosophy, ethnography,
were handled by him with equal success. As a literary
critic, he long bore the reputation of being an impostor,
the savage and pedantic detractor of Pouchkine. He
did, in fact, judge that poet's earlier works, inspired by
his passion for Byron, with great severity. But he was
one of the first, on the other hand, to applaud Boris
Godounov. He was the pupil, in philosophy, of Oken
and Schelling, and was the hrst Russian who spoke of
thought as the soul of all artistic creation, and of art as
the association of thought with form. He was the first,
too, to conceive the idea that literature, as the expression
of the conscious feeling of a nation, is one of the powerful
forces which leads a people along the path of its natural
development. He was little understood ; he was another
Tchatski.
Stephen Petrovitch Chevirev (1806-1864), Professor
of Russian Literature at Moscow University, and fellow-
editor, with Pogodine, of the Muscovitey embodies the
very opposite extreme of contemporary criticism and the
philosophy of art, as then existing. His surroundings
and natural inclinations connected him with the Slavo-
phils. His lectures contain a well-balanced mixture of
fact and hypothesis, to both of which he attributed the
same dogmatic value. He asserted, with equal assurance,
that Vladimir Monomachus was the author of a curious
Precept intended for the use of his children, and that
Hegel's teaching was founded on a set of ideas developed
by Nikifor in an epistle to the said Vladimir. His History of
Poetry among Ancient and Moderfi Nations (Moscow, 1835)
BIELINSKI 197
would be a useful compilation, if it were not marred by
a fantastic judgment and love of paradox, both of the
most disconcerting nature. These peculiarities Chevirev
applied, with equal severity, in his appreciations of con-
temporary literature. Pouchkine, he said, would have
done better to compose such an one of his poetical works
in prose. Gogol's talent, he averred, had sprung from
the influence of the Italian painters. Italian art was this
learned oddity's favourite hobbyhorse. To put it plainly,
he talked random nonsense.
The task of covering, under the guise of literary criti-
cism, the immense field thus opened, and in which
general intellectual chaos reigned, was too heavy for
the mind of the average man. Even the great VisSARiON
Grigori£vitch BifiLlNSKi (1810-1848) had difficulty, for
a while, in finding his true path.
The son of a military surgeon, he was a far from in-
dustrious student at the Moscow University, and an assi-
duous frequenter of the literary and philosophic coteries
which swarmed in and around its walls. The largest of
these was presided over by young Stankievitch — a rich
man, delicate in health, a dreamer, bitten with art and
humanitarian notions. The members met in his house,
and talked philosophy over the samovars. The kindly
host knew his Schelling and Hegel by heart, and guided
his guests through that world — so new to them — of
abstract conceptions. His works, in poetry and prose,
were not published until 1890. They prove his posses-
sion of a lofty spirit, a generous soul, a moderate intelli-
gence, and a middling talent. According to the memory
of him preserved by his contemporaries, Stankievitch's
ruling qualities were simplicity and kind - heartedness.
Herzen wrote of him that even Tolstoi could have de-
198 RUSSIAN LITERATURE
tected ^^r^o phrases in his mouth." He wrote little, — had
no time, alas ! in his short life, to pile volume on volume.
But he was the Maecenas, and the intellectual interpreter,
of a whole generation.
From 1834 onwards, Bielinski, with the Akssakov
brothers and the poets Kliouchnikov and Krassov, was
numbered among Stankievitch's guests. Bielinski was at
that time making his first appearances in literary criticism
in The Molva (^' Rumour") and The Telescope. He might
have been taken then to be a mere successor of Polevoi',
with the same romantic spirit, the same fashion of looking
on the artist or the poet as a being apart, — a believer
struggling with his own imagination and the general
stupidity ; the same instinct of general denial.
This, the great critic's first campaign, insufficiently
prepared and ill directed, was checked, in 1836, by the
suppression of The Telescope. The catastrophe left Bie-
linski without any means of support whatever. He fell
sick, contrived — thanks to the help of friends — to go
through a cure in the Caucasus, and did not reappeai* in
Moscow until 1838. During this interval, a little revo-
lution had taken place in the coterie of which Stankie-
vitch still remained the centre. Schelling had been
dethroned by Hegel and Fichte, and every member was
expected to pay his homage to '^concrete reality."
Dazzled by the brightness of the new revelation,
conquered by the powerful logic of its arguments, un-
able to recognise the essential contradictions it involved,
Bielinski submitted blindly, took Chevirev's place as
editor of the Muscovite ObserveVy and set himself to
spread the new tenets. He took the famous phrase,
^^ Everything which is, is reasonable," in its literal sense,
and worshipped every manifestation of reality, including
%
BIELINSKI 199
despotism and serfdom. He preached the doctrine of
" Hindoo quietism," and the avoidance of all protest and
every struggle. He proscribed, in artistic matters, all
direct participation in surrounding life, whether political
or social. He v^ould have excluded all satiric and even
all lyric poetry. The only works of art to which he
would ascribe an artistic value were those which em-
bodied the expression of an objective and Olympian view
of life. But he was soon to be forced to the conviction
that this doctrine was creating a void in the neighbour-
hood of The Observer, In 1839 there were no more sub-
scribers, and the review ceased to appear. Bielinski,
to support himself, left Moscow, and accepted an invi-
tation to become a contributor to the Annals of the
Fatherland, in St. Petersburg. But yet another revela-
tion awaited him in the chief capital city of the Russian
Empire.
There he saw^ and touched a reality which nothing
on earth could make ideal, and which had not an
adorable quality about it. His first struggles with it
wounded him sorely, and broke down his faith. Bielinski
was of an age and temperament which made any con-
version both swift and easy. Suddenly the literary critic
took on the functions of an eager publicist, who, from
analysing works of art, proceeded to analyse the society
of which those works are but the expression, denouncing
and stigmatising its lack of intellectual interests, its spirit
of routine, the narrow selfishness of its middle class, the
dissipation of its provincial life, the general dishonesty
of its dealings with inferiors. A not less radical but
logical change also occurred in his aesthetic views, and
in his literary sympathies and antipathies. He was
observed, not without astonishment, to praise contem-
14
200 RUSSIAN LITERATURE
porary French writers for the interest they took in
current events, to fall into admiration before the works of
George Sand, whose talent he had hitherto utterly denied.
He went further ; he actually extolled Herzen ! He was
a follower of Hegel still, but with a new interpretation
of his doctrine, a new conception of the elements which
go to the constitution of any reality, and a new power
of making the necessary distinction between the evil
and the good therein. The doctrine, thus modified,
gave him the historic sense, taught him the laws of
literary development, of which he had hitherto been
ignorant, and made him repent of having so lately pro-
claimed that Russian literature had no real existence.
By the year 1844, he was in a position to appreciate
Pouchkine's work, and that of several of the poet's
predecessors, at their proper value ; and the eighth
volume of his works, which corresponds with this date,
comprises a complete history of the national literature
from Lomonossov's time down to that of the author of
Eugene Onieguine.
At this point he wielded considerable influence. It
may fairly be said that the constellation of great writers
of the day, among whom are numbered Gogol, Grigoro-
vitch, Tourgueniev, Gontcharov, Nekrassov, and Dos-
toievski, was trained in his school. And this school,
by virtue of the realistic tone which governs it, is likewise
the school of the great German philosopher, although in
Gogol's case, realism, as I have already endeavoured to
point out, must be regarded as being for the most part
an indigenous product of the author's nature.
The two currents met. In 1846, after a fresh visit
to Southern Russia, necessitated by the state of his
health, which was going from bad to worse, Bielinski
BlfiUNSKI 20I
gave his assistance in editing The Contemporary (Sov-
remiennik)^ which now employed the best Hterary
talent of the country, under the direction of N. A.
Nekrassov and I. I. Panaiev. In its columns, he broke
several lances in defence of Gogol, and the new artistic
formula of which he took the author of Evenings at the
Farm of Dikanka to be the bearer. But all this time,
he was drifting into sour and violent radicalism. His
enforced and unpleasant relations with official circles in
St. Petersburg, together with a longer and more practical
acquaintance with his own profession, made him more
and more clearly aware of the incompatibility between an
influential and independent literature, and the despotic
power of which he had formerly declared himself an ad-
herent. And as he could not renounce any principle
without deducing all that was consequent on the act, he
was led to adopt the demeanour of a revolutionary. He
was nicknamed "The Russian Marat," and the com-
mandant of St. Petersburg never met him without
jokingly inquiring, " When shall we have the pleasure
of seeing you ? I am keeping a good warm dungeon
for you ! "
The last years of his life were haunted by the terror
of this fate, and but for the consumptive malady which
carried him off in March 1848, at the age of thirty-eight,
it would certainly have become a reality. His was an
eager passionate nature. He always followed his con-
victions to the bitter end, and they were not less sincere
for being so often changed. According to the testimony
of his friend Panaiev, he never could see his own articles
of the previous year in the columns of the Annals of
the Fatherland without falling into a fury. He was par
excellence an idealist and speculative theorist. One day,
202 RUSSIAN LITERATURE
in answer to a friend who reminded him of the dinner
hour, he broke out, '' What ! we have not yet settled
the question of God's existence, and you talk about
eating!" In his first stage. Romanticism led him to
the exaltation of individualism in himself and others,
and to a contempt for humanity. Then he lost himself
in Hegelian philosophy, as though in a forest. He may
well be excused. The whole of Germany shared his
condition for a while, and first-class intellects in every
country have hesitated as to the interpretation of a
system w^hich, while it made art consist in the realisa-
tion of the ideas of beauty and truth— that is, in an
abstraction— claimed to establish the fact that beauty
and truth could not exist, except in concrete phenomena.
Such contradictions caused no difficulty to Skankievitch
and his friends. They were all young men, drunk with
philosophy. They accepted everything together — the
concrete nature of truth, the logical method of thought,
the law of logical development which was to unify all
the phenomena of life — and never troubled themselves
about the details. In the end Bielinski showed more
discernment ; but, after the obscurity of the doctrine
had kept him oscillating between absolute indifference
to social problems and passionate interest in them, it
drove him, at last, to confound society itself with litera-
ture.
He was always convinced he was right, and that,
when he altered his opinion, he was, in his own words,
''changing a kopek for a rouble." And amidst all the
chops and changes of his mobile, restless, and ill-con-
trolled mind, he succeeded not only in making great indi-
vidual progress, but in causing considerable progress in
those about him. To understand the relative value of
TCHERNICHEVSKI 203
such a man as Dierjavine, and make others understand it,
was a great thing in itself. He did more. By his own
unaided intellectual labour he provided his countrymen
with a starting-point on every ulterior line of literary
criticism and artistic philosophy — the idealist and meta-
physical Hegelian School, of which the most striking
figures were Droujinine, Akhchsaroumov, N. Soloviov,
and Edelsohn ; the theory of organic criticism, wherein
some of the Slavophils, I. Kirieievski, C. Akssakov, and
especially A. Grigoriev, endeavoured to reconcile art
and the national element ; and the doctrine of the critical
publicists, which Dostoievski was to raise to the level
of his own talent, and which Pissarev, following after
Tchernichevski, was to cast into the lowest depths of
ribald controversy.
Two writers of very dissimilar value succeeded
him on The Contemporary. NICHOLAS Gavrillovitch
Tchernichevski (1828-1889), philosopher, economist,
critic, and novelist, has been called ^'the Robespierre
of Russia." He might have been more fairly compared
with Mill, Proudhon, or Lassalle. The man so described
has left us, in his scientific treatises, the theory or com-
pendium of Russian radicalism, and in a heavy novel
written in his prison, he has left us its poem or gospel.
For some time the Censure took no notice of him.
In face of the philosophic propaganda of which Herzen
had made London the centre, the Government had real-
ised that scissor-thrusts and sentences of banishment
were but a poor defence. To equalise the struggle,
it had become necessary to unbind the hands of the
writers already beyond the frontiers, and use them
against the terrible assault now being delivered from
without. Thus the press enjoyed a relat^-e amount of
204 RUSSIAN LITERATURE
liberty, and Tchernlchevski, ungovernable as he was,
made heavy claims on the common freedom. As a re-
sult, there was a fresh contact with the West, and a fur-
ther influx of foreign influence — principally EngHsh —
in consequence. Thanks to Herzen, still, London was
for some time the intellectual centre, whither men be-
took themselves in search of light. A considerable
number of novels on social subjects, and the works of
Mill, Buckle, Vogt, Moleschott, Ruge, and Feuerbach
were translated.
Tchernichevski did all he could to stimulate this cur-
rent, and, with the turn of mind to which I have referred,
the use he made of it may be easily divined. He pro-
gressively emphasised Bielinski's radicalism. In some
of his pamphlets, published at Vevey and Geneva, he
even went so far as to preach the annihilation of indi-
vidual property, the suppression of the aristocracy, and
the disbanding of the army. He was willing, as a pro-
visional arrangement, to maintain the existence of the
throne, but he would have hedged it round with demo-
cratic institutions. These pamphlets were not allowed
to reach the eye of the Censure, but a certain amount
of their teaching became apparent in articles in The Con-
temporary^ and the Government made up its mind to
take proceedings. In 1862 the daring editor was sent
to Siberia, and there, in prison, he wrote his novel What
is to be done ? which was for years to be the gospel of the
revolutionary youth of his country. The only value of the
work, which is equally devoid of poetry and art, lies in the
doctrines it evolves, and these possess neither originality,
moderation, nor practicality. They are all in the sense of
equality and communism, and drawn from German, Eng-
lish, or French authors, their only spice of special flavour
DOBROLIOUBOV 205
being due to that kind of mystic and visionary realism
which has since become the characteristic mark of Rus-
sian Nihihsm. Tchernichevski may fairly be considered, if
not as the creator, at all events as the most responsible
propagator of that mental condition which is born of the
two contrary leanings of the Russian national tempera-
ment : I mean realism, and the taste for the absolute.
This book was also his literary and political Will and
Testament. After twenty years in Siberia, seven of them
spent at hard labour in the mines, and the remainder in
one of the settlements nearest to the Polar Circle, there
could be no question of any recommencement of his
literary career when he was released in 1883. Aged,
broken in health, he spent the closing years of his life in
translating Weber's Universal History. By his literary
criticisms he had contributed to destroy that Hegelian
philosophy of beauty of which Bielinski himself had
already undertaken the destruction, after having pledged
it his faith. But he was totally devoid of the aesthetic
sense, and, after 1858, his contributions to The Contem-
porary in this department had been almost entirely re-
placed by those of another person.
It was Nicholas Alexandrovitch Dobrolioubov
(1836-1860) who followed him, for all too short a period.
His was one of the saddest destinies to be discovered
in the history of any nation. His childhood was joyless,
his youth knew no pleasures ; he led the life first of a
convict, and next of an ascetic. And then, after a few
years of excessive toil, which was to wear out the frail
husk of his over-eager spirit, death came. The knell of
every ambition sounded for him, just as the first rays of
glory touched that long-despised brow.
The writings of this unhappy man, gloomy and exag-
2o6 RUSSIAN LITERATURE
gerated in tone, bear the impress of this excess of misfor-
tune. It is the work of a monk who would fain draw
down the whole of humanity to the level of his own
renunciation. Dobrolioubov, to whom life had never
given anything, never seemed to realise that it might
have something to bestow on others. Self-immolation
for the common good was in his eyes not only an ideal,
but a laW; which he desired to impose on every one.
His aesthetic notions lacked clearness, consistency, and,
as a rule, novelty. From Bielinski he borrowed his
last formula, ^* Art for art's sake " ; from Tchernichevski
his conception of an art ruled by science, and was
inspired by it to raise up poets who, like Shakespeare,
Dante, Goethe, and Byron, each represents, in his own
epoch, a level of human consciousness far above that of
common men.
But he had some original views of his own, as, for
example, on the permanent existence in analogous social
formations of certain social types. In this connection
his analysis of Gontcharov's novel Obloniov, and his two
articles on Ostrovski's plays, should be mentioned.
In his case, too, literary criticism was no more
than the dust-coloured mantle under whiph those who
attacked the social and political world of that period
endeavoured to escape the vigilant eye of the police. In
this matter he atoned for the frequent excesses of a
judgment which was severe and implacable even to in-
justice, by an intense depth of feeling, and an admirable
sincerity. It was as though he had dipped his pen in
his own blood. And if there is something irritating and
childish about his system of perpetual denial, applied to
all the hallowed formulae as well as to every established
authority — Pouchkine's in literature, Pirogov's in science
PISSAREV 207
— his not less constant pronouncements in favour of an
ideal world, to be reconstructed on the basis of reason,
nature, and humanity, mark out a programme which has
not proved utterly Utopian. It was to be partly realised
by his own generation. The reform of social relations
in Russia meant, before and above all other things, the
emancipation of the serfs. And Dobrolioubov died in
the very year during w^hich one stroke of the pen called
twenty-five millions of slaves to liberty.
Fault has been found with the utilitarian nature of
his criticism ; and indeed this regrettable but inevitable
result of the forced marriage between art and politics
was to be perpetuated in contemporary journalism, and
to be carried therein to the worst and most extravagant
lengths. Dimitri Ivanovitch Pissarev (1840-1868), who
pushed this system of judging artistic production solely
by its social or political value — from the publishing and
not from the aesthetic point of view — to the utmost limit
of its necessary consequence, ended, like Dobrolioubov,
in aesthetic nihilism. In the eyes of this pamphleteer,
Lermontov and Pouchkine were '' caricatures of poets,"
''rhymesters for consumptive girls"; and Goethe was
" a bloated aristocrat, who reasoned in rhyme on sub-
jects which possess no interest." The progress of natural
science he held to be the only thing that really concerned
the human race. The expressions '' art " and '^ ideal "
w^ere senseless words to him. This was to be very
nearly the standpoint taken up by Bazarov^ the famous
prototype of the Nihilists in Tourgueniev's novel. When
it appeared, Pissarev did not fail to undertake the de-
fence of this character. He complacently played the
part of the journalistic enfant terrible^ and therein dis-
played considerable talent, a fact which may be accepted
2o8 RUSSIAN LITERATURE
as an excuse for the huge success which greeted his
performances.
At the moment of his greatest popularity, which
coincided with that period of extreme agitation, political
and literary, known as that of '' the Sixties," the nature
of which I shall later endeavour to define, he had rivals,
and was exposed to the literary criticism of such men as
Pypine, Galakhov, Tikhonravov, men of a very different
type, and of far more serious weight.
I shall endeavour to do them justice at the close of
this book, when I give my readers a general view of the
latest manifestations of intellectual life in Russia. I must
now return to the period preceding " the Forties," in
order to examine briefly another current of the great
march of ideas of which it witnessed the development —
I mean ^^ Slavophilism."
Slavophilism.
I have already referred to the presence of Kirieievski
and Akssakov in the coterie of Stankievitch and Bielinski.
The two schools possessed, in fact, one common start-
ing-point — the study of German philosophy and the
worship of the national element. This worship, of an-
cient origin, was quite independent of the Nationalist
movement, properly so called, which was diffused through
Europe in later years by the agency of the German philo-
sophy. But when the philosophy of Hegel and its
conception of the " National idea," which was to be
the basis of the historical development of nations, took
root in the University of Moscow, it necessarily drew
the local patriotic feeling closer to the great European
current. After 1820, this idea revolutionised the whole
SLAVOPHILISM 209
Continent, and even stirred the semi-barbarous popula-
tions of Greece. Was Russia to be the only country
that did not feel the concussion ? Was not she, too,
to find an idea to develop — her own idea — her intel-
lectual and ethical birthright, to be claimed in the face
of all the world ?
There is this peculiarity about the abstract world,
that we are always sure of finding what we want in it,
because imagination can always supply what reality
lacks. Trouble was lavished on every side, but by the
time success crowned the search, it had become evi-
dent that no concert existed between the parties. The
great schism between the Occidental and the Slavo-
phil had come into existence. In Tchadaiev's eyes, as
in those of Bielinski, the separation between Russia and
the other European countries amounted purely and
simply to a difference of level, and the object they
would have pursued was to regulate this difference,
not by assimilation of the external forms of European
civilisation, but by appropriation of the inner principles
of its development. The pride of the founders of the
Slavophil school could not stomach this solution. They
desired an autonomous ideal. Just at this moment the
group accepted, with some grumbling, a new disciple
of the Hegelian doctrine, the youthful Timofei' Nicolaie-
vitch Granovski (181 3-1855), a friend of Bielinski and
Herzen, who, on his return from abroad (1843), had
made a sensation in Moscow by his public lectures on
the history of the Middle Ages — a history in which the
ancient glories of Moscow and of the Orthodox Church
found no place at all. Might not Russia, if she grasped
the meaning and sense of her own existence, Slav and
Orthodox, lay the foundation, on her own account, of a
2IO RUSSIAN LITERATURE
new phase in human development ? Might she not
more legitimately aspire to the realisation of that com-
bination of the elements of national culture to which
Germany alone, according to Hegel, had been called ?
But why Russia ? On this point there was grave dis-
agreement, even in the bosom of the budding school.
Because, said some, she was tabula rasa, with no his-
torical traditions to stand in the way of unification.
Because, suggested others, the democratic and humani-
tarian ideal to be attained agreed with those historical
traditions whereby the Russia of Rurik, of Vladimir,
and Ivan, equally escaped the religious autocracy of
Rome and the political autocracy of the Western states,
and rather approached the communistic system on which
the social structure of the future will be based.
The providence which watches over all faiths pre-
vented an initial contradiction from prejudicing the
advent and doctrinal unity of this one. I. Kirieievski
declared his adhesion to the theory ; Khomiakov under-
took to state it dogmatically ; Valouiev, Samarine, and
C. Akssakov to justify it historically. The speculative ele-
ments of the new belief were to be found in abundance
in the teachings of Schelling and Hegel. For dogma-
tic questions, the Byzantine theologians were brought
under contribution. Karamzine's optimistic treatment of
history did the rest.
In The European, a publication which he edited from
1831 onwards, Ivan Vassili^vitch Kirieievski (1806-1856)
had made his first appearance in the character of a con-
firmed Occidental. The very name of his newspaper
proved the fact. The suppression of this sheet, owing
to the over-bold reflections on the future of the nine-
teenth century, and the general influence of his brother,
KIRIEIEVSKI: KHOMIAKOV 211
Peter Kiri^ievski (1808-1846), an ethnographer and col-
lector of popular songs, drove the silenced publisher
in the direction of the Slavophil party. After 1856, this
party had its own special organ, the Russian Discourse
{Rousska'ia Biessiedd), and in two important critiques —
''On the Nature of European Culture" and ''On the
Necessity and Possibility of New Philosophical Prin-
ciples" — published in its columns, Ivan Vassilievitch for-
mulated a kind of Greco-Slav neo-philosophy. European
culture, he held, had reached the end of its career and
the limit of its development, without having succeeded
in giving humanity anything beyond a sense of self-
discontent and a consciousness of its inability to satisfy
its own longings. The antique world had already found
itself in the same condition of internal bankruptcy,
and had endeavoured to escape by borrowing fresh
vital principles from nations whose past history pos-
sessed no glorious pages. The modern European world
was to recommence this experience, and cast itself into
the arms of the Slavo -Greek, Russian, and Orthodox
communion.
Thus prophesied Kirieievski. Alexis Stefanovitch
Khomiakov (1804-1860) followed him, in an endeavour
to state the reasons of the prophet's dictum. Khomiakov
was a poet, and poets are never short of reasons. His
tragedies Yermak and The Mock Demetrius^ written in
his youth, almost place him on the same level as Kou-
kolnik. We note the same pompous enthusiasm for
ancient Russia, with all its silly tendencies, and the same
stiff rhetoric. His poems give proof of greater maturity,
but of an utter absence of sentiment and art. Those
which attracted most attention were written during the
Crimean War, and contain an assortment of disserta-
2 12 RUSSIAN LITERATURE
tions on the theory of the union of all the Slav races
and the repudiation of "the Western yoke." The poet
loved argument. He was born to be a theologist. After
1855 he devoted himself entirely to that line, and pub-
lished abroad, in French and English, a series of books
and tracts, such as Some Words on the Western Churches ^
by an Orthodox Ch'istian (Leipzig, 1855) ; The Latin
Church and Protestantism from the Standpoint of the
Eastern Church (Leipzig, 1858, and Lausanne, 1872). I.
Samarine, who was his publisher, treated the author as
a '' Doctor of the Church," and in his own way, Kho-
miakov deserved the honour. To the moribund world
of the Romano-German (Catholic and Protestant) civi-
lisation, he opposed the '^idea," still in course of de-
velopment, of the Greco -Slavonic world, which was
shortly to found a religious community within whose
bosom all the children of Europe should find shelter
— the heaven-sent instrument of a fusion which was to
harmonise all the bitter antagonisms of Russian life.
And as a further demonstration of the merits of this
perfect agreement with the traditions and habits of his
country, Khomiakov openly blamed the reforms of Peter
the Great, and boldly wore the kaftan and the mour-
molkay the symbolic value of which articles of dress he
had learnt from his friends Valoniev and L Samarine.
Dmitri Valoniev, who was prematurely cut off by
death in 1845, was the statistician and ethnographer
of the group. His study of comparative statistics had
brought him to the conclusion that the natural out-
come of Western civilisation must necessarily be moral
sybaritism, and from this conclusion he deduced the
necessity for Russia to move along some other path.
There was plenty of choice before her. At the very
THE AKSSAKOVS 213
starting-point of her history she had realised the true
principle of a Christian society and a Christian state, of
which the Western form was a mere deformation. This
theory, sketched out by I. Samarine in The Muscovitey
in the course of a controversy with C. Kaveline, one of
the contributors to The Contemporary^ was to take definite
shape under the pen of C. Akssakov.
According to Samarine (died 1876^ Russian organisa-
tion has always been essentially based on the communal
system {obchtchind)^ and thus assumed spontaneously,
and from the very outset, the form which only now,
when it is too late, is becoming the object and ideal of
Western society. This conception of the part which the
ancient Russian " commune " is destined to play in his-
tory was to exercise considerable influence over the
solution of the numerous problems connected with the
emancipation of the serfs, and it is on this ground that
Occidentals of the type of Herzen met I. Samarine, who,
as is well known, was one of the most active promoters
of this great work of freedom. He played his part both
in the labours of the Commission appointed by Alexan-
der n. in 1858, to study the reform, and in the contro-
versy on economic and social questions it engendered.
He was more a man of letters than a historian, was too
apt to supply the place of knowledge by imagination,
and was thus incapable of giving the doctrine that ap-
pearance of solidity indispensable to its acceptance by
the masses.
This work was accomplished by Constantine Sergui^i^-
vitch Akssakov (18 17-1860). This man was an idealist
par excellence^ who looked at his idea with a lover's eyes,
and gave it all his devotion. The story goes, that he
never possessed any other mistress. The idea which he
2 14 RUSSIAN LITERATURE
has succeeded in embodying, in a marvellously subtle
mixture of hallucination and real knowledge, is as follows.
It strikes one as a desperate paradox ; the word, perhaps,
is scarcely strong enough, but that is no fault of mine.
The Russian State, the outcome of a twofold act of free-
will — the appeal to the Varegian princes and the accept-
ance of the Christian faith — is, of all the European
states, the only one founded in its essential existence
and principle on liberty ! Unlike the Western states,
which all proceed from violence, and are led, by violence,
to political revolution and religious schism, the Russian
State, alone, owes the maintenance of the unity of the
faith and the willingly respected unity of power, to its
own liberty. It was Akssakov's pleasing task, as he
travelled over the whole history of the nation, to shed
light upon the successive manifestations of this excep-
tional phenomenon, the childlike docility with which it
accepted baptism, and the constant exemplifications of
the close union between the sovereign and his people,
bound together in a common faith and common customs.
To put life into his theory, he had recourse to poetry
and the drama, drawing in The Prince Loupouvitski
and in Moscow Delivered in i8i2j the contrast between
the healthy naturalness of the people, and the corrupt
culture of the upper classes. There is more poetic
talent in his studies of history and literary critiques.
He died of consumption in the island of Zante, and left
the leadership of the Moscow group of the Slavophil
party to his brother Ivan (i 823-1886), the least gifted,
certainly, but yet, thanks to his practical mind and first-
rate talent as a writer, the most popular and influential
member of his family.
Ivan Serguiei^vitch Akssakov, too, began as a poet, then
THE AKSSAKOVS 215
collaborated with the Imperial Geographical Society, and
published an excellent monograph on the Ukraine fairs.
In 1861 he became editor of a succession of Slavo-
phil publications, all democratic and Panslavist in their
tendency, such as The Day, Moscow, &c., which dis-
appeared, one after the other, under the rod of the Cen-
sure. Not that they contained revolutionary teachings.
The fault found with Ivan Serguieievitch was rather that
he was more royalist than the king himself. He was
banished in consequence of a speech made on June
22, 1878, at a meeting of the '' Slav Committee" of Mos-
cow. In it he had thundered against the "infamy" of
the Berlin Congress and the " treason " of the Russian
diplomats attending it, who had plotted the shame
of their country. After 1880 he directed The Rouss, a
weekly publication, in which he principally occupied
himself in waging war with the Liberalism of St. Peters-
burg.
The fundamental error of this school consists, as it
seems to me, in the origin it attributes to the *^ National
idea."
The Kiri^ievskis have fancied they discovered this in
the reality of an historical past which had been care-
lessly studied, whereas it really was an abstract pro-
duct of their own imaginations, and more than half
Western, to boot, — the fruit of their intercourse with
foreign philosophy. Tchernichevski had undertaken to
convince them that this very portion of their theory,
which insisted on the corruption of the West and its
incapacity for any ulterior development, was itself of
Western origin, not borrowed, indeed, from the great
thinkers of France and Germany, but from the second-
rate philosophers of the Revue des Deux Mondes, the Revue
15
2i6 RUSSIAN LITERATURE
Contemporaine and the Revue de Paris. An idea^ supported
by arguments drawn from this doubtful source, could not
stand the test of a more thorough study of the past.
No sooner did it come into contact with the truth of the
national history, as unveiled by Karamzine's successors,
than it faded out, killed by such facts as The Raskoly
which expressly demonstrates the impossibility of the
supposed existence, centuries old, of a state of religious
unity. And the only manner in which the Slavophil
school has been able to maintain its ideal, and deduce a
civilising principle from it, is by abstracting these reali-
ties and turning history into romance.
Every nation, indeed, has passed through the same
ideological crisis ; it is a disease connected with the
growth. In France it was very apparent during the
sixteenth century, when Hotman, a Swiss, advocated a
return to the traditions of ancient Gaul. Russian Slavo-
philism is also connected, by sympathy and synchrony,
with a huge wave of European movement ; — the national
renaissance in Bohemia, inaugurated by Dobrovski,
Szafarzyk, and Kollar ; the Illyrianism diffused among
the Southern Slavs by Louis Gay ; the patriotic mysti-
cism of Mickcewicz, Towianski, and Slowacki ; Germano-
philism, a century and a half old, but active still ; and
the struggle of the old national party against liberal-
ism in Denmark. Khomiakov had wound up his Euro-
pean tour by a visit to the Slav countries, and had
entered into personal relations with the principal leaders
of the national propaganda there.
His efforts, and those of his fellow-believers, have
not been entirely barren. If they have not, as some
of them have too ambitiously boasted, made the study
of the fundamental features of the national character
SLAVOPHILISM 217
an indispensable feature of this period, they have, at
all events, imparted a fresh impulse to their consider-
ation. We have already noted that in artistic literature
a movement in that direction had taken place, pre-
viously and independently. And with the exception
of Dostoievski, the school has not, as yet, produced any
good writer in this particular line. Tourgueniev did not
belong to it, and when Gogol joined it, the sun of his
artistic power had set. But from the social and scientific
point of view, the Kirieievskis and the Akssakovs may
claim other titles to glory. It is much to have pointed
to the popular element as the basis of social develop-
ment, and the vital principle of the national life, at a
moment when the people of the country actually pos-
sessed no legal existence. The assertion caused a change
in the direction of the study of the nation's past, and the
great school of history, which, in the period between 1840
and 1870, brought this science in Russia to a level w^ith
that of the West, was the result.
To this Slavophilism has contributed, even by its
errors. Its wanderings through the mazes of an imagi-
nary and fanciful history necessarily induced historical
criticism and reconstruction. Thus it was perceived, at
last, that Karamzine's work must be done again, and
also that of M. Pogodine (died 1873), the defender of the
'^ Norman theory," that is, the Norman origin of the first
Varegians, against Veneline (died 1839), and his disciples,
Saveliev-Rostislavitch and Morochkine. A Slavophil, a
Panslavist, and yet as fervid an admirer of Peter the
Great as N. Oustrialov himself, Pogodine, that " Clio
in uniform, with the collar of knighthood," as a German
critic called him, is the vassal, in some respects, of
the patriotically fervent mysticism which seems more or
2i8 RUSSIAN LITERATURE
less to saturate every contemporary school in Russia.
Oustrialov has the advantage over him, in being almost
free from it. In his History of Russia and in his six-
volumed biography (unfinished) of Peter the Great, both
of them carefully prepared, but devoid of any critical
instinct, he contents himself with being official. The
seven volumes of Pogodine's works published between
1846 and 1859 are exceedingly entertaining reading, but
bear traces of insufficient scientific preparation.
A great work was begun in this respect by the
establishment, under Nicholas I., of an Archeographical
Commission and Expedition ; by the institution of pro-
fessorships of Slav philology in the Universities, and
by the use made of foreign, and especially of German
Universities, for the training of such professors. The
result is seen in a new generation of historians, of whom
the most eminent were Kalatchov, Kaveline, Afanassiev,
Bousslaiev, Zabieline, S. M. SOLOVIOV (1820-1879), and
N. I. KOSTOMAROV (1817-1885). This was their pro-
gramme : To regard history as an organic whole, capable
of development according to certain laws to be fixed ;
to give the foremost place in the study of this organic
whole to the examination of its modes of existence,
poHtical institutions, laws, economy, manners and cus-
toms. C. D. Kaveline (1818-1855), who strove to carry
out this programme in a series of brilliant treatises, has
touched on the most interesting questions of the political
and economic life, and also on the general culture of his
country. F. I. Bousslaiev (1815-1870) not only imported
the comparative method into the study of the national
language, but also brought the moral basis of the popular
feeling, as expressed in the national poetry, into strong
relief.
SOLOVIOV 219
Soloviov's treatise on The Relations between the Russian
Princes of the House of Rurik (1847) marked an era in
Russian historical literature. His great History of Russia
in twenty-nine volumes, begun in 1851, is to this day
a mine on which we all draw. The last volumes, especi-
ally, are no more than a hastily arranged collection of
material. Like a great number of his Russian rivals,
the author planned a task that was beyond human power.
His conception was too vast, and his strength giving out
before the work w^as completed, the house that he began
like an architect w^as finished as by a bricklayer's labourer.
But the material is of the finest, and in the earlier volumes
we see that it has been collected by a master-hand. The
writer, in fact, belonged to no party except that of truth.
There was nothing of the professional political writer
about him, no pushing of special tendencies and doc-
trines. Coldly, conscientiously, calmly, he draws up
his statement ; and his style suits his method — a little
dry, but admirably clear, sober, and tranquil. His
life matched his work ; it was one of retirement and
labour, utterly unconcerned with external events, shut in
between his study, his professorial chair at the Moscow
University, and his archives — the pure and noble figure
of a learned man.
N. I. Kostomarov, who, with M. Pogodine, was the
hero of the public tournament in the amphitheatre of
the St. Petersburg University, which caused such a stir
in March i860, is a much more complex personage, with
a far more varied career. Author of a treatise on The
Historical Meanings of Popular Poetry (1843), and of a
Slav Mythology (1847), he devoted many of his nume-
rous monographs to literary and even dramatic subjects.
At the same time, he attempted novel-writing, with The
2 20 RUSSIAN LITERATURE
Son (1865), a fairly pretty tale on the subject of Stenka
Razine's Cossack rebellion, and Koudeiar (1875), an im-
portant historical narrative, founded on the political
troubles of the sixteenth century, which was a com-
plete failure. But contemporary politics also attracted
Kostomarov. Science, in his case, was an integral part of
life. His studies of Little-Russian poetry enticed him for
a moment into writing in the language of that country,
and in 1847 he was suspected, like Chevtchenko and
Koulich, of active participation in the separatist move-
ment. This earned him several months of imprison-
ment, a prolonged banishment to Saratov, and, in the
eyes of the youth of that period, the reputation of a
defender of liberalism, and a martyr to its cause. He
was pardoned in 1855, and proceeded to publish, in the
Annals of the Fatherland, that fine series of monographs,
Bogdane Khmelnitski, The Rebellion of Stenka Razine, and
The Commerce of the Muscovite State in the Sixteenth and
Seventeenth Centuries^ which has crowned his reputation
wqth glory. A little later, after a stay abroad, Kostmarov
took an active part in the labours which led up to the
enfranchisement of the serfs. For a short time he held
a professorship at the University of St. Petersburg, but
w^as obliged to vacate it in consequence of the disturb-
ances among the students in 1862. His active career
was now closed, but the writer remained. He pub-
lished, at the expense of the Archaeographical Society,
eleven volumes of documents bearing on the history
of the south-west provinces, and continued to issue
his monographs, which number thirteen all told. They
have, for the most part, as much romance as history
in their composition, and are written, as a rule, with
the object of pushing some particular view. That de-
KOSTOMAROV 221
voted to The Republics of Northern Russia reveals the
author's sympathy with free institutions, and the demo-
cratic ideal. In others he defends the ethnographic
autonomy of Little Russia with arguments more pas-
sionate than sound, but his theories are always served
by his first-rate talent as a story-teller.
Kostomarov supported the theory of the federa-
tive system in ancient Russia, in opposition to that of
C. Akssakov, which attributed a preponderating share
in the organisation of the country to the provincial par-
liaments. He broke more than one lance with Pogo-
dine concerning Rurik's Norman origin. He joined
with Slavophils of every shade in defending liberal
ideas. For from its earliest origin, the- school was
liberal and progressive, even in the person of that
representative who, in our day and in its name, has
waved the banner of reaction higher than all other
men. I mean Michael Katkoff. And from this school
was sent out, after i860, that watchword, ^^ Go out
amongst the people ! " which has since been so decried
and ridiculed, but which then stirred all that was best in
the social w^orld — the expression of a deep and unerring
instinct, the fruit of a true conception — that of the neces-
sity for gathering every social force to labour for the
common salvation. P. Kirieievski's collection of popular
songs was nothing but an excursion into the ranks of the
people, and so were Rybnikov's later journeys through
the province of Olonetz, continued by Hilferding, D.
Rovinski's labours in the field of popular iconography,
and Tolstoi's legendary work at lasnaia Poliana.
A short view of the political evolution which accom-
panied and occasioned these enterprises, between 1840
and 1880, now becomes indispensable.
22 2 RUSSIAN LITERATURE
Political Evolution.
Slavophilism, when it recognised a manifestation of
its " idea " in the twofold emancipatory movement which
parted the national literature from the Western models,
and at the same time brought the masses nearer to
the hour of their comparative freedom, rendered ser-
vice, direct or indirect, to each of these causes. Un-
til i860, Katkov and Herzen marched hand in hand,
though the Russian frontier lay between them. That
special form of the revolutionary movement which
Tourgueniev is said to have dubbed, in 1862, with the
name of Nihilism — the origin of which, however, dates
from 1855 — ^^^ "O^ divide them. '' Nihilism only ap-
peared among us because we are all Nihilists," writes
Dostoievski. And indeed, before 1861, all the more im-
portant organs of the press had been gained over to the
ideas on which the movement so described was founded.
So long as it confined itself to mere speculation, it alarmed
nobody, and seemed, indeed, to correspond with the
common aspirations of all liberals.
The liberation of the serfs in 1861 involved a sudden
leap from the empyrean heaven of ideas, into the world
of concrete fact, and the moment conception took tangible
shape it seemed alive with monstrous forms. Peasant
insurrections in the Volga region ; student riots at St.
Petersburg, at Kiev, at Kharkov ; the appearance of the
" red cock," — a rising en masse of incendiaries, followed by
others bearing bombs — there was some cause for alarm.
Meanwhile the press worked furiously. Following the
current of European thought, it had, since 1840, moved
towards a clearer conception of the problems calling
KATKOV 223
for solution. It had assimilated the successive develop-
ments of the Hegelian theory, the teachings of the
Positivists, of political economy, and sociology. It had
now reached the stage of practical application. The
newspapers were not sufficiently numerous for the work
to be done. Besides the liberal or radical periodicals,
such as I. Akssakov's The Day, and Dostoievski's The
TiineSj revolutionary pamphlets and booklets poured
forth in streams — the echo of the tocsin which Herzen
continued to ring, deepening the universal mental con-
fusion and agitation. The Government strove to create
a reaction, sent out still more severe instructions to
the Censure, suppressed three newspapers, and arrested
Tchernichevski. It was all in vain. The local press was
silenced, but the tocsin beyond the frontier rang more
furiously than ever, and the circulation of numbers of
The Bell throughout the country, and even in the sove-
reign's own circle, proved a secret understanding with
English publicists. The very silence of the press organs
gagged by the Censure, which soon became voluntary
and systematic, tended to throw the public yet more
completely under the influence of this propaganda from
without.
At this moment, Michael Katkov (1820-1887) re-
vealed himself in a new and unexpected character. He
had begun in the teaching career as a professor at the
Moscow University, and had taken up journalism as the
editor of the Russian Messenger, the most liberal and
Anglomaniac organ of the period. This editorship he
combined, in and after 1861, with that of the Moscow
Gazette. In his paper he defended the cause of progress,
expatiated on the advantages of self-government and
decentralisation, and denounced the vices of despotism,
224 RUSSIAN LITERATURE
with unprecedented boldness. He now became con-
vinced that Herzen, with his friends Ogariov and Bakou-
nine, were leading liberalism astray. And resolutely,
formally, he broke the alliance which had so long bound
him to the too adventurous champions of a cause
which, he believed, they were endangering. He openly
denounced them as being responsible for the unjustifiable
violence into which a portion of the progressive party
had allowed itself to be drawn, and also for the measures
of repression, too justly deserved, which had been elicited
by it. He laid passionate stress on the Utopian and
chimerical nature of the conception of society they pro-
mulgated.
The effect was striking. Instantly a nucleus of
conservative resistance gathered round the bold con-
troversialist. The Polish insurrection, which occurred
in the course of the following year, furnished him with
fresh arguments and a solid fulcrum, that of the resistance
and rebellion of the national feeling. At the same time,
it accentuated the retrograde tendency of his group.
Herzen, faithful to his own principles, risked his popu-
larity on the most dangerous of hazards, by making
common cause with the insurgents. The few liberal
organs spared by the Censure, true to their mutual under-
standing, betrayed a similar sympathy by their continued
silence. In the midst of the lull, Katkov's voice was
raised once more. In eloquent language he affirmed
the existence of a criminal, and, indeed, a somewhat
fictitious, agreement between the events actually taking
place at Warsaw and those with which the revolutionary
agitation nursed by London and Paris fanatics threatened
the peace of Russia. In the name of the national ideal,
the future of which was threatened, in the name even of
KATKOV 225
the ancient popular rights, the reconstitution of which
in the Lithuanian provinces would be prevented by
the triumph of the Polish element, he demanded the
suppression of the insurrection, and the complete annexa-
tion of Poland.
Such a suggestion as Katkov's was sure to find
numerous and willing hearers. It was echoed even in
the foremost ranks of the liberal party. Before very long,
the Russification and nationalisation of all the hetero-
geneous elements composing Catherine II. 's mighty
inheritance was to be the common war-cry of all liberals,
and at their head, Katkov, whose neo-conservatism w^as
gradually gathering strength, exercised powers resem-
bling those of a dictator. The Government itself had
to submit, and did it, indeed, with a good grace. The
pretensions of a nobility which had suddenly fallen in
love with representative institutions, and the continua-
tion of the enterprises of the revolutionary party, which
culminated, in 1866, in Karakazov's attempt, forced it
into the most absolutely reactionary course. Mouraviov
had no sooner finished his work in Poland, than he
was summoned to repeat it on the Nihilists in Russia.
Ministers and functionaries of moderate views, Valouiev,
Golovine, Prince Souvorov, made way for others of the
most retrograde opinions, such as Prince Gagarin and
Count Chouvalov. An abyss yawned, into which the
whole of Katkov's past liberalism fell, and left not a trace
behind. The dictator was forced to obey the common
law of popular movements. Soon, leader though he
was, he had to follow his own soldiers, and he ended,
from the fervent autonomist he had once been, by being
the proscriber of all local initiative, as a sin against the
rights of absolute monarchy, as the sacrificer of every
226 RUSSIAN LITERATURE
ethnographic autonomy on the altar of national unity,
and finally, alack ! as an ofttcious informer, who scented
revolution and treason everywhere, and, with C. Leontiev,
as an educational reformer who w^ould have all teaching
brought back to the classic traditions, and the superan-
nuated methods of a bygone period. So thoroughly did
he do his work, that not a sign remained, in his contem-
poraries' eyes, of the brilliant furrow he had traced, in
the early part of his career, across a period to which I
shall rejoice to return, in order to call up the memory
of its artistic and intellectual splendours.
Yet in so doing I shall not escape from some of those
political and scientific problems to w^hich I have just
referred. One of the consequences of the regime im-
posed on the Russian press has been, and is, that all
investigations and discussions of this nature are forced
into a province not entirely fitted for them, that a veil of
romance or poetry must be cast over things and subjects
most unsuited to this treatment, and that the imagination,
and all the temptations connected therewith, must be
mixed up in questions which should be treated by
methods of the severest simplicity. Art itself has had
reason to murmur against the authors of these adul-
terous unions, even when their names were Gogol and
Tourgudniev. Reason and truth have suffered even
more, when the writer who thus disguised them bore
the name of TolstoiL
CHAPTER VIII
LERMONTOV, GOGOL, AND TOURGUfiNIEV
Last winter, in the Parisian drawing-room of a great
Russian lady, I was present at the reading of a French
translation of The Demon. The author's name was un-
known to half of the assembled audience. The trans-
lation, graceful and faithful as it was, could only very
partially render the beauties of the work. At first the
attitude of the company was somewhat careless, though
polite. But as the incidents of the drama were unfolded,
I read in the shining eyes and parted lips about me, that
the poet and his interpreter had won over that elegant
swarm of gay and blase beings. " What passion ! " one
lady murmured. And she spoke truly. Called from the
wild slopes of the Caucasian mountains, by the vivid ima-
gination of Lermontov, a torrent of burning lava flowed
in waves of harmony into the hearts of his hearers.
Even prior to this experience, I had always declined
to follow tradition by placing this particular poet in the
same pleiad with Pouchkine. To me he seemed evidently
to belong to another intellectual group, that of Bielinski,
of Gogol, and of the Slavophil school. With a somewhat
childish instinct of defiance, he has chosen to take up a
certain number of the subjects already treated by the
author of Engtne Onieguinc, He, too, was resolved to
conjure up his Prophet j who has proved less of an Isaiah
than of a Jeremiah or an Ezekiel — the disregarded bearer
228 RUSSIAN LITERATURE
of sublime truths, at whom men cast stones, and at whom
the old point with their fingers, saying to the children,
" See how he is despised ! " Like Pouchkine, and within
similar limits, he has felt the Byronic influence, but,
unlike Pouchkine, he has never cut himself off from the
political and social progress of his time, and from the
problems therein to be found. His despair and melan-
choly arose, in part at least, more out of the common
sadness and alarm than out of his own selfish disgust,
and I am not inclined to think that if his life had been
prolonged, he would have accepted clemency, and even
favours, from Nicholas, nor would have appeared a
domesticated, submissive, and contented subject of the
Tsar.
But for Byron, LermontoV might perhaps have pro-
vided the Slavophil faith with that complement of artistic
expression it still lacks. The poem — I regard it as his
master-piece — in which he conjures up the figure of
Ivan Vassilievitch proves his possession of the requisite
powers. In those of his works (such as Ismail-Bey)
which are more directly inspired by the English poet,
the Nationalist tendency is still visible ; the West, doomed
and depraved, gives way before the regenerating East.
In Sacha — a posthumous work, probably dating from
about 1838 — the 147th and 148th lines contain impre-
cations against Germany which might have been written
yesterday. Yet the poet never wholly accepts the doc-
trines of Kirieidvski and Akssakov.
Nor did it ever occur to him to calculate the greatness
of his country on the number of swords she could draw,
nor to become ''the patriot of brutality," as Brandes
powerfully describes Pouchkine. But he was proud of
his race to the highest degree, and this in spite of the
LERMONTOV 229
fact that a pretentiousness — also the result of Byron's
influence — induced him to claim descent now from the
Spanish family of Lerma, and again from the Scottish
Learmonths, who owned an ancient tower on the Tweed,
near Sir Walter Scott's house of Abbotsford. But though
he was fond of talking about ''leaving the country of
snows and police-agents " and going back to ''my Scot-
land/' he had all the distinctive features of the Russian —
his uneasy sensitiveness, his lofty imagination, his infinite
sadness. Tourgueniev remarked upon his eyes, '' which
never laughed, even when he laughed himself ! "
The parents of Michael Iouri£vitch Lermontov
(1811-1841) possessed no castle, either on Tweed banks
or elsewhere. They w^ere small nobles in the govern-
ment of Toula, and were really, if we may trust the poet's
biographers, of Scottish origin. One of their ancestors,
George Learmonth, is said to have left his country in the
seventeenth century, and taken service with the Tsar
Michael Fiodorovitch. Michael lourievitch received a
careful education, as those times went. He had a German
nurse, and even a French tutor, who taught him to worship
Napoleon, and inspired him with a taste for French
poetry, but who did not prevent him, in later years, from
envying Pouchkine his Arina Rodionovna, and the old
nurse's folk-tales, " which had more poetry in them than
the whole of French literature." Dismissed from the
University for some trifling escapade, he spent two
years in the military school, and lived the life of the
ordinary officer of the day, save that he put *'a Httle
poetry into his champagne." His earliest efforts. The
Fete at P e terkof -Sind Oulancka (the handbooks of Russian
literature describe them as "epic" ; I should rather have
called them indelicate), belong to this period (1832-1834)
2 30 RUSSIAN LITERATURE ,
and bear its seal. He was a cornet in the Htissars of
the Guard when a St. Petersburg review published his
first Oriental sketch, Hadji- Abrek^ which is essentially
Byronian in form. J^
In Russia the study of English literature afld poetry
was always somewhat inadequate and fragmentary. The
subject was not considered in its completeness, nor was
any individual work studied in its entirety. Before the
advent of Byron, Walter Scott was for many ^ years the
only English author at all generally knowrt: At the
time of Lermontov's greatest devotion to Byron, he was
unacquainted with Shelley, and even of Byron himself ;
neither his imagination nor his inspiration imbibed more
than some special features. No Russian Anglorhaniac of
that period ever dreamt of sacrificing himself,fiike Byron,
like Shelley, for Greece or for Ireland, or like^^Landor, for
Spain. And if there was no sign in the pages of Eugene
Onie'guine of that mighty panorama of satire in which
the author of Don Juan and Childe Harold pilloried the
European world, with all the hypocrisies of its morals
and social organisation, neither do Lermontov's Oriental
sketches, nor even the more matured worksj of his later
days, such as The Demon and The Hero of our Own TimeSy
reflect more than some explosive flashes o^the Byronic
sun — pride, free thought, sardonic laughter, and an
artificial cynicism and demonism. The ^'humanitarian
ray is lacking. y
The Russian and the Englishman cXuld not fully
agree, even in their common worship -of Napoleon.
While Byron reproached the " god o^ battles " for
his falsehood to the revolutionary idea, and really only
succeeded in adoring his idol after its fall, when he was
inspired with scorn and rage against the ''jackals preying
LERMONTOV 231
on the dying lion," it never occurred to Lermontov to
discuss his deity, and after the catastrophe he lays the
blame, naively and flatly, on the French nation, which
he holds guilty of having betrayed and forsaken its
glorious hero, or rather — and how Russian is the touch !
— its sovereign ! The pessimism of the author of The
Demon sprang partly from another, and, we must con-
fess, a less noble source. The cornet of hussars pos-
sessed none of the elegance and charm of his English
model. Ill-made, awkward in society, where, by his
own confession, he "could not utter a word," his in-
feriority, bitterly felt, made him sulky, cross-grained,
and vindictive. Men, as a rule, detested him. He made
love to the fair sex, but more especially, it would seem,
for the sake of the spiteful pleasure of forsaking the
woman whose favour he had won. Though quite as
self-conscious and self-centred as Byron, quite capable
of saying, "The person whose company gives me most
pleasure is myself ... I am my own best friend" —
quite as ambitious, "desiring to leave traces of his passage
everywhere" — Lermontov was utterly incapable of say-
ing, like Byron, " I love, thee, man, not less, but Nature
more ! " or that to desire " to fly from, need not mean
to hate mankind." On the contrary, he deliberately gave
himself out to be a man-hater. The bits of blue sky over-
head, to which the English poet loved to raise his eyes,
had no existence for his Russian confrere. His horizon
was always gloomy, laden with clouds, heavy with
thunder.
We have been told that this deformed and half-starved
Byronism, by giving Lermontov, from the purely aesthetic
standpoint, a taste for the brilliant imagery, the sonorous
language, and the humour and pathos of the English
16
232 RUSSIAN LITIRATURE
poet, did him the service of snatching him from the
habits and surroundings of a mere cavalry officer, and
reveaHng to him a higher world of feeling and thought.
I should be much more disposed to blame it as having
tempted the Russian poet away from other springs
of inspiration, more suited to his powers and natural
temperament. He drew nearer to these, for a moment,
at the time of Pouchkine's death. He had *^ Byronised "
up till that time without much success, and led, mean-
while, a foolish roistering life, some incidents of which
he has chosen to relate in Mongo, and in The Princess
Ligovskaia. The tragic end of his rival, done to death
by a drawing-room conspiracy, roused him into a trans-
port of rage and judicial indignation — ^'The poet is
dead, the victim of honour ! " The verses, which, like
Pouchkine's epigrams, were circulated in manuscript,
earned Lermontov a year of exile to the Caucasus.
Here The Demons the plan of which had been conceived
and sketched out some years before, was recast. The
subject is evidently suggested, indirectly, by Byron's
Heaven and Earthy and more directly by De Vigny's
Eloa ; but in the hands of the Russian poet the char-
acters and the setting of the story have both under-
gone a complete transformation. For the fanciful and,
to some extent, abstract landscape of the French writer,
he has substituted the real magnificence of Nature in the
Caucasus, which had already cast its spell over Pouch-
kine. But the scenes which by the latter were coldly,
and we may almost say topographically, described, rise
lifelike before us under the pen which, in Lermontov's
hand, seems to tremble under the breath of love. And
the heroine of his poem is no longer the symbolic virgin,
born of a tear dropped by the Christ, who held De
LERMONTOV 233
Vigny's enamoured fancy, but a living passionate being
— a Jewess of the Babylonian Captivity in the first
sketch of the work — then a Spanish nun, and finally a
Georgian princess. She has less ideal nobility about
her than De Vigny's heroine, but she has more human
reality. She does not yield to the compassionate long-
ing to save her seducer by her love. She obeys the
imperious behest of love itself, the cry of her own heart
and senses. And she is only the secondary figure in
the poem. The leading part is that of the Demon
himself.
It is somewhat difficult to judge of the poet's concep-
tion on this point. All we have, indeed, is the mutilated
form to which it has been reduced by his own precau-
tion and reticence, with a view to the Censor, and by
the subsequent pruning executed by that functionary.
The hero, as he thus appears to us, has nothing in
common with Byron's '' Lucifer " and Milton's ^^ Satan,"
both of them personifications of the Demon-thought
which raises man while it torments him. The seducer
of Tamara, the fair Circassian, though he calls himself
''king of knowledge and of liberty," does nothing to
justify his title, in no way proves his superiority in the
sphere of intellect, and gives no sign anywhere of that
spirit of revolutionary protest, that longing for power
and activity, which have set Byron's ''Lucifer" at the
head of all the agitators and national leaders of the nine-
teenth century, just as Milton's "Satan" incarnates the
intellectual struggle of the seventeenth, and Carducci's
Inno a Satana represents Wi^forza vindice delta razione of
our own day. This sensual demon approaches much
more nearly to the type created by De Vigny. "/'^/
fonde man empire de Jiamme — dans les desirs du coeur
2 34 RUSSIAN LITERATURE
— dans les reves de rdme — dans les desirs du corps —
attraits mysterteux." But in Lermontov's Demon this
last feature is worked up into an over-mastering eroti-
cism, which appears to have been the dominant note in
the poet's own temperament.
I must repeat that The Demon is a poem which should
not be judged unreservedly on its mere outward appear-
ance. Lermontov's general attitude was one of protest
couched in the form of literature, and under other con-
ditions he would certainly have been capable of giving a
much less commonplace expression to his thoughts.
To St. Petersburg, whither, thanks to powerful in-
tervention, he returned in 1838, he brought back, to-
gether with his Demon, his Song on Ivan Vassilievitch^
which belongs to quite a different order of inspiration,
and seems to emanate from some far-away region, some
mysterious and inexplorable corner of his gloomy and
storm-tossed soul. In it, the figure of Ivan the Terrible,
with the features bestowed on him by popular legend
and verse, and the world of ideas and feelings with
which both have surrounded it, stand out in extraor-
dinary relief. At a tournament over which the Tsar
presides, a young Moscow merchant, Kalachnikov, chal-
lenges Kiribi^ievitch, one of the sovereign's boon com-
panions, who had violated his wife, to single combat
with their fists. Struck on the chest, according to the cour-
teous rules of the combat, Kalachnikov responds with a
fearful blow on the temple, which lays his adversary stone
dead at his feet. '' Didst thou do the deed intentionally ?"
queries the Tsar. ''Yes, orthodox Tsar," replies the
merchant ; '' I killed him with my full will. But where-
fore—that I will not tell thee. I will tell that to God
alone." ''Thou dost well," answers Ivan, "my little
.LERMONTOV 235
friend, bold wrestler, merchant's son, to have answered
me according to thy conscience. Thy young wife and
thy orphans shall receive largesse from my treasury.
To thy brothers I give permission from this day to traffic
over all the Russian empire, this huge empire, with-
out paying tax or toll. As for thee, my little friend, go
to the scaffold — take thither thy rebellious head. I will
cause the axe to be ground and sharpened — I w^ill have
the headsman dressed and adorned — I will order the
great bell to be tolled, so that all the folk of Moscow
may be sure to know that thou, too, hast shared my
mercy."
And so it comes to pass. Kalachnikov, having bidden
farewell to wife and children, goes to the place of execu-
tion, there to die, cruelly and ignominiously. The poem
does not say '^unjustly."
The story, the dialogue, the setting, are all admirable,
perfectly natural, exquisitely simple, powerfully original.
St. Petersburg, unfortunately, was to tempt Lermontov
back to his earlier and more artificial style, and at the
same time to a disorderly and empty mode of life which
soon weighed on him even more heavily than on Pouch-
kine himself. He was in despair, grew furious, declared
he would rather go anywhere, '^to his regiment or to
the devil," was haunted, like Pouchkine, by a presenti-
ment of, even a desire for, a speedy death, and composed
that series of prose narratives which, collected together
under the title A Hero of our Own Time, have been taken
for his autobiography. I think it would be both cruel
and unjust to accept this supposition absolutely. Just as
Pouchkine has put some of himself into both Onieguine
and Lenski, without exhausting his whole personality
in either character — so Pietchorine, the '' Hero " in ques-
2i6 RUSSIAN LITERATURE
tion^ is certainly not wholly representative of Lermontov.
The author of A Hero did certainly intend, like Musset
in his Confessions d'un Enfant du Siecle (a book which
doubtless influenced him), to lay bare the soul, generi-
cally speaking, of the man of his own epoch, and in it a
portion of his own. In this respect his work is interest-
ing as being an attempt at the psychological novel. But
Lermontov possessed neither the sincerity, the subtlety,
nor even the broad-mindedness of De Musset. His Piet^
cJiorine does certainly bear traces of the moral uneasi-
ness which tortured the best minds of that period. That
it is which makes him, like Onieguine and like Tchatski,
appear an exile from his country and from his own self,
unable to find shelter or repose anywhere on earth. But
he lacks both the judgment which would enable him to
recognise the causes of his mental disturbance, and the
determination to suppress such of them, external or in-
ternal, as depend on his own free-will. At bottom he is
a military dandy, almost an English lord suffering from
the spleen, aristocratic and sentimental, and at the same
time a barbarian, capable of all the coarse and violent
passions of the Tcherkess tribes, among whom he
took refuge ; a ^' Romantic " with a delicate feeling for
Nature, a passionate love of liberty, and his mouth full
of quotations from Schiller and Walter Scott ; a Don
Juan filled with a vague longing for some ideal mistress,
and avenging on every woman he meets, be she Russian
princess or Tcherkess peasant, the disappointment he
finds in her ; a lover who knows neither faith nor
honour, a detestable comrade. His temperament, his
disposition, and even his external appearance are abso-
lutely in accord with the unpleasing memories which St.
Petersburg belles, and his own brother officers, retain of
LERMONTOV 237
Lermontov. Read the portrait of his adventurous guest
traced by one of the heroes of the book, Maximus Maxi-
movitch, after having given him shelter on the steppe,
and compare it with Bodenstedt's hasty sketch of Ler-
montov, after a chance meeting. *' Strongly built, but
exceedingly slight ; disorderly dress, but dazzlingly white
linen." The resemblance even extends to material details.
Such is the visible and apparent aspect of this per-
sonage, and I am willing to admit that it seems to
conceal something. But what that may be, remains an
unfathomable and deceptive riddle. Pietchorine may
possibly be a Manfred. When, after reading Moore's
Life of Byron, Lermontov exclaimed —
IVe have the same soul, the sa?ne torments ;
Would that I might have the same fate I
he expressed — of this I am convinced — a genuine feeling.
But his Manfred was always to stay on his mountain.
Never does his hero's disdainful pride seem touched with
an aching compassion for those below. Once we see him
weep over the corpse of a horse, and this is all. And
his adventures, his seductions, his abductions, his duels,
are all pitifully commonplace.
They interest us ? Yes, just as certain not particu-
larly pretty women interest us — doubtless on account of
the exquisite naturalness of the story and the Caucasian
colouring, which is entirely beautiful. There is not a
trace of composition about the work. It has neither
beginning, nor middle, nor end. This peculiarity will
presently be noticed as belonging generally to the novels
of Gogol and his emulators.
Yet we must not forget that Lermontov was only
five-and-twenty when he wrote this book, that he was
2 38 RUSSIAN LITERATURE
living the life of a hussar, and that to all appearance he
had not spoken his last word, nor even found his true
path in literature. Alas ! the moments left him to search
for it were numbered. In 1840 he fought a duel with
the son of Baron de Barante, the well-known historian,
then Minister of France at St. Petersburg, and for this
prank was sent back to the Caucasus. Sullenly he bade
farewell to ^'unwashed Russia, to the country of slaves,
to blue uniforms, and the people who submitted to their
law." ^^ Perhaps," he added, ^' beyond the chain of the
free mountains I shall escape, O my country ! from thy
pachas, from their eyes that see everything, and their
ears that claim to hear everything ! " The next year
he reappeared for a short time at St. Petersburg, and
was killed in another duel with Martynov, his own
brother officer, of whom he was supposed to have drawn
a somewhat spiteful portrait in his Hero^ under the title
of Grouchnitski.
Taken as a whole, the work of Lermontov is that of a
literary apprentice who drinks at every spring, and attempts
every style. In his tragedy called Ispantsy (the Spaniards),
written in 1830, we find reminiscences of Nathan der
Weise and Kaball und Liebe, In The Masquerade j a play
written in 1835, he appears to have laid Shakespeare
under contribution. On another play he has seen fit
to bestow a German title, Menschen und Leidenschaften,
But in all his work, and especially in the short sets of
verses, most of which were not published till after his
death, there is strong evidence of personal inspiration :
the cry of distress, the despairing complaint of a soul
that pines for a better world, and thanks God for
everything, "for scalding tears, for poisonous kisses," so
long as it may soon '^ cease to be thankful altogether."
LERMONTOV 239
This is not Pouchkine's sceptical and often ironic
melancholy ; it is an anguish that is bitter to mad-
ness, a rebellion violent to fury, occasionally combined,
as in the figures of Pietchorine and of the modern
Othello in The Masquerade^ with a power of analysis
which, though still somewhat limited, has a subtlety
and penetration that remind us of Stendhal. As
regards workmanship, the distinctive peculiarity of his
writing is its stereotyped quality. Subject, expression,
phrase, general form, are constantly reproduced, in every
one of his works. Thus the comparison of a human
heart to a ruined temple which the gods have forsaken
and where men dare not dwell (which had already been
used by Pouchkine, who may have borrow^ed it from
Mickiev^'icz), is reproduced by Lermontov in The Confes-
sion (1830), in The Boyard Orcha (1835), and in The Demon
(1838). His language, though less unvaryingly correct
and apt than Pouchkine's, frequently rises to a pitch
of sonorous music even more wonderful than his. He
bore a seven-stringed lyre, not a chord of which rang
false. Of w^hat splendid hopes was Russia bereft when
a senseless bullet crashed into the instrument !
Meanwhile, from popular depths unknown to Piet-
chorine, and even to Lermontov himself, other chords,
modulated in the same tones of complaint and mortal
sadness, though gentler indeed, and more resigned, began
to rise.
In 1809 there was born to a small cattle-dealer
(prassol) at Voroneje, a child who seemed destined by
fate to assist his parents in their humble and rustic
vocations. For four years he attended a local school ;
then he departed on to the steppe, to mount guard
over flocks of sheep and herds of oxen. But with him
240 RUSSIAN LITERATURE
he carried a collection of popular verse, which was
to while away his long hours of solitude ; and in his
breast, too, he bore, as it proved, a poet's soul.
This youth was Alexis Vassili£vitch Koltsov
(1809-1842). The good-nature of a bookseller placed
other volumes within his reach, quite a little library,
including the works of Dmitriev, of Joukovski, of
Pouchkine, of Delwig. The first effect they had on
him was not to make him write verses, but to make
him fall in love. The heroine of this firci; idyl was
a young serf called Douniacha. The hero's parents
considered such a marriage a mesalliance. They sent
the heir of their flocks and herds to a distance ; they
sold Douniacha for a sum of money and a bonus in salt
meat, and she utterly disappeared. Two years later,
after cruel treatment at the hands of her new proprietor,
who lived on the banks of the Don, she died. Koltsov
never saw her again.
In the midst of his sorrow new friends appeared on
the scene, holding out helping hands to him. First we
see Andrew Porfirevitch Serebrianski, a young poet,
whose melancholy song, ^' Swift as the waves flow the
days of our life," had its hour of popularity. Then came
Stankievitch, whom we know already, and whose father
was a land-owner in the neighbourhood of Voroneje.
Once more he played the part of Maecenas. By his
kindness the young herdsman was suddenly brought
into contact with the literary world at Moscow, and in
1835 ^ selection of his poetry appeared, published at the
expense of his generous protector. It was a revelation !
The link which had hitherto existed between popular
and artistic poetry had been purely artificial. Koltsov
made that link a living bond. Under his pen the rustic
KOLTSOV 241
songs — fresh, simple, whether with their brilHant colours
and bird-like warbling, or with their gloomy shadows and
melancholy voices — retained all their originality, and
gained an exquisite form. This was art, and at the same
time it was Nature to the very life. It was like breathing
the air of the meadows and drinking straight from the
rivulet. These verses should not be declaimed. They
must be sung to the music of some balalaika.
Koltsov did not, as may well be imagined, at once
attain a perfect mastery of this new art — this marvellous
fusion of diverse elements. In his earlier attempts, he
did not fail to drop from time to time into an imitation
of the Romantic style, and so did scurvy service to his
own talent ; and how scant was the space of time allotted
him wherein to establish and develop his gift !
In 1835 the young poet was able to make some stay
in St. Petersburg and Moscow, and frequent the literary
circles gathered there ; but until 1840, although he kept
up his intercourse with Bielinski and his circle, he was
obliged to devote the greater part of his time to the
business by which he supported himself and his family.
Two years later Koltsov was dead — worn out, killed, at
three-and-thirty, by hard work and sorrow.
He has been called the Russian Burns. The resem-
blance, to my thinking, is confined to some features of
his personal history. Like the Ayrshire poet, Koltsov
was born of the people, and knew what it was to be poor.
His poetic vocation sprang from the same source — a
thwarted love. He was more unhappy than Burns, for
he never married his Jean Armour. He was less hot-
blooded, and never stooped to debauchery ; his life and
his poetry were both chaste. But the work of Burns is
not a mere artistic transmutation of popular subjects.
242 RUSSIAN LITERATURE
The Scottish poet is a great poet in the full sense of the
term — a leader in the twofold domain of art and thought.
Properly speaking, his work was not popular poetry : he
was ashamed of his origin ! He produced a new poetry,
wherein feeling, thought, and soul prevailed over form.
By this, as well as by the accent of rebellion and bitter-
ness which pervades his verse, he prepared the way for
a revolution ; he outstripped his century by forty years ;
he ushered in the advent of Byron. The peaceful bard
of Voroneje has nothing in common with these things.
Koltsov sings of poverty, of the fight for existence, of
the cruelty of unkind Fate. But all this in tones of
perfect resignation, and within a very narrow imaginative
sphere. When he leaves this and indulges in his Medita-
tions {Doumy)^ he loses himself in the most cloudy and
childish mysticism.
The philosophic and social import of this poetry lies
in the very fact of its existence. Von Visine's heroine,
Mme. Prostakova, could not conceive, but a short time
previously, that the peasants should dare to be ill. Yet
here we see them actually falling in love, and, interesting
people in their love affairs ; they venture to be poetic,
and even touching. And these are not the be-ribboned
shepherds of Florian, but Russian moujiksy redolent of
brandy and tar, rugged, often savage, always sad. Koltsov,
by virtue of the gift which enabled him to raise, to en-
noble, to idealise these boorish elements, has his share in
the twofold current of emancipation of that period. His
method may be summed up as follows : The popular
song invariably deals with the external aspect of things
alone. It has no conception of their internal meaning.
It makes a clumsy use of metaphors which it cannot
coherently develop. It gives rugged expression to rugged
KOLTSOV # 243
feelings. All this is transfigured in Koltsov's hands. He
lights up the facts by revealing the psychological element
they contain : he purifies the metaphors, he idealises the
sentiments. We see a poor " mower/' for instance^ who
loves Grouniouchka and is loved in return. His request
for her hand is refused. The daughters of rich peasants
are not for penniless fellows such as he. He empties
his scanty purse to buy a well-sharpened scythe. Is he
going to kill himself ? Oh, no indeed ! He will go out
into the steppe, where the harvest is richest. He will
toil bravely, even cheerfully. He will come back with
his pockets full. He will rattle his silver roubles, and we
shall see whether Grouniouchka's father will not give in
at last ! What have we here ? A love story such as
may be found in any country place. Clothed in Koltsov's
language it is a splendid poem.
This language always adheres as closely as may be,
without actual coarseness, to the popular speech. It is
full of wonderful treasures in the way of words and
striking imagery, as, for instance, in the Season of Love
{Poralioubvi), where a young girl's white bosom is seen
heaving tempestuously, though she will not betray her
secret. *' She will not cast up her foundation of sand,"
says the poet.
I have before me, as I write, a still unpublished cor-
respondence between Tourgueniev and Ralston. This
privilege I owe to the kindness of M. Onieguine, the
owner of this inestimable treasure. In its pages the
great novelist congratulates the English critic on having
introduced the public of his native land to a work which
very probably has no parallel in any literature. " As
long as the Russian tongue exists," Tourgueniev writes,
" certain of Koltsov's songs will retain their popularity in
244 ♦RUSSIAN LITERATURE
his own country." He doubtless had in his mind the
poems entitled The Harvest^ The Labourer's Song, The
Winds BloWy and The Forest. Other Russian critics have,
in my opinion, ascribed too much importance to certain
more ambitious compositions, such as The Little Farm
and Night — incidents of women surprised by jealous
husbands or lovers, scenes of savage anger and murder,
in which the author's dramatic power strikes me less
than the poverty and childishness of his execution.
Koltsov was quite ignorant of his craft. He knew no
more of the art of composition than of that of prosody.
He depended entirely on his ear and his intuition, and
this could only serve him in simple subjects. Intellec-
tually the poor prassol poet was always half-absorbed
into that '^ empire of darkness " from which Ostrovski
was to draw his most powerful effects of gloomy terror
and pity.
Not long after the death of the young poet, another
made his appearance in Voroneje. Ivan Savitch Nikitine
(1826-1861) also sprang from a commercial family, but
from one having some connection with the Church.
He attracted notice in 1853 by a patriotic poem, Russia,
inspired by the opening events of the Crimean War. A
collection of his lyric poems, published in 1856 by Count
D. N. Tolstoi, was somewhat coldly received. But two
years later the fame of Nikitine was established by a
great poem, Koulaky which bore testimony to his deep
knowledge of the life of the people and his remarkable
powers of expression. The word Koulak means "peasants'
money-lender." The poet's friends helped him to open a
bookshop in his native town. His business prospered,
and enabled him to work and create more freely. He
perfected his style, for, unlike Koltsov, Nikitine was a
OGARIOV 245
scholar. He turned his attention to the ro7nan de mceurs^
had prepared and half-completed two works, The Mayor
and A Seminarisfs Journal^ when consumption seized
him, and he died, like Pouchkine, at the age of thirty-
eight.
Lermontov and Koltsov were not destined to have any
direct successors ; and in making this assertion I do
not think I shall offend the shade of Countess Eudoxia
Rostoptchine (1811-1858), nor even that of Nicholas
Platonovitch Ogariov (1813-1877). This writer, the friend
of Herzen and collaborator in The Bell, published, in
London, some poetry which has been highly appreciated
by the Russians, who delight in forbidden works, and
which, in the eyes of some hot-headed critics, places him
on a higher level than Nekrassov. In my judgment it
betokens more fierce enthusiasm than poetic feeling, and
the author's best works, his Humour, his Nocturne, his
Soliloquy^ his Winter's Day, present a strange medley
of Byronian pessimism and of an equally ill-founded
optimism.
As for Countess Rostoptchine, her poems, which
hardly anybody reads nowadays, and her novels, which
never found many readers, are full of elevated sentiments
and intellectual breadth.
The transition from poetry to prose, from the romantic
struggle against reality to the deliberate observation of
that reality which was unconquerable, is a feature common
to the literary evolution of this period in every European
country. In Russia, where the reality is tougher and
more repulsive than elsewhere, this evolution was accom-
plished with special rapidity ; and to this result the
essentially realistic temperament of the nation was pecu-
liarly favourable. The spirit of nature which had been
246 RUSSIAN LITERATURE
driven out by the pseudo-classic invasion swiftly came
home again. Between 1830 and 1840 the novel, as exem-
plified in the works of Zagoskine, Lajetchnikov, Dahl,
Weltman, N. A. Polevoi", Prince V. Odoievski, Pavlov,
Bestoujev, and Pogodine, drew more and more to the
front in literature. Some of these writers were still un-
conscious Romanticists, imitators of Sir Walter Scott ;
but in every one of them we notice a common tendency
to the representation of scenes from the national life,
whether historic or contemporary, together with a
constant seeking after comic effect, of a satiric and
somewhat humorous nature ; and before Thackeray and
Dickens had reached the Russian world, Gogol had
risen up within its borders.
Gogol.
We have arrived at the year 1831, and the literary exist-
ence of the country is passing through a season of sore
difficulty. According to the system finally elaborated by
Ouvarov, whom Nicholas I. has chosen to be his Minister
of Public Instruction, an iron despotism and a censorship
worthy of Metternich are appointed the national and tra-
ditional basis of the constitution and development of the
Russian commonwealth. Here we have the inauguration
of official nationalisniy and both press and society, with
some few exceptions, spontaneously adopt the formula.
In the Northern Bee we see literature walking hand in hand
with the police — Grietch, Boulgarine, and Senkowski,
all exceeding each other in dulness, obscurantism, and
servility. To a critic who accuses him of having written
to order, Koukolnik, one of the contributors to this paper,
replies, ^^ I will play the part of an accoucheur to-morrow,
GOGOL 247
if I am so directed." One branch of the Slavophil school,
under pretext of rehabilitating the national past, and find-
ing fresh ideals within it, applies itself, with Chevirev
and Pogodine, to transferring to that past the existing
depravity of modern ideas and habits, and ends by de-
ducing therefrom, as the traditional direction of all future
development, the decrease of individuality ! The culmi-
nating point of this teaching is the vehement repudiation
of the elementary principles of all civilisation.
Such was the moral atmosphere which surrounded the
cradle of Nicholas Vassili£vitch Gogol (1809-1852).
By one of those seeming miracles so frequent in literary
history, the future author of Dead Souls does not appear
to have suffered from it.
Born of a small land-owner's family in the govern-
ment of Poltava, where the old Cossack legends and
traditions were still fresh and strong, he brought with
him to his school at Niejine the temperament, the ima-
gination, and the intelligence of a true son of the steppe.
He loathed mathematics, affected to despise Greek and
Latin, and betrayed an equal objection to German. At a
later period he was to bestow the name of ^' Schiller " on
a character in one of his stories, a caricature of a German
settled in Russia, whose stinginess made him ready to
cut off his nose to save the use of snuff, and so metho-
dical that, for physiological reasons, he measured the
amount of pepper introduced into his food. This mania
did not prevent Gogol from reading the best French and
German authors with the help of dictionaries, and even
going so far as to imitate them.
At Nidjine the fashions followed those of Tsarskoi'^-
Sielo. The pupils of the college prided themselves on
having a journal of their own, and in it Gogol pubHshed^
17
248 RUSSIAN LITERATURE
in succession, a novel, The Brothers Tvierdislavitchy ^ the
subject and form of which was borrowed from the
German almanacs of that period, a tragedy, TJie RobberSy
the source of which will be easily divined, and satires
and ballads, all of them equally devoid of originality.
When he left college in 1828, he was a young enthusiast
of the purest romantic cast, who dreamt of accomplish-
ing some mighty thing for his country, who looked
on himself as an ill-used genius, and already claimed —
at eighteen — to have suffered bitterly at the hands of his
fellow-men ! Two characteristic features, destined, as time
went by, to attain prodigious proportions — his ascetic
tastes and his love of power — complete this description
of *Gogors moral physiognomy. He departed to St.
Petersburg, to find employment. He secured a position
as copying-clerk in the Ministry of Domains, left it, not
until he had collected a number of bureaucratic types
of which he was to make use later, was suddenly seized
with a desire to take a long journey, started, armed
with a sum of money given him by his mother for quite
a different purpose, reached Liibeck, turned back, and
began to form other plans. First he would be an actor,
then he bethought him of writing a poem on the subject
of a recent unhappy love affair of his own. This he
called Hans Kuchelgarten^ and, in spite of all its preten-
sions, it is no more than a debased transcription of Voss's
Louise. The work, printed under the pseudonym of V.
Alov, elicited some jeering remarks from M. Polevoi in the
Moscow Telegraph. Otherwise it passed unnoticed. The
copies sent to the booksellers' shops waited in vain for
purchasers. Gogol took them all back, hired a room in
which to burn them, every one, and was suddenly seized
with a fit of home-sickness.
GOGOL 249
These iips and downs of feeling are common enough
among beginners, but they do not always lead to so for-
tunate an issue. The issue in this case was a book called
Evenings at the Farm of Dikanka, published in 183 1.
For a moment it struck the literary world into a kind of
stupor. Nothing of the sort had ever been seen before.
The Ukraine lived and moved in these stories, called up
in a vision at once miraculously precise and exquisitely
attractive, singing and ringing with the hearty laughter,
just touched w^ith a spice of archness, which is the em-
bodiment of Little-Russian mirth. Was it a true picture ?
K'ot quite, as yet. Gogol had not been able, at the very
first, to cast off all his romantic trappings. Here and
there he over-poetised, an,d thus misrepresented his
Ukraine. And one thing was lacking in his picture,
sunny as it was, gay, alive with changing colour. There
were no tears in it.
But close on these Evenings came another series —
Mirgorod — and this time Pouchkine, in his delight, fell
on the author's neck. Perhaps the truth had revealed
itself to the young novelist on that morning w'hen he
knocked at the ereat .poet's door, and learnt to his
astonishment that Gogol was still sleeping.
*' He must h^e spe^t the night in composing some
fresh work ! " P oiic h Jane said.
" He spent the night at cards," replied the servant.
In Mirgorod we hear the real human laughter of the
man who was to write Dead Souls — a laughter with tears
in it. and a note of irony. Yet the brilliant success of
his work did .not satisfy Gogol. Like Tolstoi' in later
days — an unconscious artist like himself — he was always,
from the heights of his dream-fancy, to cast off the chil-
dren of his own imagination as being unworthy of it.
2 50 RUSSIAN LITERATURE
He now began to think of a History of Little Russia^ and
also of a History of the Middle Ages^ which was to reach
eight or nine volumes. He knew little beyond what his
father, a great retailer of* legends, had taught him of the
past history of his native region. With feverish haste he
began to collect materials. Fortunately his imagination
proved too strong for him, and the result of his efforts
was Tarass Boulba, a prose poem, still very romantic in
tendency, based, historically and ethnographically, on a
hasty perusal of Beauplan and Scherer, but instinct with
powerful epic feeling, and full of striking and dramatic
episodes. The opening scenes, where Tarass wrestles
with his sons to try their strength, and where a young
Cossack, to assert his scorn for luxury, rolls in the
mud in the fine clothes which have been forced upon
him, are vigorous and truculent reproductions of local
manners.
Farther on, there are fights between Cossacks and
Poles, who hurl defiance and long speeches at each
other, quite in the Homeric manner. I am far less im-
pressed by the much-bepraised episode of the scaffold,
whereon the eldest son of Tarass, dying without a
murmur under frightful tortures, which make his bones
crack, is heard to whisper —
^^ Little father ! do you hear it ? "
And the old Cossack, standing disguised in the crowd,
replies —
"I hear!"
This is a mere melodramatic trick.
The History of the Middle Ages was never to get
beyond the planning stage. All Gogol did in this line
was to insert in his Arabesques a few apparently learned
essays, which Bielinski thought so damaging to the
GOGOL 251
author's budding glory that he refused to look into them
seriously. But the presumptive historian was allotted a
professorial chair. His first lecture was very brilliant. He
possessed some of the gifts which go to make an orator —
fire and expressive declamation. But when the second
lecture came, the matter was not there. The professor
had come to the end of his knowledge ! Within a year
and a half he resigned his position. An attempt at a
tragedy, founded on events in English history at the
time of the Norman Conquest, dates from the period of
this melancholy failure ; after which Gogol gave himself
up to his natural vocation.
Here he wavered, for some time, between the influ-
ence of the Romantics, as exemplified in Vn, a mys-
terious tale concerning a lover bewitched by a cruel
mistress, and that of Hoffmann, as seen in T/ie Portraity a/
not over-successful piece of jugglery — fantastic and cir-j
cumstantial. It was not till 1834 and 1835 that a new
series of stories, almost uniform in character, and very
different from their predecessors in their nature, proved
his possession of a definite form, which was to be that
of the modern Russian novel. These were The Land-
owners of Old Days, The Quarrel of Ivan Ivanovitch and
Ivan Nikiforovitchy and The Mantle. '^We have all,"
writes one of his contemporaries, ^^ issued from Gogol's
mantle." And Sergius Akssakov, who, after having
followed very different lines, set himself, when nearly
sixty years of age, to begin his literary career afresh
under the young writer's influence, might well apply
the assertion to his own case.
In these tales every detail, from the wardrobe of Ivan
Nikiforovitch, to the evil-smelling boots worn by the
moujiks who stamped up and down the Nevski Prospect,
P%
252 RUSSIAN LITERATURE
was drawn from nature. They give us a bit of real life in
all its trivial circumstances^ and seasoned, more dexter-
ously than were the Evenings, with what some people have
chosen to denominate Russian, but which, properly speak-
ing, should be called English, humour— an equal mixture,
as in Dickens's case, of irony and good-nature, of malice
and wide sympathy, of sarcasm and intentional moralis-
ing. To this, Gogol adds a power of presenting things
and people as they are, without appearing to care
whether the effect they produce be good or bad. The
hero of The Mantlcy Akakii Akakievitch, is a scribe,
with qualities both touching and grotesque. He has a
genius and a passion for copying ! ^' His copying work
was full, to him, of a world of delightful and varied im-
pressions. Some letters were his favourites. When these
had to be re-written he felt a real delight."
It has been truly observed, that this type strongly
resembles one of those created by Flaubert. But it has
also been remarked that the French novelist falls furiously
upon Pecuchet. He flouts and spurns him, pouring out
all his hatred of human folly on the idiot's head. Gogol
jokes with his simple fellow, and all the time we are aware
of an undercurrent of tenderness, such as one feels for a
child whose innocent ways amuse one, or go to one's
heart. Those who have seen fit to perceive in this
difference the abyss that lies between Russian and
French realism, between the laughter touched with
tears of the first, and the dry pitiless smile of the
second, have gone, in my opinion, much too far. They
have lost sight of the original genesis of each of these
literary movements, which were neither synchronic nor
parallel, seeing that the one sprang up in France, fol-
lowing on all the excesses of sentimentalism and roman-
GOGOL 253
ticism — on soil which centuries of Christian culture had
saturated with idealism, and therefore naturally partook
of the exaggerated character of all reactions, while the
other appeared in Russia twenty years earlier, under the
full blaze of the sentimental and pseudo-romantic litera-
ture of the period, and in surroundings which were the
hereditary domain of the real, the simple, and the true.
Special historical conditions, which I have already en-
deavoured to explain, had produced in the Russia of
that period a peculiar mixture of idealism and realism.
The realist element represented the national genius.
The idealist doubtless corresponded with certain of its
natural instincts — for the ideal exists everywhere — but
it proceeded more directly from foreign sources. The
Mantle — I fear this may have been forgotten, even in
France — is contemporary with the first novels of George
Sand, on whom Dostoievski was to bestow the title of
^^ divine," because she perceived beauty in pity, in re-
signation, and in justice. And this, without the laughter,
is almost the very principle of The Mantle, It had been
left to George Sand to gather up the laughter, with
all the rest, in the legacy of her masters, Sterne and
Richardson. Laughter through tears ! That is the great
charm of the Sentimental Journey !
From the publication of The Mantle onwards, the
development of the Russian novel has been compara-
tively autonomous, though always strongly influenced
by the English realists on the one hand, and the French
romanticists on the other. Gogol studied Dickens ;
Dostoievski was to read Victor Hugo. Saltykov-Chtche-
drine himself, referring to the author of Consuelo in an
autobiographical fragment, wrote : " Everything good
and desirable, all our pity comes to us thence." And this
254 RUSSIAN LITERATURE
Russian realism, imbued with English sentimentalism,
was also to end in the inevitable reaction which was to
drive its last representatives first into the arms of Zola,
even before the author of L Assommoir had converted
France to his naturalism, and then into the embrace of
Maupassant. Look at Chtchedrine. He still recognises
the value of pity, but he makes little use of it. Then
look at Tchekhov. He seldom weeps, and hardly ever
smiles.
In fact, if we are to admit that the tendency to pity
is a Russian quality (and, as I have shown, I have
nothing against the theory), if then, for this reason, the
note of tenderness found easy admittance to the national
literature, and has therein developed a great intensity,
there is still something besides pity in the complex senti-
ment with which such characters as Akakii' Akakievitch
have inspired their authors. I will explain this matter
later. The Mantle was published in 1835. A year later,
TJie Exa7niner appeared on the scene, and the modern
Russian drama came into being. The subject had been
suggested to Gogol by Pouchkine, who, while travelling
to Orenburg in search of information for his history of
the rebellion of Pougatchov, had been arrested by an
inspector making his rounds. It was a ^'vaudeville"
story, on the whole, turning on a very commonplace
blunder. Khlestakov, a good-for-nothing young fellow
from St. Petersburg, on his way to spend his holidays
with his relations in the country, finds himself stopped
by lack of funds in a small provincial town. He is in
imminent danger of going to the debtors' prison, when
the lively imagination of the local officials turns him into
a judge sent from head-quarters to demand an account
of their various peccadillos.
GOGOL 25 s
Out of this scenario Gogol has constructed a master-
piece, fiUing it with figures which, in spite of their uni-
versal tendency to caricature, are admirably drawn, and
attacking all the officialdom of the period. The Governor,
with his reproaches to those who rob above their own
rank, was particularly a figure which struck the popular
imagination. Gogol flies boldly in the face of official
optimism, and uncovers the gaping wound of its constitu-
tion — the venality and despotism which reigned all over
the administrative and judiciary ladder, from the highest
to the lowest rung — a thoroughgoing attack, the whole
scope of which, as he afterwards proved, he did not
thoroughly realise. He snatched the branding-irons of
satire from the trembling hands of Kant^mir, Von Visine,
Krylov, and Griboiedov, and plunged them into the very
quick of the wound. What now strikes us as extraordi-
nary is that the operation made nobody scream. Nicholas
allowed the piece to be played, attended the first perfor-
mance, and led the applause. It was characteristic of
the man who said '' Russia is governed by the Heads
of Departments," and let them do as they chose. The
public was merely entertained. The Governor and his
followers struck it as simply funny. The idea that the
order of things they represented was contrary to nature
and capable of alteration was scarcely beginning to
dawn upon it. And even nowadays the piece is fre-
quently played, and always raises a laugh. Elsewhere,
it would cause gnashing of teeth.
As I have said, the author himself shared, to a certain
extent, the lack of perception of his public. Already,
indeed, in his method of conceiving, and more especially
oi/ee/m£-ihQ phenomena he described, another feature,
to which I have already alluded — and which, as it be-
2 56 RUSSIAN LITERATURE
came general in the Russian novel, was to endue it with
a particular and very national character — was making
itself evident : I mean the satirist's indulgent attitude
towards the objects of his satire. He caricatures them,
even turns them into monsters ; he conceals nothing of
their ugliness and meanness ; he rather exaggerates them ;
but such as they are, his monsters inspire him with no
feelings of horror or disgust. He has a regard for them.
Sceptical philosophy, it has been called, or tender pity.
I should rather ascribe it to his being accustomed to the
sight of the evil. Public life in Russia is still so stamped
with this peculiarity as to leave no room for doubt upon
the subject.
From the purely artistic point of view, The Examhier
possesses no great value, nor any originality what-
ever. The only really well-written scene, the closing
one, is directly borrowed from Le Misanthrope. Yet
none the less, the effect it produced placed Gogol in
quite a different position, and straightway the enthu-
siastic and mystic side of his nature rose to the surface,
and he felt himself called to play a new part, that of a
prophet and a preacher. He planned another work, — the
crowning effort of which every writer dreams, at some
period of his life. He travelled abroad, spent some time
in Spain, then went to Rome, and published, in 1842, the
first part of his Dead Souls. A poem he called it. The
very word proves how unconscious the creative genius
in him was. Any unwarned reader would surely expect
an elegy, Tchitchikov, the hero of the ^^poem," is a
scoundrel, a former custom-house official, dismissed for
smuggling, who, to repair his fallen fortunes, plans an
enormous swindle. The number of serfs owned by each
proprietor is ascertained by means of a periodical census.
GOGOL 257
Between one census and another, the number is con-
sidered to be unchanging, and the souls — that is, the
head of slaves tallying with it — are subject to all the
usual transactions, such as buying, selling, or pawning.
Tchitchikov's idea was to purchase, at a reduced figure,
the names of the serfs who had passed from life into
death, but who were still borne on the official lists, and to
pawn them to a bank for a considerable sum of money.
It may well be imagined that this circumstance is
only an excuse for describing Tchitchikov's progress in a
troikay driven by his coachman, Seliphane, among the
various land-owners and officials with whom the pur-
chaser of dead souls was to transact business. Gogol
has enlarged his field of observation, so as to include
almost the whole of the governing classes, and chosen
his subject with a view to the satirical scope of the work.
The new types which he adds to his gallery of social suf-
fering and shame correspond with this idea. Among
the serf-owners we have Manilov, who, with his family,
represents that kind of man who belongs to no special
category at all, without clearly-defined moral features,
principles, convictions, or character ; Nozdriov, the dash-
ing man of pleasure, who is on the most intimate terms
with everybody, cheats at cards, and has his guests
thrashed ; Sobaki^vitch, the substantial man, who does
not mind how doubtful a business is, so long as he finds
a profit in it ; and Kourobotchka, the old miser, who
reckons up her serfs and her roubles with equal avidity.
The officials and the middle-class folk are on a par with
this company. Sobakievitch says of the Procurator
that ^'he is the only decent-mannered man in the town,
— and even he is a pig."
The whole of provincial society, the whole of Russia,
258 RUSSIAN LITERATURE
or very near it, figures in the picture. ^' Heavens ! what
a dreary place our Russia is I " cried Pouchkine when
he had read the book. The picture it presents is extra-
ordinarily clear and brilliant. The author possessed a
power of discerning everything, even the tiniest and
obscurest details, in every fold and corner of existence ;
a matchless gift of reproduction, a dazzling humour, and
a style, as a French critic described it, *^ that even Miche-
let might have envied, now popular, now eloquent, now
exact as any picture, now shadowy as a dream."
The author himself bears witness to the fact that
Pouchkine, by introducing him to the works of Cervantes,
had given him his first inkling of his subject. At Rome,
in 1840, a Russian traveller named Boutaiev noticed
Gogol sitting, book in hand, apart from the gay group of
artists in the Cafe Greco. The book was one of Dickens's
novels. -jThe frame of the picture w^as certainly supplied
by the great Spaniard, the canvas, the groundwork of
cheery good-nature, philosophic indulgence, and hearty
gaiety, by the gifted Englishman. Only, the Russian
novelist has altered the nature of what he borrowed from
Dickens, by his false application of it. For nobody ever
saw Dickens show indulgence, not to say sympathy, for
/^wretches" of the stamp of Sobakievitch. Gogol sus-
pected this, but, like the Romantic he always remained,
and the theorist he was fast becoming, he justified this
modification, and even set it up as a principle. In it, in
fact, he perceived a trait of the national character — the
sentiment of pity for a fallen creature, no matter the
depth of vileness to which his fall may have lowered
him.
*^ Remember," he wrote to one of his friends, " the
touching sight our people offer when they bring help to
GOGOL 259
the exiles travelling to Siberia. Each brings something
of his own, food, money, the consolation of a word of
Christian kindness." The picture is a true one ; but let
us not forget that it represents a country in which the
death penalty only exists in cases of political offences ^ and in
which common-law criminals are consequently identified
with all others, to an extent which naturally leads to con-
fusion in the simple minds and elementary feelings of the
populace. The idea that these exiles may be very honest
folk, even heroes and martyrs, is one of ancient origin.
The feelings with which it is connected are, happily,
common to every country. Gogol, when he ascribed an
exclusively national character to them, was making a
concession to the Slavophil crotchet, and when he applied
them to the vulgar scamps of his Dead Souls, he perverted
them altogether. When M. de Vogue describes them as
an original feature, *^ evangelic brotherhood, love for the
little ones, pity for the suffering," destined to appear all
through the course of Russian literature, and to '^animate
the whole of Dostoievski's work," he certainly falls into
an historical error. The trait, as to Gogol, is derived
from Dickens. In Dostoievski's case it was to originate
in a different, though also a foreign quarter, which I
shall duly indicate.
Gogol has further allowed his gift for romantic
caricature to distort the accuracy of his vision, and
thus constantly exaggerate every feature. A society
made up of nothing but such people as Manilov,
Nozdriov, and Sobakievitch, could not exist. The author
needed the assistance of Bielinski and Herzen, before
he realised this aspect of his creation, and the meaning
resulting from it. The two critics were more clear-sighted
than Nicholas, who had bestowed a travelling pension
2 6o RUSSIAN LITERATURE
on the novelist. The Examiner and Dead Souls con-
stituted the investigation and disclosure, which were to
end in the condemnation, before trial, of a guilty society.
It was some time before Gogol could grasp the reality
of the part of public accuser with which his Work had
endued him. And w^hen conviction came he was horri-
fied. What ! was this his work ? This the end of his
dream ? He had sought to serve his country, and he
had cast this shame upon her ! Ever since his visit to
Spain and Italy he had been sliding down the slope,
as Joukovski had slid before him. Let not my readers
forget that The Examiner had encountered Tchadaiev's
letter, which was now arousing a recrudescence and
outburst of fervent nationalism. Between the multiple
charms of Roman Occidentalism, the seductions of Mys-
ticism, and the blandishments of Slavophilism, Gogol's
reason beheld a great gulf. At first he would have
protested against the premature conclusions w^hich were
being drawn from his Dead Souls, The poem was to be
in three parts, and it was a slander on Russia to pre-
tend the first was a complete picture of the country.
Other aspects, bathed in ideal beauty, were yet to be
revealed. But before proceeding to that, he was resolved
to have an explanation with his readers, and for this
purpose he proposed to publish extracts from his own
correspondence. ^' Put all your business aside," he
Wrote in 1846 to his friend Pletniev, ^'and busy your-
jelf about this book ; everybody needs it." The book
thus heralded as a revelation, a new gospel, appeared
in the following year, and proved a bitter disappoint-
ment. Gogol, while claiming that his previous book
proved his prophetic authority and gift, actually repudi-
ated the natural meaning of that w^ork. He under-
GOGOL 261
look the apology of the political, social, and religious
regime which had produced his Sobakievitch and his
Nozdriov. His Letters to my Friends were epistles full
of ghostly advice, mingled with addresses on literary
subjects. They glorified the Tsar of Love and his des-
potic power, which softened the harshness of the law,
and healed the bitter sufferings of the people. They
peered at the vain fancies of the Western philosophers,
and appealed from them to the National Church, the
only legitimate source of the necessary virtues.
The book also contained a sort of literary testament.
In it, the author announced his decision never to write
again, because his whole future existence was to be
devoted to the search after truth, both for the good of
his own soul and for the common welfare. But he still
held that what he had written deserved admiration, and
gave a lengthy explanation of the reasons on which he
based this opinion. He strengthened his argument by
the ingenuous assertion that Russia would lose a great
poet in the person of the author of Dead Souls.
Contrary to the Russian opinion of that day, which
seems to me still to obtain, M. de Vogiie denies the
mystic character of this protest, although he recognises
it as an echo of contemporary Slavophil teaching. ^' M.
Akssakov," he says, ^^and the leaders of the present
Slavophil school, expound the same doctrines, with
even greater fervour. Nobody in Russia accuses them
of mysticism." I fear this is no argument. Words and
ideas may well carry a different weight from elsewhere
in a country where even men are in the habit of calling
each other ^^my little pigeon" ! In a gathering of Russian
friends, most of them very practical men, I expressed my
astonishment at having found in such a writer as Tolstoi
262 RUSSIAN LITERATURE
the idea of the feminine character of the city of Moscow.
They were all, without exception, surprised at my
astonishment. ^^ But it is quite natural. Moscow must
be feminine, just as St. Petersburg is masculine ! " It
appeared quite evident to them. Gogol's last years
sufiice, I think, to settle this dispute. In spite of his
solemn farewell to literature he wrote again, showed
some of his friends the second part of Dead Souls y and
once more his readers were disappointed. The reap-
pearance of Tchitchikov, his coachman, and of the troika
with its three lean horses, was gladly welcomed. But
the ideal Russia described, represented by the Prince-
Governor, ^^an enemy of fraud," who confounds the
dishonest officials, and brings back the law of liberty
to the town ; and by Mourassov, the rich and pious
manufacturer, a millionaire and a lay saint, who
preaches, pardons, and sets everything in order, is so
unexpected as to be disconcerting. Mourassov has
since been easily recognised as the M. Madeleine of
Les Aliserables, and one still wonders where the author
found the rest of his story.
Gogol burnt his manuscript, wrote another, and burnt
it again. Nothing remains but a few fragments, which
were published after his death. At one moment he com-
mitted all his books and papers to the flames. At the
same time he was giving the whole of his Government
pension to the poor, and was himself in most distress-
ing financial straits. In 1848 he made a pilgrimage
to Jerusalem, and returned from it in a condition
of excitement which was steadily to increase. He
began wandering from house to house. His chance
entertainers used to see him arrive with a little valise
stuffed with pamphlets, newspaper articles, critiques,
GOGOL 263
treatises relating to himself — his only possession. " He
was," writes one of his contemporaries, *^a little man,
with legs too short for his body ; he walked crookedly,
clumsy, ill dressed, and rather ridiculous-looking, with
his great lock of hair flapping on his forehead, and his
large prominent nose." ''A fox-like face," says Tour-
gueniev, ^* with something of the air of a professor in a
provincial town." He had altogether ceased writing
now, and scarcely spoke. He had periodical attacks of
fever, and fits of hallucination. He died in 1852, worn
out, according to many witnesses, by prayer and fasting,"
found lifeless, according to some, before the holy pic-
tures, where he often spent his nights. He was in his
forty-fourth year.
The event attracted but little attention. To the mass
of the public he had long been dead, swept away on that
fatal tide which so mercilessly pursued the writers of his
generation. This fact has been wrongly regarded as a
mystery. It was natural that a generation so suddenly
brought into contact with an ocean of new ideas should
turn giddy on the edge of the abyss, and lose its balance.
The Letters to my Friends have met with an unex-
pected piece of good fortune in these later days. Tolstoi'
took it into his head to constitute himself their apologist,
and other admirers followed suit. M. P. Matvieiev has
affirmed, in articles published in the Russian Messenger
of 1894, that the book had outstripped its own times. A
popular edition has recently appeared with the sugges-
tive title, Gogol as a Teacher of Life, When he drew up
this profession of faith, Gogol was certainly sincere. He
has expressed what Carlyle calls a man's "religion,"
without attaching any dogmatic sense to the word. But
he was quite devoid of any philosophical education, and
18
264 RUSSIAN LITERATURE
the favour in which he is now held only proves how
insufficiently his posterity is provided in this respect.
Gogol's real merit is his plastic power. Nobody can
take him to be a serious thinker. At Rome he had no
eyes, no admiration, no sympathy for anything but the
pomps of the Papacy, and the superannuated glories of
its ceremonies and its street processions ; for the streets
themselves, narrow and dirty as they were ; for their half-
savage denizens ; for the local aristocracy, with its noisy
pleasures, its Corso, and its carnival. The religious ex-
citement which swallowed up his closing years only
accentuated and exaggerated, to the utmost extreme, a
very old tendency, dating, as his correspondence proves^
from his earliest youth. In his nature two contradic-
tory currents, of artistic inspiration and ascetic lean-
ings, always existed, doubtless derived, in this native of
Little Russia, from some mingled Muscovite ancestry
To this first source of internal discord and mental
disturbance must be added a further contradiction, that
between his desire for social activity and the false concep-
tion of society which he owed to his family traditions. He
, was never to understand anything of the intellectual pro-
gress which the German philosophy had developed about
him, and which, indeed, bore him onwards without his
knowing how or whither. He unconsciously performed
a work of revolution, while he himself, in his own soul,
jremained essentially patriarchal and submissive. Thus,
for a prolonged period, he never cast a glance on the
j deep and organic causes of the incidents of corruption
I which he so artistically described. When his eyes were
finally opened, the emptiness of his own philosophical
ideas must have struck him, and moved him to accept the
teachings of others. He wavered for a moment between
']
GOGOL: GONTCHAROV 265
Tchadaiev and_Akssakov, decided," finally, in favour of the
latter, and ingenuously set himself up as a State moralist,
in the childish conviction that it would suffice for him to
reveal his scheme of morality to governors of cities and
such men as Nozdriov, to prevent the first-named cate-
gory from stealing, and the second from cheating at
cards.
Need I add that among the French critics who have
studied this WTiter, M. Hennequin, when he hails him
as the inventor of the modern tale, seems to have over-
looked not only all the English, French, and German
prose writers of the second half of the eighteenth cen-
tury and the beginning of the nineteenth, but also a
certain Boccaccio, who lived in the fourteenth century,
and whose Filicopo and Fiatnetta certainly hold a place
of some importance in the history of literature. Gogol
did create the Russian novel, and that is a sufficient title
to glory. In Russia, as a writer of prose and craftsman
of style, he outdoes Pouchkine himself. The Queen of
Clubs w-as written in 1834, ^^<^ is a trifle. He won the
race easily, and nobody has equalled him since it was
run. Gontcharov and Grigorovitch were his direct heirs
in the department of novel-writing. Ostrovski was his
successor in the drama.
The Successors of Gogol.
Ivan Aleksandrovitch Gontcharov (1814-1891)
published his first book, A Common Story (1847), under
the auspices of Bielinski, who said of him, ^^ He is a poet
and an artist ; nothing more." He judged correctly. The
author was to mark the difference between his work
and that of Tourgueniev, Dostoievski, and Tolstoi, by its
266 RUSSIAN LITERATURE
almost entire absence of reflection and analysis. His
view of life is absolutely archaic, and his ideas are those
of the time of the Flood. This first novel, which bears
some analogy to George Sand's Horace (1841), is, in fact,
a very common story of a young enthusiast struggling
with the realities of life — something of Balzac's Rastig-
nac, who brings his dreams and the freshness of his
youthful soul as a sacrifice to the Moloch of Parisian life.
The Russian hero's dream is modest, and the reality
which runs counter to it is of a very commonplace de-
scription. Is he to write verses and sigh for the love
of a portionless maiden, or is he to go into business and
marry an heiress ? The question is decided in favour of
the second alternative, and the author's sympathies are
with the first. The special feature and charm of his art
are to be found in this opposition. Gontcharov is a
realist, bent on reproducing Nature exactly, even in
her least seductive aspects, but with a wonderful power
of wrapping these last in a sort of poetic haze, which
softens their more unpleasing colours. The hero of the
book, Adouiev, has, indeed, no specifically Russian char-
acteristics.
In 1848, Gontcharov published some fragments of a
second novel, OblomoVy which was not to be finished for
another ten years. In the interim, the author travelled
round the world in the capacity of secretary to an
admiral, and indited the story of his voyage in two
volumes ; but his mind was always fixed on his Oblomov.
He was slow in conception, but prodigiously swift in
execution. It is asserted that the work he took ten years
to prepare was written in forty-seven days. And this
time he, too, succeeded in creating a type — a personi-
fication of that generic apathy which was, and still is, the
GONTCHAROV 267
common product of the material and moral conditions
of Russian life, but which attained a special development
in the heart of the barchtchinay amongst the rural land-
owners, previous to the abolition of serfdom. The long
Russian winters naturally predispose the moujik to indo-
lence and inertia ; the despotic regime proscribes all
individual effort, which, since Novikov's time, is gener-
ally credited with a Freemasonic or revolutionary origin.
But when the time for labour comes, the moujik is
occasionally obliged to shake off his torpor. Nothing
ever disturbs that of the land-owner. From his childhood
he has been accustomed to avoid, and, in fact, refuse to
undertake, any exertion which might appear to compro-
mise his dignity, by diminishing the labour of the ten
or twelve persons trained to make any effort on his part
unnecessary. Here then we behold him, doing nothing,
and having literally nothing to do. The influences of
heredity, of education, and of the common practice of
life have combined, by a fatal process of degeneration,
to render him incapable at once of any spontaneous
activity, and even of any save a purely passive resistance
to external pressure.
There is indeed a hidden thought, or rather a hidden
feeling, in this inertia. The Russian mind is full of
such reservations. To indicate its meaning, we must
have recourse to one of those infinitely comprehensive
and plastic expressions which are the characteristic
feature, and constitute the most precious wealth, of the
language of the country. Imagine a man who finds
himself on the railroad just as a train is rushing towards
him. He sees it coming ; he knows that if he stays
where he is, he will certainly be killed, and that a slight
movement will save him from the danger. And yet,
268 RUSSIAN LITERATURE
out of a sort of half-conscious fatalism, a vague and
yet obstinate fancy that perhaps the train will stop or
run off the rails before it reaches him, he does not
budge. One single word, in the mouth of a slow and
obstinate peasant, suffices to express the whole world
of dim thoughts and unconscious feelings which corre-
spond with this particular state of mind — avos ! — per-
haps ? who knows ? And the trait produced by the habit,
common to both master and slave, of always depending
on some one or something else for the government of
their slightest action, occurs in both classes.
Gontcharov's first volume is entirely taken up with
the story of one day, spent by the hero in resisting the
various solicitations which conspire to drag him, first
from his bed, and then from the downy couch on which
he stretches his indolence and selfishness, both equally
incurable ; in getting rid of importunate visitors, and
making impossible plans, which he more than half sus-
pects will remain unfulfilled. The character thus drawn
is not altogether a new one. It is Eugene Onieguine
in another incarnation, corresponding with another
phase of the national life. And it is Pietchorine as well.
He was a restless man, indeed, and Oblomov was an
apathetic being, but neither the one nor the other have
ever, or will ever, do anything, because there is nothing
for them to do in the sphere in which their birth has
placed them. Even in their intercourse with w^omen
their attitude is identical. They are both, like Onieguine,
very susceptible to the charrns of the fair sex, and very
enterprising indeed in their dealings with it. But both
are inclined to give up alllhoughts of love, the moment
its claims threaten to encroach on their liberty, their
indolence, or their selfish convenience. In the second
GONTCHAROV 269
volume, Oblomov meets with the typical woman of the
Russian novel, the being of intelligence, tenderness, and
originating power, who alone would seem capable of
rousing this sluggard into a burst of energy. For a
moment she appears to succeed, but the organs of
activity and volition which she stirs in the young man's
soul soon prove hopelessly stunted, and withered by
neglect, and Oblomov goes back to his couch and his
farniente.
In addition to this brave and tender-hearted Olga,
w^ho will soon find somebody to console her for her
failure, Gontcharov, like Gogol, has set himself to call
up an ideal figure, the personification of masculine
energy. My readers will be surprised to find he has
gone to Germany for this type, and yet more so that
all he should have discovered there is a business man,
active and hard-working. Olga's marriage with Stoltz
cannot be accepted as a final solution.
The first part of Oblomov produced rather a tiresome
effect. In its pages the author had given the first speci-
men of that minuteness of description which has since
been so much abused by the French realists. When his
hero has to write a letter, you learn to know even the
watermark upon his writing-paper, the colour of his
ink, and the external qualities and intrinsic virtues of
his pen. The second part made a great sensation. It
was published on the very eve of a great act of emanci-
pation, and constituted a fresh argument in favour of
the reform. The habit contracted by the public, of
reading between the lines, made it recognise many un-
spoken sentiments, of which the author would appear
to have been quite unconscious. He proved it some
years later, when he endeavoured to enter the intellectual
270 RUSSIAN LITERATURE
and political struggle of the day in the pages of his
Obryv (precipice). It was an utter failure. After that
period Gontcharov only published a few sketches, and
an excellent analysis of The 3Iisfortune of being too Clever.
As a painter of aristocratic or bourgeois society,
Dmitri Vassilievitch Grigorovitch (1822-1900) was
a mere collector of snapshots^ and his pictures lack both
necessary precision and correct distribution of light
and shade. The only department in which he rose
above mediocrity was in his stories of the popular life. In
these he was Tourgueniev's forerunner, opening the way
before him, and making even a more direct and overt
attack than his, on the abuses of serfdom. His Villagey
the first in order (1846) of a series of little master-pieces,
more or less directly inspired by George Sand, is remark-
able for its powerful expression and depth of feeling
with regard to this subject. The young wife of a rural
land-owner, just arrived in the country, has a fancy to see
a peasant wedding. To satisfy her desire, the first maiden
and the first young man to be found are desired to marry.
They are not acquainted, they each have another attach-
ment, they are quite unsuited to each other. But
none of these facts are allowed to be of the slightest
importance. This story, with Antony the Unlucky (1848)
and the Valley of SyniMoVy made Grigorovitch's reputa-
tion as a Russian Beecher-Stowe. In The Fishers (1853)
and Ihe Colonists (1855) he enlarged his borders, and
set forth all the poverty-stricken existence of the peasants
of the Oka River, all the dreariness of factory life, and all
the detestable arbitrariness of the proprietors.
These studies still preserve their ethnographical value,
and the figures of Glieb, the fisherman, and Zakhar, the
factory-worker, have long been accepted as the most
OSTROVSKI 271
exact and expressive reproductions of the popular charac-
teristics. But Grigorovitch was no psychologist. His
great strength lies in his narrative talent, which, ill
served as it is by a very poor skill in composition, is apt
to fritter itself away and lose its bearings, when its field
of execution becomes too extended.
I feel some embarrassment w^hen I come to speak of
the great playwright, Ostrovski. His pieces have held the
Russian stage for half a century, and their reputation still
stands high. In his own country he is currently accepted,
not only as the creator of the national drama, but as the
renewer of the scenic art from a more general point of
view ; and I clearly see that, even in the West, his theory
is in course of acceptation. But in this theory, which
consists in knocking down a corner of the famous 'Svall
of private life," and revealing what lies behind it, in all
the natural complexity and apparent disorder which go
to make up this life, I recognise an absolute negation of
theatrical art, and of Nature herself. And this, because it
is founded on an appearance which is false, the impression
of disorder in Nature being merely a mistaken estimate
on our part. Ostrovski's characters come and go, talk on
indifferent subjects, until the moment when, all of a
sudden — for on the stage things must happen suddenly —
the commonplaceness of their behaviour or of their
conversation reveals the comic or dramatic elements of
the ^'object of the scene." And I am told that this is
the process of real life ! Yes, indeed, of real life extend-
ing over a space of several years. But the playwright
reduces this real period to one of a few hours. By so
doing, he disturbs the natural balance of circumstance,
and the only method of re-establishing it, and escaping
a false presentment, is the use of art — that is to say, of
272 RUSSIAN LITERATURE
interpretation. The drama lives by synthesis, and it is
going against its nature (for it has a nature of its own)
to attempt to introduce analytical methods, which belong
to a different order of creation, into its system.
The son of a general business agent at Moscow,
Alexander Nicolai£vitch Ostrovski (1824-1886), was
still devoid of even elementary education when he pub-
lished his first dramatic efforts in 1847. He filled up this
void by studying and adapting foreign models, and did not
always choose the best. Living in the Zamoskvorietchie\
and mixed up, in consequence of his father's profession, in
the life of the small Muscovite tradesmen, he set himself
to study and reproduce the manners and customs of that
class, and succeeded in attaining a point of realism similar
to that of Gogol in another sphere. The subject of his
first great comedy. Between ourselves^ we shall settle
it {Svo'i lioudi sotchtiemsid), published in 1850, but not
performed till ten years later, was, like that of Dead
Soidsy the story of a swindle as mean as it was impro-
bable. A shopkeeper, a kind of comic King Lear, takes
it into his head to make over his fortune to his clerk,
and to marry him to his own daughter — all to cheat his
creditors by means of a sham bankruptcy. He arranges
with his son-in-law to pay them 25 per cent., or more, if
necessary. But the rascal, once in possession of the
funds, refuses to pay anything at all, and allows his
miserable father-in-law to be haled to prison. The elder
man had no reason for committing the fraud ; his busi-
ness was a prosperous one ; and the author, to make
us realise the corruption of thought, the absence of prin-
ciple, and the demoralisation touched with despotic
fancy reigning in that sphere of underhand dealing,
draws him as, on the whole, a worthy fellow.
OSTROVSKI 273
Ostrovski's second great success, Every one in his
own place {Nie v svot sani nie sadis), played in 1853, gave
rise to a great deal of controversy. It also is concerned
with a samodour shopkeeper, that is to say, one who has
preserved the features of originality and despotic fan-
cifulness peculiar to the old Muscovite type — whose
daughter elopes with a nobly- born fortune-hunter.
The gentleman, learning that her father has disinherited
her, leaves her to her fate, and the poor creature re-
turns to the parental hearth, covered with confusion
and disappointment. The subject, it will be perceived,
is by no means novel, and the author's development
of it is not over-clear. Some critics have taken it to be
an apology for the patriarchal regime ; others regard
it as a condemnation of that system.
The treatment of a subject will not always atone for
its commonplace nature. Ostrovski, in pursuance of a
theory dear to Bielinski, depended on his actors for the
development of his characters, which he sketched very
lightly. He left them a great deal to do.
The most celebrated, and certainly the best of all his
plays, is The Storm, This brings us into the upper com-
mercial class in the provinces. During the absence of her
husband, who, both on account of business matters and to
avoid the tedium of life in a home rendered odious by the
presence of a severe and quarrelsome mother, leaves his
wife far too much alone, Catherine, a young woman
full of dreams and enthusiasms, is false to her marriage
vow. Ostrovski makes her public avowal of her sin,
under the influence of the nervous agitation caused by
a thunderstorm, which stirs all her religious terrors and
alarms, the culminating point and dramatic moment of
his piece. This idea was to be repeated by Tolstoi' in his
274 RUSSIAN LITERATURE
Anna Karenine. The unhappy wife, cursed by her
mother-in-law and beaten by her husband, as is the
custom in that class, goes out and drowns herself.
In this play, Ostrovski's object was to depict the miser-
able condition of the Russian woman of the middle
class, in which, in his day, the traditions of the Domostroi
still held good, and the corruption existing in this class,
due, in part, to a latent process of decomposition,
under the action of the new ideas which were beginning
to percolate from without. Catherine is a romantic,
with leanings towards mysticism. She sins, and curses
her love and her lover even as she yields to them. Her
husband is a brute, with coarse instincts and some good
feeling. His mother is a domestic tyrant, brought up in
the school of Pope Sylvester. When, at the moment of
her indifferent husband's departure, Catherine, with a
presentiment of her impending fate, casts herself on his
breast, beseeching him to stay, or to take her with him,
the old woman interferes : —
'' What is the meaning of this ? Do you take him for
a lover ? At his feety wretched creature ! cast yourself at
his feet!''
And so Catherine seeks in another man's arms the
caress, the loving words, the tender clasp for which her
soul — the soul of a modern woman — hungers.
Dobrolioubov claimed to see other things, and many
more, in this play. According to him — he has covered
seventy pages with the demonstration of his idea — the
author has hugely advanced the literature of his country
by realising what all his predecessors, from Tourgueniev
to Gontcharov, had vainly attempted, responding to the
universal and pressing demand of the national conscience,
and filling the void in the national existence caused by
OSTROVSKI 275
its repudiation of the ideas, customs, and traditions of
the past. He has created the ideal character and type
of the future. Which is it ? A woman's figure, of
course. A wonderful conception, according to Dobro-
lioubov, because woman has had to suffer most from the
past ; because woman has been the first and the greatest
victim ; because it was above all for woman that the
state of things had become impossible. But who is this
woman ? My readers will hardly guess her to be
Catherine. DobroHoubov was only four-and-twenty
when he formulated this theory — a somewhat disturb-
ing one for the possessors of romantic wives and dis-
agreeable mothers-in-law. His youth is his excuse.
And here is another. Dostoievski was to follow suit,
and apply the same theory to Pouchkine's Tatiana^ after
z. fashion yet more far-fetched.
After i860, Ostrovski conceived the idea of walking in
Pouchkine's footsteps, and attempting historical drama
in the style of Shakespeare. He had already borrowed
much from the foreign stage. In his Lost Sheep we re-
cognise Ciccom's Pecorelle smarrite ; in A Cafe, Goldoni's
Bottega del Caffe ; in The Slavery of HusbandSy A. de
Leris's Les Maris sont Esclaves, His imitations of the
English dramatist were less successful. Two years be-
fore his death, having early quitted an administrative
career which brought him nothing but disappointment,
he undertook the management of the Moscow Theatre.
He was no blagonadiojnyi (a man possessing the confi-
dence of the Government). Though not directly con-
cerned in the events of his day, he shared in the general
ferment of reforming ideas. He followed the same
course as Gogol — the Gogol of The Examiner and the
first part of Dead Souls, His earlier plays, until 1854,
276 RUSSIAN LITERATURE
seem to be systematically devoted to the representation
of types of perverted morality. After that date, and
influenced by the Slavophil movement, he betrays a
budding sympathy for certain phases of the national
life, the idealisation of which was henceforth to be his
endeavour. In Every Man in his own place he allots the
most sympathetic parts to persons belonging to the old
intellectual and moral regime, such as Roussakov, the
unpretentious and upright shopkeeper, and Avdotia
Maksimovna, the austere and simple-minded middle-
class woman. All the rest — Vikhorev, Barantchevski,
Arina Fiodorovna — have been poisoned by Western
culture, and have carried the elements of disorder and
corruption into their own circle. When the reforms of
1861 drew near, the author's point of view underwent
another change, and he strove to bring out the back-
wardness and excessive folly, the obstinate samodourstro
of ihQ pamiechtchiki {vur?^ proprietors), as compared with
the enlightened spirit of the younger generation.
His plays, as a rule, are neither comedies nor dramas.
Dobrolioubov called them ^^ representations of life." The
audience is not given anything to laugh at, nor yet any-
thing to cry over. The general setting of the piece is
some social sphere which has little or no connection
with the characters we see moving in it. These characters
themselves are neutral in tint — neither heroes nor male-
factors. Not one of them rouses direct sympathy.
They are all overwhelmed by a condition of things the
weight of which they might shake off, the danger of
which would vanish, if they showed some little energy.
But of this they have not a spark. And the struggle is
not between them, but between the facts, the fatal in-
fluence of w^hich they undergo, for the most part, un-
OSTROVSKI 277
consciously. A sort of gloomy fatalism presides over
this conception of mundane matters, an idea that any
man belonging to a particular moral type must act in a
particular manner. The natural deduction from this
theory is, that actions are not good or bad in themselves.
They are merely life. And so life itself is neither good
nor evil. It is as it is, and has no account to give to
anybody. Ostrovski's pieces have generally no denoue-
ment, or, if they have one, it is always of an uncertain
nature. The dramatic action never really closes, it is
broken off ; the author cutting it short, not by an effective
scene or phrase, but frequently, and deliberately, at the
most commonplace point, or in the middle of a rejoinder.
He seems to avoid effect just where it naturally would
occur in the situation. Ostrovski's admirers hold this to
be his manner of typifying real life, which, in Nature,
has neither beginning nor end. I have already made
my reservations on this head ; and I am glad indeed to
affirm that no other Russian writer, save Tolstoi', has
painted so great a number of types and circles corre-
sponding with almost every group in Russian society.
His language, full of power and fancy, constitutes, with
that of Krylov, the richest treasure-house of picturesque
and original expressions to be found in Russia. Pouch-
kine had already declared that the way to learn Russian
was by talking to the Moscow Prosvirnie (the women
who make the sacred bread, prosford). They taught
Ostrovski precious lessons.
Tourgueniev also enriched the national stage with
several pieces which cannot be reckoned among his
master-pieces. Pissemski, in his Bitter Fate {Gorkaia
soudbina)y endowed it with the first realistic drama
founded on peasant life. I shall discuss it later. But,
278 RUSSIAN LITERATURE
next to Ostrovski, the man who shed most glory on the
modern Russian stage was Count Alexis Tolstoi.
Even now the trilogy written by Alexis Constan-
TINOVITCH Tolstoi (1817-1875), The Death of Ivan the
Terribky The Tsar Fiodor Ivanovitchy and The Tsar BoriSy
enjoys a great, and, in some respects, a legitimate success
in the author's own country. Its historical feeling is deep
and generally correct. The gloomy spirit of despotism
and superstition hovers over these evocations of a distant
past, and breathes icily i.n the spectators' faces. But
the characters, as a rule, lack clearness, and the rhetoric
of the never-ending dialogues and soliloquies strains the
attention. In his Don Juan^ dedicated to the memory
of Mozart and of Hoffmann, Tolstoi has endeavoured
to re-establish the French and Spanish type of this
character. To my thinking he has only placed the
mask of Faust over Don Juan's features, and the effect
of the effort is not worth the trouble it gave.
Alexis Constantinovitch also made his mark in Rus-
sian literature as a lyric and satiric poet. Another
Tolstoi, whose mighty work I shall presently approach,
was to introduce some really new characters upon the
national stage, and with them, a form of dramatic art full
of originality and fruitful in expression. But before his
advent, the national art had already attained its sovereign
expression by the fusion, which Gogol failed to realise,
of the artist's inspiration and the artist's conscious endea-
vour, in the novels of Tourgueniev.
TOURGUfNIEV.
Ivan Serguidievitch Tourgueniev (18 18-1883) was born
of a family of country nobles in the government of Orel.
TOURGU^NIEV 279
Among his ancestors he reckoned that Peter Tourgue-
niev who was executed on the lobnoie iniesLO for having
denounced the mock Demetrius, and that James Tour-
gueniev who was one of Peter the Great's jesters. In
1837, when he was passing through his third annual
course of studies at the St. Petersburg University, Ivan
Serguieievitch showed his professor of literature, P. A.
Pletniev, a fantastic drama in verse, Stenio, which that
gentleman easily recognised as an imitation of Byron's
Manfred. Though of no particular value, it showed
some promise of talent. It encouraged Pletniev, a few
months later, to publish some verses by the young author,
which struck him as being better inspired, in The Contem-
porary. But very soon Tourgueniev departed to Berlin,
there to complete his studies, according to the custom of
the day. He describes himself as having ^^ taken a header
into the German Sea," and come up "an Occidental"
for ever. In 1841, when on a visit to Moscow, where his
mother resided, he came into contact with the Slavophil
group, and at once experienced a feeling of hostility
to it which was steadily to increase. Tsarism, even as
idealised by the Akssakovs and the Kirieievskis, was always
to disgust him. He tried to adapt himself to the regime,
and took service in the Chancery of the Ministry of the
Interior. But he could not endure it. In 1843 the poet
bade farewell to the tchinovik^ cast away official docu-
ments, and published, over the initials T. L., a Paracha
in rhyme, of which Bi^linski spoke in terms of praise.
This resulted in a friendship, followed by some slight
coldness. Bielinski, and rightly, as Tourgueniev after-
wards acknowledged, treated some other poetical attempts
which did not as yet foreshadow the gifts displayed in
A Sportsman' s SketcheSy in less tender fashion. A mere
19
2 So RUSSIAN LITERATURE
chance, the difficulty in which Panaiev, the editor of
The Contemporary y found himself, with regard to tilling
up one number of his publication, in 1847, acquainted its
readers with a prose story, Khor and Kalinitch, for which
Ivan Sergui6ievitch, who was already losing hope, had
not dared to hope such good fortune. It caused general
astonishment. To the title chosen by the author, Panaiev
had added that sub-title of his own, A Sportsman's
Sketches, which was to become so widely known, and
thus the immortal series which was to lay the foundation
of Tourgueniev's glory was begun.
Success did not reconcile the author to social sur-
roundings in which his tender and dreamy nature was
exposed to so much that gave it pain. In the following
year he left Russia, without intending to return. The
continuation of his Sketches was written in Paris. There
is nothing original in the conception of the work. It
recalls Berthold Auerbach's village tales, and the pea-
sant stories of George Sand, of whom Tourgueniev used
to say, '^She is one of my -saints!" Even in Russia it
had rivals, in the shape of Grigorovitch's tales and Nek-
rassov's poems, all of them founded, like it, on the popular
life, and saturated with the same spirit. But in this case
the subject was transformed by a personal art, and an
equally individual inspiration. The art was that of a
miniature painter, with the exquisite gift of merging
nature and man into one harmonious whole. The in-
spiration was that of a born revealer. Tourgueniev was
the first person in Russia to see in the Russian peasant
something more than a mere object of pity — a being who
could feel and think, with a soul like everybody else,
although his method of feeling and thought was especially
his own. Thus the soul that Gogol, the Slavophil, never
TOURGUENIEV 281
recognised, was revealed to Russia by Tourgueniev, the
Occidental ; and thus it was that the author of the
Sketches became one of the most active agents of the
emancipation. Not that he approached the problem of
"The abolition of serfdom. He never referred to it. But
after having drawn, in Khor and Kalinitch, two peasants
who escape the consequences of their legal status, — one
because he lives apart in a swamp, and avoids com-
pulsory service by paying a fine, the other because he
has become one of his master's hunt-servants ; one of
them a realist, the other a dreamer, but good-hearted,
both of them ; one faithful and tender, the other cordial
and hospitable, — the novelist demonstrated, in a fresh
set of types, the various deformations which serfdom
could produce in the original character of the race, such
as a return to the savage state, wild temper, brutality,
ferocity, as in the case of lermolaiy and stupid insensi-
bility, as in that of Vlass.
After a short visit to Russia, which cost him a month
in prison, for an article on the death of Gogol (1852),
Tourgueniev, released by the good offices of Madame
Smirnova — ^' The Our Lady of Succour of Russian
literature," as she w^as called — settled at Baden-Baden, in
a villa close to that occupied by the Viardot-Garcia
family. He had met the famous singer of that name
in St. Petersburg, in 1845, and the liaison then begun
was destined to continue till he died. From this
period onward, his production, tales, stories, or serious
novels, flowed steadily and uninterruptedly. Up to the
year 1861, they may be divided into two principal
groups, purely artistic creations, love stories, true or
invented, and somewhat commonplace, such as The First
Love and The Three Meetings ^ without much moral
282 RUSSIAN LITERATURE
scope, and no common feature save a groundwork of
scepticism and ultimate disenchantment ; and works
with a distinct tendency, which bring forward various
varieties of the same type, tJie superfluous man. This per-
sonage, as he appears in The Hamlet of the District of
Chtchigiy, The Diary of a Superfluous Man, The Corre-
spondence, Faust J Rudin, Assia, and A House of Gentlefolk ,
is a man in whom reflection overrides voHtion, and de-
stroys the power of action.
The heroes of these stories are aristocrats, Hke
Tourgueniev himself, Russian gentlemerr, who have
completed their education abroad — w^ell-informed, well-
mannered, well-bred folk, fit for nothing except for
making love. And even that must not reach the point
of passion ; for if it does, they take flight at once, like
the young man Assia met on the banks of the Rhine,
and who may very well have been nearly related to
the novelist himself. Rudin has more breadth, but, in
my opinion, much less real value. The character of
the hero has caused a great deal of discussion. His
first appearance, as the habitual guest of the mistress
of a country-house, whose daughter he seduces, is any-
thing but glorious ; and after this failure in upright-
ness, his courage fails him too, and he flies before his
rival.
At this juncture we take him to be both vile and
cowardly, and it is with a shock of surprise that we
learn, shortly afterwards, that he possesses a superior
cultivation of mind, and a soul full of the noblest aspira-
tions. He proves himself a thorough altruist, to whom
nothing is lacking save a practical spirit, and he dies
like a hero on the barricades, w^hich he has gone to
Paris to seek, as there are none to be found in Russia.
i
TOURGUENIEV 283
Taking him altogether, he is something very Hke the
deceptive phrase-maker whom Goutzkov has reproached
himself with idealising in Dankmars Wildungen^ with a
touch, too, of Spielmann's problematical figures.
A House of Gentlefolk occupies a place of its own in
Tourgueniev's work. In drawing the figure of Lavretski,
the hero of this book, the author has entered a sphere
of positive conceptions, to which, as a rule, he remained
a stranger. He also proposed to supply an answer to
Tchernichevski's famous question — What is to be done ?
Lavretski, a man of poor education, contrives to sur-
mount this disadvantage by the strength of the national
temperament. He has, or the author thinks he has,
good sense, a well-balanced system of morality, a healthy
mind, and an upright heart. How then does he contrive
to commit follies and produce the impression of being
an oddity ? Because he cannot decide or act at the
proper moment. Still, and always, he lacks energy.
Such types as Lavretski and Rudin are portraits.
Did Tourgueniev succeed, as was certainly his ambition,
in reproducing in them the features of the men of his
own * time ? I doubt it. As the representative of the
" Forties," I infinitely prefer Beltov, in Herzen's novel
Whose Fault? The form of this w^ork is very inferior
and much too didactic ; but, historically speaking, the
character strikes me as being far more true. It seems
to me to sum up the moral condition of the best intelli-
gence of that period in a less imaginary outline — know-
ledge, honourable feeling, eagerness to serve the father-
land, disinterestedness, a well-directed and even bold
intelligence — all jeopardised, alas ! by an utter lack of
wise management, a disastrous predisposition to swift
despondency, and a total absence of the practical spirit.
2 84 RUSSIAN LITERATURE
Towards 1860^ Tourgueniev, like Ostrovski and all the
writers of their period, was swept away by the general
current that carried them towards the study of social
problems. In three successive novels, he made a fresh
attempt to respond to the general call for an ideal.
The response contained in On the Eve {Nakmtounie)
almost smacks of irony. In his search for the man
who is wanted, after the series of men who were not,
Tourgueniev, imitating Gontcharov, w^ho went to Ger-
many for his hero — sought his paladm in Bulgaria !
And what a poor prize he finds there ! Inssarov, a col-
ossus of strength, and, in the moral sense, as resolute as
a rock, must have his cousin Helen (feminine influence
again !) to help him to reach his goal. And he does not
reach it ! He is only another Beltov.
The second novel of the series, Fathers and Children^
stirred up a storm the suddenness and violence of which
it is not easy, nowadays, to understand. The figure of
Bazarov, the first '* Nihilist " — thus baptized by an in-
version of epithet which was to win extraordinary success
— is merely intended to reveal a mental condition which,
though the fact had been insufficiently recognised, had
already existed for some years. The epithet itself had
been in constant use since 1829, when Nadi^jdine applied
it to Pouchkine, Polevoi', and some other subverters
of the classic tradition. Tourgueniev only extended its
meaning by a new interpretation, destined to be per-
petuated by the tremendous success of Fathers and Chil-
dren. There is nothing, or hardly anything, in Bazarov,
of the terrible revolutionary whom we have since learnt
to look for under this title. Tourgueniev was not the
man to call up such a figure. He was far too dreamy,
too gentle, too good-natured a being. Already, in the
TOURGUENIEV 285
character of Roudine, he had failed, in the strangest
way, to catch the hkeness of Bakounine, that fiery orga-
niser of insurrection, whom all Europe knew, and whom
he had selected as his model. Conceive Corot or Millet
trying to paint some figure out of the Last Judgment
after Michael Angelo ! Bazarov is the Nihilist in his first
phase, *' in course of becoming," as the Germans would
say, and he is a pupil of the German universities. When
Tourgueniev shaped the character, he certainly drew on
his own memories of his stay at Berlin, at a time when
Bruno Bauer was laying it down as a dogma that no edu-
cated man ought to have opinions on any subject, and
when Max Stirner was convincing the young Hegelians
that ideas were mere smoke and dust, seeing that the
only reality in existence was the individual Ego. These
teachings, eagerly received by the Russian youth, were
destined to produce a state of moral decomposition, the
earliest symptoms of which were admirably analysed by
Tourgueniev.
Bazarov is a very clever man, but clever in thought,
and especially in word, only. He scorns art, women,
and family life. He does not know what the point of
honour means. He is a cynic in his love affairs, and
indifferent in his friendships. He has no respect even
for paternal tenderness, but he is full of contradictions,
even to the extent of fighting a duel about nothing at
all, and sacrificing his life for the first peasant he meets.
And in this the resemblance is true, much more gene-
ral, indeed, than the model selected would lead one to
imagine ; so general, in fact, that, apart from the ques-
tion of art, Tourgueniev — he has admitted it himself —
felt as if he were drawing his own portrait ; and therefore
it is, no doubt, that he has made his hero so sympathetic.
286 RUSSIAN LITERATURE
Nevertheless, the picture has been considered an
insult and a caricature, and has exposed its author to
furious attacks. It is true that Katkov, in a letter which
was subsequently published, reproached him with having
set Bazarov on a pedestal. And the first person the
novelist met, on his arrival at St. Petersburg, addressed
him with the words, ^^Just see what your Nihilists are
doing ! They have almost gone so far as to burn the
town." He took up the glove, somewhat clumsily, and
very unjustly, in Smoke (1867), picturing revolutionary
dilettanteism and society conservatism, in presence of each
other, in a manner which, this time, really did amount
to a caricature. The persons and ideas in both camps
are no more than smoke, but it is dirty and evil-smelling
smoke. [ One enchanting figure — Irene — perhaps the
most exquisite bit of feminine psychology the author
has ever given us, stands out luminous against the
gloomy background — to which, nevertheless, she
clings with the tips of her pink-nailed fingers, — the
fingers of a coquette, selfish above all things, capable of
sacrificing love to mean calculation, but jcapable also
of loving a man, — a coquette who does not make her
sacrifice without a struggle, and goes to the very edge
of renunciation and of the abyss, and stirs our sym-
pathy too, after all. Her character is a master-piece
of analysis. \ Goubarev, the dubious reformer, and
Ratmirov, tire mysterious official, are neither true nor
sympathetic representatives of the generation of the
^' Sixties." The period was better than that. Before
mixing himself up in the discussions in which he took
so passionate an interest, Tourgueniev had been anxious
to return to Russia, and there edit a paper in which all
the problems connected with the coming reform might
TOURGUENIEV 287
have been ventilated. He met with suspicion and
hostihty on the part of the higher powers at St.
Petersburg, remained abroad, and thus gradually lost
clearness of vision as to men and matters in his
own country.
In his last great novel, Virgin Soil {Nov), he once
more attempted to draw the figure of the man who was
wantedy and who would be able to solve the crowning
problem — that raised by the apparent impossibility of
maintaining the actual regime, and the equal impossi-
bility of its immediate overthrow. Salomine, the factory
owner — a strange type of the opportunist, revolutionary,
moderate, methodical, abstracted, a creature without
flesh and blood — has not been considered satisfactory
in this respect. His friend Niejdanov, Rudin's own
brother in nolonte, as Gambetta would have phrased
it — seems to have more reality and^life. This was because
Tourgueniev had sketched him from Nature. Niejdanov
actually lived and breathed. He was one of the author's
closest and most devoted friends. He is still alive. But
in the novel he only gives us the impression of yet
another ^' superfluous man," a chamber-agitator, who,
when he undertakes to harangue the peasants in a tavern,
falls, dead drunk, at the first all-round bumper, and
kills himself afterwards. Some of his comrades are
made of tougher stuff, but they none of them show us
that extreme tension of will and energy of character
which has been remarked, when the moment for action
comes, in the real representatives of their kind. Two
charming feminine figures, Machourina, the student,
frightfully ugly and ridiculously in love, and Marianne,
graceful and coquettish, endue the picture with the
only artistic value it possesses. In one of his unpub-
2 88 RUSSIAN LITERATURE
lished letters to Ralston, Tourgueniev remarks that in
his time most of the women who enrolled them-
selves under the Nihilist banner were physically more
like Marianne than like Machourina. And he adds that,
notwithstanding this fact, it was proved, in the course of
the arrests made in their party, that most of them pre-
served their virtue.
Towards the close of his life, Tourgueniev, too, passed
through his mental crisis. The colossus, healthy ifiid
hearty as he appeared, tottered, in his turn, on the edge
of the giddy gulf which had swallowed up his elder's
reason. The sudden breaking of his health certainly
contributed to this condition. He had settled in Paris
just after the Franco-German war, and there he soon
felt the beginnings of a rare and cruel malady — a cancer
of the spinal marrow. The constant expectation of death
threw him, from that time forward, into a sort of fantastic
mysticism, which steadily increased. This appears in
two stories written at this period. The Song of Trium-
phant Love and Clare Miltitch, this last inspired, it is be-
lieved, by the tragic death of a famous Russian actress.
They both somewhat recall Hoffmann's manner. If my
readers will conceive a sceptic, desperately bent on pene-
trating the unknown, they will see Torgueniev as he
was in these last years. His Poems in Prose, which were
partly written under the influence of the same feelings,
have just been somewhat coldly received in Russia. .Yet
sometimes they give us back the Tourgueniev of his best
days, with something beyond, in depth of thought and
intensity of feeling, and a language such as no man,
before or since, has spoken in Gogol's country. Gogol
is more expressive, more picturesque, more full of life.
Tourgueniev goes beyond life itself. These pages should
TOURGUENIEV 2S9
be read by those who desire to know the heart of the
great poet and infinitely kind-hearted man who penned
them.
Though some of Tourgueniev's creations, such as his
Faust, Mou7itoUy The Living MuTfimyy are absolutely ori-
ginal, his work as an artist is founded, as a rule, on that
of the great English novelists Thackeray and Dickens.
His humanitarian and democratic leanings mark him the
pupil of George Sand and Victor Hugo, and his philo-
sophical views betray the influence of Schopenhauer.
The Russian does not possess the intellectual solidity
and the virile strength of the Anglo-Saxon. His irre-
solute soul is easily washed away by every current. Like
Dickens, Thackeray, and the German Jean-Paul, Tour-
gueniev, having begun with sketches and pictures of
. ordinary life, remained faithful to the genre style even in
his larger compositions. He is superior to Dickens in
the matter of proportion. With the English novelist,
fancy often reaches the point of hallucination. The
Russian novelist often declared that he himself had no
imagination at all. Like most of his fellow-countrymen,
he had the deepest feeling for Nature. He loved it,
understood it, w^th the heart of a hunter, the passionate
affection of a confirmed rambler in field and forest.
Compared with Dickens's descriptive master-pieces — the
sea-storm in David Copperfield, the land-storm in Martin
Chuzzlewit — Tourgueniev's descriptions appear somewhat
pale. But this is atoned for by the Russian noveHst's
special gift of incarnating the spirit of a landscape in
one or two realistic though fantastic figures, such as
Kassiane (a brother, only still more wild and savage, of
Patience in Mauprat), who lives in intimate friendship
with the birds of the forest, imitates their songs, and
290 RUSSIAN LITERATURE
knows how to cast a spell over the hunter's fowling-piece,
so as to save them from being killed.
Tourgueniev also gives us a fresh conception of
Nature, which he shares with Schopenhauer. Their
predecessors had lived more or less with Nature, but
had always looked upon her as something foreign to
themselves, with an existence separate from theirs. In
Tourgueniev's case, this external intercourse becomes a
fusion, a mutual pervasion. He feels and recognises
portions of his own being in the wind that shakes the
trees, in the light that beams on surrounding objects,
and this gives him a pang of nervous terror which his
readers share.
In spite of Schopenhauer, perhaps, after all, on
Schopenhauer's account, any general philosophic ten-
dency in Tourgueniev's writings will be sought in vain.
One might as well expect to find it in a tale by Chaucer,
Boccaccio, or Cervantes. And this peculiarity distin-
guishes him from the majority of the modern novelists
in every country, his own included. He never attempts
to discover the meaning of life, because he is convinced
that none exists. Though a convinced and essentially
realistic follower of Schopenhauer, both in this feature
and also in the fact that he never touches, nor attempts
to touch, on any subject of which he has not had per-
sonal experience, he is a far greater pessimist than his
German master, as great a pessimist as Flaubert, though
with this difference, that he loves humanity as heartily
as Flaubert detests it. We may take him to be a mourner ,
haunted by the sensation of the nothingness of existence,
yet hungry for happiness, and enjoying life with all its
illusions. Thus, in the closing hours, there rose in his
soul, weary of suffering and yet terrified by the dark
TOURGUENIEV 291
shadow which waits to swallow up our sufifering, and our
power of feeling with it, that final death-shudder so elo-
quently expressed in certain pages of the Poems in Prose,
Tourgueniev's pessimism is certainly not connected
with his realism, for the greatest realists, Goldsmith in
the last century, Thackeray, Balzac, Zola, Edmond de
Goncourt, Daudet, in this one, are no pessimists, nor
even Maupassant, at the bottom of his heart, nor Gont-
charov, Ostrovski, and Tolstof, in Russia. The pessimism
of the author of Smoke does not confine itself to one
particular idea of life. Its source seems to lie simply in
the circumstances which have rooted him tip, made him
an exile. But it has doubtless contributed to his view
of love as a malady, an organic disorder, which obeys no
recognised law, inexplicable, incalculable. Tourgueniev's
female lovers are, for the most part, creatures of impulse
and caprice, like Irene in Snioke^ and Princess Zen-*^
aide in First Love, They are enigmatic figures, too,
though their creator acknowledges that their caprices
are the result of internal conflicts, of the meaning of
which they themselves are unaware. They are fond of
playing with the feelings of others, because they are
conscious of being themselves the playthings of their
own. In the case of those female characters who have
not this capricious quality — Marie in Antchar^ Vera in
Fausty Natalia in Rudin^ and Elizabeth in A House of
Gentlefolk — love comes to them in a flash, like a fever, and
transforms these cold marble figures into blazing torches.
Tourgueniev's workmanship is superior to that of all
his Russian compeers. Alone, or almost alone, among
them all, he knows how to compose^ to arrange his story
and balance its different parts. In this respect, once more,
he is essentially Western. But, on the other hand, and
292 RUSSIAN LITERATURE
this is according to the literary tradition of his country,
he makes no attempt at finished style. Zola has told us,
in one of his critical studies, how Flaubert had set him-
self one day to explain to him why Merimee's style was
bad, and how the Russian novelist, who was present at
the conversation, found it very difficult to understand
anything about the matter. His great art lay in his
power of evocation, of calling up clear, and, as it were;
familiar pictures. He was served, in this matter, by an
extremely well-developed psychological instinct, which
extracted the full value of the very simple methods he
employed. ^' / go to Oka. I find his house — that is to
say, 7iot a house, a hut. I set a man in a blue jacket,
patched, torn, with his back turned to me, digging cabbages.
I go up to him and say, ^ Are you such a?i one?' He turns,
and I szvear to you that in all my life I never saw such
piercing eyes. Besides thefn, a face no bigger than a mans
fist, a goafs beard, not a tooth. He was a very old man."
The portrait is there before us, thrust in our faces. Here
is another of a man ^* who looks as if one day, long ago^
something had astonished him intensely, and he had never
been able to get over tJie wonder of it!' Then we have the
President of the Finance Office, who raves about Nature,
'^ especially when the busy bee levies its little tribute on every
little flower I '^x Elsewhere the method varies : by means
of reticence^, half-hints, special tenses, pauses, inflexions,
introduced into his conversations, the artist builds up his
sketch just as we have watched a painter build up his
picture. For this, observe his portrait of Machourina.
Tourgueniev, like Balzac, has a splendid eye for
detail, but he never uses Balzac's microscope. And
he does not pose his characters ; he has no desire that
they should form a tableau. A Lear of the Steppes,
TOURGUENIEV 293
the tragic story of a small country land-owner, who,
stripped and turned out by his daughters, avenges
himself by destroying the house they have stolen from
him, is a typical specimen of the mighty results of epic
dread obtained by the most natural means.
Tourgueniev, like Dostoievski (though by a more
laborious process), obtains a perfectly natural expression
by means of a sort of decomposition c f successive move-
ments, which recalls the system of the cinematograph.
The recomposition works of itself, and without any
effort on the reader's part. To explain Tourgueniev's
success in escaping the two reefs which endanger the
Realist school — the weariness consequent on the abuse
of description, and the disgust inspired by the medio-
crity of the individuals represented — M. Bourget has |
cited ''the profound identity existing between the out- I
look of the Russian author and that of his heroes." '
Dostoievski, on the other hand, has complained of this
feature in Tourgueniev's work, as being false to the
principle of realism, and leading up to the construc-
tion of artificial landscapes, blue skies that smile on
scenes of love, and other absurdities of that description.
M. Bourget has further imagined a distinction be-
tween '' the failures " {les rates) of the French, and the
'' superfluous men " of the Russian novel, the latter class
striking him as less tiresome, because they are not so
much men who have failed, as men who are not complete.
This shade appears to me subtle, and hardly correct.
A commonplace individual is always likely to prove un-
interesting. The difference noticed by the French critic
arises entirely, I am disposed to think, out of a question,
not of subject, but of the manner in which the subject
is presented — in other words, of talent. A Russian
294 RUSSIAN LITERATURE
critic, M. Boborikine, has also justly observed, that such
men as Roudine and Lavretski may very well pass, in
the West, for persons of average calibre, consequently
commonplace and not particularly attractive. But in
Russia, where social conditions are far less highly devel-
oped, it is quite a different matter, and there they are
regarded as being quite out of the common. Roudine,
indeed, is not an essentially Russian type. There is
nothing specially national in a predominance of thought
over volition. That trait is rather Western in its origin.
The specifically Russian form of want of will, as seen in
the case of Oblomov, is quite a different thing.
This leads me to another inquiry. Was Tourgueniev
a creator of types in the sense of that synthesis of cer-
tain general and permanent features of humanity which
has made the glory of Shakespeare and Moliere ? The
question would be settled at once, if, according to the
[opinion of Taine, registered by M. de Voglie, the author
/of Smoke is to be regarded as one of the most perfect
[artists the world has possessed since the days of the
\ ancient Greeks ; but I venture to put forward some
V)bjections. Tourgueniev's care for true detail, and his
powers of evocation, have ensured him a high rank
among the great artists and the great realists of every
period. But with these qualities he united an equal
care and anxiety concerning things mysterious, un-
fathomable, and fantastic, and a strong proportion of
individuality. Thus all his creations contain a certain
amount of purely subjective reality, and a certain
/ amount of fancy. His characters are compacted of the
result of his observation, together with all his own inner
feelings, his loves and hates, his angers and disdains.
Listen to Potoughine in Smoke^ wearing himself out
TOURGUENIEV 295
with passionate tirades against the Slavophils ! Tour-
gueniev himself speaks by his mouth. His gallery of
feminine portraits is exceedingly rich and attractive.
I do not share M. Boborikine's opinion that it repre-
sents the average of Russian women. I have reviewed
all the female figures that attend upon Irene. I cannot
find one to be compared to Marguerite or Juliet.
Tourgueniev is a fascinating artist. His chief charac-
teristics are his tenderness and grace, with a certain
Northern mistiness of colour, and an extreme daintiness
of touch, which has enabled him to approach the most
difficult subjects without any sign of indelicacy. What
subject could be more dangerous to handle than the
rivalry between the father and the son in First Love ?
In yl Sportsman' s Sketches^ the novelist's delicate touch
and his extreme intensity of restrained feeling have
worked marvels. Look at the serf who has not even
a past. '^ He was forgotten in the last census of
' souls ' ! " and that other, the hero of MoiunoUy whose
only possession and love in life is a dog, which he goes
out to drown at his mistress's command. And the author
has barely sketched them in outline. Then read the
scene in A Lear of the Steppes, where the peasants of a
village are officially informed that their master is to be \
changed. The magistrate, for formality's sake, inquires — .
'^ Have you any objection to make ? "
A dead silence.
^' ComCy sons of the devil ^ will you not answer?''^
At last an old soldier ventures to come forward.
^^ None, surely J your honour I "
And his companions, gazing at him with admiration,
not unmixed with terror, whisper —
*^ There's a bold fellow I"
20
296' RUSSIAN LITERATURE
Does not a whole world of misery and moral degra-
dation rise up suddenly before your eyes ? And it is
done out of nothing, and magnificently done ! But
even this is not the last word spoken by art, either in
Russia or elsewhere. Tolstoi" is yet to come.
Tourgueniev's work has not enshrined the historic
moments and great events of modern life, even as it
has not embodied, in the true sense of the word, any
general, comprehensive, lasting type of character. In
this connection I must briefly point out the appointed
office of the historical novel in his country. It came
into existence after 1830, under the influence of West-
ern Romanticism, and more particularly of Sir Walter
Scott. Its first period, as exemplified by Zagoskine,
Lajetchnikov, Koukolnik, and Zotov, was spent in bond-
age to this influence and to that of the historical school
of Karamzine. At that time, in novels as in history,
the evocation of the past came to a full stop at the
impassable barrier raised by the epoch of Peter the
Great. Lajetchnikov's The House of Ice^ which broke
this rule by encroaching on the jeign of the Empress
Anne, was suppressed at its second edition. The Cen-
sure even interfered with books dealing with the earlier
period, and Pouchkine and Gogol were the only writers
who produced really interesting work in this closely-
watched field. After 1850, the intense anxieties of so
decisive a period in the national existence naturally
turned men's minds from such subjects. Actual events
absorbed every one. Yet, meanwhile, the great labours
of Soloviov and Kostomarov were enlarging the circle
of historical reconstruction, by the introduction of fresh
elements, customs, traditions, habits, beliefs, sympathies,
and antipathies, connected with the past life of the nation.
HISTORICAL NOVELS 297
A little later the masses of documents published in and
after i860 in the Russian Archives (i860), Russian Anti-
quities (1870), Historical Messenger (1880), and the Anti-
quities of Kiev (1882), began to form a treasure-house
of which art was one day to take possession. Yet the
superiority of the later historical novel, thus richly
dowered, only made itself apparent in a greater variety
of subject, a freer method of treatment, and a more ex-
tensive knowledge of archaeology. The observation of
past history was just as superficial, and the mixture of
reality and fiction just as incoherent. Kostomarov him-
self set a bad, and even the worst, example in his Cremu-
tius Cordius, a play published in 1864, in which the story
of Brutus and Cassius was mixed up with episodes in his
own career ; and in a novel to which I have already
referred, and in which the hero, Koudeiar, an imaginary
and very enigmatic personage, bears a preponderat-
ing share in events contemporary with the time of Ivan
the Terrible.
In 1861, the Russian Messenger published a novel by
Prince Alexander Tolstoi, the action of which passes in
the same period. Prince Serebrianyi had a considerable
success. The character who gives his name to the book,
the champion of the nobility against the tyranny of the
Tsar and the excesses of his Opritchina (personal guard),
has a fine heroic swing. The descriptions, in Walter
Scott's style, of the sovereign's hunting-party, the camp
of his opponents, and the flight and death of young
Skouratov, a fugitive from the camp of the OpritcJiinikiy
lack neither life nor truth.
But the admirers of this class of literature were
doomed to return, with G. P. Danilevski and his Miro-
vitch (1879) to the sphere of whimsical fancies and
298 RUSSIAN LITERATURE
strange ramblings, as exemplified by the impressions of
the unhappy partisan of the unfortunate Ivan VI., the
victim of EHzabeth and Catherine II., after his decapi-
tation ! It is true that, as early as 1867, War and Peace
had appeared in the columns of the Russian Messenger,
The ethnographical novel, originally produced by
Koltsov, Grigorovitch, and Tourgueniev, received a
popular and fairly attractive form at the hands of P. I.
Midnikov (1819-1883), at one time better known under
his pseudonym of A. Pietcherski. This writer made his
first appearance in 1839, when he published some recol-
lections of travel, w^hich attracted great attention, in the
Annals of the Fatherland, He afterwards taught history
and statistics at Nijni-Novgorod, studied the Raskoly and
in 1847, joined the staff of the Governor, Prince Ouroussov,
to whom he had suggested very severe measures against
the dissenters. After some unsuccessful attempts at
psychological novel-writing, the experience thus acquired
helped him, somewhat late in life, between 1875 and
1883, to the best of all his literary performances — two
really interesting studies in novel form, which the Mes-
senger placed in the hands of its subscribers. These
narratives, entitled respectively In the Forests and In the
Mountains^ though devoid of artistic value and psycho-
logical truth, though strongly tinged with fantastic
notions and a lamentable taste for the melodramatic,
and wTitten from an entirely official point of view, are
nevertheless full of curious details, and are of great
value as a source of information.
CHAPTER IX
THE CONTROVERSIALISTS— HERZEN AND
CHTCHEDRINE
In this chapter I propose to bring forward a group of
writers- in whose case the artistic note, although of con-
siderable importance, is not altogether dominant. One
of these, Chtchedrine, has in certain of his creations, sur-
passed Tourgueniev from the artistic point of view ; yet
even in his case, the artist has always remained subor-
dinate to the militant author.
At the period when the adepts of German philosophy
were gathering round young Stankievitch at Moscow,
a second intellectual current, as theoretical, though in
a different direction, was rising within another circle of
youthful students. This current, resulting, as in the
case of the Stankievitch group, from local conditions
of existence, and external influences wherein the Euro-
pean movement of the first quarter of our century,
Schiller's poetry, and the new Western literature, poli-
tical and social, mingled in a confused and at first un-
consciously assimilated mixture of directing impulses,
gradually deflected towards the study of political and soci-
ological problems. About the year 1840, the two groups
drew towards each other, and well-nigh fused together.
The Hegelian right was represented by Stankievitch
and Biehnski ; the left, by Herzen and Ogariov. In
300 RUSSIAN LITERATURE
other words, there was a Moderate and a Radical party.
Finally the two groups definitely separated. Stankie-
vitch and Bielinski stirred up and propagated a fever
of artistic creation which strongly affected Gogol and
Tourgueniev. Herzen and Ogariov produced an intel-
lectual ferment which, by the double means of the lite-
rary pamphlet and of political agitation, was to lead up
to that effervescence of which the tragic incidents of the
conspiracy of Petrachevski and the persons accused with
him, in 1849, was to be the first alarming symptom.
Petrachevski, in his Dictionary of Foreign Expressions^
forged an engine of war which affected the over-excited
minds of his contemporaries in the same way as the
Philosophical Dictionary had once affected Voltaire's
readers. The so-called ^^plot" of 1849, an echo of the
February revolution, and the answer to the philanthropic
dreams of St. Simon, Fourier, and Proudhon, called
forth terrible reprisals. Dostoievski went to Siberia
with the author of the dictionary. Saltykov (Chtche-
drine) was sent to Viatka, and a series of repressive
measures helped to cast the country back into that con-
dition of intellectual torpor which it had hardly shaken
off. The scientific missions to foreign countries, the pil-
grimages to German universities, were all suppressed.
The price of passports was raised to the exorbitant
figure of 500 roubles, and it was only with the greatest
difficulty that they could be obtained at all. The number
of pupils in the Imperial Universities was limited, and all
teaching of philosophy was forbidden. The number of
newspapers was reduced, and the Censure became so
severe that the word ^' liberty " was forbidden, as being re-
volutionary ! A man who lost a dog called " Tyrant " was
obliged to advertise for it under the name of '' Fido."
HERZEN
301
The idealists who had led the movement were sobered
by its results. The rising tide of reforming ideas was
followed by a violent reflux in the reactionary direction.
The reformers of yesterday accepted a patriotism "to
order/' which found its natural outlet in the Crimean
war (1853 -1856). But here again disappointment
was their portion. The result of this outbreak of ultra-
patriotism soon revealed faults of organisation and
elements of weakness hitherto quite unsuspected. The
Slavophil idealists saw their proud dream shattered, and
in its fall, official "nationalism" was broken to pieces.
A renewed longing for self - chastisement seized on
this society, already so bitterly wounded in jts ten-
derest illusions. A fresh outbreak of reforming ideas
and humanitarian impulses swept over the sovereign
himself, and for the first time, — with the inauguration
of a political era which in itself constituted a revolu-
tion, government and public opinion appeared associ-
ated in common action. The press, too, recovered a
certain amount of liberty. But it had already acquired,
from foreign sources, the means of speaking out and
making itself heard. The greatest publicist of the period
had for several years been living and writing in a for-
eign country.
Herzen.
The natural son of a rich nobleman named lakovlev,
and of a Stuttgardt lady called Louise Haag, Alexander
IVANOViTCH Herzen (1812-1870), bore his fancy name
as a love-token (Herzens Kind\ Child of the Heart).
Even quite lately this name might not be printed within
Russian frontiers. Exiled, first of all, to Viatka, in 1835,
and then a second time to Novgorod, in 1841, sent into
302 RUSSIAN LITERATURE
the service of a former rope-dancer, whom imperial favour
had transformed into the Governor of the province, the
young man soon convinced himself of the utter incom-
patibility of his character with any career in the country
ruled by the Toufiaiev, — thus was the Governor named.
One day, sitting in this official's Chancery, he heard a
poor serf woman, who besought the authorities not to
separate her from her little children, treated with rude-
ness and contempt. He left the room on plea of
illness, and never returned. He fell back on literature,
publishing first, in the Annals of the Fatherland^ and
under the pseudonym of Iskander, some Letters on the
Study of Nature, which attracted a great deal of atten-
tion ; and between 1845 and 1846, two novels. Whose
Fault? and Doctor Kroupov. The letters contain a bril-
liant exposition of every philosophical system down to,
and including, that of Bacon, together with a searching
criticism of these systems from the point of view of con-
temporary knowledge. The work is interesting, but
incomplete. Herzen's intention, no doubt, had been
to develop his own cosmic ideas on this foundation, but
other interests turned him from the undertaking. In
Whose Faidt? we find, under the name of Beltov, the
eternal ^' superfluous man," very much puzzled whal to do
with himself, until he meets with Liouba, who, by teach-
ing him what love means, acquaints him with the secret
of his destiny, but who is herself unfortunately bound
to his friend Krouciferski. The struggle of emotions
arising out of this situation is intended to indicate that
the society producing ^is badly constituted and needs
a process of reconstruction. All the fault lies there. It
is a work of social physiology and pathology, composed
with extreme skill, and holds a position of capital impor-
HERZEN 303
tance in the history of the intellectual progress of that
epoch. That personal and revolutionary fashion of re-
garding family and social relations, which Tolstoi was to
make peculiarly his own, is already clearly indicated in
its pages. From the aesthetic point of view, and in spite
of the fact that the moral physiognomy of the little
world of which it treats has been searchingly investi-
gated by the author, the work has less value. The
figure of Liouba, strongly marked out in the style of
George Sand, is dry in drawing and poor in colour.
Herzen shows himself less the painter than the sur-
geon, handling his instruments with impassive skill.
The book owed the impression it made chiefly to the
picture drawn in its earlier pages of the patriarchal life
of ancient Russia, in its least honourable peculiarities,
thanks to which Liouba, who is a natural daughter, and
her mother, are both treated as pariahs in the house of
Negrov.
Herzen was to do better w^ork than this. At that
very moment the death of his father placed him in
possession of a considerable fortune, and he left Russia,
never to return. In Paris he associated w4th French
socialists and Polish emigrants, contributed to Proud-
hon's Voice of the People^ was banished, and, in 1850,
published — in German in the first place, and under the
title of Vom andern Ufer — the first book of his which
did not pass under the official censor's eye. This col-
lection of epistles and dissertations, composed under the
combined influence of the revolutionary notions of the
time, and of the doctrines of the Slavophil party, pro-
claimed, in somewhat audacious fashion, the near and
inevitable end of the political and social organisation
of the old European, Christian, and feudal world, and
304 RUSSIAN LITERATURE
its regeneration by the agency of the Russian Com-
munity. Nothing else so paradoxical and so brilliant
occurs in the revolutionary literature of the period.
Herzen, who had grown intimate with Charles Vogt
and Herwegh, was at this time living at Nice. But a
lamentable catastrophe — the death of his mother and
two of his children, drowned between that town and
Marseilles — was soon to render this place of residence
too painful for him. In 1838 he had made a love mar-
riage, preceded by an elopement. Paris being closed
to him, he decided to go to London, but he found
himself as isolated there, at first, as he had been in
Russia. The Revolutionists of other countries could not
swallow his Slavophilism. He endeavoured to justify
it by the publication of a second book. On the Develop-
ment of Revolutionary Ideas in Russia (1853), ^^^ ^^
only succeeded in gaining the sympathy of the Polish
democratic party, and of its London chief, Worcell.
A printer belonging to the Polish printing-press in
London, Czerniegki, helped him to found a Russian
printing-press. But just at this time the Crimean war,
with its proofs of the superiority of ancient Europe,
began to shake the over-presumptuous convictions of
the banished Slavophil, and counselled him to leave
the ^^ rotten" West to its fate, and to turn all his atten-
tion to questions affecting the internal economy of
Russia. To this decision his Polish intimacies contri-
buted, and the death of Nicholas in 1855, together with
the political confusion resulting from it, combined to
tempt him still further in this direction. Thus the
publication of The Polar Star was decided on. With
the first numbers of this periodical, wherein Herzen
placed the emancipation of the serfs at the head of
HERZEN 305
the reforms he claimed, there appeared, in English, the
author's own Memoirs {My Exile, 1856), which pro-
duced a great sensation. In 1857, The Polar Star^
which was only published once in six months, became
insufficient for its purposes, and on the ist of July
in that year. The Belly which was destined to meet
with such prodigious success, made its first weekly ap-
pearance. Five months later, on December 2, 1857,
Alexander II. published his famous rescript, calling on
the nobility to bring forward plans for the work of
emancipation ; and from that moment, The Bell took on,
for some time, the appearance of an informally official
organ, which supported the Government against the re-
sistance offered to the projected reform by a certain
section of the aristocracy. The paper, though officially
forbidden, circulated all over the empire. Copies of it
appeared even on the table of General Rostovtsov, Presi-
dent of the Commission charged with the preparation of
the act of enfranchisement. When, now and then, the
police thought itself obliged in decency to interfere, it
would confiscate — as on one occasion at the fair of
Nijni-Novgorod — a hundred thousand copies at once.
Herzen, meanwhile, contrived to obtain the most trust-
worthy, the most precise, and the earliest information as
to the affairs of the country. He would hold forth to his
readers concerning state secrets which were not known
to more than ten persons in the whole of Russia. He
gave the names of prisoners shut up in the dungeons of
St. Petersburg and the mines of Nertchinsk, whom their
very jailers knew only by their allotted numbers.
When the emancipation became an accomplished
fact, the 3rd of March 1861 was kept as a festival in
Herzen's house in the west end of London. Over the
3o6 RUSSIAN LITERATURE
entrance two great flags waved, with these inscriptions,
*^ Freedom of the Russian Peasants/' '' The Free Russian
Press." Herzen Httle dreamt that he was celebrating
the early downfall of The Bell, From this date the
prestige of the newspaper rapidly declined. Herzen, very
unadvisedly, sided with the peasant revolts which followed
closely on the reform, and imperilled the benefits thereby
obtained. At the same time, influenced by Bakounine,
he entered on a course of excessive revolutionism, which
was soon to cost him the great majority of his readers.
Michael Bakounine(i8i4-i876)had then just escaped
from Siberia by way of America. He was a revolutionary
of the type of Barbes, and loved his vocation with an
artist's love. ^'The passion for destruction," so he
averred, ^' is a creative passion." He had been an
Hegelian of the right and of the left ; he passed over
into Germany towards 1841, found it too full of
theorists to please him, moved on to Paris, joined the
Polish emigrants, was expelled by Guizot, and did hot
return to the capital until the February revolution re-
opened its gates to him. Caussidiere used to say of him,
"The first day of a revolution he is a treasure ; the next
day he had better be shot." The authorities were con-
tent with turning him out. He betook himself to Prague,
where he preached socialist Panslavism, fought with the
rioters against the soldiers of Windischgratz, slipped
through the fingers of the Austrian police, and hurried
off to take his part in the Dresden revolution. Saxony
made him over to Austria, who abandoned him to Russia.
He was sent to the mines, escaped, as I have said, and
reached London in time to revolutionise Herzen's rela-
tively moderate propaganda, and crack his Bell. At a
later period his violence was to alarm Karl Marx himself,
HERZEN 307
and the workers of the International. After 1873 he was
forsaken by every one, and returned to private Hfe.
Amongst his numerous publications, pamphlets, and
books, the tract entitled To my Russian aftd Polish
Friends (in French, Leipzig, 1862), and a study, pub-
lished in German, under the title Historische Entwickelung
der Internationale (Geneva, 1874), are the only two worthy
of mention.
In the company of this dangerous acolyte, Herzen
gradually lost all moderation and all political wisdom.
He attacked the person of the Emperor, which he
had hitherto always respected. " Farewell, Alexander
Nicolaievitch, good journey to you!" I have already
related how he succeeded in provoking Katkov's vehe-
ment protests. The Belly deserted by its readers, and
removed to Geneva in 1865, degenerated, little by little,
into an obscure pamphlet, which altogether disappeared
four years later ; and in the year after that, Herzen, too,
died in Paris,
His was one of the most remarkable intellectual orga-
nisations of any country and any period. He could
write correctly, and occasionally brilliantly, in Russian,
French, English, and German. To the ten volumes of
his works published in Russian at Geneva between 1875
and 1879, an enormous quantity of pamphlets must be
added. In one of these, France and England^ published
in 1858, he discusses the problem of a Franco-Russian
alliance. His own preference was for England, — the
only school, he said, which suited Russia — ^^A country
without centralisation, without a bureaucracy, without
prefectures, without gendarmes, without revolution, and
without reaction." In 1865, under the title of Camiccia
Rossa, he relates a curious episode of his residence in
308 RUSSIAN LITERATURE
London, — his meeting with Garibaldi. He also touched
on history, by his publication of the Memoirs of Cathe-
rine II. and of the Princess Dachkov (1859). In London
he kept open house. Of affable manners and a brilliant
talker, though by no means an orator, he attracted uni-
versal liking.
His character and his intellectual powers have been
the subject of very contradictory judgments. His com-
patriots have taken him, at one time and another, to be
either Hamlet or Don Quixote, — an idealist or a realist.
I am disposed to share the opinion of Vietrinski {His-
torical and Literary Sketches y Moscow, 1899). Herzen
was, above all things, an exceedingly personal writer,
very impressionable, and very apt to change his impres-
sions. One only has been durable and dominant with
him, — a deep love of his country, of his country's spirit,
of its manner of existence and its methods of thought,
joined with a profound feeling of sadness, the reason
for which will be easily guessed.
The Russian printing-press which he founded in
London continued to work even after his departure
and his death. From it issued, between i860 and 1870,
General Fadieiev's Letters on Russian Society and the
Russian Army, Kaveline's book The Nobility and the
Emancipation of the Serf, lelaguine's The Russian Clergy y
Kochelev's How can Russia Escape from her Present Posi-
tion ? Samarine's The Baltic ProvinceSy theological studies
by Gagarine and Khomiakov, various collections of his-
torical and biographical papers, and a number of revo-
lutionary newspapers and pamphlets, of a democratic
and social tendency.
The literary tradition of Herzen, combined, however,
with a marked leaning towards the school of Bakounine,
CHTCHEDRINE 309
is carried on, in our day, by Lavrov, who edited the
Anarchist and revolutionary newspaper Forward from
1870 to 1880 ; by Vera ZassouHtch, and by Prince Krapot-
kine, to whom the Nineteenth Centmy has had the
courage to entrust the duties of scientific reviewer, in
succession to the illustrious Huxley, The Socialism of
Little Russia has found what I may call a kind of auto-
nomous representative in the person of M. Dragomanovo,
who died quite recently.
It should be noted that the great Russian writers of
the middle of the present century, Tourgueniev, Gont-
charov, Dostoievski, and even Tolstoi himself, have really
exercised a very restricted influence on the intellectual
and social evolution of the years between i860 and 1880.
They were widely read, and even enthusiastically ad-
mired, but the public, for the most part, drew its ideas
and sentiments from a number of writers such as Pomia-
lovski, Slieptsov, Mikhailov (pseudonym Scheller), Mad-
ame Khvochtchinskaia (pseudonym V. Krestovski), who
did not even occupy the front rank among the secondary
novelists, and especially from the leaders of the litera-
ture of divulgation and accusation, romantic followers
of Herzen, and, like him the confessors and merciless
chastisers of a society which was tasting its hour of re-
pentance and expiation. The most eminent represen-
tatives of this group are Saltykov (Chtchedrine) and
Pissemski.
Michael Ievgrafovitch Saltykov (Chtch£drine)
(1826-1889) ni^de his first appearance in literature simul-
taneously with Dostoievski, and somewhat later than
Nekrassov. In 1841, he published some verses in the
Reader s Library y and in 1847, under the pseudonym of
Nepanov, a novel, imitated from George Sand, and
3IO RUSSIAN LITERATURE
entitled Contradictions^ in which the power of satire he
was afterwards to evince is by no means foreshadowed.
His wit and spirit were not to develop in this direction
until a later period, under the influence of Socialist ideas,
and probably, also, of the prolonged exile he had to
suffer. His novel, though considered harmless in 1847,
was looked on as criminal in 1848, and the author
was whirled away in a kibitka. He owed his liberty,
some eight years later, to the sort of liberal reaction
consequent on the disasters of the Crimean war. Then
appeared, in the Russian Messenger^ his Sketches of
Governments, which seem to be a continuation of
Gogol's Dead Souls, with less humour and more bitter-
ness — a cruel wit, that whistled and bit like the thong
of a whip. The blows fell from above. The chastiser,
who already belonged to one of the noblest families in
the country, was now advanced to official dignity, first as
Governor of Riazan and afterwards as Governor of Tver.
The administrative career, it must be admitted, did
not retain him for long. It suited him ill, and he suited
it still worse. In 1868 it came to an end, and Saltykov,
the official, disappeared for ever behind Chtchedrine,
the contributor to the Contemporary, and, after the sup-
pression of that publication, the editor, with Nekrassov,
of the Annals of the Fatherland, which, in 1884, ceased in
their turn to appear. It is at this moment that his
literary personality took definite shape. He became,
and to the last stroke of his pen he was to remain, the
executioner of the press and society of his time, who
summoned every category, every shade of opinion, and
every section of society (including his own) into the
question chamber, where each culprit was duly casti-
gated, or branded with hot irons.
CHTCHEDRINE 311
In Chtchedrine's Sketches ^ the first group to pass
under the whip was the provincial bureaucracy, cujus
magna pars fuit. Note the historical incident of the
Bomnaga (business document) which the tchinovniks of
the town of Kroutogorsk pass from hand to hand
without contriving to understand a word of it. At last
an archivist whom they call into consultation offers to
help them out of the difficulty.
^^ You understand it ? "
^' No ; but I can answer it ! "
Peasants and merchants, upper and lower classes,
judicial and religious customs, all have their turn. Listen
to the confession of the examining magistrate. ^' What
right have I to a conviction ? On whose account is it
necessary that I should have one ? On one solitary occa-
siony when speaking to the President^ I ventured to sayy
^ as I understand it.' . . . He looked at me^ and I never
did it again. Why should I zvant to know whether a
crime has really been committed or not ? Is the crime
proved? that is the whole question^ Beside this realist
magistrate we find another whose sympathy is with the
culprits, and who would fain believe them innocent.
His fancy brings him no luck. *' Why don t you thrash
me ? " cries one of the rogues whom he is gently ques-
tioning. ^^ Do thrash me ! then perhaps I will tell you
something!* Thus, from the top of the ladder to the
bottom, he sets forth the same, or almost the same, signs
of the perversion and degradation of the moral sense ;
a general lack of character, corruption and falsehood,
reproduced in various forms and on every level ; insolent
tyranny above, crawling slavery below. Everywhere a
life of mechanical formalism, with a thin varnish of
civilisation to cover all its horrors. Saltykov's perma-
312 RUSSIAN LITERATURE
nent idea would seem to be that, at bottom, nothing has
changed in Russia since the eighteenth century. De-
moralisation, ignorance, and barbarism have all remained
stationary, and even the liberal measures of i860 have
only served to induce fresh phenomena of moral cor-
ruption.
His usual method, in these sketches, is one of cold
and unsmiling irony. Look at his inimitable picture
of that idyllic and patriarchal existence which consti-
tutes the delight of the inhabitants of Kroutogorsk.
^^ Heavenly powers! what a paradise it would be if it
were not for the police-officers and the fleas !" In his
subsequent works, the author broadens his manner and
extends his field of observation. After the Crimean war
he falls foul of the kind of intellectual and moral renais-
sance evoked by that fiasco of official patriotism. He
denounces its empty phraseology, and, progressive as he
is himself, he makes game of its cloudy ideas of progress,
mistily floating hither and thither. Between 1861 and
1867 he reviews the transition types created by the great
reform. Landowners who do not know what to make
of their new position ; brandy merchants, railway con-
tractors, and money-lenders, who turn the situation to
account, and are the only ones to benefit by the act of
emancipation ; a ruling class terrified by the conse-
quences of its own act, a literary class whose judgment
of that act varies from one day to another. Russia, with
her new representatives of the ruling classes — ''the men
of culture" — which she now possesses, is like a vessel
which has been cleaned without, but which is full of
filth within. Such is the meaning of the Story of a
Town^ of the Faces of our Tijues, and of the foumal of
a Country Gentleman, Listen to the complaint of the
CHTCHEDRINE
313
Pamiechtchik (rural land-owner) who has to pay for his
place in the St. Petersburg theatre to hear Schneider
sing. The lady, pretty as she is, is not so fair as a
Palachka of the good old times. What pleasure can he
have in looking at her and listening to her ? He cannot
say to himself, ^^ She belongs to rtie ; I can do what I will
with her^ to-morrow or at once. If I like I can have her
hair cut off ; or if I choose I can marry her to Antipy my
shepherd f . . . Alack ! we can do no harm to anybody now
— 71 ot even to a hen ! "
Between 1867 and t88i, we have a new series of
Sketches^ in which the prevailing type is that of the
Gentlemen of Tachkent, "men of culture" of a special
kind, "champions of education without the alphabet,"
and seekers after fortune for which they will not have
to work. At this period the town and neighbourhood
of Tachkent had become a sort of Klondyke. These
volumes are full of obscure allusions to contemporary
events, which, together with frequent and tedious diva-
gations, make them difficult and fatiguing to read, and
indeed the author's wit occasionally strikes one as being
somewhat forced. An exception must be made in the
case of The Golovlev Brothers, which belongs to this
series. This book is Chtchedrine's masterpiece. In it
he rises to a height of tragic power which is almost
Shakespearian. But at what a cost ! The story of the
Golovlev family is the most terrible accusation which
has ever been formulated against any society. The
author of La Terre and his French imitators have never
ventured on anything like it. Chtchedrine has deter-
mined, on this occasion, to show the remnants of the
old order, of the patriarchal form of life, and the special
culture appertaining to it, as perpetuated, after the reform,
314 RUSSIAN LITERATURE
in the bosom of a family of Pamiechtchiki, We see three
brothers, left practically to themselves by an idiot father,
and a mother whose sole idea is to increase the common
patrimony. Once they are full grown, they are cast
upon life, with but a scanty provision, and left to take
their chance. If they fail, they will have food and
lodging at the farm. The eldest, in despair, takes to
drink and dies of it. The second follows his father, and
falls into a condition of semi-madness. The third is the
favourite son. His brothers call him ''Little Judas"
(loudouchka) and '' Blood-sucker." He skilfully per-
suades his mother to divide the fortune she has amassed,
obtains an undue portion in the first place, and finally
succeeds in securing the whole. He has two sons, who,
in their turn, have to make their way in the world as
best they can. One of them desires to make a love
marriage. '' As you will," says the father. But as soon
as the couple are united, he cuts off their means of sub-
sistence. Another suicide ! The second son, an officer
in the army, comes home one night, pale and hag-
gard. He has gambled aw^ay money belonging to his
regiment. " That's unfortunate y* observes loudouchka
calmly. '' Let us go and have some tea!'
" But what am I to do?**
^' Thafs your business. I cannot know what resources
you reckoned on when you began to play. Let us go and
have some tea."
" But three thousand roubles are nothing to you ! You
are a millionaire thrice told."
" That may be, but it has nothing to do with your prank.
Let us go and have some tea!'
And the unhappy wretch, cashiered and sent to hard
labour, dies in a convict hospital.
CHTCH]£dRINE 315
loudouchka has a mistress, the daughter of a Greek
priest, whom he has employed, in the first place, as his
housekeeper. He is warned that she is about to become
a mother, and is very ill pleased at being interrupted in
the middle of his prayers, for he is exceedingly devout.
" But what is to beco7ne of the child ? "
'' What child?''
" Your child. Eupraxia will soon be a mother^
"-/ dont knoWy and I don^t desire to know.''
And the child is sent to a workhouse.
loudouchka has two nieces, who, finding they must
starve at home, become provincial actresses. The eldest
soon turns sick at heart, poisons herself, and tries to
induce her sister to do likewise.
^^ Drink ! coward that you are ! "
But the wretched girl's courage fails her, and when
all other resources are exhausted, she takes refuge with
her uncle. loudouchka brutally suggests that she should
occupy Eupraxia's place. She turns from him in horror,
and takes to flight. When she returns at last, she has
lost all her charm, her health is broken, and she has taken
to drink. One night, loudouchka surprises her alone with
Eupraxia, drinking glasses of brandy, and singing filthy
songs. He takes her away with him, and becomes the
companion of her nightly orgies. These two sit drinking
in his silent house, till they fall to quarrelling, and cast
horrible insults in each other's teeth. In the fumes of the
brandy, their past surges up before their eyes, full of
abominable memories, of shameful deeds and crimes, of
nameless suffering and humiliation, till, little by little, a
sort of half-conscience rises up in the haunted soul of
the *' Blood-sucker," and he feels all the horror of the
responsibility he has incurred. It is terribly magnificent.
3i6 RUSSIAN LITERATURE
loudouchka, as I have already said, is a devotee. All
through the long lonely days, he never leaves his writing
table, and the laborious reckoning up of his income and
his gains, save to kneel, for long periods, before the holy
pictures. Chtchedrine has desired to realise a sort of
Tartuffe of his own, partly duped by his own hypocrisy,
who believes in God, but is incapable of connecting his
faith with any moral principle. The wild nights spent
with the niece whom he has cast into such a horrible
abyss, the reproaches with which she overwhelms him,
and the remorse with which she finally inspires him, end
by leading him first to the haunting idea of a necessary
expiation, and then to an intense longing for it. And so
one winter morning, after many prayers before a thorn-
crowned Christ, loudouchka goes out and kills himself
upon his mother's grave.
Such a picture only admits of one plausible explana-
tion. We see the end of the whole social group it is
supposed to represent — death without any possible re-
turn to life. The worms are crawling over it already —
decomposition, and nothingness beyond it. The idea is
false — at all events it is exaggerated. As a matter of fact,
the country land-owners of the period were no more than
a special category of '^ superfluous men," and this Chtched-
rine himself has understood, and admirably demonstrated,
in The Spleen {Dvorianskata Khandra), in which he depicts
the anguish of a Pamiechtchik who suddenly finds himself
Useless, and buried alive, as it were, in his country home.
He has lost the right to need his peasants, and his
peasants have ceased to need him. He feels himself to
be despairingly useless. But this is all. And this in
itself is evidently a passing matter. The portrait of
loudouchka, and the personality of the figures sur-
CHTCHEDRINE 317
rounding him, present features of profound observation,
and give proof of remarkable dramatic power. But the
author reveals himself as a poet rather than a sociologist
— the poet of caricature.
Yet he never was a novelist in the proper meaning of
the word. He even goes so far, in the preface of his
Tachkentsy, as to condemn this literary form, as being
too limited, and no longer fulfilling the needs of the
period. And his stories, as a rule, contain no element of
romantic interest whatever. They are rather analytical
essays, and essays of social criticism, tainted by a con-
siderable amount of fancy, and an equal amount of
deliberate exaggeration. Yet this does not lead me so
far as to adopt Pissarev's opinion of his work, as being
nothing but *^ laughing for laughing's sake."
After 1880, the prolific writer modified his manner
once again. A calm had fallen on the intellectual and
political turmoil of the preceding years. There were no
more mighty movements, no more bitter conflicts. And
when Chtchedrine composed his Trifles of Life ^ he seemed
to harmonise his note to the general tone. He set him-
self to show the part played in life by those small details
which absorb and eat it up. And after that, passing
from analysis to synthesis, he considered, in his TaleSy
the general elements common to the existence of every
nation, and every period. In spite of some too evident
contradictions, this part of his work may be said to have
placed him on an equality with the greatest of European
writers. The general tone is that of a deep-seated scep-
ticism and pessimism, a lack of faith in humanity, and
an idea that the struggle for life is the supreme law of
existence. This certainly seems to be the meaning, for
instance, of the Poor JVo/f whom the author shows us
3i8 RUSSIAN LITERATURE
as being driven to steal and kill in order to live. Yet^ in
the Christmas Tales, with their deep pathos and profound
religious feeling, the author strikes a very different note
— that faith in the Divine Love which lifts humanity out
of all its misery.
Towards the end of his life, Chtchedrine has seemed
to desire to atone for former contradictions and errors of
judgment by writing The Chronicle of PocJiekhonie — the
Russian Abdera. This, again, is a picture of the life of
rural proprietors before the reform, and this time we
have a history wherein traits of true humanity and Chris-
tian love atone for very occasional failures, and a few
absurdities. Both as regards its depth of thought and
its artistic form, if not for its absolute reliability, the
work is far superior to Akssakov's Family Chronicle.
The melancholy shade of Pissemski, and his numerous
admirers, will perhaps reproach me with having here
allotted him a position all unworthy of him. And I must
admit that of all his creations, whether plays or novels,
there is but one, and that not the best, to which we can
attribute any personally combative design. All the author
has ever set before himself, is to perform a true artist's
work, as the faithful interpreter, ^^ objective and naive,"
as Dostoievski said, of Nature. But the nature and scope
of a work cannot be judged by the intentions of its
maker. It has been said of Pissemski, as it has been
said of Zola, ''That he saw things y^rough dirt," and
the result of this is that he must be classed, however
much against his own desire, amongst the most bitter
detractors, and the most merciless accusers, of his period.
The subjects and the heroes of his books frequently
bear a close resemblance to those which were so dear to
Tourgueniev, and even to Lermontov. The- Batmanov of
PISSEMSKI
319
the novel of that name, is closely related to Pietchorine,
but you would take it for a picture by Rembrandt, re-
painted by Teniers.
Like Saltykov-Chtchedrine, Alexis F£ofilaktovitch
PiSSEMSKi (1820-1881) was born of an ancient noble
family, originally settled in the Government of Kostroma.
In 1582, one of his ancestors was sent to England by
Ivan the Terrible, in connection with a proposed marriage
between the Tzar and one of Queen Elizabeth's kins-
women. Alexis F^ofilaktovitch belonged to an impover-
ished branch of this aristocratic race. He has himself
related that his grandfather did not know how to read,
wore sandals {lapti\ and tilled his own scrap of land.
His father, whom he has taken as the type of a veteran in
one of his stories, began by serving as a private soldier,
and never rose above the rank of major. These circum-
stances must have affected the education of the future
novelist. Pissemski, like Gogol and Dostoievski, never
possessed much general education, and like them, not
having been taught to think, he inclined strongly to
mysticism. When he left the University, he found his
father dead, his mother stricken with paralysis, and some-
thing very like destitution in his home. He attempted
to earn his livelihood by literature, and wrote his first
novel The Times of the Boyards {Boiarchtchitia), a plea
in favour of free love, inspired by Indiana. Its pub-
lication was forbidden by the Censure. Pissemski
attempted the administrative career, but could make
nothing of it, and finally, in 1855, he earned great suc-
cess with a second novel. The Muff {Tioufiak), a study of
a man without energy and without character, which he
followed by a succession of tales relating to provincial
incidents and touching, like those of Tourgueniev, on
320 RUSSIAN LITERATURE
popular life. In these, Zola's mania for trivial detail is
aggravated by a peculiar stamp of pessimism, which
ascribes the complex motives of human nature to two
mainsprings and no more — cupidity in some cases,
sexual instinct in the rest. But the peasants he con-
jures up are generally admirably true to life. In 1858
there appeared, together with the Bo'iarchtchina^ which
was now authorised by the Censure, the best of all
Pissemski's novels, A Thousand Souls {Tyssiatcha doucJi)^
a gloomy picture, wherein the worst sides of Russian
existence before the reform are thrown into as strong,
and more cruel relief, than even in the work of Chtche-
drine. The hero of this book, Kalinovitch, a man of
talent and energy, climbs to fortune by sacrificing a
young girl who has devoted herself to him, and marry-
ing, according to a shameful bargain, the mistress of
a prince. He becomes governor of a province, and
endeavours to atone for his past by applying the rational
theories he has learnt at the university ; is stubbornly
resisted by an administrative and social organisation
founded on abuses of every kind ; and finally comes to
disgrace and ruin. He then meets once more with
Nastienka, the woman he has so shamefully deserted,
who has meanwhile become a provincial actress, marries
her, and shares with her the remnants of an ill-gotten
fortune, without any desire to attain anything more
in life.
In spite of some apparent contradictions, the char-
acter of Kalinovitch is carefully studied, and logically
constructed. The action of the story in which he plays
the principal part is interesting and well planned. The
author goes straight to his point, like a rifle-bullet, with-
out any discernible regard for aesthetics or morality.
PISSEMSKI 321
His gloomy figures are sketched with broad, dry, heavy,
strokes, on a dark background. There is not a figure,
except that of Nastienka, which has a touch of Ught upon
it. And Nastienka herself, a provincial actress who pre-
serves her virtue, strikes one as a somewhat paradoxical
figure, even for Russia. The background, with its repre-
sentation of provincial life, recalls Chtchedrine, but many
of its features are still more repulsive. ^' A man must
possess a great reserve of courage to be able to live in
such society ! " so says Pissemski himself, in a novel of
a similar type. An Old Mans Sin,
Meanwhile, the author endowed the Russian theatre
with a play entitled Cruel Fate {Goj'kaia Soudbina), the
first founded on popular life which earned any success in
the country before the appearance of Tolstoi's Power of
Darkness. This success must be more especially ascribed
to the manner in which the subject is presented, and
way in which the cruel fate of a half-emancipated serf,
who goes to seek his fortune in St. Petersburg, and
comes back to find his domestic happiness destroyed,
his wife become his master's concubine, and the mother
of a child who is the Barine's child, is described. Yet
its success is certainly surprising, for it undoubtedly
depends, to a great extent, firstly on melodramatic
effects of a somewhat coarse nature, the murder of
the child by the outraged husband, which takes place
almost on the stage, and then on an interpretation of the
law of serfdom and its consequences, which really is
strained, and anything but true. All the figures in the
play, whether owners or serfs, with the exception of the
officials of every rank, are good, generous, and tender-
hearted ; and yet the infernal law leads them on into
crime.
322 RUSSIAN LITERATURE
In his later works, Pissemski endeavoured to make
amends for this lapse from his principles. The public
blamed him. In Russia, the years following on the great
act of emancipation were a troublous period, during
which the sentiment of reality was entirely obliterated
by a cloud of reforming dreams and Utopian fancies.
When Pissemski endeavoured to react against these, as
in his Furious Sea ( Vzbalamoutchennoie Morie)y he only
succeeded in displeasing everybody. The Liberals ac-
cused him of apostasy, and, with the usual injustice of
political parties, ascribed his attitude to personal motives
which had no real existence. He was still showing things
as he saw them, and he could see nothing practical in
contemporary radicaUsm. Living in the midst of men
saturated with bookish theories, he exemplified the com-
monplace spirit of the provincial saniodour. His last
years were saddened by periodical attacks of hypochon-
dria. He had lived too long.
The general spirit of his work resembles that of
Gontcharov, who, like him, struck a matter-of-fact note,
in opposition to the somewhat romantic realism of
Tourgu^niev, and, like him, cast ridicule and reproba-
tion upon people who have nothing to offer but ideas.
In Pissemski's eyes, as in Gontcharov's, action is every-
thing. They are followers of Gogol, just as Tourgueniev
is the follower of Pouchkine. The difference between
them and the author of A Hunte7''s Memories resides
more particularly in the fact that this last is, on the
whole, a describer of exceptional types, just as he is a
painter of magnificent landscapes. They, on the con-
trary, resolutely bestow all their attention on common
things, and ordinary men. Everything outside this cate-
gory strikes them as being either false or ridiculous.
NEKRASSOV 323
Like Tourgueniev, they consider the Hfe of their own
period both evil and unendurable ; but they do not share
his opinion that these vices can only be corrected by
men of special virtues, or by heroes. The everyday
vulgar man should suffice, if only he were not indolent.
Their favourite personages — Bielavine in A Thousand
Souls and Peter Ivanovitch in A Common Story — are men
who suit themselves to the times in which they live, set
an aim before them, and succeed in reaching it. They
bring in no new ideas ; they only bring in a manner of
existence which is new to the Russian man, a spirit of
practicality, of punctuality and energy. Thus they re-
present European culture far better than the great good-
for-nothing idlers depicted by Tourgueniev. Unluckily,
like them, they are only half-civilised men. They have
the substance, the others have the form. And the result
is very much the same, as negative in one case as in the
other. Gontcharov himself seems to have recognised
the failure of this generation of positive men, for his
Oblomov only obtains the common fate of the traditional
legne — idleness, inertia, a fatty heart, and apoplexy at
the close.
I now pass on to an undeniable representative of the
confraternity of literary chastisers of this period, a poet
who, like Chtchedrine, possessed all the instincts of the
executioner, and who at the same time was an extra-
ordinary type of the proletary — one who bore in his
soul, and vented on others, all the spites and furies and
hatreds of an outcast race, to which he did not himself
belong by right of blood. NICHOLAS Alexi£ievitck
N£krassov (1821-1876) was born in a small town in
Podolia, where his father was quartered. The family
circle was completed by a mother of Polish origin,
324 RUSSIAN LITERATURE
(Zakrzewska), and a dozen brothers and sisters. It
belonged to the small provincial nobility. The father,
having led the ill-regulated life of the gentlemen of his
time; and dissipated a modest patrimony, had been ob-
liged to undertake the humble functions of a rural police
Commissary. Young Nicholas often accompanied him
on his rounds, and thus became acquainted with the
popular life, its habits, thoughts, and sufferings. When
the child grew into a youth he was sent into the Corps
of Cadets at St. Petersburg, but he was not to stay there.
His mother, a dreamy, passionate creature, had kindled
a spark within his heart, which the great city fanned
into a flame. Instead of preparing himself for the career
of arms, Nicholas Alexieievitch attended the university
lectures, and mingled in literary circles. Treated as a
rebellious son, and deprived of remittances, he gave
lessons, corrected proofs, supplied compilations to news-
papers, and often went hungry. ^' For three years I was
hungry every day," he would say, later ; and at the same
time, with that cynicism which is one of the least attrac-
tive features of his talent, he reproduced in one of his
poems the following autobiographical anecdote — that his
mistress went out, one night, dressed in the gayest attire,
and returned home carrying a tiny coffin for the baby
which had just died, and food for the father who had
been starving since the previous evening !
Encouraged by N. A. Polevoi, Nekrassov ended by
publishing some lines in the Literary Gazette and in the
Annals of the Fatherland. A little later a collection of
poems, entiled Dreams and Strains^ greeted with friendly
appreciation by Polevoi and Joukovski, definitely opened
the literary career before him. But up till 1845, he was
to struggle with poverty, working ceaselessly at every kind
NEKRASSOV 325
of style, and even attempting comic opera, under the
pseudonym of " Perepielski." Between 1845 and 1846,
the success of two other collections of his work, The
Physiology of St. Petersburg and the St, Petersburg Mis-
cellany^ together with Bielinski's eulogistic verdict upon
them, brought him the beginnings of glory and ease.
Before long he joined Panaiev in the editorship of The
Contemporary y founded by Pouchkine, and in two years
he had grown rich. But here came a fresh disappoint-
ment. As fortune smiled upon him, his friends forsook
him. Various reports circulated concerning the origin
and constitution of the wealth so swiftly acquired. A
discord always existed between the poetic existence of
Nekrassov, and his practical life, and some of his lyric
compositions bear traces of the fact. The future held
some compensations for him. The boldnes-s he showed
in a series of new works, in which he touched on the
most sensitive sores of Russian life, the power of invec-
tive and satire which he there displayed, and the fresh
poetic elements which he succeeded in introducing, were,
towards 1870, to make him the idol of the youth of that
period.
He says of himself, several times over, that the only
source of inspiration known to him was indignation :
^^ I have no memory of any smiling and caressing Muse
who sang sweet songs beside my pillow, . . . / owed my
early inspiration to the Muse of sobs, of mourning^ and of
paifi — the Muse of the starving and the beggar I ^^ And in
one of his last poems, he speaks of his ^^ old heart broken
down with hate." His satire is of the fiercest kind. He
is capable of dropping his cruel irony even on to the
cradle of a sleeping child. ^^ Sleepy baby, sleep ! Good
news has come into the country. Your father ^ with all his
326 RUSSIAN LITERATURE
crimes^ has at last been brought to judgment ; but your fatheVy
arrant I'ogue^ will manage to escape. Sleepy youngstery
sleep while you are honest — sleepy baby^ sleep!'' His
gloomy poetry occasionally recalls that of Crabbe.
He pours forth a torrent of sarcasm, anathema, and
reproach, on every rank of Russian society. Occa-
sionally the lyric poet grows stronger than the satirist,
and he calls up figures which are not ideal indeed — he
is too realistic for that — but which possess a sympathetic
reahty : princesses, who remind one of the ancient
Roman matrons ; men of the people, humble and
patient, but good and strong amidst the darkness about
them, the darkness of an " underground prison without
a light!' and such martyrs of the struggle for light as
Bielinski, Dobrolioubov, and Pissarev.
But these are rare gleams of light. Even when
Nekrassov paints the popular life — his favourite subject,
his great love, his passion — he follows the tw^ofold line
which corresponds in a manner to the positive and
negative poles of his talent, and always ends in an abyss
of the darkest desolation. In both cases the author's
method is the same. The initial theme is some corner of
Russian country, dreary and flat, with little that is pic-
turesque about it, the home of a certain number of human
beings, none of whom are marked by any very strik-
ing qualities. On this subject the artist's fancy seizes,
and gradually landscape and figures fill with an intense
life. They grow on us, taking on a mythical and legen-
dary aspect, until the whole of mighty Russia appears
before us in the frame of some rustic story. Thus, in the
Frost with the Red Nose {Morozk krasnyi noss), we have
a magnificent allegorical evocation of the Russian win-
ter, that terrible lord who reigns over a whole world of
NEKRASSOV 327
misery and suffering. In The Tro'ikay again, we have the
complete legend of the destiny of woman under those
humble thatched roofs. And in each case the picture
leaves us with the same impression of sadness. Only
in the first, Daria, the wife of the moujik who is dying
of cold, is full of a calm and heroic beauty ; whereas,
in the second, the young girl whose eyes follow the
post-chaise out of which an officer has smiled to her,
is but a poor creature, the sport of a passing vision of
happiness. And the ray of light which falls on her for
that short moment, only to leave her once more in the
shadow, merely serves to throw out, in merciless oppo-
sition, the two sides of a destiny of which the best is
not for her : what that peasant girl might have become,
if she could have driven away in that carriage, and
what she must become if she remains in the village,
soon to be the wife of some drunken and quarrelsome
peasant, his slave and beast of burden, till a handful of
earth is thrown '^ on a bosom which no caress will ever have
warmed!''
Nekrassov has frequently been compared to Dostoi'-
evski. Yet an essential difference does exist between
this poet and all contemporary Russian novelists. This
difference, while constituting an element of originality, is
at the same time one of relative inferiority. We shall
not find, in his case, that basis of submissive mysticism,
and mystic love for those who suffer, which forms the
basis of the work of his fellows. Nekrassov was as
much of a publicist as of a poet, a man of positive
and atheistic mind, and he is a revolutionary in the
Western, and not in the Russian, sense. On this account
it is that he frequently falls into declamation. This fault
is very evident in the poem. Who Finds it Good to Live in
22
328 RUSSIAN LITERATURE
Russia? — one in which, having regard to its date (1864),
one would hardly expect to find it. Some peasants
sitting talking, when their work is over, complain of
their sufferings. To whom in Russia does life bring
joy and peace and liberty ? To solve the problem, these
ragged philosophers look hither and thither, search their
native country up hill and down dale, question every
one they meet — officials, landed proprietors, priests,
merchants, their ow^n fellow-toilers. From every one
comes the same response, mournful arid negative. Re-
garded as an accumulation of expressive pictures the
work is a fine one, but in conception it is exaggerated,
strained, and false. It reminds one of a newspaper con-
troversy, and recalls Chastisements ^ rather than The House
of the Dead.
When Nekrassov persuaded himself that his hatred
was nothing but love for the people driven inward, he
deceived himself. He did little practically to prove his
love ; and even poetically speaking, he has only given
it reasonable expression in the eight couplets, written
in 1 861, to greet the new era inaugurated by the Eman-
cipation. After that, he continued, as if nothing had
happened, to rage and mourn and curse over an
evil which, had no further existence. One judge — the
wisest and the least open to suspicion of his class —
has not been deceived. Violent as they were, the verses
written by this " Russian Vall^s," as M. de Vogiie has
called him — a Valles who grew rich by dubious specula-
tion — were always spared by the Censor.
As a thinker, Nekrassov lived on one idea, and one
only — the liberation of the serfs. He was so convinced
the idea was his own, and so incapable of replacing
it by another, that after 1861 he was very much
NEKRASSOV 329
inclined to cry, ^^ Stop, thief ! " And then he fell to
making fresh speeches on a topic which had lost
all interest. As an artist, his great gift was his mar-
vell-ous descriptive power. In the Unfortunates^ into
which he has put a great deal of his own personality,
you will find a picture of St. Petersburg worthy to be
compared with the best of the same kind in Eugene
Onieguine. And I should not be surprised if Nekrassov
had the best of the comparison. But both pictures are
incomplete. Pouchkine saw nothing but the brilliant
and splendid aspects of the capital; Nekrassov, on his
side, only looked at the humbler folk, bowed down from
early dawn under the burden of their daily task. In
strength of drawing and powder of representation the
second picture may perhaps be thought superior. The
*' sick day," the slow foggy dawn which hangs over the
crowd of labourers and humble employes, and guides
them to their work, and the whole description of the
early morning hours in the streets of the great city, is
exceedingly striking and truthful.
The poet himself declared himself lacking in the
creative genius needed for the substance of his work,
and recognised his artistic inadequacies in the matter
of form. ^^ / do not flatter myself that any of my verses
will endui'e in the popular memory. . . . There is no
bold poetry in you, O my fierce and clumsy lilies ! no
touch of creative genius." Nekrassov has left a great
name, but he has left no school behind him. Among
his imitators, lahontov, Borovikovski, and Fiodorov, this
last, who wrote under the pseudonym of Omoulevski,
and died in 1883 of starvation and drink, was the most
original.
CHAPTER X
THE PREACHERS— DOSTOiEVSKI AND TOLSTOI
Of the Pleiad which, after the year 1840, won so high
a position for the Russian novel in European literature,
three writers stand out and form a group apart. Ser-
gius Akssakov, Dostoievski, and Tolstoi'. They form the
strongest contrast with the group I have just endea-
voured to describe. Instead of rising up in revolt
against contemporary realities, they are full of sympathy
with them. Far from dreaming of some ideal future,
they perceive the accomplishment of their dream in a
humble agreement with the present. Instead of search-
ing hither and thither for men ^^such as we need," —
heroes in thought or action, who should rule the herd,
and guide it to its proper destiny, they preach the insig-
nificance of the individual in regard to the majority, —
the impossibility of individual leadership, — the necessity
that every unit should bow before the truths which
the majority has accepted. This is the teaching of Aks-
sakov's Family Chronicky Dostoievski's Brothers Kara-
7nazoVy and Tolstoi's Stories of Sevastopol.
This fundamental idea has found a specially eloquent
expression in the work of Tolstoi, but it is a common
bond between all three writers, though Akssakov, both
by his form and his expression, approaches nearer to
Tourgueniev, and this in spite of his Slavophilism,
though Tolstoi is apparently quite uninfluenced by the
AKSSAKOV 331
Slavophil theory, and though Dostoievski possesses none
of that objective plasticity which gives Tolstoi so high a
position among the great creators. All three have been
moved by one common thought, expressed, in Akssakov's
case, by his conception of a harmony of high qualities
and virtues realised in the bosom of an aristocratic
family ; in Dostoievski's, by a moral and religious teach-
ing saturated with mysticism ; and in Tolstoi's by his in-
stinctive and half-conscious notion of a " truth of life "
superior to all theoretical conceptions.
The author of the Family Chronicle, Sergius TlMO-
Fi£i£viTCH AKSSAKOV (1791-1859), was the father of the
two famous Slavophils. His Memories of a Hunter^
which preceded those of Tourgueniev, give, with much
simplicity and humorous good-nature, a delightful and
highly idealised picture of the wild and romantic deni-
zens of the forest and the steppe, where the author had
spent his youth. He was close on old age when these
stories were published, in 1847. Up till that time he had
played a somewhat obscure part in the literary life of
his day, — partly as the friend of Chichkov, partly as the
resolute supporter of the classical traditions and forms,
and partly as a Censor. Fresh acquaintanceships, and the
enthusiasm of his son Constantine for the work of Gogol^
impelled him in a different direction. The success which
he attained seems to have acquainted him with the
nature of his own talent, and, between 1856 and 1858, a
fresh series of tales. The Family Chronicle, The Childish
Years of the Grandchildren of Bagrov, and Memories, —
which together make up a picture of patriarchal, and in a
sense, of elementary life, such as may have existed at the
beginning of this century in the government of Oufa, —
earned him the title of the Walter Scott, and even of the
3 32 RUSSIAN LITERATURE
Homer, of Russia. A peaceful life, without conflict or
struggle of any sort, was that over which old grand-
father Bagrov wielded an absolute authority, founded
not on any superiority either of mind or character, but
simply and solely on tradition. It is, in fact, an ideali-
sation of the old order of things, and the very quint-
essence of Slavophilism — which fact has not prevented
Dobrolioubov from drawing, from these very pages, a
picture of the ''good old times" which does them extra-
ordinarily little credit. Akssakov piqued himself on put-
ting a certain amount of historical truth into this work,
which holds an intermediate place between the novel
and the memoir, and has introduced, with comments of
his own, various facts from which the revolutionary
critic was to draw quite different conclusions. But
Dostoievski and Tolstoi were already in existence, ready
to endow art and religion with a new and broader formula.
The father of FiODOR MiKHAiLOViTCH Dostoievski
(1822-1881) was a military surgeon, and thus it came about
that the future author first saw the light within the walls of
a hospital. He had an elder brother named Michael, who
earned some reputation for his translations of Schiller and
Goethe, and his editorship of two reviews. The Times and
The Epoch y both of which made their mark in the history
of the Russian press. Though his childhood was sickly,
subject to hallucinations, and, before long, to periodi-
cal attacks of epilepsy, he passed with brilliant success
through the St. Petersburg School of Engineering, and
took the third place in the final examination. A lucrative
career lay before him. But the literary fever of the
times had even reached the pupils of the military schools,
and the young engineer could not resist the call of his
vocation.
DOSTOIEVSKI 333
The strange and romantic opening of the literary
life of one who was shortly to become a master of
the realist school has been frequently related. Another
beginner, Grigorovitch, introduced him to Nekrassov,
who was then preparing to publish a review, and was
looking about for contributors. Dostoievski, put out of
countenance by the poet's cold reception, thrust the
manuscript of his first novel into his hand, and fled like
a thief, without opening his lips. In his confusion and
despair, he sought distraction at one of the gatherings
very common at that period, at which a number of young
men of his own age were accustomed to spend the night
in reading the works of Gogol aloud. Coming home at
dawn — it was in mid-May — and feeling wakeful, he sat
musing by his open window till he was startled by the
ringing of a bell. He opened his door, and found him-
self in the arms of Nekrassov and of Grigorovitch, who,
on their side, had spent the night in reading his novel.
Those were heroic days ! The following morning, Nek-
rassov carried the manuscript to Bielinski.
" Let me announce the appearance of a new Gogol ! "
**They sprout like mushrooms nowadays," was the
critic's unencouraging reply. Yet he, too, read the manu-
script, and asked to see the author.
'^ Do you understand what you have written your-
self ? "
The book was called Poor Folk^, and was published,
during 1846, in Nekrassov's Review. Its success was
so great that the author at once became a celebrity.
Dostoievski's work was at bottom nothing but a replica
of The Mantle. His hero, Makar Dievouchkine, was own
brother to Akakii Akakievitch. But Gogol had only
shown the external features of his quaint and touching
334 RUSSIAN LITERATURE
figure, which never ceased to be comic, in spite of the
pity it inspired. In Makar Dievouchkine we are shown
the depths of a sensitive and suffering soul, and in this
case the gentleness and patience of the poor creature,
almost laughable in Akakii Akakicvitch, become well-nigh
heroic, and this although the author has not specially
idealised the character. Dievouchkine is a drunkard,
coarse in habits and dull in mind. When his official
chief shakes hands with him, after having enriched him
with a hundred-rouble note, he is in the seventh heaven.
Yet even such a creature is capable, as the author con-
ceives him, of inspiring us not with pity only, but with
admiration ; and from this time forward the conception is
to be the ruling one in all the novelist's work.
From the purely artistic point of view. Poor Folksy
with its clumsy application of the epistolary form of
novel, the letters passing between a humble employe,
elderly and decidedly small-minded, and a Heloise who
burns her hand with her smoothing-iron, frequently fails
both in probability and naturalness. But the details
are charming. And what powers of psychology we see
revealed by this writer, scarcely twenty years old ! What
precocious observation in the unconscious selfishness of
the young girl whose character he paints ! We behold
her loading the unhappy wretch who lives only for
her, and has stripped himself of everything for her sake,
with reproaches, and even with threats. How quickly,
when she hears of his spending a few coins at the tavern,
does she forget everything she owes him, even in the
matter of pecuniary sacrifices ! She sends him thirty
kopeks, but she warns him never to do it again ! And
the commissions, the purchases of trumpery and trinkets
which she sends him to make, in view of a detestable
DOSTOIEVSKI 335
marriage to which she has agreed, and which is to de-
prive him of the last remnants of happiness left him by
his miserable fate ! " Don't forget ! it must be good
tambour work, and I'll have no flat stitches ! " Then note
her occasional revulsions of pity and affectionate indul-
gence, while he is all constancy, inexhaustible resignation,
humble and unchanging adoration ! There are miracles
of intuition here, and marvels of delicate feeling !
Bielinski understood the young author thoroughly.
*^ He owes a great deal to Gogol, just as Lermontov owes
a great deal to Pouchkine ; but he is original.- He begins
as no author before him has ever begun." Dostoievski,
thus encouraged, set to work once more, with all that
vehemence which was ultimately to endanger his health,
and that haste which was always the characteristic of,
and the drawback to, his creative power. He was only
moderately pleased with his second attempt. The Alter
EgOy which did not take its place in the complete
collection of his works until a much later period. But
he forthwith, and at one and the same time, undertook
ten other novels. Already he was beginning to compare
himself to a post-horse. But his course was suddenly
checked. On the 21st of April 1849, the iron-bound
doors of the dungeons of the Alexis ravelin in the citadel
of St. Petersburg closed on him, and on thirty-four
other members of the Petrachevski circle.
This society, formed of young men who held the
views of Fourier, and, like him, ascribed but very little
importance to political questions properly so called, was
not of a definitely revolutionary character. Dostoievski's
special function in connection with it was to preach the
Slavophil doctrine, according to which Russia, sociologi-
cally speaking, needed no Western models, because in
336 RUSSIAN LITERATURE
her artels (workman's guilds) and her system of mutual
responsibiUty for the payment of taxes {Krougovaia por-
ouka) she was already possessed of the means of realis-
ing a superior form of social arrangement. One evening,
he had gone so far as to declaim Pouchkine's Ode on the
Abolition of Serfdom^ and when, amid the enthusiasm
stirred by the poet's lines, some one present expressed
a doubt of the possibility of obtaining the desired
reform, except by insurrectionary means, he is said to
have replied ^'Then insurrection let it be ! " No further
accusation could be brought against him, but this suf-
ficed. On the 22nd of December, after eight months'
imprisonment, he was conducted, with twenty-one other
prisoners, to the Siemionovski Square, where a scaffold
had been erected. The prisoners were all stripped to
their shirts (there were twenty-one degrees of frost),
and their sentence was read out — they were condemned
to death. Dostoievski thought it must be a horrible
dream. He had only just calmly communicated a plan
for some fresh literary composition to one of his fellow-
prisoners. ^* Is it possible that we are going to be exe-
cuted ? " he asked. The friend to whom he had addressed
the inquiry pointed to a cart laden with objects which,
even under the tarpaulin which covered them, looked
like coffins. The registrar descended from the scaffold,
and a priest ascended it, cross in hand, and exhorted
the condemned men to make their last confession. One
only, a man of the shopkeeping class, obeyed the sum-
mons, the others were content with kissing the cross.
In a letter addressed to his brother Michael, Dostoievski
has thus related the close of the tragic scene. ''They
snapped swords over our heads, and they made us put
on the white shirts worn by persons condemned to
^ DOSTOIEVSKI 337
death. Thereupon we were bound in threes to stakes,
to suffer execution. Being the third in the row, I con-
cluded I had only a few minutes of life before me. I
thought of you and your dear ones, and I contrived to
kiss Pletcheiev and Dourov, who were next to me, and
to bid them farewell. Suddenly the troops beat a tattoo,
we were unbound, brought back upon the scaffold, and
informed that his Majesty had spared us our lives."
The Tsar had reversed the judgment of the military
tribunal, and commuted the penalty of death to that of
hard labour. The cart contained convict uniforms, which
the prisoners had at once to put on. One of them,
Grigoriev, had lost his reason.
Dostoievski was more fortunate. He was always
convinced that but for this experience he would have
gone mad. By a singular process of reaction, the con-
vict prison strengthened him, both physically and
morally. The Muscovite nature, full, as it is, of obscure
atavism — the inheritance of centuries of suffering — has
an incalculable power of resistance. At the end of four
years the horrible ^^ House of the Dead" opened its
gates, and the novelist returned to ordinary life, stronger
in body, calmer in nerve, better balanced in mind. He
had still three years to serve in a regiment as a private
soldier. When these were over, he was promoted to the
rank of officer, and was allowed to reside first at Tver,
and then at St. Petersburg. He contributed to The
Times — the review managed by his brother Michael,
published his collected works, and in i860 sent forth
another novel, The Humiliated and the Injured, which
was somewhat coldly received by his readers. This may
be easily understood. Vania and Natacha, the hero and
heroine of this book, are near relations of Dievouchkine,
338 RUSSIAN LITERATURE
«
but they possess a peculiarity which makes the resignation
and gentleness with which they endure their sufferings
far less interesting — they are voluntary victims. Vania,
who loves Natacha with all his heart, urges her, no one
quite knows why, to marry young Prince Valkovski,
whose mistress she has already become. The part he
plays — that of the confidant who assists a love affair which
is driving him to despair — is either dubious or ridicu-
lous. Meanwhile, Natacha, though desperately in love
with her Prince, agrees to marry Vania. Her behaviour
is most confusing, and her lover's folly and blundering
render him a most improbable figure. Old Valkovski,
the father of the prince, fulfils the functions of the melo-
dramatic villain. Little Nellie, his natural daughter, and
his victim, is both graceful and charming, but, with her
English name, she is an evident importation from over
seas — redolent of Dickens. To sum the matter up,
Dostoievski, influenced by fresh and hasty perusals of
various authors, has simply written a sentimental novel
in the style of the eighteenth century, and introduced
certain reminiscences of Eugene Sue, who was always
one of his favourite authors. The book bears symptoms
of a certain amount of personal reminiscence as well.
These did the author no good service. But he was
soon to recover from this check.
Before long (1862) his Memories of the House of the
Dead WQVQ to appear, simultaneously with Victor Hugo's
Les Miserables. The general admiration excited, even in
the present day, by Dostoievski's description of that
gloomy place of suffering in which four years of his life
were spent, renders this portion of my task somewhat
difficult. I cannot, indeed, shake off the somewhat diffe-
rent impression which the perusal of his book left upon
DOSTOIEVSKI 339
me, now many years ago. I have read it again, and I
still find admirable passages, and pictures of excessive
power, though of a realism the coarseness of which is at
times excessive, as, for instance, in the scene of the
prisoner's bath, and in that of the arrival of those
prisoners who have been beaten with rods, in the
hospital. I, too, admire the author's deep probing of
the human soul, simple and true in expression, to a point
from which the author of Les Miserables has too often
fallen away. But the rest of the book strikes me as
being both false and unacceptable. This, in the first
place, on account of the confusion — forced, I am told,
but surely somewhat 'voluntary also — between the two
categories of prisoners in the establishment — the com-
mon-law criminals and the political culprits. We are
told that this confusion was imposed on the author by
the Censure. That may be. Yet in every country the
Censure leaves the author one resource, the use of which
is well understood in Russia, that ''home of silence." But
the truth, and, if we chose to take it so, Dostoievski's
excuse, lies in the fact that he never for a moment
dreamt of cloaking his martyrdom with a mask of in-
famy. He did not believe in his own martyrdom, just as
he had no belief in the infamy of the common thieves
and murderers who were his companions in durance.
This confusion arose in his mind naturally, as the result
of a general tendency which leads his fellow-countrymen
to place the moral law and the political law on one and
the same conventional level, and to ascribe the same re-
lative value to each. In their eyes, infractions of either
of these laws possess the same character, are of equal
importance, and may be paid for by a system of iorfeits,
just as in a round game. Once the forfeit is paid, the
340 RUSSIAN LITERATURE
individual is clear, and neither crime nor dishonour re-
mains. This feature reappears in Crime and Punishment,
Note the behaviour of the examining magistrate once
he is convinced that Raskolnikov is really guilty of the
crime — a murder followed by robbery — which has just
been committed. Afterwards, as before, he gives the
assassin his hand, and treats him as his friend. Even
Tourgueniev, Occidental as he is, thinks, and, on this
point, feels as a Russian. No writer in any other country
would dream of assimilating the social position of a
natural child with that of the legitimate child of a father
sentenced to banishment for theft. This is the case of
Niejdanov and Marianne in Virgifn Soil. The idea that
crime is not a fault, but a misfortune, and the idea of
the sovereign power of expiation, are the basis of
this method of thought and feeling. They pervade the
whole of Dostoievski's work, and his residence in the
convict prison only defined them more clearly in his
mind, and drove him to adopt their extreme though
logical consequences. The common-law prisoners whom
he met never dreamt, on their side, of giving him the
benefit of a superior position from the moral point of
view. He had broken one law, and they had broken
another. In their eyes it was all the same thing. This
fact made a deep impression upon Dostoievski. His
imagination was romantic, his power of feeling was very
keen, and he possessed no ground-work of philosophic
education. He was very easily afifected by the moral
atmosphere of the place. It was full of floating ideas,
religious and mystic, drawn from the common basis of
Russian life in the popular classes. These influenced the
author,, and through them he entered into communion
with the simple souls of a certain number of criminals
DOSTO'IEVSKI 341
resi^ined to their fate. The man who had refused to
make his confession on the scaffold, reads a Bible with
his fellow-prisoners— a Bible given them by the wife of a
Decembrist whom they had met on their road into exile,
the only book permitted within the prison walls. He
ends by not only submitting to his fate, but acknow-
ledging his guilt. This is the second false note in the
book.
By an error of interpretation which indicates the
danger of the cryptographic artifices forced on the lite-
rature of the country, the passages which express this
sentiment have been taken by certain critics to partake
of the nature of 2, protest. The mistake is evident. Dos-
toievski sympathises, that is clear, with his fellow-prisoners
of every kind. He has a sincere admiration for the
strength and brute energy of some of these wretches,
and endeavours to justify it by dwelling on the qualities
of goodness and generosity which he has discovered
under their rough exterior. But this is a mere echo of
the Romantic school and the humanitarian leanings of
the West. Apart from it, the book is all submission. It
presents the feelings of a man who not only uncomplain-
ingly accepts a punishment which is at all events out
of proportion to his offence, but who acknowledges its
justice and equity. And the whole of Dostoievski's sub-
sequent attitude proves the fact. Not only did he never
pose as a martyr, but he avoided all allusion to his painful
past, like a man who regarded it as nothing but a stain,
which had been wiped out and redeemed.
The subject of The House of the Dead has been re-
cently taken up again by Melchine, in some sketches
which have earned considerable success.
Between 1862 and 1866, Dostoievski lived through a
342 RUSSIAN LITERATURE
somewhat difficult time. He made a prolonged stay-
abroad, and did not turn his first acquaintance with
the Western world to the best advantage. Whither do
my readers suppose that the curiosity of this man, dedi-
cated twice over to the service of the ideal life by his
talent and his suffering, led him ? The barbarian that
lay at the bottom of his nature, and the grown-up child
he was always to remain, proved their existence on this
occasion. He went to Baden-Baden ! and left everything
there, even to his wife's clothes ! Dostoievski was an in-
corrigible gambler, and until the period of his second mar-
riage, he was destined to remain in constant and terrible
money straits, which even his considerable earnings were
not sufficient to remove. At Florence the first few
moments in the Uffizi Gallery wearied him, and he left it.
He spent his whole time at the cafe, talking to a fellow-
traveller, and reading Les Miserables^ which was then just
appearing. He devoured the book, and memories of it
are evident in Crime and Punishment.
In 1863 he lost his first wife, Marie Dmitrievna Isaiev,
who has been identified with the character of Natacha
in Poor Folksj and a year afterwards, the death of his
brother Michael, which left him alone in the manage-
ment of the Review they had edited together, brought
about his ruin. He had no business talents whatever.
He had come to the very end of his resources, when
the success of Crime and Punishment ^ in 1866, lifted him
for a time out of a position which had grown desperate.
Raskolnikov, the student who claims the right to
murder and steal by virtue of his ill-applied scientific
theories, is not a figure the invention of which can be
claimed by the Russian novelist. It is probable that
before or after reading the works of Victor Hugo, Dos-
DOSTOIEVSKI 343
toi'evski had perused those of Bulwer Lytton. Eugene
Aram, the EngUsh noveUst's hero, is a criminal of a very-
different order, and of a superior species. When he
commits his crime, he not only thinks, like Raskolnikov,
of a rapid means of attaining fortune, but also, and more
nobly, of a great and solemn sacrifice to science, of
which he feels himself to be the high-priest. Like
Raskolnikov, he draws no benefit from his booty.
Like him, too, he hides it, and like him, he is pur-
sued, not by remorse, but by regret ; — haunted by the
painful thought that men now have the advantage over
him, and that he no longer stands above their curi-
osity and their spite, — tortured by his consciousness of
the total change in his relations with the world. In
both cases, the subject and the story, save for the vol-
untary expiation at the close, appear identical in their
essential lines. This feature stands apart. Yet, properly
speaking, it does not belong to Dostoievski. In Tour-
gueniev's The Tavern {Postomlyi Dvor), the peasant
Akime, whom his wife has driven into crime, punishes
himself by going out to beg, in all gentleness and humble
submission. Some students, indeed, have chosen to
transform both subject and character, and have looked
on Raskolnikov as a political criminal, disguised after
the same fashion as Dostoievski himself may have been,
in his Memories of the House of the Dead. But this ver-
sion appears to me to arise out of another error. A few
days before the book appeared, a crime almost identical
with that related in it, and committed under the appa-
rent influence of Nihilist teaching, though without any
mixture of the political element, took place at St. Peters-
burg. These doctrines, as personified by Tourgueniev
in Bazarov, are, in fact, general in their scope. They
23
344 RUSSIAN LITERATURE
contain the germs of every order of criminal attempt,
whether pubHc or private ; and Dostoievski's great merit
Hes in the fact that he has demonstrated the Hkelihood
that the development of this germ in one solitary intelli-
gence may foster a social malady. In the domain of
social psychology and pathology, the great novelist owes
nothing to anybody ; and his powers in this direction
suffice to compensate for such imperfections as I shall
have to indicate in his work.
The '' first cause " in this book, psychologically
speaking, is that individualism which the Slavophil
School has chosen to erect into a principle of the na-
tional life ; — an unbounded selfishness, in other words,
which, when crossed by circumstances, takes refuge in
violent and monstrous reaction. And indeed, Raskol-
nikov, like Bazarov, is so full of contradictions, some of
them grossly improbable, that one is almost driven to
inquire whether the author has not intended to depict a
condition of madness. We see this selfish being spend-
ing his last coins to bury Marmeladov, a drunkard picked
up in the street, whom he had seen for the first time in
his life only a few hours previously. From this pomt
of view Eugene Aram has more psychological consis-
tency, and a great deal more moral dignity. Raskol-
nikov is nothing but a poor half-crazed creature, soft in
temperament, confused in intellect, who carries about a
big idea, in a head that is too small to hold it. He be-
comes aware of this after he has committed his crime,
when he is haunted by hallucinations and wild terrors,
which convince him that his pretension to rank as a man
of power was nothing but a dream. Then the ruling
idea which has lured him to murder and to theft gives
place to another, — that of confessing his crime. And
DOSTOIEVSKI 345
even here his courage and frankness fail him ; he can-
not run a straight course, and, after wandering round
and round the police station, he carries his confession
to Sonia.
This figure of Sonia is a very ordinary Russian type^
and strangely chosen for the purpose of teaching Ras-
kolnikov the virtue of expiation. She is a woman of the
town, chaste in mind though not in deed, and is redeemed
by one really original feature, her absolute humility It
may be inquired whether this element of moral redemp-
tion, in so far as it differs from those which so constantly
occur to the imagination of the author of Manon Lescauty
and to that of all Dostoievski's literary forerunners, is
more truthful than the rest, and w^hether it must not
be admitted that certain moral, like certain physical
conditions, necessarily result in an organic and quite
incurable deformation of character. Sonia is like an
angel who rolls in the gutter every night, and whitens her
wings each morning by perusing the Holy Gospels. We
may just as well fancy that a coal-heaver could straighten
the back bowed by the weight of countless sacks of char-
coal by practising Swedish gymnastics !
The author's power of evocation, and his gift for
analysing feeling, and the impressions which produce it,
are very great, and the effects of terror and compassion
he obtains cannot be denied. Yet, whether from the
artistic or from the scientific point of view (since some
of his admirers insist on this last), his method is open
to numerous objections. It consists in reproducing, or
very nearly, the conditions of ordinary life whereby we
gain acquaintance with a particular character. There-
fore, without taking the trouble of telling us who Ras-
kolnikov is, and in what his qualities consist, the story
346 RUSSIAN LITERATURE
relates a thousand little incidents out of which the per-
sonal individuality of the hero is gradually evolved. And
as these incidents do not necessarily present themselves,
in real life, in any logical sequence, beginning with the
most instructive of the series, the novelist does not attempt
to follow any such course. As early as on the second
page of the book, we learn that Raskolnikov is making
up his mind to murder an old woman who lends out
money, and it is only at the close of the volume that we
become aware of the additional fact that he has published
a review article^ in which he has endeavoured to set forth
a theory justifying this hideous design.
Apart from the weariness and the mental effort in-
volved in this method, the picture it produces is naturally
somewhat confused. It has another fault, which is shared
by the majority of Russian novelists. Their art resembles
the architectural style affected by the builder of the church
of St. Basil, at Moscow. The visitor to this church is as-
tonished to see five or six edifices interlaced one with the
other. There are at least as many distinct stories in Crime
and Punishment, all connected by a barely perceptible
thread. But this peculiarity is not exclusively national, and
I should be inclined to ascribe responsibility for it to the
English school. Observe George ^Xioi's Daniel Deronda,
To conclude, all Dostoievski's literary work bears traces
of the method invariably employed by him, except in Poor
Folks and some chapters of The House of the Dead. This
is the method of the feuilletonist, who writes copy at his
utmost speed. Even in the present day, the line so clearly
drawn in France between the artistic novel and that other
— the sole object of whose existence is to attract and
keep up the number of general subscribers to widely cir-
culated newspapers — cannot be said to exist in Slav coun-
DOSTOlEVSKI 347
tries. Dostoievski, who was always short of money, and
always behind with his copy, looked about at last for a
shorthand writer, to help him to expedite matters. A
young girl, Anna Grigorevna Svitkine, was recommended
to him, and before long he made her his second wife.
His urgent desire to keep up constant communication
with the public, and his ambition to preserve his influence
over it, drove him into a feverish productiveness which
wore down his talent and his life. These drawbacks are
evident in Crime and Punishment. Compare the two
descriptions of Sonia in the beginning of the book ; on
the first occasion we think her pretty — on the second, she
has grown plain.
And things grow worse in Dostoievski's subsequent
works, The Idiot (1868), The Possessed {i%']'^)y and more
especially in The Brothers Karamazov. The first book bears
traces of the influence of Tolstoi", and contains a somewhat
singular application of the gospel preached by the prophet
of lasnaia Poliana, and of the words of the Master, ^'Be ye
even as little children ! " The theory put forward in The
Idiot is, that a brain in which some of those springs which
we consider essential, and which only serve us for doing
evil, are weakened, may yet remain superior, both intel-
lectually and morally, to others less affected. To prove
his case, Dostoievski depicts, in the person of Prince
Muichkine, a type closely resembling that of the beings
known in' country places as ''Naturals," placed con-
siderably higher in the social scale, and scientifically
reconstructed on a physiological basis. The Idiot — and
there is a curious autobiographical touch about this — is
an epileptic. Here we have some elements of a serious
problem, the normality of the phenomena of madness,
and their classification in the order of the phenomena of
348 RUSSIAN LITERATURE
passion ; but we have also, and more especially, a great
deal of childish trifling, and of those ^^ psychological
mole-runs" of which Tourgueniev has spoken, and in
which Dostoievski's fancy revelled.
The Possessed is an answer to Tourguen lev's Fathers
and Children^ and that writer, together with Granovski
and some other representatives of Occidentalism, is de-
picted, and turned into ridicule, in its pages. Dostoievski
could not console himself for having been outstripped
in the general interpretation of a social phenomenon
such as Nihilism, of which his Raskolnikov had only been
a partial, and a partially comprehended picture. He
cannot be said to have entirely succeeded in the retalia-
tion at which he aimed. Stavroguine, the principal hero
of his novel, who turns revolutionist out of sheer idle-
ness, is an archaic, and by no means a specifically Russian
type. He is enigmatic and confusing, strongly tinged
with Romantic features, which the author seems to have
borrowed from every quarter — from Byron's Corsair^
from Victor Hugo's Hernaniy and from the aristocratic
demagogues of George Sand, Eugene Sue, Charles Gutz-
kow, and Spielhagen.
The story is excessively complicated, and its close is
extravagantly melodramatic. But Dostoievski has con-
trived to see, and bring out, the essential feature which
escaped Tourgueniev, I mean the element which has con-
stituted the strength of active Nihilism. By showing
that this lies, not in the vague, confused, and ineffective
ideas of a handful of ill-balanced brains, nor in the ficti-
tious or incoherent organisation of an unstable political
party, but in the paroxysmal tension of a band of exas-
perated wills, he has done real service to the cause of
history.
DOSTOIEVSKI 349
The Brothers Karamazov is a work that strongly
resembles an edifice of which nothing but the facade has
ever been built. The plan of this book had occurred to
the author as early as 1870, during a residence of some
months at Dresden. It was to have consisted of five
parts, and, under quite a different title — The Life of a
Great Sinner — it was to have represented the existence
of several generations following on that of Tchadaiev.
War and Peace had just appeared, and this time, Dostoi-
evski had to compete with Tolstoi". He finally reduced
the five parts to two, and never finished but the first,
which in itself consists of four thick volumes. In these
he has endeavoured to depict the intellectual progress of
'^the Sixties," with all its excitement and its revolutionary
idealism. The two elder brothers are intended as a sym-
bolical personification of the two morbid phenomena
which marked this crisis — a sick will, as exemplified in
Dmitri, a man without morality ; and a sick mind, in the
case of Ivan, whose brain is deranged. The third brother,
Aliocha — believed to be a portrait of the philosopher
Soloviov, to whom I shall later refer — is the symbol of
the healthy Russian, who through love, and through his
national faith, escapes mental bankruptcy and moral
perversion ; he is a creature of unfailing gentleness and
indulgent goodness. Some readers (Dostoievski has with-
held all personal information) have thought they recog-
nised, in the two elder brothers, a twofold representation
of Russia Europeanised and Russia uncultured, and in
the third, the picture of the Russia of the future, when
she shall have harmonised the elements of her national
culture with the humanitarian ideas borrowed from the
West. But this idea was not to take clear shape until
the second part of the work was reached. In the first
3 50 RUSSIAN LITERATURE
part, the figure of Aliocha still remains in the background,
and the interpreter of the philosophical, religious, and
social ideas preached by the author is Zosima, a monk
belonging to the monastery in which Aliocha spends his
novitiate. Now Zosima's desire is that the novice should
begin by a preliminary experience of the world, and to
this end, he advises him to marry. Here we perceive in
the author's mind the fundamental principle of his teach-
ing — the freedom of the moral and religious man, in his
effort to reach personal perfection.
I do not claim any great clearness for this exegetical
attempt of my own. My readers must excuse me. I
know but little of mysticism, and it would surprise me
very much if any one could prove that Dostoievski's
own views on the matter were very clear. Perhaps, if
he had reached the second part of his book, and could
have entered the seventh heaven with Aliocha, he might
have found means to enlighten us further. But in this
first part we are left in hell — a Dantesque hell, where
concentric circles mark the various maladies of soul
and mind, which struggle before the gates of the Paradise
whereof Aliocha holds the key. Instances of moral per-
version admit of a remedy, and a hopeful one — the
humble acceptance of a chastisement which may be
unjustly applied, but which has been earned by the
crime of a whole life spent in debauchery. This is the
fate of Dmitri, who is falsely accused of parricide and
sentenced. In the case of mental maladies, on the con-
trary, the words lasciate ogni speranza are written in
letters of fire. These infect the very conscience, and so
block the way to salvation. Thus Ivan, who is, intellectu-
ally speaking, the accomplice of the crime of which Dmitri
is to pay the penalty, appears far more guilty than he.
DOSTOIEVSKI 351
The book contains an immense wealth of psychical
ideas. It is a complete symphony, which touches every
chord of the human soul, and a most invaluable treasury
of information concerning the contemporary life of Russia,
moral, intellectual, and social. But I doubt whether
this treasure may be accessible to the average European
reader. Dostoievski himself was conscious of the lack
of measure and proportion which, from the very outset,
endangered the balance of his work. Nevertheless, in
the legendary episode of the Inquisitor, it contains what
are probably the most powerful pages hitherto penned
by any Russian author. Amidst philosophical and reli-
gious discussions saturated with the true Byzantine
spirit, endless, complicated, full of quibbles and splitting
of hairs, we come upon a Spanish Inquisitor, who has
just given orders for an auto-da-fe^ when Christ comes
back to earth for the second time. The crowd on the
public square, where the stake has been erected, recog-
nises the gentle Prophet. He is surrounded and acclaimed.
The Inquisitor causes Him to be arrested, and goes to
see Him in His prison. In imperious language he re-
proaches Him with having left His disciples a precept
which it is impossible to practise. ^^Thou camest here
with empty hands ! Thou wouldst have none of Satan's
offers to turn the stones into bread ! Thou hast claimed
to govern men by love alone ! Behold whither this has
led them, and led us too ! They scoff at love and cry for
bread ; we give them bread, and they accept our chains.
To-morrow I will have Thee burnt ! Dixi." Only one
answer does the Christ vouchsafe the merciless priest.
He offers him His own pale lips, and the Inquisitor,
opening the dungeon door, cries out, *' Go Thy way, and
never come back here — never ! "
352 RUSSIAN LITERATURE
Thanks to his second wife, who, though devoid
of any superior education, admirably understood her
duties in Hfe, and played the part of a real providence to
the careless writer, Dostoievski's closing years were rela-
tively happy. He paid his debts, and enjoyed a com-
fortable home. At the same time, through his periodical
publications oi An Author s Note-Book (1873), and also
by his contributions to Prince Mechtcherski's Grajdanine
{The Citizen), he wielded considerable influence. The
success of a speech he delivered in 1880, on the occa-
sion of the raising of a monument to Pouchkine,
reached the proportions of an apotheosis. Since his
return from Siberia, the author of The House of the Dead
had been alternately classed as a Conservative and as a
Slavophil. As a matter of fact, his democratic leanings
parted him from the first, and the complete absence, in
connection with his literary creations, of any historio-
sophical element and any regard for idealism, from the
second. He made no attempt to endue the Russian
with any beauty ; he loved him, without claiming lovable
qualities for him, not for his way of life, which he held
reprehensible in many respects, but for a nature which
he believed susceptible of something like perfection,
capable, above all things, of forgiveness as of repentance,
and thus rising to a moral dignity which the sordidness
of his material existence could not affect.
In the speech to which I have referred, this idea was
eloquently expressed, and Dostoievski added some novel
ideas which seem to have been inspired by his enjoyment
of a budding popularity ; for they bear a close resem-
blance to bets on probabilities, and are in contradiction
with some of his own most frequently expressed opinions.
One of these paradoxes consists in the claim to moral
DOSTOlEVSKI 353
superiority, based on the humility and gentleness of the
Russian race. I have already set forth, in the earlier
pages of this book, my views as to the effect of the
historical, social, and climatic conditions of the national
development on the contradictory elements of a tempera-
ment still in course of formation. The new '^ elect
nation," called to realise the kingdom of God on earth, —
because she does not isolate herself proudly within her-
self, because she is disposed to see a brother in every
foreigner, and an unfortunate, rather than a malefactor,
in the greatest criminal, because she alone incarnates
the Christian idea of love and forgiveness, — the heiress
presumptive of the tribe of Judah, as described in Dos-
toievski's speech, simply belongs to that cycle of Messi-
anic ideas in which the theory of Panslavism has become
finally merged. Yet on one point the orator accentuated
his disagreement with the Slavophils, by extolling that
national gift for assimilating foreign culture whereby the
Russian had succeeded, or was to succeed, in realising
that type of the Vsietcheloviek (universal man), \vho has
since become the object of a good deal of joke, but
who, at that moment, thanks to Dostoievski's burning
words, evoked a transport of enthusiasm. This was
shared even by the Slavophils themselves, who forgave
the orator's lapse from the common creed, for the sake
of the share attributed to the Orthodox Faith in his
conception of the mighty destiny the nation w^as yet to
attain.
Ivan Karamazov, the martyr of doubt, would, how-
ever, seem to have originally represented some conscious
internal experiences of the author's own. There is
something doubtful about the orthodoxy of the legend
of the Inquisitor, and there is something still more
3 54 RUSSIAN LITERATURE
expressive, in this connection, in the dialogue in The
Possessedj when Chatov asks Stavroguine whether he
beHeves in God.
" / believe in Russia ; I believe in the Orthodox Church.
. . . / believe in the Body of Christ. . . . / believe that
Christ's second coming will be to Russia. . . ,
^^ But in God — in God?
^' I . . . I will believe in God as well f^''
At bottom, the Pravoslavie (Orthodox Faith) seems
to have been chiefly valuable, in Dostoievski's eyes, as an
element of the national consistency. Chatov says this
clearly : ^' There is no great historical people which does
not possess a National GodJ' But it is quite certain that
either before or after his residence in The House of the
Deady the novelist had absolutely broken with the intel-
lectual Sturm und Drang of " the Sixties " and its accom-
panying materialism.
There was but one bond of union between him and
the revolutionaries of his period — a desire to find some
new truth, apart from the old tradition. This truth Dos-
toievski claimed to discover in external forms and social
habits, and thus it was that in his eyes, as in those of
Tolstoi, a public courtesan was capable of moral supe-
riority over a woman whose conduct, as regarded all
her external duties, was irreproachable. Raskolnikov,
Sonia, Dmitri, and the convicts of The House of the Dead,
exemplify almost every variety of vice or crime ; yet
they are all dear to the author. All his hatred is con-
centrated on individual pride, presumption, and false-
hood. And even these he is willing to pardon. He
forgives every one. He nearly forgives Smierdiakov,
the real parricide. And all this plenary indulgence con-
stitutes his real teaching, a new gospel, almost reduced
DEATH OF DOSTOIEVSKI 355
to the three parables of the Repentant Thief, the Prodi-
gal Son, and the Woman taken in adultery.
The speech which made so much sensation was
published in the penultimate number oi An Authors
Note- Book, The last appeared in January 1881, on the
very day of the great writer's public funeral. For a
considerable time previously, his existence had been that
of a bundle of nerves in a condition of ceaseless excite-
ment, supporting a body worn out by perpetual over-
work. The end came in the shape of a sudden and fatal
stroke. The students of St. Petersburg desired to carry
his convict chains behind his coffin. Nihilist attempts
were at" that period very numerous. Only a month later,
one of them was to cost the sovereign his life, and Loris
Melikov's experiment in liberal government was just at
its height. He had sufficient good sense to forbid the
republication of a page of the author's life which his own
hand had torn out. Nevertheless, by a kind of ironical
contradiction, his burial was the occasion for a sort of
review of the revolutionary army, which there displayed
its strength, in preparation for the attempt which was
soon to manifest its power, and prepare its ruin.
Dostoievski's career may be divided, as regards his
intellectual development, into two very distinct stages.
Up till 1865, w^e have a period of progress and analysis,
generally in accord with the intellectual movement of
^^ the Forties." After 1865, we have a period of retro-
gression, and of controversial struggle with that very
movement. From this point of view, the Memories of the
House of the Dead occupy a special position. To begin
v/ith, they are much simpler in form than the rest of the
great author's work, and in substance, they are free from
any doctrinarianism whatsoever. The idea put forward
3 56 RUSSIAN LITERATURE
by the author in later days, that the convict prison may
become an instrument of moral amendment, finds no
place in them whatsoever. Quite on the contrary, Dos-
toievski notes the absence of a trace of repentance in any
of the prisoners. He even positively asserts that the
prison is not calculated to improve them. This fact is
susceptible of explanation. The book was written be-
fore the author came to St. Petersburg, and was there
influenced by a group of Slavophils, which attracted,
though, as I have already mentioned, it never entirely
absorbed him. He joined it in the endeavour to dis-
cover the renovation of the Russian by ^^ national means,"
but he parted from it when he sought the elements of
this renovation — not in the traditions of the past and the
external forms of existence, habits, customs, and dress,
but in the national soul, the purity and clearness of
which he recognised under the coating of filth and the
curtain of ignorance with which past centuries had veiled
it. Yet in Dostoievski and the Slavophils and Tolstoi one
common feature does exist. I refer to their repudiation
of Western civilisation as the one necessary principle which
must rule the development of the national culture, and
their appeal to the faith of the popular masses as the
indispensable complement of that development. On
these lines Tolstoi has reached an evangelical theory of
non-resistance to evil, and Dostoievski an evangelical
theory of atonement and rehabilitation through suffer-
ing. But at this point their roads were to part. By
virtue of one portion of this doctrine — and one which,
as we know, admits of a good deal of contradiction —
Tolstoi is an individualist, whose supreme object is to
bring his inner man to a state of perfection. If reasons
of State are an obstacle in the way of this attain-
DOSTOl'EVSKI 357
ment, he declares himself ready to abolish the State.
Dostoievski is a thorough Communist. He cares little
for individual liberty and individual perfection, and is
quite ready to sacrifice both on the altar of that humani-
tarian idea which, in his mind, Russia, ^Hhe elect nation,"
has been called to realise. This point of view is dia-
metrically opposed to that of Tolstoi' ; yet, unlike the
Slavophils, with whom, in this respect, he would otherwise
seem to agree, Dostoievski feels neither scorn nor hatred
for the West. His desire is to reconcile the two prin-
ciples, the Western and the Eastern, and he holds it
Russia's mission to carry out the compromise ; and,
unlike his latest friends, he believes in the early and
almost immediate accomplishment of his dream. The
idea appears both in the Notice which preceded the
publication of The Times in 1861, and in the speech
delivered in 1880.
This constant anxiety to discover a ^^ national soul"
in the moral distresses and dark places of ordinary
existence, has caused Dostoievski to become, above all
things, an analyser of the human conscience. His
novels contain but few descriptions of the external things
of this world, and such as do exist are generally some-
what unreal ; as in that scene in The Idiot, in which
Prince Muichkine sees his country house surrounded by
strangers, who insult him. Except in matters of psy-
chology, Dostoievski is nothing of a realist. On the
other hand, he belongs to the Romantic school by his
predilection for excessive and exceptional situations, and
yet more by his incessant subjectiveness, which leads
him to perpetually bring his own personality forward,
even as an object of medical observation. Vainly did
his doctors entreat him not to allow his mind to dwell
3 58 RUSSIAN LITERATURE
on his periodical attacks of epilepsy ! He regarded him-
self as an absolute and essentially objective realist, for
if he drew everything from his own case, that surely
was a reality 1 He considered that the phenomena of
moral degradation and depravation, which he delighted
to analyse, existed in his own person, and this in virtue
of the principle he was constantly proclaiming — that
every man has something of the murderer in him ; and
he was just as convinced that every man was at heart a
ruffian or a thief. ^^ These phenomena," he would say,
"are of exceedingly common occurrence, only we pay
no attention to them." This theory has recently been
reproduced by Octave Mirbeau in Le Jar din des Supplices,
In Dostoievski's case it was connected, as in that of
Nekrassov, with his own need of personal confession,
and his taste for playing on his readers' nerves. He
always declared that his sensation during the paroxysms
of his terrible complaint was that of a great criminal
enduring the chastisement due to some fault.
To sum him up, he was a man subject to semi-hallu-
cinations, with a marvellous power of lucid observa-
tion of mental complaints, and a wonderful inspiration,
which made him the true poet of " the fever of the
mind." Most of his chief characters are seers. Aliocha
Karamazov can read men's souls and discover hidden
objects. Zosima, the monk, foreseeing that Dimitri will be
accused of the most horrible of crimes, and moved by a
feeling of Christian mysticism, bends the knee before him,
as being the most guilty, and therefore destined to be-
come the instrument of moral cure in the case of his own
brothers. M. Tchij, the well-known psychological expert,
has indeed admitted that quite one-fourth of these char-
acters are simply madmen, and on this account he extols
DOSTOIEVSKI 359
the knowledge or intuition displayed by the author ;
while in a lecture delivered in 1881 before the Society
of Jurists of the St. Petersburg University, one of the
most distinguished of Russian criminalists, M. Koni,
claimed him as a comrade.
Dostoievski, the child of the city and of the prole-
tariat, is less of an artist than the majority of his rivals,
who were most of them connected with the provincial
nobility. His workmanship is slack. Nothing delicate
nor highly finished comes from his pen. His style is
as confused as his cast of face — " masque de faubourieriy*
as it would be called in France — roughly hewn, clever,
vigorous, full of projections and folds, of lumps and
hollows. One significant feature there is about his whole
work : you will not find a single attractive female figure
in it. His rivals all delight in depicting feminine beauty,
physical and moral. Tourgueniev's women are perhaps
the more energetic, Tolstoi's the more graceful ; but in
Dostoievski's case all the w^omen are coarse, if they
are of strong temperament, and inconsistent, if they are
gentle. He only excels in figures of young girls, such as
Nelly in The Humiliated and the Injuredy and Lisa in The
Brothers Karamazov. And further, his mania for analy-
sis leads him into dubious allusions to the precocious
awakening of the sexual instinct in these young creatures,
which betoken a touch of unhealthy thought, to which
Tourgueniev, who had no affection for the author of
Crime and Punishment y has alluded in his correspondence.
But for all his prolixity and incoherence, Dostoievski
was a very great WTiter ; he had a noble mind, in spite of
his hallucinations ; and a proud spirit, although he did
not succeed in realising or maintaining the idea of a cer-
tain kind of pride which is indispensable to every one,
24
36o RUSSIAN LITERATURE
and certain rebellions which are always legitimate. In
the whole field of contemporary literature there is only
one man, Tolstoi", who stands a step above him.
Tolstoi.
The master of lasnaia Poliana has been frequently
likened to a mighty oak, which stands alone in the midst
of the field of literature, and towers above all his fellows.
This picture does not strike me as being entirely correct,
and I shall endeavour to prove that the tree, majestic
though it be, has drawn its sap from the same soil as its
neighbours, and that its boughs touch the adjacent foliage.
I cannot, indeed, give any complete judgment of a life-
work which is not yet completed, which, even as I write,
is in course of increase, which commands universal ad-
miration by means of its last creation, and which, in
certain respects, it is not my province to appraise. I shall
divide it into three parts, and shall separate the artist
from the thinker and the man of learning. The artist is
one of the greatest who has ever appeared. To my mind,
nothing can be found in any literature, whether as regards
truth, charm, or intensity of restrained emotion, superior
to certain of his pages, even to some in that Resurrectiotty
the perusal of which we have not yet been able to con-
clude. As long as men live on this earth, admiration
must, I believe, be felt for the description of that Easter
Mass during which Katioucha appears beside Nekhliou-
dov, and the exquisite simplicity of the scenes of love and
disappointment which follow on it. The thinker pos-
sesses great ingenuity, and, above all, great ingenuous-
ness. He makes his entry into the world of thought
with the air of a conquistador who discovers the wonders
TOLSTOI 361
of Mexico^ and sometimes — too often — like a Vandal
rushing over the plains of Rome,
It is curious that this last impression should be more
particularly produced by his book on art. From its
first page to its last, the author appears to be a simple-
minded barbarian, engaged in sacking a gorgeous palace
and throwing his booty hither and thither. He has no
suspicion that his views on the social part to be played
by art are a mere reproduction of the theories already
put forward by Guyau, a French writer with whom he
believes himself to be acquainted, and w^hose ideas he
merely disfigures with his own paradoxical fancies.
He does not realise that his own definition, according
to which the object of the work of art is to awake*^
identical or similar sentiments amongst men in general,
is as old as art itself, — though it has never been applied
except to those arts which the Greeks denominated
^' musical," and in which they included poetry, — and never
could, on account of the partially utilitarian functions
which have devolved on them, be applied to the plastic
arts, such as architecture and poetry. He does not realise
that the mission he ascribes to art, that of realising the fra- -
ternal union of the human race, has been the watchword
of a whole century of French literature, from Jean-Jacques
Rousseau down to Victor Hugo. He does not realise
that his conception of art, as a means of communion
between men bound by the same feelings, may be just
as well applied to religion, to morality, to science, to
every form of action which has any social effect.
Face to face with a mighty problem which, so he
assures us, has claimed his attention and occupied his
wakeful hours for fifteen years, Tolstoi scarcely touches
the historical side of the question, yields to the tempta-
362 RUSSIAN LITERATURE
tion of telling us the story (and wonderfully he tells it)
of the impression made on him by a rehearsal of a play
in the Moscow theatre, and then wastes his time in dis-
cussing the fancies of Papus or of the Sar Peladan,
authors whom he confuses in an equal admiration (or
scorn) with Taine or Proudhon, just as he confuses, all
in one great anathema, Greek art, which he calls coarse ;
Michael Angelo's, which he regards as senseless ; Shake-
speare's, Beethoven's, and Wagner's, which he describes
as foolishness, with the whims and fancies of the decadents.
If sincerity is to be accepted as an excuse in such matters,
there can be no doubt concerning his. He does not
refuse to apply the artistic criterion he himself has in-
vented to his own master-pieces. This criterion is either
the power of the masses to comprehend works of art —
that is to say, the glorification of the Epinal painted
statuette — or, occasionally, some individual and accidental
impression. Returning one day in low spirits from a
country walk, his sadness is broken by a chorus of
peasant women singing (out of tune) before the balcony
of his house. This he at once pronounces to be art !
A m^oment afterwards, a first-rate executant performs a
sonata by Beethoven, and is so unlucky as to keep the
author waiting when he desires to go to rest. This, he
declares, is not art ! The moujiks of lasnaia Poliana
understood nothing of the beauties of Anna Karenina, and
forthwith he declares the book is rubbish, and begins to
write popular stories. In these he strives after a simplicity
and artlessness far beyond anything which has ever yet
been seen. He will not grant the existence of the artistic
quality in any writer who seeks for effect, and even goes
so far as to invert the natural order of the story, so that
the reader's attention may not be strained. But after
TOLSTOI 363
having formulated this fiat, and used it to support a
whole theory, he takes up his pen to write the first
chapter of his Resurrection^ shows us Katioucha haled
before the magistrates for murder followed by theft, and,
through a hundred pages, leaves us in ignorance of the
nature of the crime, the origin of the accusation, and the
painful incidents which have cast the innocent young
creature into this abyss of misery. We may be sure that
at some near future day he will discover that this, too, is
not art ! Perhaps he thinks so already. He is uncon-
scious, and ^* divinely artless," as one of his opponents
has declared, in the course of the inquiry initiated by
the Great Review into this work on art, which must be
reckoned amongst one of the most curious and most
deceptive manifestations of a mighty genius.
In presence of the learned translator and commenta-
tor of the Gospels, I must declare my own incompetency.
I should, indeed, incline to the adoption of Max Nordau's
opinion : ^' He speaks of science as a blind man might
speak of colours. He evidently has no suspicion of its
nature, of its duties, of its methods, and of the objects
with which it is concerned." Such a blind man, present
at a spectral analysis of the Milky Way, asks himself what
use it serves, finds no answer, and declares it to be a folly.
In 1894 Tolstoi opens hisbookon Christianity ^not as a Mystic
Religion^ but as a New Theory of Life, with the candid ac-
knowledgment that having ten years previously, in What
I Believe, made a profession of faith which he believed
to be original, numerous letters from Methodists and
Quakers had informed him that his teaching had long
been known and disseminated under the name of Spiri-
tual Christianity. And he does not even now suspect
the contradiction and the childishness which mark
364 RUSSIAN LITERATURE
this new attempt of his, in which he comments on the
sacred text, denounces all previous commentators as
sacrilegious, and founds a thoroughgoing attack on the
authority of the Church on documents which depend for
their validity on that authority alone.
But this is no affair of mine. The artist and the
thinker are all I have to do with, and I am painfully
certain that I am not worthy to do them justice. The
life-story of the most famous of all living writers is as
universally known as are his external appearance, and
his somewhat eccentric methods of life, of dress, and
of work. Thanks to the somewhat impertinent con-
fidences of Madame Seuron {Gi'af Leo Tolstoi^ Intimes
aus seinen Leben, 1895), who had the good fortune of
spending some years in the author's family circle, and
the more recent work published by M. Serguienko {How
Count Tolstoi Lives and Works y 1898, in Russian), we are
superabundantly supplied with details on the subject.
We have seen the great man walking along, carrying
his shoes on the end of a stick, ready to put on again
if he should' be surprised by some indiscreet visitor ;
we have seen him on horseback and on his bicycle ;
in a w^orkman's blouse, in a peasant's touloupe, and in
a lawn-tennis player's jacket ; we have seen him working
in his study, which looks like a dungeon ; wielding the
carpenter's awl, and reaping his own, or rather other
people's, corn.
The story runs, indeed, that Tolstoi' wrote The Power
of Darkness in bed, where he was kept by over-fatigue
brought on by helping one of his humble village neigh-
bours to save his harvest. We know that he is a
vegetarian, and we know that he is forbidden to
smoke, although Madame Seuron declares she has
TOLSTOI 365
caught him eating sHces of roast beef on the sly, and
has discovered cigarette ends thrown away in corners
which could not escape the eagle eye of a governess.
No one will suspect me of desiring to attach any im-
portance to these details, whether true or false, concern-
ing an individuality which stands so high above the
common level. Not the less strange is it, that a man
who has so passionately and so sincerely set the discovery
of w^hat is true, and simple, and natural before him, as the
one and only object of his life, should have given rise,
by his adoption of surroundings w^hich are incontestably
artificial and false, to observations of such a nature. I am
willing to admit that family reasons may have prevented
him from justifying this course by really taking his place
among the class whose dress he has adopted, and whose
habits and duties he occasionally chooses to assume.
None the less are we forced to perceive that their result
is a somew^hat regrettable pose. But this is the usual
price of every kind of human greatness, and in the case
of this very great man, it is an atavic feature of the
national samodourstvoy which has not been eradicated by
education, — an education which, in his case, was originally
of the most hasty and superficial description.
As every man knows, Leo NicoLAitviTCH Tolstoi
was born in 1828, at the village in the depths of the
Government of Toula which he still inhabits, and
w^hither visitors from every corner of the globe repair
to pay him homage. The property originally belonged
to his mother, a Volkonskaia, whose figure is conjured
up by the author of War and Peace, in the form of the
Princess Marie. This noble lady died before Tolstoi
was three years old, and a distant relative, Mdlle. Tatiana
Alexandrovna Ergolskaia, took charge of him and of
Z66 RUSSIAN LITERATURE
his three elder brothers. Before long the father died
too, leaving all his affairs in confusion. For reasons
connected with economy, Leo Nicolaievitch was re-
moved from the house in Moscow which had sheltered
the little family, and sent to the country, where his edu-
cation was seriously endangered at the hands of German
tutors and Russian seminarists. In 1841 his legal guar-
dian, Mme. Touchkov, became aware of this fact,- and
took measures to enable the youth to continue his
studies, first at Kasan and afterwards at St. Petersburg.
He returned home in 1848, having obtained his Uni-
versity degree, but, according to his own testimony, as
it appears in Education and Instructhn, '^ w^ith no correct
knowledge of any subject." His literary vocation does
not appear to have revealed itself until two years later,
after a visit to the Caucasus, whither he went w^ith his
brother Nicholas, whose military duty called him there.
In his desire to remain in a country in which he de-
lighted, Leo Nicolaievitch also entered the army, and
at the same time he conceived the plan of a great novel,
the subject-matter of which was to be drawn from his
own family recollections. The idea of Akssakov's Chro-
nicle pervaded the^atmosphere of that period ! The first
chapter of this work, which was never to be completed,
formed part of that autobiographical fragment known as
Childhoody Boyhood^ and Youth.
It was followed by a series of tales — A Morning i^i
the Life of a Landed Proprietor ^ I^tccernCy The Cossacks —
all of them reproducing that type, so dear to Lermon-
tov and Pouchkine, of the high-born dreamer, whose
fanciful aspirations melt away to nothing at their first
contact with reality. Olcnine, the hero of The Cossacks^
is another Aleko, or a second Pietchorine, only too happy
TOLSTOI 367
to distract his boredom and weariness of the great world
in the depths of the wild beauty of the Caucasus, until
Marianka, the half-barbarous girl, makes him realise the
abyss that lies between his own civilised temperament
and those primitive elements with which he would fain
have mingled his existence.
' This subject is identical, as my readers will recollect,
with that of Le Mariage de Lotiy though no suspicion of
imitation can possibly arise. And this, besides, is of no
great importance. It is quite evident that in his earlier
creations Tolstoi' depended on the common fund of the
National Literature. His first impressions of mystic re-
ligiosity also date from this period, and are connected
with an incident which he has confided to his friend
Pogodine.
After having promised never to touch a card again,
Tolstoi" had played, and lost a sum which he could see
no means of procuring. Worn out and despairing, he
prayed fervently and fell asleep, trusting to Heaven to
lift him out of his difficulty. When he awoke, a letter,
w^hich he had no reason of any kind to expect, brought
him the money he so sorely needed.
He remained in the Caucasus till 1853, taking his
share in every expedition, and bearing all the fatigues
and privations of a private soldier. In 1854 and 1855
he fought through the Crimean campaign on Prince
Gortschakoff's staff ; he was at the battle of the Tchernaia
and at the siege of Sevastopol. This page of his exist-
ence has been reproduced in three little masterpieces —
Sevastopol in December ^ in May^ and in A ugust.
The author's mastery of his craft is already evident in
these pages ; his minute description of material details, and
his close analysis of- psychological motives, — even in the
368 RUSSIAN LITERATURE
midst of a bloody struggle, — are absolutely perfect. No
one, either before or after him, not even Stendhal, has
carried observation of the moral instincts on the field of
battle to such a pitch of acuteness. Tolstoi' even shows
us how the very man who has behaved like a hero under
lire, can, a moment afterwards, betray the meanest sel-
fishness. In spite of its truthfulness, this view or pre-
sentation of things and facts already betrays an equal
amount of fancy and ideology, both of them open to
question ; and I should not care to endorse the view
of certain Russian critics, who compare the contempo-
rary Letters from the Crimea of Sir William Russell, which
had its hour of fame, with " Illustrated Almanacks for
Children." There is less high-flown philosophy, per-
haps, in the Times correspondent's letters ; but was that
any loss to his readers ? I shall dwell on this subject
later, and with all the frankness due to my own readers.
Tolstoi left the army in 1855, and, thenceforward
spent his summers at lasnaia Poliana, and his winters
between Moscow and St. Petersburg. The works to
w^hich I have already referred had placed his reputation
on a level, in the public estimation, with those of Tour-
gueniev and Gontcharov, yet his attention to literature
continued to be of an intermittent nature. While Alex-
ander the Second's Commission was preparing the great
edict which was to emancipate the serfs, the Pamie-
chtchik of lasnaia Poliana had undertaken the task of
solving the problem of the popular schools, which had
never, as yet, advanced beyond the stage of empty pro-
ject. With this object, it would appear, he went abroad
twice over, between 1855 and 1861. The emancipation of
the serfs was somewhat against Tolstoi's personal convic-
tions, and some sign of this was to appear in War and
TOLSTOI'S "WAR AND PEACE" 369
Peace. Yet, after the 19th of February 1861, he was one
of the few land-owners who decided to Hve in the country.
He remained at lasnaia PoHana, w^hich had now be-
come his own property, zealously fulfilled the functions
of an ** Umpire of Peace" {Mirovo'i Possrednik\ showed
the deepest interest in popular education, and even
undertook the publication of an educational newspaper,
to which he gave the name of his own property, and in
which he displayed great originality of thought. In it he
mingled his ideas on national instruction with very para-
doxical views on education at large, on civilisation and
on progress. Progress, in his opinion, was only neces-
sary to a very restricted number of persons, who could
command leisure-time. For all others, he considered it
not merely a superfluous, but an evil thing. In fact, he
preached Rousseau's doctrines over again.
In 1862 he married the daughter of a doctor, Sophia
Andreievna Bers, and gave himself up entirely to family
life, certain charming features of which he had not yet
begun to contemn. It was not till near 1870 that the
first chapters of his great novel, War and Peace^ began
to appear in The Russian Messenger. My readers are
acquainted with the immense and universal success of
this work — a success which did not, however, tempt Leo
Nicolaievitch from his other occupations. While the
whole of Russia was devouring and discussing the pages
which had just immortalised his name, their author's
time was spent in publishing alphabets and class-books
for the primary schools. A consideration of this collec-
tion of pamphlets is full of interest. It is curious to
observe that great intellect struggling with the infinite
smallness of rudimentary intelligences, performing pro-
digies of elementary ingenuity, and producing master-
370 RUSSIAN LITERATURE
pieces of childish mnemonics. Not till the famine of
1873 brought desolation on the province of Samara^
could the mighty writer turn his mind from these humble
occupations. He travelled to the scenes of this disaster,
and published the result of his personal inquiries in the
Moscow Gazette, His report made an extraordinary stir.
The Government had been endeavouring to hide the facts,
so as to conceal its own responsibility. Tolstoi, without
phrases or rhetoric of any kind, simply recounted what
he had seen, and so forced the Government to join the
public in the organisation of that succour which had
become indispensable.
The publication, in 1875, of the author's second great
novel, Anna Karenina, was followed, as my readers
doubtless know, by a fresh rupture on his part with
artistic literature. In My Religion, Tolstoi' explained the
reasons of the conversion of Levine, one of the heroes
of his novel, and then applied all his energies to setting
forth, in a series of pamphlets and books, the doctrines
of the new faith held by the convert, with whom he
appeared to identify himself. All hope of a continuance
of the fine work which had raised him so high seemed
lost, and Tourgueniev, lying on his death-bed, sent him
this eloquent appeal : *' Mj/ friendj come back to your
literary work I that gift has been sent to you by Him
who gives us all things. . . . My friend, great writer of
our Russian soil ! grant this pi^ayer of mine ! " The
prayer was granted. There had been misunderstand-
ings and collisions between these two men, each so well
suited to value the other's work. Tolstoi had fallen
asleep, in Tourgueniev's presence, over the manuscript
of Fathers and Children ; but at the moment of supreme
farewell, Tourgueniev forgot it all, and Tolstoi seemed
TOLSTOI'S "WAR AND PEACE" 371
to bow before the parting wish of his great rival. In
spite of plunges, more and more risky, into exegesis,
theology, and mysticism, the course of which I find
myself less and less able to follow, the readers of the
wonderful author of War and Peace have welcomed him
back on such joyful occasions as those of the publication
of The Death of Ivan Illitchy The Kreutzer Sonatay Master
and Workman^ and The Power of Darkness. It would
appear that we owe our present delight in reading Re-
surrection to the sect called the Doukhobortsyy and to the
interest with which they have inspired its writer. For
several years Tolstoi' had ceased to claim his author's
rights. He has reclaimed them in the case of this new
novel, and has intended to apply the proceeds to assisting
the emigration of this clan of strange eccentrics, con-
cerning whom I shall have a few words to say. But I
must first endeavour to lay the whole of that literary
work, of which Resurrection is at present the last, and,
I should be inclined to think, the highest expression,
before my readers' eyes. They will realise that in so
short a study I can only touch on the general aspects
of the subject.
In Herr Reinholdt's very remarkable History of Rus-
sian Litej'aturCy he presents the author of War and Peace
as an instance, which, he considers, may be possibly unique,
"of the greatest artistic harmony, and of an absolutely
straightforward continuity of development, joined to the
highest possible degree of intellectual maturity." This
judgment Tolstoi himself contravenes, when, in My Reli-
giony he indicates, with the most perfect sincerity, the
contradictions, flagrant indeed, into which the workings
of his mind have previously led him. These he then
ascribed to a mental crisis, the date of which he fixed as
372 RUSSIAN LITERATURE
being towards 1875. But it would be very difficult to
accept this explanation. The lapses from that " straight-
forward continuity of development," of which the German
critic speaks, began at an earlier, and have recurred at a
much later date. We could hardly, in fact, conceive a
line more capriciously broken. The very artist w^ho shows
himself so full of the delight of life in his Childhood or
Boyhoody and in many passages of his War and Peace^
has gone further than any writer of his country in his
description of the terrors of death. And this appears
not only in The Death of Ivan Illitch and in The Kreutzer
Sonata, but even in his earliest literary attempts. Thus,
from the very first, the sincere optimist was as sincere a
pessimist. And this is not all. Watch this acute analyst
of the human soul, who discovers mere reflex action,
physical and unconscious, even in its most violent trans-
ports ; follow him when, on some page hard by, he depicts
the almost instantaneous transformation of the most
incredulous of men into a firm believer, under the influ-
ence of I know not what occult power ; surely this is
true mysticism ! And this other conversion shows us
Peter Bezoukhov, a favourite hero of the olden days,
long previous to the mental crisis of 1875.
In spite of his world-wide reputation, Tolstof has
been, and has remained, an essentially Russian writer,
and, as such, shares the general mental quality of his
country, of which one characteristic feature consists in
the inability to bring its beliefs and feelings into harmony.
In my references to Dostoievski's communistic feeling I
have pointed out that the author of War and Peace is a
dogmatic individualist ; all his teaching, religious and
philosophic, proves the truth of this definition. Never-
theless, the common feature of all his artistic creations
TOLSTOI 3/3
is, on the contrary, to be found in a constant feeling of
distrust of the individual, arising out of the conviction
that no individual is capable of attaining anything at all
by his own strength. When Tolstoi' declared, in a pas-
sage of his Memories of Sevastopol^ that truth was his one
and only hero, he certainly deceived himself. The true
and only hero, that in which he finds his invariable
delight, is the mob. In it, in its beliefs and tastes and
ideas, he perceives that truth which he claims to serve.
A good life is the ordinary life of the nation. To think
well, we must think like the people, for wisdom lies not
in knowledge, but in the unconscious feeling of the popu-
lar masses. We must not seek to guide these masses,
we should rather be led by them, for man is only power-
ful inasmuch as he is borne on the waves of that great
ocean. Those figures, fictitious or historical, which rise
above the common level, can only win Tolstoi's sym-
pathy if they represent a national idea, and make no
attempt to impose their conceptions upon others. In
his mind, Koutousov, who mistrusted himself and those
who worked w^ith him, and relied on the instinct of his
own people, is far greater than Napoleon. For Napoleon,
according to him, flattered himself for live-and-twenty
years that he was leading Europe, w^hereas he was simply
floating along, the mere toy of a mighty current of history.
Thus, in Anna Kareninay Levine, the good and
simple-hearted, finds the truth — that is to say, the solu-
tion of the problem of life — while Vronski, clever and
intelligent, only brings misfortune upon himself and
those belonging to him. The uselessness of heroism
and of struggling with life, and the necessity for resig-
nation, form a realistic feature in which Tolstoi's work
agrees with that of Dostoievski.
374 RUSSIAN LITERATURE
But the instances of resignation portrayed by Dgsto'i-
evski all occur in persons of high moral development
who have been beaten in the battle of life, whereas
Tolstoi' makes the recognition of a man's nothingness
in the face of Nature, in the face of society, and before
God, not the highest wisdom only, but also the road
which leads to happiness, and individual happiness, the
only end to be attained — whence other contradictions
arise.
In Tolstoi's nature there are, and always have been,
several men, whose development runs on parallel lines.
If the author has escaped that condition of internal con-
flict which has brought, and still brings, anguish to many
of his fellow-countrymen, he owes it both to the wide
embracing power of his talent, and also to the fate which
has made him a creator of pictures. Had he been a
man of action, he would have been drawn, like so many
others, into the inevitable struggle between fact and idea.
Being, as he is, an artist, he has reflected, even as in a
mirror, faithful and unmoved, the life of his country in
^ all its many aspects. His power of universal refraction
is probably unequalled. He is just as much at his ease
in a peasant's cot as in a St. Petersburg drawing-room.
He is a born hunter on the marshes, where some readers
of Anna Karenina may have been occasionally bored,
but where all lovers of sporting exploits must have
enjoyed the most delightful experiences ; and he proves
himself versed in every detail touching the horse and
horsemanship when he takes Vronski into ''Frou-Frou's "
box. It is his plural personality which has enabled him
to bring forward the most varied types, even though
he works, like every artist in bookmaking, after a single
/ model — his own self, analysed and reproduced ad injini^
TOLSTOI'S TYPES 375
turn. In this matter he is to be distinguished from his
Western emulators, in that he makes no attempt to
ideaHse the^ features of his own character, but is rather
incHned to present them in the least favourable light.
This tendency, which was apparent in Pouchkine's case,
and is yet more evident in that of Dostoievski, is common
to the whole Russian school, and constitutes what may*
be considered its truest element of originality.
Tolstoi's characters, *like those of Tourgueniev, may
be reduced to a certain number of general types. The
central type, which pervades his whole work, from
Nikolenka, the hero of Childhood ^ down to Pozdnychev
in the Kreutzer Sonata^ and Nekhlioudov in Resurrection^ is
par ex'celle7tce the autobiographical type. It possesses none '
of the bi illiant qualities with w^hich Byron delighted to
invest his successive incarnations of his own haughty
individuality. It rather embodies a being of ordinary
and mediocre calibre, to whom life brings more evil
fortune than good-luck ; w^ho not unfrequently makes
himself ridiculous, and has not even the resource re-
served to Tourgueniev's heroes, of joking over his own
misadventures. Such figures as Vronski and Andrew
Volkonski, with their beauty, their superior gifts, and
the good fortune which attends their undertakmgs, are
put forward in contrast to these outcasts from fortune.
But the author^s preference is by no means with them,
and at some turn of the road, their lucky star is sure
to fail them. An intermediate type is represented by
Nicholas Rostov in War and Peace, and Stiva Oblonski
in Anna Karenina, These are men who possess happi- \
ness because they do- not look too high or too far to
seek it ; aimably selfish beings, in other words, on
whom Tolstoi' bestows a scornful smile. And now come
25
176 RUSSIAN LITERATURE
his favourites, the men who have found the real inward
truth, who expect nothing from hfe, because nothing
that hfe can give will suit their need. Their joy and
contentment lies within their own soul — a soul full of
simplicity, humility, and indifference to worldly things.
Such are the poor musician in Lucerney Platon Karataiev
in War and Peacey and the old nightman Akime, in the
Power of Darkness,
The setting within which the author makes all these
figures live and move is a huge one. In his first begin-
nings Tolstoi revealed himself as possessing a marvellous
and very realistic power of painting childhood. Even
. while Nikolenka weeps tears of the sincerest grief over
his mother's tomb, he is thinking of many things which
have nothing to do with his sorrow, deep though it be.
Nikolenka's surroundings all belong to the aristocratic
sphere, and the author's picture of this society, touched
in with an air of the most complete indifference, bears
no sign of that anxiety on social matters which was
already stirring the contemporary mind. Tolstoi' offers
no reply to the endless questions, such as *^ Whose
fault ?" and '^ What is to be done ?" put forward, just at
this period, by Herzen and Tchernichevski. He does
not seem to be aware of their existence. The Two
Hussars and Domestic Happiness belong to this cycle,
as well as Childhood^ Boyhood^ and Youth, ^
In Memories of Sevastopol^ The Invasion^ The Three
Deathsy The Cossacksy the scene changes. The stage
broadens, and the philosopher, hitherto concealed be-
neath the author, makes his entrance. He attacks the
real question and problem of life, how we must live if we
will die worthily. And here begins the teaching of the
theory of blissful unconsciousness. The true hero of
TOLSTOI 377
the Crimean war is the private soldier, who is heroic
and great because he knows not how great a thing it is
to die for his country. This doctrine appears yet more
clearly in The Three Deaths^ the agonising death of a
nobly-born woman, the easy death of a man of humble
birth, and the happy and unconscious death of a felled
tree. Following on the art of dying well, we see the
art of living well, as taught in The Cossacks ^ in which
book Tolstoi', with his apology for elementary simplicity,
begins to put forward the theory which is to be the last
expression of his philosophy. Amongst all the forms of
happiness, or, in other words, of the satisfaction of natural
instincts, love of our neighbour and self-sacrifice are at
once the most legitimate and the most easily attained.
From this time forward, individualism and altruism are
to wage eternal war in the author's intelligence.
The struggle is less evident in War and Peace and
in Anna Karenina^ because in these w^orks, the thinker
is frequently overshadowed by the depictor of incident.
In their pages, deductions having a particular tendency
only appear as excrescences on the trunk of a mighty
tree ; and this to such an extent that an attempt has
been made to extract them from the original works and
form them into a separate appendix. The theory of un-
consciousness has a personal reason and justification in
the case of this admirable artist. He himself is really
great only when he creates unconsciously, by a process
of internal and, as I might describe it, automatic trans-
formation of his external impressions. When he endea-
vours to analyse these impressions, or to reduce any
phenomenon to its elementary parts, or when, by an
inverse operation, he attempts a synthesis of the ele-
ments which go to make up the diversity of life, he loses
378 RUSSIAN LITERATURE
'himself in a maze of definitions, analogies, and demon-
strations, the logic of which he himself seems to be the
first to doubt. And at the same time, we notice in him
a trait of feminine intellectuality — a tendency to mingle
logical deduction with the sentiment of the moment,
and confound his reason with the dictates of his heart.
The outcome of this is yet another contradiction.
Now, from the point of view of general composition. War
and Peace belongs, as a whole, to an order of creation
which may be described as being in a sense instinctive.
The author's object is not so much to prove any parti-
cular theory, as to show us Russia as she was at the time
of the Napoleonic wars, and to reflect his country in a
mirror of huge scope, and sympathy that is wide indeed,
since it even embraces the law of serfdom. Everything
that is Russian is dear to Tolstoi', as it is, and just because
it is Russian. This must not be taken to be the Olympian
indifference of Goethe, nor the impassibility of a French
writer of the Naturalist school. It is rather a sort of
indulgent acknowledgment of human weakness and of
the nothingness of the highest life — a feeling which once
more brings the author into kinship with Dostoievski.
Yet in Tolstoi's case this sentiment is more restricted,
and does not extend to suffering and guilt. Not that
the author is more inclined to severity, but that in his
eyes suffering and crime are both very small matters,
concerning which it is not necessary to disturb one's self.
Here we have a sort of backward gleam of the old Greek
plays, in which the faults and afflictions of the heroes are
recognised to be only the result of the immutable will of
the gods.
After his own fashion, Tolstoi is a fatalist, and the
philosopher of the Memories of Sevastopol reappears un-
TOLSTOl 379
fortunately, from time to time, and hews out a part for
himself even in War and Peace, as when he deliberately
intervenes in the description of those bloody encounters
wherein the fortunes of Russia and Napoleon hung in
the balance. The author's fundamental idea in this
respect is indicated when Koutousov falls asleep at the
council of war, during which the plan of the battle of
Austerlitz is discussed, and is shown reading a novel on
the very eve of the battle of the Borodino. This proves
his wisdom, because he leaves events to work themselves
out without making any attempt to guide them. And
these events are accomplished, not by means of any
individual effort, but by the unconscious action of the
mass, which itself obeys a superior and superhuman
will. Men are nothing but automata. Any pretension
to guide them, or to find fault with them if they will
not move in the direction we desire, is equally absurd.
All we can aspire to is to analyse the psychological
process which takes place w^ithin their souls under occult
influences ; and here we see Tolstoi taking up, on a far
larger scale, the work he had already attempted under
the walls of Sevastopol. It is a process of miniature
painting and micrography which quite disconcerted the
earliest readers of War and Peace — I mean, its Russian
readers, for the book has been less discussed in the
West than in the author's own country. It is certain
that the resources at the disposal of the author of Me-
mories of Sevastopol were quite insufHcient to warrant his
constituting himself the historian of the great Napoleonic
wars. He looked at the battlefields of Austerlitz and the
Borodino with the eyes, the experience, and the know-
ledge of the young artillery officer of 1854. No writer,
indeed, ever knew better how to depict a battery of
3 So RUSSIAN LITERATURE
artillery or a squadron of cavalry in action under
fire.
But the young artillery officer had evidently failed to
perceive the connection of this particular action with
that of the other units engaged in the same struggle,
and the ingenuous artist has come to the conclusion that
no such connection existed. How w^as the battle of
Austerlitz lost on one side and gained on the other ?
Napoleon knew nothing of that, any more than Koutousov.
The head of a French column, which chanced to be on
a particular spot, blundered, thanks to the fog which
shrouded its movements, across the head of a Russian
column which ought to have been somewhere else. The
result w^as a panic, and all the rest. Tolstoi" covers whole
pages with irrational statements of this kind. From the
military point of view it is mere childishness ; from the
artistic point of view it is over-generalisation, and leads
the painter to fill the hugest canvas with a multitude of
tiny sketches. His method is an absolute negation of
serious art. I go further, and say it is the negation of
truth. Here again we have the cinematographist's nega-
tive ; but the cinematograph is not merely a process of
decomposition ; it recomposes, and gives us a mechanical
representation of connected movement. Now, as I have
show^n, Tolstoi's idea, far from assisting his reader towards
this recomposition, after the manner of Tourgueniev,
formally forbids him to attempt it. And I will add that
many of his snapshots lack accuracy and precision. The
abuse of detail inevitably leads to such mistakes as these.
He brings us on to a square in Moscow in 1812 ; a French
cook, suspected of being a spy, has just been flogged.
" The executioner y' says Tolstoi, " unbound the prisoner
from the stake ; he was a big man with reddish whiskers ^
TOLSTOI 381
wearing dark blue stockings and a green coatP This
detail is most circumstantial, but it must be incorrect,
for at such a moment the culprit certainly had no coat
upon his back.
Looking at it from the philosophical standpoint, the
author's fatalist theory finds its most redoubtable con-
tradiction in his own person. The characters in War
and Peace may be divided into two categories — those who
consciously pursue some aim, such as the two emperors.
Prince Bolkonski and his old father, the Kouraguine
family, and the heroine of the story, Natacha Rostov, and
those who allow the current to sweep them away, such
as Peter Bezoukhov, old Rostov, the Princess Marie,
Platonij Karataiev, and Koutousov. Happiness and final
success are the portion of these last. But this happiness
does not strike us, on closer examination, as being parti-
cularly tempting. When I look at Bezoukhov, married to
a w^oman who plays him false, the ill-starred witness of
the battle of the Borodino, an occasion on w^hich he
cannot discover either what he is doing or wherefore
he is there at all, then a half-delirious wanderer in the
streets of Moscow, where the French threaten to shoot
him for incendiarism, and finally a fugitive, straying in
the footsteps of Napoleon's army ; — the idea of his con-
dition offering any seduction to an imagination in quest
of felicity would indeed surprise me.
And finally, from the historic point of view, Koutousov,
who vanquishes Napoleon by dint of sleeping or reading
novels, while his adversary plans his battles, is, fortunately
for history, not only an improbability, but a downright
falsehood.
In the composition of Anna Karenina, Tolstoi' re-
mained faithful to his own theory and method. We
382 RUSSIAN LITERATURE
find the same.wealth of episode, in the more restricted
setting of family life, and the same contrast drawn
between the pride of individualism in its own strength,
and a humble submission to a superior and occult power.
A similar antagonism is brought into rehef in the mental
condition of the principal hero, torn asunder by an
internal conflict, and in the comparison between the
tumultuous existence of great cities and the peaceful
conditions of country life. On one side w^e have men
of intelligence and tact ; on the other, men of simple
heart and kind good-nature. But these last always win
the day. Levine triumphs over Vronski. But Levine,
the intellectual descendant of Bezoukhov, is destined,
this time, to reveal the true prescription for the cure of
moral suffering, the secret of which has just been dis-
covered by the harvester of lasnaia Poliana — the healing
/virtue of physical labour. At the same time we observe
the dawn of Socialist ideas, which seemed quite unknown
to the author of War and Peace^ as, more especially, in
that famous hunting scene in which Levine, during a
discussion with Oblonski, suddenly realises the injustice
of making use of another man's labour. Here we have
the germ of the whole of Tolstoi's later philosophic
teaching, afterwards to be so brilliantly developed and
put into practice. We may wonder that he should have
chosen Levine as the channel through which he bestows
these first-fruits on the outer world. This country gentle-
man, who forgets to go to the church on his wedding
day, and, when the elections come round, begs every one
to tell him how he should vote, is but a sorry prophet.
Tolstoi, indeed, desires we should believe him to be a
cultivated man, whose studies of German philosophy,
for which he nevertheless professes a hearty scorn, have
TOLSTOI'S ''ANNA KARENINA" 383
imbued him with a deep-seated scepticism. How then is
it that he presents such an appearance of brutish coarse-
ness ? And here is something which may astonish us
yet more. When Levine, wandering through the mazes
of intellectual speculation, utterly loses his bearings and
knows not which way to turn, it is a peasant, with whom
he falls into conversation, who arrives just in time to
show him the true path. All he has to do is to go
straight forward, in humble trust that God wdll guide him
in the right direction.
How^ comes it that this dweller in the country has
not already stumbled upon this peasant, or some other,
just as capable of leading him on the right road ? Their
name is legion ! We have met the very same individual
in War and Peace ; there he bore the name of Karataiev,
and likewise preached a blind submission to the will of
God. But to w^hat God ? A doubt w^as permissible then ;
but that is over now\ The God to whom Levine is to
make over the government of his life is not the Christ.
This God is Buddha. I will not attempt to explain the
manner in which Tolstoi* contrives to combine the doc-
trine of Nirvana and the divine law of labour, in his
ow^n teaching. Regarding the case between town and
country life, w^hich the prophet decides, as a matter of
course, in favour of the tillers of the soil, every wTiter
since Pouchkine has taken the same line, following that
of Rousseau and George Sand. Only Rousseau and
George Sand have been careful to strengthen their ver-
dict by more or less w^ell-founded preambles. But Tolstoi'
is less explicit. W^hen, even in his later and purely
philosophical works, it becomes his duty to indicate the
nature of " the falsehood of civilised life," he gropes and
fumbles, sometimes formulating charges against science
384 RUSSIAN LITERATURE
and sometimes bringing accusations against forms of
government.
The artistic qualities of Anna Karenina deserve the
same praise, with the same reservations, as those of War
and Peace. We observe the same sovereign mastery of
detail, description, and psychological analysis, the same
lack of unity, the same network of various stories which
draw the reader's attention along as many confusing
tracks, and the same fault of prolixity. The character
of the principal heroine is dissected to its inmost re-
cesses, with the most incomparable steadiness of hand.
Her incapability of realising her position when, after
having left her husband, she returns from abroad with
her lover, insists on appearing at the theatre, receives an
affront there, and turns upon the man who has done
everything in his power to prevent her carrying out her
whim ; and the struggle between her affection for her
lover and her matenial love, are miracles of observa-
tion and reproduction. There is little or no inven-
tion ; the only situation a little out of the common is
when the faithless wife, swayed by some violent emotion,
brutally casts the acknowledgment of her sin in her hus-
band's teeth ; and this idea Tolstoi may have found in
the work of Ostrovski, and even in that of Lermontov
(see A Hero of Our 'Times). But what a wealth of cold
clear-sightedness and burning emotion we find in the
description of Kitty Levine's confinement and of the
death of Nicholas Levine ! How ingenious is the manner
in which these two events — which place all those who
take part in them outside the ordinary conditions of life,
raising them to a higher level, carrying them into a mys-
terious sphere where they can hardly recognise each
other, their faces convulsed, and their souls wrung by
TOLSTOI 385
their common anguish — are brought into close connec-
tion ! The whole truth is here, and without a jarring
word.
It has been remarked that Tolstoi's w^orks, previous
to War and Peace and Anna Kareninay contain no femi-
nine figures. But henceforward they come in crowds,
and all of them are charming. This pleasure we owe,
no doubt, to the author's marriage, and to the influence
of Sophia Andreievna. But is it not strange, again, that
in his second novel the author should have made a vulgar
incident of adultery the foundation and starting-point
of his theory of social renovation ?
I have already said that, after this first expression of
his theory, the novelist seemed to have given place for
ever to the preacher. Since the publication of My Reli-
giony the belief that the incident of Levine's conversion,
in Anna Kareninay is autobiographical, forces itself upon
us. In the course of a mental process experienced by
many great minds — Schopenhauer, Hartmann, and Lewis,
to quote no others — before his time, Tolstoi appears to
have passed through rationalism into an immediate rela-
tion with Nature and Divinity. Up to this period, his
reason had struggled with his heart, the first repeating
the lessons learnt from the masters of modern philosophy,
the second holding communion with nature, and drawing
thence its faith in the immortality of the soul, and the
idea of a God. I suppose, and I have already explained
why, that the author has deceived himself as to the reality
of this crisis, but nevertheless he has acted as if it had
been real, and, having imagined that through it he had
arrived at the perception of a new truth, he has used all
his endeavours to shed its consoling light around him.
While in the two books, entitled My Confession and My
386 RUSSIAN LITERATURE
Religiofiy he pointed out the origin of his teaching, and
laid its foundations, he undertook two huge works, one a
thorough criticism of dogmatic theology, and the other a
new translation of the Four Gospels. The spirit in which
he approached this mighty task finds ingenuous expression
in the following passage from My Religion : ^* It was long
before I could accustom myself to the idea that after
eighteen centuries — during which the law of Jesus had
been professed by thousands of human beings — after
eighteen centuries, during the course of which thousands
of men had consecrated their lives to the study of that
law, I should myself have discovered it as some new
thing." The conquest of Mexico over again !
To follow the author along this path, I am not quali-
fied. A perusal of My Religion has led me to the
conclusion that Tolstoi, following the example of Dos-
toievski, has reduced the teaching of Christ to five com-
mandments — " Never fall into a rage," " Do not commit
adultery," ^^ Take no oath," ^' Use no violence in self-
defence," and '^ Make no war," and that from these he
has deduced the necessity for the almost wholesale de-
struction of existing social institutions, with their consti-
tuent elements — justice, army, taxes, and so forth. This,
too, would appear to be the explanation of Resurrection^
the subject of which story — in which we see a man
called to sit on a jury, and condemn a w^oman who has
been his own mistress, whom he has forsaken, and thus
driven into a life of vice — is said to have been suggested
to the author by M. Koni, the criminal expert. The
author's conclusion is that juries, as well as every species
of legal tribunal, should be suppressed. In the same
work we find a man called on to answer an accusation
of having stolen some brooms ; the owner of the brooms,
TOLSTOI 387
when summoned as a witness, declares that the legal
action has already cost him twice the value of the stolen
brooms in travelling expenses. The author concludes
that thieves must be left to ply their trade in peace. But
I am not sure that I have thoroughly grasped his idea,
and, as far as Resurrection is concerned, I care not a
jot, so entrancing is Katioucha's figure, in spite of the
little cast in her eye ! The uncertainty under which
I labour with regard to the great writer's purely philoso-
phical works is a more serious matter. But here again
I console myself with the thought that it is very likely
shared by the author himself ; and, in fact, I have dis-
covered, in looking over one of his latest publications of
this nature. Religion and Morality (1893), that after having
admitted the existence of two typical conceptions of the
fundamental relations between man and the universe, he
has been weak enough to discover, even as he wrote, a
third conception, which, as deriving from the first, must
naturally claim the second place ; whereupon he has
turned his back on all three, and plunged headlong into
a refutation of an article by Huxley on Ethical Evolu-
tion, which he had no doubt been lately reading, and
the memory of which had thrown all his other ideas
into confusion.
The success, and a very relative success it is, of
Tolstoi's preaching on these subjects is largely due to its
affinity with that sectarian spirit so common in the huge
empire, and also to the encouragement given by his doc-
trine to another ruling feature of the national character
— its indolence.
After a certain fashion, indeed, this propaganda has
served the interests of the State, by drawing revolu-
tionary currents, far more dangerous than itself, into
388 RUSSIAN LITERATURE
its own channel. A doctrine which preaches abstinence
from evil-doing cannot cause real anxiety to any
government.
The author still shows the highest mastery of his
craft in those novels and tales with which, happily for
his readers, he occasionally breaks the series of his
philosophical treatises and exegetical works, and in all
of which the same teaching, though under a different
form, is carefully instilled. He is too apt, indeed, to for-
get the precept which was Goethe's legacy to all artists,
*' Depict, but do not speak ! " But we must make up
our minds to that. And in spite of that drawback, the
Kreutzer Sonata and The Death of Ivan Illitch — a two-
fold plea against marriage — are, to my mind, superior
to his preceding works. It has been denied that
Pozdnychev, the hero of the Kreutzer Sonata, who
murders, out of jealousy, the woman he has married in
sheer thoughtlessness, can be regarded as his creator's
mouthpiece. The selection may seem a strange one, but
in the treatise entitled Concerning Life, which was pub-
lished in the same year (1889), and in a postscript to the
Sonata, published a year later, in which Tolstoi" per-
sonally repeats and develops this Othello's arguments,
he certainly seems to identify himself with the charac-
ter. He points out the opposition between our inner
consciousness of our own immortality and our material
surroundings, which all speak to us of death, and from
this he deduces, after a like fashion, the idea of the
huge paradox of Life. Our only resource, if we would
escape from this paradox, is to remove ourselves, as far
as possible, beyond the borders of the material world,
which serves as a temporary agent of transmission to
that inner consciousness of ours, destined to survive
TOLSTOI 389
the world's destruction. If we betray any tenderness
for the physical element of our being, we condemn
ourselves to suffering and to the fear of death — which
is only a physical fact. Therefore we must eliminate our
animal life, and, as a first necessity, those sexual relations
which are its foundation. This truth has already been
revealed by the Christ, but it has not been realised.
There can be no Christian marriage, just as there is no
Christian worship, no Christian army, no Christian jus-
tice, and no Christian State. A Christian cannot regard
any sexual relation except as a sin. He must not marry.
If he is married already he may keep his wife, but he
must treat her as his sister. Attractive as the theory
may appear to some husbands, its strict application is
certainly fraught with peril. But Tolstoi is delighted with
it. He breaks off the rolling series of his paradoxes, all of
which have already had their day in the novels of George
Sand, to exclaim, by the lips of Pozdnychev, *^A11 this
was new, and astounded me sorely ! " Yet what a wealth
of psychological intuition we find side by side with this
simplicity ! ^^Ask an experienced coquette who has set
herself the task of leading a man astray, whether she
would rather be convicted in his sight of falsehood, per-
versity, and cruelty, or appear before him in an ill-fitting
gown. She will choose the first alternative ! " And
then what superb touches of realism I . Pozdnychev has
just killed his wife, and is about to throw himself upon
the lover, who has taken refuge in the neighbouring
room, when he notices that he has no boots upon his
feet. He has taken them off so as to creep unobserved
upon the guilty pair. A sense of his ridiculous position
overwhelms him, and he stops short. This is worth a
whole essay on philosophy.
390 RUSSIAN LITERATURE
The Popular Stories^ which were at one time Tolstoi's
own favourite works, have been somewhat severely
judged by Russian critics. They have complained that
the author has failed to attain the simplicity at which
he aimed, and I myself am inclined to think their art-
lessness somewhat artificial. One of the last tales pub-
lished before Resurrection^ under the title of Master and
Workman, received a more kindly verdict. It embodies
the antique teaching of the vanity of riches. A timber
merchant — rough, coarse, and hard-hearted — goes to the
forest with his man, loses his way, and is caught in a
snowstorm. He unharnesses the horse, mounts it, and
rides away, leaving his humble companion to his fate.
The horse, failing to find its way through the tempest,
brings him back to the sledge on which the workman
is huddled, already stiff with cold, and half-buried in the
snow. With a rush, the uselessness of the cowardly
attempt he has just made to save his own life, and the
vanity of all his past efforts to accumulate riches, which
at such a moment have lost all value in his eyes, surge
over the merchant's soul, sweep away the artificial
layer of selfishness, and stir his underlying instinct of
altruism and sympathy for his neighbour. His sole
idea, now, is to bring back warmth, with his fur coat
and with his own body, to the poor wretch to whom
he had not given a thought, a little while ago. He
stretches himself upon his body, and there, a few hours
later, he is found, in the same posture ; he has brought
his last undertaking to a successful issue. Death has
come to him, indeed, but the workman is alive. No one
can fail to admire the substance of the story, and as
regards form, it attains, in its descriptive portions, the
very pinnacle of art. But is there any psychological
TOLSTOI 391
explanation of the revulsion which takes place within
the merchant's soul ? None, I fear, any more than in the
case of Prince Nekhlioudov in Resurrection, who, being
a retired officer of the Imperial Guard, a man about
town and a debauchee, bent on comfort and luxury, is
suddenly seized with a longing to marry his Katioucha,
whom he must take out of a convict prison and a house
of ill-fame. And what lack of proportion we note be-
tween the conception of Master and Workman and the
means chosen for its expression ! We have a whole
volume to lead us up to that one incident in the forest,
which embodies the whole substance of the book ! The
Kreutzer Sonata and The Death of Ivan I Hitch both suffer
from the same fault of construction.
I am much disposed, on the other hand, to recognise
in The Power of Darkness one of the most perfect master-
pieces which ever graced any literature, and to per-
ceive that Tolstoi" seems to have imported in it a new
form of popular drama, and one capable of universal
application. The idea that a fault may be atoned for
by voluntary confession and expiation is certainly
not a new one. But none of Tolstoi's predecessors
has succeeded, so far as my knowledge goes, in ex-
pressing it in so dramatic a fashion, nor with so much
true and simple grandeur. He gives us Nature herself,
as she lives and moves, taken from the rustic life, without
the smallest affectation, or the slightest touch of rhetoric.
Figures and surroundings, methods of speech and ways
of feeling, have all been observed, noted even to their
most delicate shades, and rendered in a fashion that is
miraculous. Though Nikita, the guilty peasant, speaks
the ordinary language of the populace, he uses some
phrases and expressions which reveal his knowledge of
26
392 RUSSIAN LITERATURE
circles other than those of his own village. You realise
that a railway must have been made through the place,
and that the foam of city civilisation has thus been cast, by
way of the tavern, on to the threshold of the peasant's hut.
Great writer of the Russian soil ! give us more and
more of such works as these ! Forsake those scientific
inquiries and philosophic speculations for which Heaven
never intended you. I am no Tourgueniev, but I know
that when I speak thus, I speak for several millions of your
readers ! By some miracle, your obstinate dallying with
ideology has not dimmed your imagination, yet, believe
me, you revolve within your speculations like a squirrel
in its cage, and you never gain a step ! But what of your
new revelation and its teachings ? you will cry. So far
as I can discern anything in your doctrine, it seems to
me to combine the two contradictory elements of your
first philosophical ideas, those evident in your earliest
literary efforts, the superiority of the masses over the
individual, and the virtue of isolation. And to these,
even then already, you were adding tirades against the
depravity of the culture of city life. Remember your
own Ol^nine ! The original theory has been developed,
no doubt, but do you not realise that the least acceptable
feature of your prophetic vocation lies in the fact that you
are a prophet in perpetual motion ? Within your cage
there is a wheel, and that wheel goes round and round.
You have ended, in your Kreutzer Sonata^ by condemning
marriage, and preaching the renunciation of carnal love
as the highest ideal. And doubtless you have never
dreamt, in your divine simplicity, of the comic side pre-
sented by this tardy conversion to asceticism in the case
of a man of your age and your position ! For you are, I
believe, the father of twelve children !
TOLSTOI 393
I know, indeed, that no ridicule affects you, that you
make but httle effort to bring your own ideas into mutual
harmony, and still less to bring them into agreement
with your own life. The logic which extols physical
labour as the only legitimate means of acquisition, while
it brands any desire to increase possessions as illegiti-
mate, is not exceedingly self-evident. What can those
readers who recollect your Popular Tales, and the many
and varied resources for adding to the pleasures of life
therein indicated, think of these new precepts of life,
with their almost monkish austerity ? They may say the
wheel has turned. But they also think, you may be
sure, that the non-resistance to evil, which is the chief
dogma of your later gospel, is merely a fresh application
of your old theory of the superiority of the masses. The
mass, which constitutes an elementary being, approaches
more nearly to Nature than the individual, and Nature's
submission to every incident is passive. This, surely, is
your idea. Do you know that it comes perilously near
utter materialism ? You escape it, I admit, by your
acknowledgment of a moral debt; but does not the fresh
contradiction here involved occur to you ? Contradic-
tions are the most convenient things in the world for
those w^ho do not concern themselves about them. But
such men stand on slippery ground, and thus it is that
you have slipped into that Buddhism which constitutes,
as I really believe, the only comparatively original phase
of your various evolutions. Apart from it, you have
simply unwound a skein w^hich runs through Leopardi
and Schopenhauer right back to the pessimism of Lord
Byron. And to conclude, you have obeyed the watch-
word ^' Go out among the people," which has led some
of your contemporaries into other and worse folhes. In
394 RUSSIAN LITERATURE
your case, it is Buddhism, above all, which has cast you
into the quagmire, by leading you to condemn the very
principle of the State. It must certainly be wrong that
the State should interfere in everything, if it be true that
it should interfere in nothing. You would have no
judges, no police officials, no soldiers. If men were not
prevented from doing evil, they would not think of doing
it at all. But perhaps I am wrong in ascribing these
ideas of yours to Buddha. Should I not rather accuse
Jean Jacques Rousseau ? more especially when I see
you labouring, scythe in hand, to save your neighbour's
harvest. What are you doing there ? What do you
make of those examples which should be sacred in your
eyes, of the Fakir and the holy man, sitting crouched,
motionless, lost in meditation, and the contemplation of
their own toes ? But you are no Hindoo ! Your northern
blood, and the vital energy within you, carry the day,
and triumph over your fancies for imitation and inertia.
And again, I perceive that, according to your idea, the
State should never intervene in an agrarian quarrel, to
prevent the peasants from laying hands by force on the
soil which suits their purpose best. This, if I mistake
not, is the doctrine you expound in The Kingdom of God
is with You — the most complete of all the treatises on
religious philosophy to which your signature is appended.
Here you stand forsaken both by Buddha and by Jean
Jacques himself. And I will not say in whose company
you remain !
To sum it up, when you condemn science, and econo-
mic and intellectual development, you condemn the very
essential idea of progress. You claim the right to reduce
us to live the primitive life of the Russian moujikj and
to find all our pleasure therein, like the real Karataiev
TOLSTOI 395
whom you once knew. His name was Soutaiev, a stone-
cutter, and he was your guest at Moscow some fifteen
years ago. The Bojie Lioudi (men of God), the scanty
adherents of one of the innumerable sects which swarm
in Russia, looked up to him as their leader. In a very curi-
ous letter, addressed to one of your commentators, M.
Schroeder — the letter itself, I believe, has never been pub-
lished, but a rough draft of it in French has been sent
me by one of your most fervent admirers, M. Salomon,
whose kindness I here acknowledge — you deny that you
ever were the disciple of this master, or that you ever
accepted the teachings of Bondarev, another apostle of
the same stamp, who is also supposed to have taught you
his particular catechism. Not, you add, that you are
unwilling to owe anything to a humble inoujik^ but that
you are privileged to know and comprehend the teach-
ings of the greatest of all Masters, Jesus Christ. When
you quoted the names of these men of simple mind, your
only object was to testify that their conversation had given
you more glimpses of the truth than all the learned
books you had ever read. But does not this justify the
verdict of Max Nordau ? At the present moment your
preference lies with the Doukhoboi^tsy (spiritual strugglers),
although your prejudice against the union of the sexes
would rather bring you into connection with the Tlieo-
dosianSj and your ascetic habits draw you closer to the
Molokanes (milk-drinkers), another sect of the Raskol,
You are aware that this latter party also claims to have
rediscovered the true doctrine of Christ, and that the
teaching of the Doukhobortsy is extremely vague, so vague,
indeed, that when Professor Novitski, of the Ecclesias-
tical Academy at Kiev, succeeded, in 1882, in collecting
some information on the subject, the book in which he
39^ RUSSIAN LITERATURE
embodied it was immediately adopted as its catechism by
the sect, so that the price ran up to fifty roubles per copy.
One of the officers whose duty it has been to enforce
reasonable behaviour on these unfortunate people, who,
as is well known, refuse to perform military service and to
pay taxes, and thus necessitate the employment of repres-
sive measures which the Government itself regrets more
than any one else, has described them to me in a manner
which places them in a tolerably favourable light. They
are a set of visionaries, not without sympathetic qualities,
and capable, in their ingenuous simplicity, of a certain
moral greatness. He related the following colloquy to
me : —
'' You will be sent to Siberia, a terrible country, where
not even a dog can find a living ! "
^^ Does God live there ? "
Send money to these honest folk if you will, but tell
us of Katioucha !
I have said my say, and I well-nigh repent that I have
ventured to address you. For memory tells me that, for
the last twenty or thirty years, your teaching, if it has
occasionally flown in the face of reason, has held its own
against other and less patient authorities — authorities
which command millions of wills and millions of con-
sciences, and which no man before you has ever braved
with impunity. And I remember that your ideas and
even your art, marvellous as it is, count for little com-
pared with the example you have set, and the date you
have so nobly written in the history of your country.
With it you inaugurate the reign of that mighty power of
freedom which — whatever your Slavophils may say, and
whatever you yourself may think — has renewed the face
of the Western world, and is predestined to transfigure
TOLSTOr 397
that of your beloved Russia. Your share in this work has
been magnificently borne. You are a very great man,
and my criticisms are infinitely small, but you will for-
give them, for the sake, and in the name, of the very
principle you represent.
A popular picture by Riepine represents the master
of lasnaia Poliana, driving a plough drawn by a
w^hite horse, across the plain, and leading another
horse, harnessed to a harrow, behind him. With his
white kaftan^ open at the breast, his fur cap and high
boots, he looks like Ilia of Mourom, the great legendary
toiler, the clearer of the national soil. And something
of this there is in the reality with which the legend is
fused ; — waving harvests will grow, I doubt not, out
of the furrow ploughed by Leo Nicolaievitch. But what
grain will he have sown, drawn from what heavenly
granary ? Doubt overwhelms me, or rather, I should
say, an all too evident sense of nothingness weighs me
down. And thus I reach the close of this too short in-
vestigation of the sphere of intellect in contemporary
Russia. The French writer who preceded me in this
work, now over ten years ago, built high hopes on its
result. ''Days of famine and weakness," he wrote,
" have fallen upon the country of Pascal, Chateaubriand,
and Michelet. The Russians have come to us in the
nick of time. If any power of digestion remains to us,
w^e shall strengthen our blood at their expense. Let me
remind those inclined to blush at the idea of owing any-
thing to the Barbarians that the intellectual world is one
huge association for mutual help and charity. . . . May
Heaven grant that this Russian soul may do good service
to our ow^n ! "
Years have rolled on, and no apparent response has
398 RUSSIAN LITERATURE
been made to M. de Vogue's expectation. Another writer
of the same nationaUty has lately pointed out; that
though evident traces of the imitation of Russian models
do exist, as regards form, in the work of Bourg-et, Mau-
passant, and some other novelists, there has been no
corresponding incursion of fecundating thought into
French intelligence as a whole. ^^ Whose fault " ? I
would inquire, in the words which form the title of cer-
tain studies of society, popular in Russia. The answer
seems to me to be contained in the closing pages of M.
de Vogue's volume — wherein, with a certain amount of
contradiction, but with most meritorious frankness, the
author casts away his earlier confidence, and registers
his final disappointments. Should any, among all those
creators of ideas on whose talents he had been led to
found his belief in the regenerative power of the ^' Rus-
sian Soul," have justified his confidence so fully as Tol-
stoi ? But here are his conclusions. ^' In vain do we
seek a single original idea in the revelation ofi'ered to us
by the apostle of Toula. We only find the first prattlings
of rationalism in religion, and of Communism in social
matters. The old dream of the Millennium, the tradition
preserved since the earliest Middle Ages, by the Vaudois,
the Lollards, and the Anabaptists. Happy Russia ! where
such chimeras still seem fresh and new."
Worn out chimeras, alas ! and valiant repetitions !
Tolstoi sends us back what we ourselves have been able
to bestow upon his country, with a few rags of fresh
finery cast over our old tattered garments. There is
nothing surprising in the fact that under a disguise which
is often whimsical, and occasionally absurd, the West
failed to recognise some of the noblest fruits of its own
loins, even that human compassion which many of us,
LIESKOV 399
forgetful of the ^'divine" George Sand, have chosen
to ascribe to her Russian imitators. The extraordinary
thing is, that hideous caricatures should have been ac-
cepted as exquisite revelations. The Russians themselves
make no mistake about the matter, and Dostoievski,
rather than deny the paternity of the author of ConsuelOy
has preferred to annex her to his own country, and deli-
berately call her '^ a Russian force." The expression will
be found in his writings.
Yet, amidst the common poverty of this poor huma-
nity of ours, the garment counts for something. And
my closing and personal dictum shall be as follows.
Modern Russia has produced men possessing a marvel-
lous power of calling up pictures. She has not, as yet,
produced an entirely original thinker. From the intel-
lectual point of view, she has lived, hitherto, on the capital
of the West, and even a century of effort has hardly en-
abled her to assimilate, with occasional perversions, the
heterogeneous elements thus obtained. Yet, on her own
side, she has contributed certain methods of thought, and
more especially certain methods of feeling, which her
European neighbours do not, up to the present moment,
appear capable of incorporating. But what is a century,
after all, in the evolution of a human race ? and how
much longer a period had to elapse before the West
itself could recreate and appropriate the intellectual
inheritance of ancient Greece or Rome ?
Tolstoi has not founded any literary school, properly
so called, in his own country. The Russian who, after
having previously followed in the steps of Chtchedrine,
appeared at one moment to have advanced farther than
any other in the path marked out by the '^ Prophet
of Toula," is an author who is scarcely known to
400 RUSSIAN LITERATURE
foreign readers, and who deserves better fortune.
N. S. LifiSKOV (1831-1895), a very productive writer
and novelist, made a somewhat tardy appearance in
the world of letters. Until 1861, he travelled, both
in Russia and abroad, as the agent of an English
merchant, Mr. Scott. About this period he revealed
his powers of literary criticism in a somewhat severe
review of Tchernichevski's novel. What is to be Done?
Shortly afterwards two novels, published under the
pseudonym of Stebnitski, The Blind Alley {Niekouda)^
and The Islanders {Ostrovitanie) proved him a resolute
opponent of revolutionary ideas, against which he en-
deavoured to set up an ideal of practical activity. This
ideal was somewhat misty in its nature, and is certainly
not attained by the heroine of one of his stories — a modern
Lady Macbeth, whose series of crimes, the object of
which is to bring her nearer to her lover, lead her on to
suicide. The general note struck in these early works
is somewhat melancholy and pessimistic, and this deepens
in Good and Evil Fortune^ and in The Bewitched Traveller
{Otcharovannyi Strannik\ in which a curious figure, a
kind of Russian Gil Bias, is made the pretext for an
exceedingly varied and interesting, but by no means flat-
tering, series of descriptions of the national life. In its
pages we meet with an '^ Arbiter of Peace," who serves
the cause of education by levying contributions on the
schools, and a provincial Governor, whose dream is to
conquer Europe, and transfer the seat of his administra-
tion to Paris ! Gogol and Saltykov themselves could
have given us nothing better.
Yet Lieskov is by no means a writer with a special
and deliberate tendency. When he began the great
novel which crowned his reputation, and endowed the
LIESKOV 401
national literature with its first written description of
the life of the orthodox clergy, he certainly had no deli-
berate intention of finding fault. He was rather disposed
to sympathy and apology. In the person of the principal
character of The Priests {^Soborianie)^ the proto-pope,
Touberosov, he desired to draw an ideal ecclesiastic,
whose whole life and teaching were based on love of his
neighbour. Yet when we read this model priest's journal,
a painful impression of moral emptiness results. At the
beginning we find a few noble thoughts, but after these,
nothing but childishness, empty triflings, paltriness, and
not one single act of Christian charity. As a whole, it
constitutes a terrible bill of accusation. And Touberosov
does not stand alone. Close beside him we perceive
the deacon Achilles, a child of the Steppe, who hastily
casts off his sacerdotal garments, to betake himself to the
tavern, wrestle with strong men at a fair, or ride off
stark naked to the bath. And the strangely low level to
which this element of the national life appears to have
fallen inspires us with a fresh sensation of sadness and
disgust.
To escape from this himself, and satisfy his personal
religious feeling, which w^s very deep, Lieskov has been
tempted to go back to the earliest period of Christian
history for the subjects of his fine Egyptian legends. The
Mountain and The Fair Aza, and here he has found him-
self on the same ground with Tolstoi. At the same
time, in a story entitled At the End of the World {Na
Kraiou Svieta), he sketched the subject of Master and
Servant some twenty years before that tale appeared.
But Lieskov never dreams of excluding modern science
and culture from that practical activity of which he
conceives altruism to be the true foundation. On this
402 RUSSIAN LITERATURE
point the divergence between his view and Tolstoi's is
clear and unmistakable. His legends are nothing but
allegories. He would like to see modern men full of
the spirit which animated the Christians of the heroic
times, but he believes this spirit can be adapted to the
forms of modern life, the superiority of w^hich he does
not deny.
As a publicist, Lieskov showed particular activity in
and about the year 1880. He handled a great number of
questions, social, religious, and political ; and his studies
of the Raskol attracted particular attention.
To such of my readers as may desire a sample of his
powers as a humorist, I would recommend Dear Love,
an entertaining portrait of a Russian country bumpkin,
who falls under the suspicion of Nihilism, because he
has fled across the frontier to escape the advances of
an English governess, who will insist on scenting him
with eau-de-Cologne ; with his wild beard, his mighty
appetite, and his half- savage instincts, he wanders up
and down the streets of Paris, discovering no charm
whatever in the marvels of civilisation he encounters.
CHAPTER XI
CONTEMPORARY LITERATURE
For the last ten years a sudden stopmge has taken place
in that intellectual current which had pyreviously flowed
from Western to Eastern Europe,* and w^hereby the
East had been giving back, under a new form, the ideas
drawn from the elder source. This system of exchange,
in which Western Europe certainly found an advantage
of its own, has now almost entirely disappeared. The
works of Tourgueniev, Dostoievski, and Gontcharov still
are seen in the hands of French, English, and German
readers ; and Tolstoi's writings continue to find their way
across every frontier. But, even in these, foreign interest
is not so fresh and constant as in former days ; while
amongst the writers of the younger g^eneration — and the
impression his writings have produced has been of a some-
what mixed description — Tchekhov is almost the only one
whose work has even found admittance to foreign review^s.
All the rest remain utterly Ux^iknown. There is no de-
mand for anything they write. Have they nothing worth
offering ? The question is thus answered by a very
far-seeing critic, fellow-worker withjr'M. Pypine in the
great History of Slav Literature^ which has gained so
universal a reputation for its authors. In the European
Messenger^ March 1888, M. Spasowicz writes as follows : —
'' We have grown very poor in the matter of talent.
Our intellectual level has fallen. Our conception of the
404 RUSSIAN LITERATURE
simplest problems of general existence has narrowed.
We have no ideal, whether in ethics or aesthetics ; utter
selfishness, naked and open, to the point of cynicism,
reigns supreme in our world of thought."
But where is the reason of this downfall ? I turn
to another Russian writer, M. Milioukov, a first-rate
historian, who acted for some years as literary critic to
the London AthencEum.. He likens the social life of his
own country to a river, the bed of which has been sud-
denly choked by some irremovable obstruction. And to
this he ascribes the consecutive phenomena of stagna-
tion, sterility, and corruption, apparent in the intellectual
and literary w^orld. The existence of these phenomena
is only too evident. Even literary criticism has broken
with the glorious traditions of Bielinski and Dobro-
Houbov. Messrs. Pypine and Skabitchevski forsake the
ungrateful soil of present-day production, and turn back
to the original sources of the national literature. Mik-
hailovski makes the character of Ivan the Terrible his
special study. And these princes of the critical art are
the elder men — the veterans of bygone literary battles.
The young ones do not even care to seek employment
for an activity which is steadily waning. Indifference
appears to overwhelm their souls, and a premature
senility seems the distinctive feature of their intellectual
temperament. Their organs. The Northern Messenger
and The Week, are devoted to the justification of this
state of mind, and the establishment of a theory on
which it may be based. One of them, M. Volynski,
in a thick volume published in 1895, has invoked the
teaching of Tolstoi in support of his repudiation of the
impassioned work of the great literary ancestors whose
names I have just mentioned, and his endeavour to steer
STAGNATION 405
the younger generation into the path of the symboHsts
and the decadents.
Frankly speaking, I have no belief in the existence
of the obstacle indicated by M. Milioukov — an obstacle
the nature of which may be easily divined — or, at all
events, I cannot admit the decisiveness of its effect on
surrounding^circumstances. My readers will not suspect
me of any sympathy with the morally repressive system
which, under Ahe reign of Nicholas II., recalls the
memories ahd examples left him by his dread ancestor.
But the very evocation of that bygone time prevents
me from sharing the view of the present held by the
brilliant contrib,utor to the Athenceum, It was the reign
of Nicholas I., ^^ith all its severe measures, its Censor's
scissors, its han\icu£fs and its muzzles, the " cosy dun-
geons" reserved for Bielinski, the convict prisons that
opened their dAsrs to Dostoievski, which witnessed the
mighty intellectual expansion to which Russian literature
owes its positiQn in the civilised world.
His successor's rule has induced the recurrence of
another phenomenon, the consequences of which, as
regards th^^intellectual development of the country, are
somewhat serioiM. We observe a fresh stream of emi-
gration, similar to that which once carried such men
as Tchadaifev and Herzen to London and to Paris.
Milioukov, not so long ago, was teaching history at
Sophia. ^ Kovalevski, who, like him, was reckoned one
of the most brilliant professors at the Moscow University,
has settled in France. A literary circle, comprising a
whole constellation of talent, driven far from its natural
centre, ha§ gathered in Paris under the roof of M. Ivan
Chtchoukine, a young and learned man, whose future
seems full of brilliant promise. Here M. de Roberty,
4o6 RUSSIAN LITERATURE
whom M. Izoulet, the eminent professor of the College
de France, has lately hailed as one of his own masters,
expounds a somewhat subversive doctrine of sociology,
and a philosophy occasionally rather alarming in its
nature. Here M. Onieguine — the founder of a Pouch-
kine museum, which Parisian eyes have been the first
to behold — explains and comments on the works of his
beloved poet. Here may be met M. Skalkovski — a
statesman of importance, a writer enjoying great ad-
miration among his fellow-countrymen — with his spon-
taneous wit and inexhaustible stores of knowledge.
Thanks to these gentlemen, I have had three of the
richest possible Russian libraries at my command, on
the banks of the Seine. And a fourth, at Beaulieu, has
been collected by M. Kovalevski. I must not omit from
this list of self-made exiles the distinguished geographer.
General Venioukov, and M. Vyroubov, who at one time
collaborated with Littre, and edited the Revue de Philo-
Sophie Positive with Robin (1867 to 1883). M. Vyroubov,
who is specially suited to the study of scientific prob-
lems, has devoted himself, latterly, to Natural Science.
One of the few Russians who, in recent times, has ac-
quired world-wide fame in connection with this last-
named branch of learning, M. Mietchnikov, has also
become a dweller in France. The Russian novel, too, has
representatives in that country, and it is in Paris and in
French that Countess Lydia Rostoptchine — daughter of
the Countess Eudoxia, referred to in an earlier chapter —
has published her latest stories.
But except for this resemblance, the present epoch
has nothing in common, from the intellectual point of
view, with the perjod the political traditions of which it
has reproduced. And hence, I believe, I have the right
INERTIA 40;
to conclude that these same traditions cannot be made
solely and directly responsible for the literary decadence
which has accompanied their present recrudescence.
The essential causes of this decadence appear to me to
b-e connected with a far more general order of things.
The method of progress which consists in an alternation
of forward leaps and stationary periods, is characteristic
both of the nature and of the known history of the
people once ruled by Peter the Great. In Russia,
when the elements of the national activity have been
worked up to an extreme point of tension and productive
energy, a sort of spontaneous decomposition always seems
to set in. The same phenomenon may be observed,
though on a more moderate scale, in western countries.
Recollect the period of comparative inertia and reaction
which followed, after 1850, on the intense intellectual
excitement of the preceding years in France. In Russia,
even as early as just aftepj-§^i, when the relatively liberal
system of Alexander 1 1. > was at its height, the Liberals
and the narodniki (friends of the people), otherwise the
agrarian socialists, who had marched shoulder to shoulder
under the banner of emancipation, fell apart, under the
influence of Slavophilism, which imparted its own special
colour to that love of the people more ostensibly pro-
fessed in one camp than in the other.
In the eyes^of these Russian Socialists, who repudiate
all the history of their country subsequent to the reign of
Peter the Great, the populace, as it stands, constitutes the
Alpha and Omega of the national life. The Liberals, on
the other hand, look on the people as an ignorant and bar-
barous mass. The Liberals, therefore, sought political re-
forms, fitted to raise the intellectual level of the populace.
The Socialists cried out for social xQioxvixs^ and for the main-
27
408 RUSSIAN LITERATURE
tenance of the despotism founded on democracy. After
1 87 1, a new group of Radical dissidents made its appear-
ance. This party held that to claim social reforms before
political reforms was to set the cart before the horse. It
adopted the theories of Karl Marx, and put forward the
principle that Capitalism was a necessary stage on the
road to Collectivism. Matters stbod thus, when the
catastrophe of 188 1 fell like a thunderbolt, literally choking
the nation's breath, and suspending its normal existence
for quite ten years, and the symptoms of decomposi-
tion already apparent grew worse and worse. In 1891,
the strain relaxed ; there was a kind of painful recoil, to
which society voluntarily adapted itself. A fresh out-
break of famine, another intervention on Tolstoi's part,
and the discussions arising therefrom, restored the public
mind to life. But at once the underhand conflict recom-
menced, between Vassili Vorontsov, editor of The Wealth of
Russia {Rousskoie Bogatstvo), Pypine, who contributed to
the European Messenger^ and Soloviov, who forsook the
Slavophils for the Liberals, and declared himself an
agrarian individualist, a partisan of the system of great
properties, and an enemy of Collectivism. Then fresh
groups formed. There were Old Collectivists or New
Collectivists, who, under Vorontsov's leadership, styled
themselves Populists^ and endeavoured to prove that
Capitalism ruins the peasants by destroying their domestic
industries ; Individualists, followers of Marx and Engels,
and supporters of a philosophic doctrine known in Russia
as ^' Economic Materialism " ; Individualists, again, of the
new school of Soloviov, who preached a paradoxical
combination of Socialism and Materialism, supposed to
lead the modern world to a true understanding of the
Christian doctrine ; a philosophical Tower of Babel,
DECADENCE 409
shaking on its foundations, and crumbling away in empty
arguments. Not one really productive idea, not a formula
that can be accepted by the general mind, always, and
in all places, division, molecular disaggregation, and, as
a necessary consequence, sheer inertia.
Another cause of this I see — also quite independent
of the political order of the day ; the development of
industrial enterprise, and the sudden rush of almost the
whole of the contemporary national force in that direc-
tion. The prodigies ah-eady performed are within general
knowledge. The valley of the Don has been transformed
into another Belgium ; the steel ribbon of the Trans-
Siberian railway rolls its length down to the very coasts
of the Pacific Ocean ! At the same time — and this is in
agreement with the present system of moral pressure
— the curriculum of the schools has been modified so
as to increase the amount of technical instruction, at the
expense of the time formerly given to general education ;
college pupils have no opportunity, now, for writing
verses. The statesmen who produced novels and com-
posed plays between two diplomatic missions have died
out. Nowadays, everybody builds factories 1
However that may be, at the present moment Russian
literature subsists principally on translations. In a
book published in 1892, and dealing with this decadence,
which nobody dreams of denying, the poet Merechkovski
has made an effort of his own to lead the younger gene-
ration to adopt the esoteric formulae of the French sym-
bolism, in the hope that in them it may find the elements
of a fresh season of springing growth. He appears to
have converted a few young writers. But they have
only found it still more difficult to catch the public ear.
My readers will guess that of the threefold inheritance
4IO RUSSIAN LITERATURE
left us by Pouchkine, Gogol, and Bielinski, the legacy of
the first-named author is that which has suffered the
most noticeable loss. Speaking, in an earlier chapter,
of Nekrassov and Koltsov, I referred to the great lyric
current which issued from the intellectual whirlpool of
1840, and pointed out its limits. In the years between
1850 and i860, a subsidiary current appeared in the
satirical newspapers of that day — The Whistle^ The
Sparky The Awakening — which seemed for a moment
to contain the germs of a school of political poetry in-
spired by Heine and Boerne. Towards 1870 this flood,
too, died away on the sand, and the whimsical work
of Kouzma Proutkov (the no7n de plume adopted by
Count A. Tolstoi' and the brothers Jemtchoujnikov),
despite its popularity, is but a doubtful monument in
its honour, full of jokes and ironical artlessness, the point
of which is not always easily discovered. The editor of
The Whistle y V. S. Kourotchkine— the Henri Mounier of
Russia — has also won reputation by his translation of
Beranger. This intellectual shrinkage, the symptoms
and causes of which I have endeavoured to explain, has,
on the other hand, given rise, in the domain of the
national poetry, to a phenomenon of which the literatures
of other European countries strike me as presenting no
example.
In an out-of-the-way corner — a sanctuary hemmed
about with silence and solitude — a knot of the elect still
carries on the worship of which, towards the close of
his career, Pouchkine had made himself High Priest.
These exponents of '^ art for art's sake," as he himself de-
scribed it, share his ignorance and scorn of the noise of the
outside world — the feelings and passions of that general
mass which, in its turn, knows naught of the mysteries
THE SCHOOL OF POUCHKINE 411
they profess. What is the number of these worshippers ?
I have made no close reckoning. The temple in which
they carry on their secret rite is certainly not a large
one. Our visit to it will not delay us long. On the
very threshold, a memory comes back to me, and a
shiver checks my forward course. Some years ago, I
went to pay a visit, in St. Petersburg, to a member of
the officiating priesthood of the tiny chapel. Just as
I was about to cross his threshold, my attention was
attracted by an inscription above the entrance-door. It
ran, Tiouremnoie Otdielenie (Prisons Department), and I
w^as informed that the offices of the Prisons Adminis-
tration shared the edifice with those of the Censure —
and the Head of the Censure was the poet I had come
to seek ! CaUing upon the shade of Lermontov, I beat
a hasty retreat ! I have been sorry for it since, for
in doing so I had turned my back on the sanctuary
itself. '^What?" you cry, "are all of them Censors,
jailers of human thought, carrying lyres in one hand
and scissors in the other, turning about from the altar
to sift out inappropriate pages ? " Yes ! Most of them,
alas ! and the most eminent ! Their art is delicate
indeed, but you cannot expect the sacred flame of their
inspiration to burn very high, seeing one of their chief
functions was to brandish the extinguisher ! None of
them are young at the present time. But were they ever
young ? Those in the first rank belong, or belonged
— for death has made great gaps amongst them during
the last few years — to Bielinski's generation. But no
one would suspect it, to so utterly different a w^orld do
they appear to pertain.
In 1803, when Pouchkine was four years old, FiODOR
IVANOVITCH TiOUTCHEV was born, and he passed away in
412 RUSSIAN LITERATURE
1876. What was he doing in 1822, when the author of
Eugene Onieguine was passing into the starry orbit of
romanticism, and following the steps of Byron ? He
had just entered the diplomatic service, and left Russia,
whither he did not return till twenty 3^ears later, when he
assumed the duties of Director of the Foreign Censorship.
During the interval, he published a translation of Horace,
and some poetry inserted in various periodicals, over the
signature of ^^T. T."
Up till the year 1854, his talents and his name were
equally unknown to the general public. But at that period,
Tourgueniev encouraged him to publish a work which
created a great sensation. Its dominant note, especially
in the pieces entitled Nature, Spring, An Autumn Even-
ing, and The Deserted Villa, is one of rigid and closely-
reasoned Pantheism. The poet never drops this note,
except in a few occasional pieces, in which his natural
frigidity appears to melt under the breath of Slavophilism.
In his address To my Slav Brothers, composed on the
occasion of the visit of the Slav deputies to the Ethnogra-
phical Exhibition at Moscow, in The Flag on the Bosphorus,
and in The Black Sea, he has given a bold support to Kho-
miakov. The famous dictum, '^ We. cannot understand
Russia, we must believe in her," is his. The verses in
which it occurs lack neither strength nor beauty. Those
in which he has described Nature as it appears in Russia,
are almost equal to Pouchkine's best efforts in the same
style. But, to my thinking, they do not possess that name-
less something which constitutes the essential value of a
work of art ; there is no infectious emotion, no illumi-
nating power. And how wretched are those political
epigrams and aphorisms which have earned their author
the reputation of a wit ! To our modern ears, they
TIOUTCHEV: MAIKOV 413
ring as false as an old-fashioned air played on a barrel
organ.
I may be mistaken in my judgment, for, though the
single volume which contains the author's complete work
left me cold and unresponsive, I have seen a Russian
reader shed tears over some of its pages. But the
number of his fellow-countrymen likely to share this
emotion is, I believe, a small one. Apart from his official
functions, and even in his manner of discharging them,
Tioutchev, so I have been assured, was a very honest
gentleman. In Russia, and even in France, he still re-
tains a certain following of admirers, who make up for
the smallness of their number by their fervour. He has
had a biographer, M. Akssakov, who has gone so far as
to describe him as a national i^OQi, par excellence. I should,
no doubt, have some difficulty in convincing M. Akssakov
that a man who wrote French so well as to possess a
personal style of his own, and who neither boasted nor
slandered himself, like Pouchkine, when he declared that
he found it easiest to express himself in this language,
— that such an Occidental, in fact, cannot, in spite of his
undoubted talent, have been more than a skilful rhymester
in Russian. And M. Salomon, who is now preparing to
introduce the poet to French readers, by means of a
translation into which he has put all the conscientious-
ness and the art of his delicate literary talent, will not
thank me for expressing this conviction.
Last year witnessed the departure of one of Tioutchev's
most brilliant followers, Apollonius Nicolai£vitch
Maikov (1821-1898), who resided m Italy at the period of
the great literary struggles of the ''forties," could not make
up his mind whether he should take up painting or poetry,
and finally decided in favour of — the Directorship of the
414 RUSSIAN LITERATURE
Foreign Censure ! Yet his study of the Roman antiques
had inspired him with some attempts at art criticism
(Roman Sketches^ iS^2)^ some anthological poetry, and
even certain more ambitious compositions in the epic style,
such as Savonarola^ Clei^mont Cathedral^ and The Queen^s
Confession. They are frank imitations. After his return
to Russia, Maikov was absorbed by his professional duties.
The Censor's scissors were kept very busy just at that
period, until the Crimean War drove his oftice into the
background and brought the poet down off the top of the
Column of Trajan, where he seemed to have fixed his home.
He published a book appropriate to the occasion, which he
called The Year 18^4, fell out with the West, and allowed
the Slavophil and Neo-Grecian current to carry him away.
This new stage of his literary career is marked by the
publication of two collections of Neo-Greek poetry, fol-
lowed, between i860 and 1880, by translations of old
Slavonic poems. By insensible degrees, Maikov was
drawn into the contemporary conflict of political thought
and passion. The Princess ^ the most original of his poetic
works, bears witness to this fact. A great Russian lady
has a daughter, the fruit of an intrigue with a Parisian
Jesuit. The girl, brought up away from her mother,
becomes a Nihilist. One evening, at a ball, the mis-
guided young creature comes to her mother, insists that
she shall supply her with certain important documents, and
threatens, if she refuses, to reveal the secret of her own
birth to the Third Section (the superior police). The
great lady faints away and dies — in stanzas of the most
correct description. I will not dwell upon the sub-
ject. The poet had certainly left his best inspiration on
the top of his column. He proved it, before his death,
by his completion of two lyric dramas, The Three Deaths^
MAIKOV: FCETH 415
and The Two Worlds^ the rough sketches of which had
remained among his papers since his Itahan days, and
which may fairly be considered his best works. In both
these dramas, we see the struggle between the Greco-
Roman and the Christian world. In the first we have
the cold though well-modelled figures of three represen-
tatives of the expiring Pagan civilisation — Lucan, the poet;
Seneca, the philosopher ; and Lucius, the epicurean ; all
three condemned to death by Nero for their share in the
conspiracy of Piso. In The Two Worlds, the chief charac-
ters are Decius, the patrician, who poisons himself in
the midst of a banquet in his palace, and the tender and
dreamy Lida, who represents the Spirit of Christianity.
Between the two appears a witless Juvenal. It is a world
of statues, with all the polish and brilliancy of marble,
but soft and uncertain in outline. The artist's soul had
travelled back to the walls of Rome, but his hand seems
to have chiselled, not in the quarries of Carrara, but
in the ice of the Neva. The atmosphere of his gallery is
bitter cold.
Athanasius Athansievitch Fceth (1815-1860), — his
father's name was Chenchine, and he was a natural son —
the author of translations, now forgotten, of Juvenal,
Horace, Goethe, and Shakespeare, stands, in his greater
delicacy and sentiment (French grace and German senti-
ment), a yet more isolated figure amongst the men and
things of his period. He cheerfully tuned his little flute
to the music of Petrarch, or Lessing, or that of the poet
of the rose gardens, the Persian Saadi. Forgetful, in his
retreat, of the tempest w4:iich was shaking most minds and
consciences, or unaware of its existence, he sang, for
thirty years, the beauty of fair women, the joy of life, the
charms of summer nights and winter landscapes {Even^
41 6 RUSSIAN LITERATURE
m£-s and Nights and Snow-covered Fields), and wrote
madrigals for Ophelia,
Silence has fallen upon him. It has fallen, now, on
almost all those tuneful voices which till lately woke ever
so feeble an echo of the mighty harmonies of bygone
days. But a few months ago (October i8, 1898), death
laid his hand on James Petrovitch Polonski (1820-1898),
the friend of Tourgu^niev, the foster-child of the Idealist
circle at Moscow. His earliest collection of poetry, The
Scales, dates from 1844. Later he resided for a lengthened
period in the Caucasus, where he edited an official news-
paper, and published three more books, the last of which
bears the Georgian title oi Sazandar (The Bard), From
1856 to i860 he lived in Rome and Paris, and prepared
himself to imitate Tioutchev and Maikov by undertaking,
in his turn, the duties of the Censorship of the Foreign
Press, and sitting on the General Council of Press
Management. This did not prevent him from sending
poetical contributions to most of the literary organs of
the period, all of which welcomed him heartily, for he
belonged to no party. His earHest literary associations
had left him with a vague belief in the progressive
perfectibility of the national existence. He shared the
general disappointment, but found a melancholy con-
solation in a world of dreams which his fancy peopled
with ideals as delicate and fragile as children's toys.
Several of his poems, full of melody and ring, very
innocent, and so simple that the memory of a boy of
twelve years old may easily retain them, run a fair chance
of remaining popular. The most celebrated, which re-
minds one somewhat of Othon Roquette's Le Voyage de
Noces dii Maitre Forestier, is entitled The Musical Cricket,
The cricket falls in love with a nightingale's voice, con-
NADSOHN 417
trives to discover the whereabouts of the bewitching bird,
joins company with it, and is promptly devoured ! In his
more ambitious compositions, Polonski's breath fails him.
He imitates Pouchkine's somewhat bourgeois style of
describing epic subjects — the Russian method, since the
publication of Eugene Onieguine, but he possesses none
of that conviction of the superiority of poetic truth over
reflection which is the secret of the great master's power.
When he follows his own inspiration and his natural
humour, he occasionally stumbles on powerful and
original ideas.
And now the temple, haunted by the shade of the
great poet, takes on, more and more, the appearance of a
necropolis. But a few short years ago some sound and
tumult did re-echo across its dreary threshold. The
guardians of the sanctuary cast out the intruders, whom
the outer world would have borne in triumph beneath
its roof, and for whom plaudits still rang without the
walls. The face of one of these — reminding one of a
Christ in agony — still hovers before my eyes. His name
was Simon lakovldvitch Nadsohn (i 862-1886). Like his
comrades, Minski and Frug, he was a Jew. The last
edition of his poems, dated 1897, now lies upon my table.
It is the fifteenth ! So great a success is unprecedented
in the history of his country. Is it justifiable ? M.
Bourenine would not forgive me if I said so. I will
merely affirm that it is natural. There is no strong per-
sonality either in his ideas or in his poetic form, but he
has fire, a ring of sincerity, a supple rhythm. The general
public asks nothing more. Is it in the wrong ? Are we
in a position to judge of that ? Nadsohn has won the
public heart. He has one capital fault — monotony. But
is that a fault, in Russia ? We seem to listen to some
41 8 RUSSIAN LITERATURE
single-stringed instrument from which the musician can
only draw one solitary note — a long-drawn sob. *'A/iI
I ask but little of fate ^ . . . ^' There is an anguish more
terrible than tortured . . . ^^ I think I am going mad."
...'*/ have dreamed of death." . . . ^^ Muse I I die — a
foolish and impious deaths . . . " / know a comer in
the graveyard hard by." . . . Conceive four hundred
pages of poetry all in this vein ! but the poet was only
twenty, and he knew himself doomed to the merciless
and tragic fate of his peers — the fate of Lermontov, and
Koltsov, and Garchine. He felt he was dying, and that
mud would be cast upon his half-closed tomb. Not his
talent only, but his honour was attacked. And further,
what better excuse could he have had than the enthu-
siastic reception given him by the public ? Has not
M. Bour^nine divined its true meaning ? Can he hesi-
tate to accept it as proof that the single note of a
lyre so soon to be broken, that bitter cry of despair and
death agony, touched a sympathetic chord, one which no
criticism can silence, in many thousands of human souls.
The unhappy young man betook himself to Yalta, to seek
relief from a pulmonary malady. The treacherous attacks
and insinuations showered upon him tended largely, so
the doctors have declared, to hurry on his end ; and by
the first and last favour of that Fortune who was to him
a cruel stepmother, the steamship Pouchkine carried back
his ashes to Odessa. His grave, close to those of Dos-
toievski and Bi^linski, swallowed up yet another vanished
hope. And silence, darker and more gloomy than ever,
fell round the forsaken temple.
The series of catastrophes, which, from Batiouchkov
onwards, have checked the upward flight of so many
brilliant careers, can hardly be attributed to mere chance.
GARCHINE 419
They bear all the appearance of what we may call a
regular phenomenon, induced by permanent causes, a
wind of destruction, which sweeps across the huge plain
on which Nadsohn's complaint found so persistent an
echo. I turn from poetry, to follow the most recent
exemplifications of the novelist's art, and once again I
stumble across a grave.
When I said that Leo Tolstoi had founded no school
in his own country, I did not dream of overlooking the
influence he has exercised, more especially from the
artistic point of view. This influence is evident in the first
literary efforts of VsifivOLOD MiCHAiLOViTCH Garchine
(1855-1885). I do not refer to an Essay on Deaths a
school-boy composition written when he was seventeen,
and remarkable for a sense of realism astonishing for
that age. ^^ Welly I must die! and then? it is time to
go to rest. Only it is a pity I cannot finish my theme.
Supposing you did it for me, you are a mathematician !
. . . E. F. was dying of an illness which has been the
death of many men, kind a7id clever, strong and weak.
He was a terrible drunkard, . . . He was a very little man,
very ugly, with a cadaverous complexion.''^ . . . Garchine
was an infant prodigy, and at a very early period
the balance of his mental faculties was in danger. As
a young man he was a prey to hallucinations, and fits
of unhealthy excitement, interspersed w^ith the noblest
inspirations. He loathed war, and yet insisted on bear-
ing his part in the campaign of 1876, so that he might
share the fate of the unfortunate creatures sent out to
suffer and to die. This was his manner of ^' going out
amongst the people." He received a bullet wound at
the battle of Aiaslar, and related his experiences in The
Four Days, a work which has been flatteringly compared
420 RUSSIAN LITERATURE
with the Memories of Sevastopol. A few months later, an
attempt was made on the Hfe of Loris MeHkov, and the
gallows threatened one of the poet's friends. During
the night before the execution, Garchine made desperate
efforts to prevent it ; he failed, and soon after it became
necessary to place him in a lunatic asylum. He re-
covered, and married a young lady, who practised as a
doctor, and employed all her skill to prevent a recurrence
of his attack. But before long the readers of his Red
Flower were forced to the conclusion that the young
author was still haunted by memories of the time spent
in the madhouse. The story describes a demented
person, half-conscious of his condition, who wears him-
self out in superhuman efforts to gain possession of a
red poppy — reddened, as he imagines, by the blood of
all the martyrdoms of the human race. If the flower
were only destroyed, he thinks, humanity would be
saved. A few years later, Garchine threw himself over
the staircase, and was killed.
Some of his works, expatiating on the uselessness
and monstrous cruelty of war, are directly inspired by
Tolstoi. To his master he owes his very elevated doc-
trine and his exceedingly delicate aesthetic sense. His
I Four Days, a terrifying picture of a wounded Russian
left tete-a-tete with the rotting corpse of a dead Turk, is
as full of detail as a picture by Verechtchaguine, and he
is believed to have been influenced by that master of
pictorial realism. You will not find a single disgusting
detail. Like Tolstoi', the author of The Red Flower
delights in allegory ; for assuredly, the execution of the
bears condemned to death by the police, and executed
by their masters, the wandering gipsies, described in the
tale named after those harmless Plantigrades, is allegorical
GARCHINE 421
in intention. We find another instance in the story of
the Attalea PrincepSj an exotic plant which pines to
break the hothouse in which it is shut up. At the very
moment when its end is attained and its proud crest
shatters the glass dome which protects it from the frost,
the winter sky chills it from above, and, at its base, it
feels the sharp teeth of the saw, which, by the head-
gardener's command, rids the conservatory of its too
ambitious presence. The ideas .thus symbolised are
somewhat obscure.
In The Coward {Trouss), Garchine goes even further
than Tolstoi in the direction taken by the Doukho-
bortsy. He depicts a soldier who protests furiously
against the necessity of being killed, or trying to kill
his fellow-creatures, but who does his duty none the
less, and dies, rifle in hand, in very simple and heroic
fashion. The Russian talent for dying worthily was one
of Garchine's favourite ideas from his youth up. His
very wide humanity, his hatred for everything that
causes suffering, his sympathy for life's failures, whether
innocent or guilty, follows him into his novels on social
questions. But his talent is marred by his excessive,
though thoroughly honest, pessimism. The victors, the
fortunate individuals whom he brings before us, are all,
without exception, very shabby characters. Such are
Diedov, in The Artists^ and the engineer who has grown
rich in The Meeting, Riabinine, Diedov's less fortunate
friend, curses his art, and turns his back upon it, after
seeing, during a visit to a factory, a workman crouched in
a boiler, and pressing his chest against the rivets while
his foreman strikes them with his hammer. Garchine's
most attractive type (probably autobiographic in its
nature) is that of a man who is doomed to suffering, and
422 RUSSIAN LITERATURE
who looks at life with a feeling of painful impotence ; a
man with no belief in happiness, no power of being
happy, inspired by a deep love for the human race, and
an equal and almost feminine horror of life's struggle.
When he is forced to struggle, even to save the
woman he loves from misery — as in the novel entitled
Nadiejda Nikolaiev7ta — he is incapable of anything but
suffering without a murmur, until a pistol shot ends
it all.
Garchine is no declaimer, he gives us no showy tirades
or phrases. His humanitarian ideas connect him with
the intellectual current of the sixties, and his preference
for heroes who always stand out above the common herd,
men either of high intelligence or a strong character,
distinguishes him from Tolstoi, and draws him closer to
Tourgueniev and the traditions of the romantic school.
This feature, as well as his care for artistic completeness
and his preference for short stories, in which that is
more easily attained, he also shares with his imitator
Vladimir Koroli^nko.
This writer, who was born in i860, has hitherto pub-
lished only one really considerable story. It numbers
150 pages, and is entitled The Blind Musician, This,
with his The Forest Whispers, and loni-Kipour^ forms
part of a cycle of compositions, the scene of which is laid
in South-Western Russia, whereas his Tales of a Siberian
Tourist call up the snow-covered landscapes of the north,
and the exiles and convicts there to be found. Koro-
li^nko himself made involuntary acquaintance with exile,
brought about by the most trifling of political peccadilloes.
In all these stories the moral teaching is identical, and
strongly resembles that we have already noticed in the
case of Garchine — sympathy felt with the weak and the
KOROLIENKO 423
hardly used, and no clear distinction drawn between
the innocent and the guilty.
The novelist's reputation dates from the publication
of his Dream of Macaire^ 1885 — a fanciful story, which
winds up with the judgment of a drunkard peasant by a
heavenly tribunal. Whether the heaven be that of the
Gospel or that of Siberian legend is not made abundantly
clear. The Russian public thirsts for poetry ; it eagerly
quaffed the cup offered it by Korolienko, without looking
too closely at the bottom. That which lies at the bottom
of the cup does not, in this author's case, possess a
perfect lucidity. His figures are like Murillo's beggars.
But he possesses the art of escaping triviality by never
lingering over external detail longer than is absolutely
necessary to the realisation of his types. Dostoievski's
influence is clearly visible in the Tales of a Siberian
Tourist. To it we owe some very doubtful portraits of
good ruffians. But this is a mere passing error. The
tales entitled The Old Ringer and An Easter Nighty which
belong to the same group, betray nothing of this kind.
The exquisite language, the transparently brilliant colour-
ing, and the picturesque imagery of these stories recall
Tourgueniev's Poems in Prose, and no greater praise can
be ascribed to any author. The soldier of the guard,
who, in spite of himself, becomes the murderer of the
escaped convict, whom he brings down by a shot from
his rifle, just as the distant bells ring out the Easter ves-
pers, attracts our sympathy even more strongly than his
victim. Korolienko reached a height, here, which he was
unfortunately not destined to maintain. The men of his
generation soon lose their breath ; it may be because
they find so little air that they can breathe. In lom-
Kipour (the Jewish Day of Expiation), which relates how
23
424 RUSSIAN LITERATURE
a Little-Russian miller, good Christian though he is/
narrowly escapes being carried away by the devil, in the
place of the Jewish tavern-keeper lankiel, because, like
him, he has tried to make money out of the poor peasants
— a very true and deep idea is embodied in a most
delightful description of local manners and customs.
But all the other pieces in the same collection are pale
in colour and empty in conception. The Blind Musician^
who attempts to reproduce the sensations of sight by
means of sounds, is an attempt, and a fresh failure, to
work out a psychological subject, w^hich had attracted
many w-riters before Korolienko's time.
The Russian novelist has hoped to replace the lack
of substance in his writings by lyrical fire ; but his
enthusiasm is cold and without emotion.
In On the Road and Two Points of VieWy Tolstoi's
influence, following on that of Dostoievski, impels the
author in his search for some moral principle as the
basis of our common existence. The traveller who
has lately escaped from a Siberian prison, and is strain-
ing every nerve to escape innumerable dangers and
regain his home, stops suddenly short. A doubt has
overwhelmed him. Why should he fly ? Why go there
rather than elsewhere ? and Korolienko is soon deep in
the analysis of the wavering spirit of the men of his
generation. A young man sees one of his friends killed
in a railway accident ; so struck is he by this event that
he arrives at last, through a series of questions, at a
completely mechanical conception of existence. What
is the use of thought or love ? and he forsakes a young
girl, whose affections he has won, until the unhappy
creature's sufferings reveal the true meaning of life to
his case-hardened soul.
NOVELISTS 425
All this, finished as it is as far as the form goes, is
very incomplete in conception, and for some years past
Korolienko seems to have taken a fancy to a still more slip-
shod method of work. He has published notes collected
in the Government of Nijni-Novgorod, in the course of
one of those famines which from time to time afflict the
provinces of the great empire ; and after a journey to
England, he made known his impressions of a stormy
sitting in Parliament. But all this may not unfairly be
called mere reporter's work.
The favour of the Russian public is now bestowed
on another group of novelists, far removed from Tolstoi
and his views of morality and art. The lovers of aesthetic
delights, and the eager reformers of the forties and the
sixties, have given place to a new generation of readers,
whose chief desire is to be amused or startled, and who
are not over particular as to the quality of the work which
gives them the desired sensation. Messrs Boborikine and
Potapienko are amongst those who best understand how
to satisfy this need. The first named (born 1836) is a bold
follower after prevailing fashions. For a considerable
period he has published a novel every year, and he has
never failed to touch on the topic of the moment. In
the last I have read, that published in 1897, and entitled
In Another Manner^ I find references to the latest fashion-
able philosophic formula. Economic Materialism, Except
for the difference in talent, the author's method is that
of Tourgueniev in Fathers and Children. But the spirit
of the work is very dissimilar. It is affected by the in-
differentist theories of The Week, In The Turnings which
dates from 1894, my readers will find a very curious
panorama of the variations of philosophy and literature
since the year 1840. M. Boborikine makes no selection
426 RUSSIAN LITERATURE
of his own, and does not suggest that his readers should
make any.
M. Potapienko, whose celebrity only dates from 1891,
is a great discoverer of dramatic situations. Generally
speaking, he leaves them where he finds them. The
failure of certain of his novels doubtless arises from this
last peculiarity ; for the author has naturalness, feeling,
freshness of impression, and a delicate observation.
Occasionally he shows a philosophic intention. In Sins
(1896) he even strikes me, in his somewhat coarse expo-
sure of the hypocritical virtue of a father, before the art-
less eyes of his children, as following up the furrow
traced by the toiler of lasnaia Poliana. Like their rivals of
the other group, these observers of life through a reversed
opera-glass prefer very small frames for their pictures.
If they do chance to choose a larger setting, they only
succeed in bringing together a succession of tiny facts
and exiguous impressions, which remind one of those
strings of dried mushrooms that grace the shop front
of every Russian provision merchant. The star of this
school is M. TCHfiKHOV.
I am tempted to describe this young writer as having
hitherto proved himself a lirst-rate artist in an inferior style.
And further, he has been living, since 1885, on a promise
which threatens to become a disappointment. Has he
given us his last word ? I cannot tell. The personal
impression he left on me about a year ago, after all too
short an interview, was that of a man of a very thought-
ful and retiring nature. His first attempts, published in
one of the least important of the St. Petersburg news-
papers, revealed a most successful search after simplicity,
a natural gift for fitting his form to his subject, a regret-
table taste for coarse humour, and a dangerous tendency
TCKEKHOV 427
to the drawing of arabesques upon an invisible back-
ground. In a collection of tales published, at a later
period, in book form, the young writer's range of vision
appears raised and widened. He touches on psycho-
logical conflicts {The Sorceress and Agatha) and even
on social problems {The Enemies and The Nightmare) y
— elements in the drama of existence which he had
hitherto seemed to ignore. These matters are glanced
at, rather than squarely faced, in The Twilight ^ —
such is the title of the collection. The half-tints,
the vague hints, the hasty abridgments, of which
the author makes use, were accepted, at that time,
as an ingenious artifice, deliberately employed. But
on this point Tchekhov's admirers were soon unde-
ceived. In The Steppe he undertook a canvas on a
larger scale, and it was noticed, with astonishment,
that his method remained unchanged. He still gave
sketches ; passing impressions hastily noted down ;
scenes strung one after the other, without any apparent
bond of continuity ; vague outlines ; and not one vigor-
ous touch or clear-cut figure. No ! not even that of
Egorouchka, the principal character of the book, — a
nine-year-old boy, whom his father takes to school
across the Steppe, and who describes the landscapes
seen during his journey. The method of describing the
scene — quite that of Tourgueniev, a deliberate confu-
sion of the child's ideas and sentiments with his feel-
ings of nature and with his inner sensations — creates a
still stronger impression of artificiality as seen in Tchek-
hov's work. Egorouchka hears a song, and cannot see
the singer. At once he imagines this plaintive voice to
be that of the grass, already half burnt up by the sum-
mer heat. The grass sings and weeps ; it tells some
428 RUSSIAN LITERATURE
other invisible being that it has not deserved the fate
which has overtaken it, that the cruel sun does wrong to
devour it, so young as it still is, so fair as it might yet
grow, so passionately as it clings to life ! The effect of
this lyric effort might possibly be considerable, but for
the presence of Egorouchka, whom nobody can suppose
capable of so much imagination. A moment's reflection
detects the poet's artifice, and thus his endeavour is in
vain. The story ends when the child reaches the town
where he is to enter school. The panorama of the great
Steppe, which thus fills the whole picture — with its
huge plains, its picturesque encampments, its dirty
taverns, and their heterogeneous crowd of travellers,
rough drovers, filthy Jews, and elegant fine ladies — bears
witness to a care for detail carried even into trifling
minutiae. How is it that the truth of this laborious
realism carries no conviction to my mind ? It may be
the Polish countess who has stirred my suspicion.
Polish countesses receive, as a rule, but scurvy treat-
ment at the hands of Russian novelists. And it is no
part of my duty to defend them here. But I can
assure M. Tchekhov that not one has ever addressed
any man, whether her lover or another, by his first
two fiamesy according to the essentially Russian cus-
tom. The touch in itself is of no importance. But it
is the importance ascribed in Tchekhov's work, and in
that of the new school, to such touches, nine out of ten
of which are utterly incorrect, which causes me distress.
The author of The Steppe would have done far better if
he had clearly indicated the general idea of his com-
position. Did he aim at the symbolisation of the
general aspect of life, and the apparent absence of
connection between the phenomena which go to
TCHEKHOV 429
make it up ? I have no idea. Perhaps he has none,
either.
In the author's other stories, A Melancholy Tale^ A
St7'anger's Story ^ and Room No. 6, I do, on the contrary,
perceive an effort to seize the meaning of these pheno-
mena, and throw them into striking and typical form.
In the last-named work, Tchekhov even seems to take up
arms in an unexpected revulsion of feeling against that
indifferentism which constitutes the badge and the essen-
tial dogma of his school, and the affinity of which with
Tolstoi's theory of non-resistance, nobody can fail to
recognise. The hero of this tale is a hospital doctor,
who treats his patients by scepticism. Room No. 6 is
set apart for persons mentally affected. It is a filthy
hole, where nobody gets enough to eat, except the bugs.
This does not prevent the sceptical medico from assuring
his patients that they are just as well off there as any-
where else, seeing it is a matter of perfect indifference
whether they dwell in the open air, or are shut up in a
cell, and whether their food is good or bad, not to mention
the thumps administered by Nikita, their keeper. A day
comes at last, when, the doctor having been himself
ordered to undergo his former patients' so-called cure,
Nikita bestows the same treatment upon him, and he
dies of it.
The Melancholy Tale has been the most successful of
all these works (1889). My readers must imagine two per-
sons of absolutely different character and condition, the
man a savant, the woman an actress, whom chance has
thrown together, who are soon still more closely bound
by their common sense of the vanity of life, and whose
communion leads them, on parallel lines, one to loathe
his science, and the other to loathe her art. Such part-
430 RUSSIAN LITERATURE
nerships do not, fortunately, form part of Western habits.
And their result, as presented to us by Tchekhov, is not
conclusive. For Katia has no talent, and her protector
strikes us as being a thorough simpleton. In the course
of the book, the author makes an attack upon modern
Russian literature. The savant reads nothing in his
leisure time but French novels. They do not altogether
satisfy him, but they are less tiresome than those pub-
lished in Russia, and at all events they contain the essen-
tial element of all artistic creation — that sentiment of
individual liberty, of which not a trace remains in the
Russian writers of the last ten or fifteen years. But
might not this learned man indulge in a more serious
kind of reading ? He does, but not in Russian. Russian
books of the serious order are written in Hebrew, as far
as he is concerned.
I have no intention of making myself responsible
for this sally, but it may assist my readers in verifying
the judgments I offer for their acceptance.
Tchekhov's capital fault is the absence of any natural
and organic connection between the characters he de-
picts, and between the action and the denouement of
his stories. This drawback is evident even in A
Strangers Storey which — and this is a fresh surprise —
almost carries us back to the literary school of 1840.
This Stranger, who has mysterious reasons, the secret
of which we shall never know, for his enmity against
an exalted personage, takes service as valet with the
great man's son, in order that he may kill the father.
Instead of perpetrating murder, he commits abduction.
His enemy has a mistress, whom he is just about to
forsake. The Stranger, touched with pity, carries her
across the frontier. But she has no love for him. He
TCHEKHOV 431
IS stung with remorse^ and knows not which way to turn.
Here we have another '^ superfluous man " ; but who is
he?
Tchekhov's latest works, My Life and The Gabled
House, prove him to be less and less capable of supplying
clear answers to the questions he is so fond of multiplying.
It is now quite evident, indeed, that he has missed his path.
Sometimes we find him following Tolstoi's latest move-
ment, sometimes on the track of the French symbolists
and decadents, and then suddenly, in The Peasants, he
executes a step backward in the direction of Gogol and
Tourgueniev. A waiter in a Moscow restaurant falls
ill, travels home to his old village, finds there is no place
for him there now, and dies in his despair. The coarse-
ness and savagery of rural habits are here set forth
with extraordinary power. But the picture is thoroughly
repulsive. There is no artistic feeling in it. That feel-
ing existed, unconsciously, in Gogol's case, and more
consciously in that of Tourgudniev, in the impression
they both give us that their moujiks possess hearts and
souls, worthy of another and a better fate. Tchekhov's
peasants are heavy brutes, without purity of moral sense,
nor any thought of the hereafter.
Tchekhov has also written for the stage. He has pub-
lished a drama, Ivanov (1889), a comedy, The Seagull,
and several other pieces. These efforts of his have not
been crowned with success. The two indispensable
factors in any work intended for the stage, action, and
the psychological development of character, are just
those the total absence of which detracts from the value
of his best stories. Clearness is indispensable in dramatic
writing, and Tchekhov cannot cast off his twilight manner.
Does he conceive his Ivanov to represent the young
432 RUSSIAN LITERATURE
generation, which sets to work furiously at twenty, and
seems worn out by its exertions before it reaches the age
of thirty ? We may conclude that this is so. But where
is the effort ? Ivanov marries a rich Jewess for the sake
of her fortune, and consoles himself for the inevitable
disappointments she causes him, by seducing a Christian
girl. This twofold performance leaves him so over-
whelmed with debt, grey hairs, and hypochondria,
that he shoots himself with a pistol, just as he is about
to lead a second bride to the altar. The real meaning of
this conclusion quite escapes me. That of The Seagull
is similar in nature, which appears somewhat odd, as
applied to a comedy. Everywhere, even in the young
author's tales and stories, we behold the same strange
assemblage of neurotics, lunatics, and semi-lunatics : well-
born girls, rich and pretty, who suddenly, no one knows
why, lose their heads, cast themselves into the arms of a
man they have never seen but once, and whom they will
certainly leave on the morrow, even if they do happen
to marry him ; young men of twenty who loathe life
already ; old men of sixty who have just found out that
existence has no meaning. The society thus brought
before us is really like a nightmare. All its members are
bent on one thing only, the solution of the problem of
life. Girls, young men, old men, all study it persistently.
What is its meaning ? They struggle desperately to find
an answer, and suffer and die because none is forth-
coming. I fear, indeed, that the mind of the world, as
modern civilisation has made it, is largely occupied, even
in Russia, with other subjects, and that when Tchekhov
takes it to be absorbed by this particular anxiety, he is
a prey, like Tolstoi, to a mere fanciful illusion.
Like all his young followers, the author of The
SCIENCE 433
FatheVy and of several others of those equally short
stories in which he seems to excel, soon loses his depth
when he attempts larger subjects. Perhaps the respon-
sibility for this should be ascribed, in a certain measure,
to that pneumatic machine the rarefying action of which
M. Pabiedonostsov daily increases.
The effect of this process of suffocation is very evi-
dent in those sketches of provincial life, Ursa Major and
After the Deluge, in which Madame Khvostchinskaia (born
1825) has won distinction, under the nom de plume of M.
Krestovski. This name must not be confused with that
of its rightful owner, Vsievolod Krestovski (born 1820),
an imitator of Eugene Sue's picturesque descriptions of
the habits of the city populace.
My readers will divine how much greater must be
the moral depression of scientific progress arising out
of the same causes. Activity in scientific matters is
confined to the domain of geography, ethnography,
and history. The expeditions organised by the Im-
perial Geographical Society, and the publications of
its Ethnographical Department, and the statistical and
geographical studies pursued under the auspices of
the General Staff and of the Minister of the Interior,
have, during the last thirty years, imparted a con-
siderable forward impulse to this branch of science.
It is curious that this collective work, in which the
names of Bouniakovski, Zablotski-Diessiatovski, Bezobra-
zov, Buschen, Hagemaister, Halmersen, Bloch, Niebol-
chine, Thorner, Janson, and Tchoubinski are associated,
has not brought any special individual effort into pro-
minence. This is perhaps in agreement with the demo-
cratic spirit of the country, expressed in the proverb,
''A body of men is one great man." The same fact is
434 RUSSIAN LITERATURE
certainly reproduced in the domain of historical investi-
gation, in which ^'The Society for the Study of History
and Antiquity/' ^^The Archaeological Society/' ^'The
Imperial Historical Society/' and the periodical publica-
tions of the Russian Archive^ edited by Barteniev ; of
Russian Antiquities ^ edited by Siemievski ; of The Ar-
chives of Prince VorontzoVy The A rchives of Prince Koura-
kinCy Ancient and Modern Russia^ and The Antiquities of
KieVy have done wonderful work, collected an enormous
amount of information, and piled quantities of the best
■material ready to the worker's hand. But the workers,
whose personal labour can alone utilise the said material,
have not as yet appeared.
It is true that the present order of things would seem
to preclude their appearance. The correspondence of the
Empress Catherine has been published, even to its most
private and least edifying details ; but the first two volumes
of the History, in wHich M. Bilbassov proposed to re-
produce — and in the discreetest manner possible — the
general features of the reign of the great Empress, were
promptly suppressed ; and the ten remaining volumes
of this important work are still in the manuscript. M.
Klioutchevski's lectures are only known, beyond the circle
of his audience at the Moscow University, by means
of a few lithographed copies. General Schilder has
undertaken a great history of Alexander I. Amongst the
documents therein quoted we find the condemnation
of the autocratic principle expressed by the august
disciple of La Harpe, and the exact list of the guests
who assembled round the table of Paul I. the night
before his death. But we shall not discover the smallest
reference to the causes and incidents of that gloomy
catastrophe, though the author, who commands the
HISTORIANS 435
School of Military Engineering, and occupies the very
palace in which the occurrence took place, must possess
special information on the subject. In the person of
Milioukov, the younger generation has given us a man
who is more specially gifted for this sort of study than
almost any other I have ever met. I have just heard
that he has been forbidden to teach even at Sophia.
Kovalevski has been forced to produce his fine work
in four volumes, on the origins of contemporary democ-
racy, on French soil, and a fresh edition, in the French
language, is now passing through the press.
Such of the national historians as have not found
means to carry out their work, or publish their writings,
abroad, fall back on subjects which, though exceedingly
interesting, are less fitted to advance the study of the
nation's past. M. Manouilov published, in 1894, a book
on the Agrarian System in Ireland, founded on documents
in the British Museum, and on his own local obser-
vation. In the following year, M. Kamienski gave us
Six Years of Tory Government in England^ i88y to iSgj,
Quite lately I met, in Paris, a young Professor from the
University of Kiev, who had come to France to study
the organisation of the old provincial parliaments. The
remarkable Essay on the Representative System of the Pro-
vincial States of Ancient Russia^ published by M. Kliout-
chevski, strikes me as having been affected by the author's
desire to avoid incurring the displeasure of the Censure.
In the field of literary history, the first place is held
by a veteran of "the sixties," and comrade-in-arms of
Tchernichevski, Alexander Nicolaievitch Pypine (born
1833). He was obliged to leave his professorial chair
in the St. Petersburg University in the year 1862, as
a result of the students' revolts to which I have re-
436 RUSSIAN LITERATURE
ferred, and which are recurring at the present time.
His writings are exceedingly voluminous. His great
History of the Slav Literatures, in which he was assisted
by M. Vladimir Spassowicz, was preceded or followed
by a series of original works, and published docu-
ments, dealing with popular poetry and the older
writers, the period of Alexander I., the literary prog-
ress of the years between 1820 and 1850, the life of
Bielinski, and, more recently, with Panslavism, and with
the latest results of the study of Russian Ethnography.
For the purposes of this book, I have consulted three
volumes of a Histoiy of Russian Literature, which bear
witness to the author's deep knowledge and finely-de-
veloped critical faculty. His literary reviews in The
Etiropean Messenger carry authoritative weight.
Amongst his followers I must mention N. S. Tikhon-
ravov (1832-1893), who published, between 1859 and
1 86 1, five volumes of a work which has won many
admirers, entitled, Chronicle of Russian Literature and
Antiquities, This was followed by a sw^arm of detached
studies, principally on the subject of the literary history
of the eighteenth century. M. Tikhonravov was also the
author of a critic's edition of Gogol; in seven volumes,
which appeared in 1889.
I see no figure worthy to rank, as regards knowledge,
broad-mindedness, and independence, with that of Pypine,
save Nicholas Constantinovich Mikhailovski. A younger
man — he was born in 1843 — he does not belong to the
latest generation, though he unfortunately shows traces of
certain of its tendencies. He excels it in brilliance, wit,
and artistic power, but his talent, like that of Garchine,
is dimmed, in my opinion, by his deliberate pessimism.
He never spares any one, seldom praises anything, and
PHILOSOPHERS 437
carries his use of sarcasm into abuse. He has been
called the Chtchedrine of criticism. He did, in fact,
collaborate with the mighty publicist in the pages of
Annals of the Fatherland, and seems to have annexed
some peculiarities of his style, — with its wealth of incident
and antitheses, its love of the comic and grotesque, and
its swift changes from the humorous to the pathetic. A
considerable number of Mikailovski's works are devoted
to the English philosophers, Darwin and Mill, with a
glance at Herbert Spencer.
The philosophers of his own country have so far
given Mikailovski less occupation. The great national
school of philosophy, the dream of the intellectual heirs
of Khomiakov, remains a dream. Schopenhauer, whose
jubilee was brilliantly celebrated at Moscow in 1888, did
not endow his Russian disciples with that strong sense of
discipline which their elders had imbibed from Hegel and
Schelling. De Roberty may indeed, as his biographer,
M. G. de Greef, asserts, be one of the most original
thinkers of our day, but if it be true, as M. de Greef
also avers, that ^* he is neither Mongol nor Russian,
neither German, nor French, nor Belgian, though the
blood of all these nations flows in his veins," it is equally
true that his works have long since ceased to belong to
Russia. Born in 1843, he contributed, from 1869 to 1873,
to the St. Petersburg Academic Gazette y and supported
Hberal views. He was removed from the editorial staff
of the paper by the personal order of the Tsar, who
replaced the opposition writers by others devoted to the
Imperial exchequer, if not to the Imperial cause. A short
time later, his second and last work in the Russian lan-
guage, on the History of Philosophy, \V2ls> seized. The author
had previously published a volume of Studies on Political
438 RUSSIAN LITERATURE
Economy^ containing a critical and theoretical explana-
tion of H. C. Carey's Principles of Social Science and Karl
Marx's Capital, Since he has lived in Paris, De Roberty
has only written in French. In his Notes Sociologiques,
published (i 876-1 878) in the Revue de Philosophie Positive^
and since collected into a book, and in a series of other
volumes, which make their appearance almost annually
— more especially in his Essai sur les lois generates du
developpement de la Philosophie — he has expounded the
fundamental idea of his doctrine, according to which
philosophy is a concrete fact, neither purely biological
nor purely sociological, the constituent elements whereof
must be studied through both of these sciences. The
psychological object, that is to say, man himself, who feels,
and thinks, and wills, is nothing but a product of bio-
logical and sociological conditions. Psychology, there-
fore, should be regarded as an appendage to, and a
prolongation of, sociology. According to this hypo-
thesis, for which the author coins the adjective ^^bio-
social," and which M. Izoulet has appropriated in his
Modern Cityy society ^^ creates the psychic individual."
But what M. Izoulet considers a revolution, M. de
Roberty believes to be no more than a fresh scien-
tific classification. Personally I fail to discover what
either of them can find to change in the older defi-
nition given by Lewes in The Physical Basis of Mind
(i860), where he affirms that the specially human faculties
of intelligence and consciousness must necessarily be
the product of the co-operation of social and biological
factors. This idea strikes me as occurring even in the
teaching of a much older philosopher, of the name of
Jean Jacques Rousseau.
Since De Roberty's voluntary departure into exile,
V
SOLOVIOV 439
Vladimir Soloviov appears to me the only Russian who
professes an independent and comparatively original form
of philosophy. Born in 1853, the son of the famous
historian, and brought up in the Ecclesiastical Academy
at Moscow, he is connected by hereditary origin with
the Orthodox Church and the Slavophil party. Since
1888, he has broken with both, and has risen in revolt
against the exclusively national theory put forward by
Danilevski in his Russia and Europe (3rd edition, 1888).
He still believes, like Dostoievski, in the universality of
the historic mission the performance of which devolves
upon his country, but thinks that to attain its realisation,
through the universal organisation of human life on the
lines of truth, his country should carry out Tchadaiev's
theory, sacrifice itself, and consent to the union of the
Greco-Byzantine and the Roman Churches. In Solo-
viov's eyes, the Eastern and the Western worlds repre-
sent the two highest phases of the development of the
human organism ; Monism, in the first, fusing together
the three vital principles, feeling, thought, and will ;
Atomism, in the second, following on the other, decom-
posing these three elements of life into science and art,
and stirring them up to conflict. The recomposition
and rearrangement of these elements into a third and
last phase of historic evolution, calls for the interven-
tion of a superior conciliating principle. And this must
needs be the destiny of the Slavonic, and, more parti-
cularly, of the Russian race, the only one free from all
exclusiveness, and capable of rising above those narrow
interests in which the energies of other nations are
absorbed.
The strong opposition with which the philosopher's
views have been received in his own country, would seem
29
440 RUSSIAN LITERATURE
to weaken the basis on which he claims to build this
fanciful palace of our human future. His whilom fellow-
believers of the Slavophil party have shown no aptitude,
so far, for the exemplification of the " conciliating prin-
ciple." The total absence of the exclusive spirit, and the
abdication of every individual interest, have not as yet
been evident and characteristic features of their moral
character. And the would-be reorganiser of the human
race has met with his least unfriendly reception in Paris,
where his two great works, Russia and the Universal
Churchy and The History and Future of Theocracy y have
both been published.
All these things are only a fair dream. And the reality
is sad enough. Even close around lasnaia Poliana, the
wild brambles have almost overgrown the furrow along
which the great toiler still drives his plough. The seed
he had hoped to have seen sprouting about him is carried
far afield towards the setting sun, to a less barren soil.
. . . But, yet again I say it, the space in which we per-
form our little task is but a tiny spot on the measureless
face of what shall be. And the last sentence of this book
of mine shall not ring with a note of despair. From
Pouchkine's time down to Tolstoi's, Russia lived out
certain years of literary activity and glory, which may
be reckoned to her as centuries. Some fresh phase of
her appointed destiny, so full of suffering and of
splendour, will some day bring the spirit of those brief
years bac'k to her again.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
I. GENERAL WORKS
Outside the Russian frontiers, the most comprehensive and important
work has been written in German, Geschichte der russischen Literatur^
von ihren Anfangen bis auf die neueste Zeit^ by A. von Reinholdt
(Leipzig, 1886, I vol. 8vo).
The most complete study in French, up to the present, is that of
C. Courriere, Histoire de la Litteratiire Contemporaine eft Russie
(Paris, 1875, I vol. i2mo). The works of M. Ernest Dupuy, Les
Grands maitres de la Litterature Russe au XIX^^'"^ Siede (Paris,
1885, I vol. i2mo), and of M. E. M. de Vogue, Le Roman Russe
(Paris, 1897, I vol. i8mo, 4th edit.), deal almost exclusively with
novel-writers. M. de Vogue's book, however, contains some general
views of great value. Under the title of La Litterature Russe (Paris,
1892, I vol. i2mo), M. L. Leger has published a collection of extracts,
with short commentaries.
England is behindhand. Yet Prince Volkonski's studies have
recently appeared in London, under the title Pictures of Russian Life
and History. There is a German edition of this work, and a French
one is just passing through the press. Some additional information
will be found in an older work by Graham, The Progress of Art^
Science^ and Literature in i?/^^i-z<2 (London, 1865, i vol. 8vo), and in
those of Morfill, i^z/jj-m (London, 1881, i vol. i2mo), and Slavonic
Literature (London, 1883, i vol. i2mo).
The following works bear indirectly on the study of Russian litera-
ture : in French, La Russie, a collective work, by MM. A. Leroy-
Beaulieu, A. Rambaud, E. M. de Vogue, and A. Vandal, and older
works by Tardif de Mello and Gallet de Culture ; in German, the
works of Brandes, Eckard, Houneger, Minzloff, Julian Schmidt,
Weddigen, and Zabel. Those of Brandes {Menschen und Werke,
Frankfurt, 1885) and of Schmidt {Bilder aus dent geistigen Leben
unserer Zeit^ Leipzig, 1875) are particularly admirable.
442 BIBLIOGRAPHY
In Russia, of course, the field is much wider. It was opened by
Karamzine, who published a Pantheon of Russian writers, which goes
back to Nestor and the legendary figure of Boiane. The first real
attempt at literary history was Grietch's Opyt Istorii rousskoi litiera-
toiiri (1822). This was followed, in 1839, by a book written by
Maximovitch, in which he is accused of having dwelt on that which
had never had any existence ; in 1846, by the teachings and publica-
tions of Chevirev, among which we may mention a History o/Rtcssian
Literature^ translated into Italian by Rubini (Florence, 1862) ; between
1 85 1 and i860 we have Bousslaiev's Essays on Comparative Historical
Criticism; and these are followed by the works of Orestes Miller
(i860), Galakhov (i860), Tikhonravov (1878), Porfiriev (the posthumous
edition of his works, 1891, is carried down to Pouchkine), Karaoulov
(1865- 1 870), Polevoi (1883, a popular work, modelled upon Kurtz, and
the best of its kind), Petrov (translated into French by A. Romald.
Paris and St. Petersburg, 1872, &c.) ; Pypine's History of Russian
Literature (now in course of publication, three volumes have already
appeared) is the last and the best book of the series. M. Vladi-
mirov published in 1898, at Kiev, an httroduction to the History
of Russia?! Literature ( Vviedimie v istoriou rousskoi litieratouri)^
which is well worth consultation.
II. MONOGRAPHS.
Various Subjects.
English. — The annual contributions of Krapotkine, Milioukov,
Bogdanovitch, and Balmont, to the Athenaeum (i 887-1 898).
French. — Russes et Slaves^ by L. Leger (Paris, 1893, i vol, i2mo) ;
Les Poetes Russes^ by St. Albin (Paris, 1893, i vol. i2mo) ; this
anthology is worth consulting.
German. — Wolfsohn's Die Schonwissenschaftliche Litteratur der
Russen (Leipzig, 1893, i vol. 8vo).
Russian. — Anidnkov's Recollections aiid Critical Sketches ( Vospo-
minania i Krititcheskiid otcherki), St. Petersburg, 1 877-1 881, 3 vols.
8vo ; Arseniev's Critical Studies of Russian Literature {Krititcheskiie
etioudi po rousskoi litieratourid\ St. Petersburg, 1888, 2 vols. 8vo ;
Kirpitcbnikov's Sketches of the History of the New Russian Litera-
ture {Otcherki po istorii novoi rousskoi litieratouri\ St. Petersburg,
1896, I vol. 8vo ; Skabitchevski's History of Recent Russian Litera-
BIBLIOGRAPHY 443
ture {Istoria novieichei rousskoi litieratouri\ St. Petersburg, 1897,
I vol. 8vo, and the works of Bourenine, Cheine, Golovine, Gerbel,
Ikonnikov, Klioutchevski, Maikov, Mikhailovski, Morozov, Nieous-
troiev, Piatkovski, Protopopov, Pypine, Soukhomlinov, Strakhov,
Tchernichevski, Vietrinski, Vengerov, Viesielovski, Vodovozov, &c. &c.
Ancient Literature and Popular Poetry.
English. — G aster, 1 1 Chester Lectures on Greco- Slavonic Literature
(London, 1887, i vol. 8vo) ; Naake, Slavonic Fairy-Tales (London,
1874, I vol. 8vo) ; and Ralston's Studies of Russian Folklore^ which
are well known and greatly valued, and deserve their reputation.
French. — A. Rambaud, La Russie Epique (Paris, 1876, i vol.
8vo), a most important work, the best on the subject by any foreign
writer ; and studies by Brunetiere, Hins, &c.
German. — Hilferding, Der Gouv. Olonez, und sei?te Volksrhap-
soden {Russische Revue ^ 1872) ; Wollner, Untersuchimgen iiber die
Volksepik der Grossrussen (Leipzig, 1879, i vol. 8vo) ; and studies by
Bistrom, Damberg, Goldschmidt, Jagie, Leskien, Viesielovski, &c.
Russia?!. — Bousslaiev, Historical Studies of Popular Literature
{Istoritcheskiie otcherki rousskoi narod?toi slovie'snosti), St. Petersburg,
1861, I vol. 8vo ; Danilov, Ancient Russian Poetry {Drevnyia rousskiia
stikhotvorenia)., St. Petersburg, various editions, with notes and re-
marks, the latest published in 1897 ; Jdanov, The Epic Poetry of the
Bylines {Rousskii bylevoi epos), St. Petersburg, 1885, i vol. 8vo ;
Kirieievski, Collection of Popular Verse {Piesni Sovrannyia\ Moscow,
1 868-1 874, 10 vols. 8vo ; Rybnikow, Collection of National Songs
(Moscow, 1 861-1867, 4 vols. 8vo) ; and the writings and publica-
tions of Cheine, Dahl, Efimenko, Erlenvein, Khalanski, Hilferding,
Khoudiakov, lachtchourjinski, Kolmatchevski, Lobody, Maikov,
Maksimovitch, Miller, Petrov, Sneguirev, Stassov, Stepovitch, &c.
Period of Peter the Great.
German. — Bruckner, Iv. Possochkov, Ideen und Zustdnde in Russ-
land, zurZeit Peters des Grossen (Leipzig, 1878, i vol. 8vo).
Russian. — Piekarski, Science and Literature in Russia under Peter
the Great {Naouka i litieratoura v Rossii pri PiStrie V\ St. Peters-
burg, 1862, 2 vols. 8vo. A consultation of this work is indispensable
to the student.
444 BIBLIOGRAPHY
Period of Lomonossov.
Russian. — Biliarski, Materials for a Biography of Lomonossov (St.
Petersburg, 1865, i vol. 8vo).
Period of Catherine II.
Russian. — Niezi^lenov, Novikov and the Literary Tendencies of the
Period of Catherine IT. (^Novikov i litieratournyia napravlenia v.
Ekatie'rinskoiou epokhou\ St. Petersburg, 1889, i vol. 8vo — a very
interesting work ; and the writings and publications of Afanassiev,
Grot, Piekarski, Soukhomlinov, Viaziemski, &c.
Period of Joukovski and Karamzine.
English. — Ralston, The great Fabulist Krilof and his Fables
(London, 1868, i vol. 8vo).
French. — Fleury, Krylov et ses Fables (Paris, 1869, i vol. i2mo).
German. — Seidlitz, W. A. foukoffsky^ ein russisches Dichtersleben
(Mittau, 1870, I vol. 8vo).
Russian. — Grot, Sketches of the Life attd Poetical IVorks offoukovski
{Otcherki jizni i poezii, Qr^c), St. Petersburg, 1883, published by the
Second Section of the Academy of Sciences, vol. xxxii. ; Pogodine,
JV. M. Karamzine^ as shown in his Works and Correspondence^ ^c.
(Moscow, 1866, I vol. 8vo) ; and the works of Arkhangelsk!, Pletniev,
Pypine, Sertchevski (on Griboiedov, &c.).
Period of Pouchkine.
English. — Turner, Studies in Russian Literature (London, 1882,
I vol. 8vo). Translations of various selected portions of Pouchkine's
works, with notes and commentaries, have been published by Buchan
Telfer (1875), Lewis (1849), Turner (1899), Wilson (1887), and "A
Russian Lady" (Princess Bariatinski), 1882. Pouchkine's prose
works have been translated by Mrs. Sutherland Edwards and Mr. T.
Keane.
Fre7ich. — Prosper Merimee, Portraits historiqucs et litteraires
(Paris, 1874, I vol. i2mo). There are numerous translations, both
French and German, of Pouchkine's works. The best are those of
Tourgueniev and Viardot.
BIBLIOGRAPHY 445
German. — Varnhagen von Ense, Werke von A. Pouchkine
{Jahrbiicher fur luissenschaftliche Kritik^ October 1838) ; Konig,
Bilder aus der Russischen Litieraiur {hei^n^, 1838, i vol. 8vo).
Russian. — The most complete biography of Pouchkine is that in
the first volume of Anienkov's edition of his works (St. Petersburg,
1 854-1 857, 7 vols. 8vo). The first supplements to the incomplete
texts of the Russian editions appeared in Herzen's Polar Star. Since
that time Gerbel has published a whole volume of supplementary
matter. A bibliography of works specially concerning the great poet
has been issued by Miejov (St. Petersburg, 1886, i vol. 8vo). The
studies of Korch (very important from the technical standpoint),
Niezieldnov, Spasovitch, and V. N. (Nikolski), should also be con-
sulted.
Period Posterior to the Time of Gogol.
English. — Gosse, Studies of Gontcharov and Tolstoi, prefixed to
the English translations of some of their works (London, 1891 and
1894) ; Ralston, The Modern Russian Drama, Ostrovsky's Plays
(^Edinburgh Review.^ July 1868). Henry James, Study of Tour-
gueniev, in Partial Portraits., 1888. The majority of the works of
Tourgueniev, Tolstoi, and Dostoievski have been translated into
English, French, and German. Much remains to be done in this
particular for the other novelists and poets of this period.
French. — P. Bourget, Nouveaux essais de Psychologie Contem-
poraine), Paris, 1885, i vol. i2mo — (Study of Tourgudniev) ; Bobory-
kine, Tourgueniev, Notes d^un Compatriote {Revue Independante,
December 1884), and various other studies by Delaveau, Durand-
Greville, Hennequin, E. M. de Vogue, &c.
G^^rw^w.— Bodenstedt, M. Ler7nontoff' s poetischer Nachlass (Berlin,
1852, I vol. 8vo) ; Loewenfeld, Leo N. Tolstoi, sein Leben, seine
Werke . . . (Berlin, 1892, i vol. 8vo) ; Zabel, T. Tourgueniev, eine
literarische Studie{'LG\^z\g, 1884) ; and the works of Althaus, Brandos,
Eckardt, Ernst, Glogau, Seuron, Thorsch, Zabel, &c.
Russian. — Anienkov, Recollections and Correspondence, 1835- 1885
(St. Petersburg, 1892, i vol. 8vo) ; Barssoukov, Life and Works of
Pogodine (Moscow, 1880)— in course of publication— a collection of
documents of the deepest interest to the student of this period, and
that preceding it ; Miller, Russian Writers Subsequent to Gogol
{Rousskiid pisatieli poslie Gogola), St. Petersburg, 1 888-1 890, 3 vols.
8vo ; Pypine, Bielinski, His Life and Correspondence (St. Petersburg,
446 BIBLIOGRAPHY
1876, 2 vols. 8vo) ; Tchernichevski, Sketches of Literary History in
the Time of Gogol {Otcherki Gogolevskavo perioda . . .\ St. Peters-
burg, 1 89 1, I vol. 8vo ; and the studies of Akssakov (on Tioutchev),
Andreievski, Boulkhakov (on Tolstoi), Bourenine (on Tourgueniev),
Gromeko (on Tolstoi), Koulich (on Gogol), Koloubovski (supplemen-
tary to Herveg-Heinze's History of Modern Philosophy (St. Peters-
burg, 1890), Livov (on Katkov), Serguienko (on Tolstoi), Smirnov (on
Herzen), Soloviov (on Dostoievski), and Zielinski (on Tolstoi). The best
edition of Gogol, with notes and commentaries, is that of Tikhonravov
(St. Petersburg, 1889). The complete edition of Ostrovski's works
(St. Petersburg, 18S9, 10 vols. 8vo) includes a biography of the
playwright, by A. Nos. That of Dostoievski's works (St. Petersburg,
1883, 14 vols. 8vo) contains some Recollections of the novelist, by
N. Strakhov. The complete edition of Chtchedrine's works, published
by Pypine and Arseniev (St. Petersburg, 1889, 3 vols. 8vo), is pre-
faced by a life of the writer, by C. Arseniev. The Russian editions of
Tolstoi and Tourgueniev may be counted up in dozens.
INDEX
Ablessimov, 105
Afanassiev, 218
Akhcharoumov, 203
Akssakov, I., 102, 195-197, 210,
214, 413
Akssakov, C, 102, 195, 197, 203,
213
Akssakov, S., 251, 330, 331
Alexander I., 128-132
Alov, pseudonym of Gogol, 248
Bacmeister, 97
Bakounine, 224, 285, 306
Baier, 54
Baratinski, 180-181
Baliouchkov, 129, 147, 1 76
Barsov, 67
Barteniev, 434
Bernoulli, 124
Bestoujev, 190, 246
Bezobrazov, 433
Bezsonov, 42
Bielinski, 105, 195, 197-203, 300
Bilbassov, 434
Bilfinger, 85
Bloch, 433
Boborikine, 294, 295, 425
Bogdanovitch, 10, 114
Boltine, 126
Bondarev, 391
Borovikovski, 329
Boulgarine, 1 89
Bouniakovski, 433
Bourenine, 417
Bousslaiev, 218
Bova, Legend of , II
Buschen, 433
Catherine II., 46, 79, '^'], Z%-
99
Chakhofskoi, Prince, 85, 182
Chevirev, 196
Chevtchenko, 220
Chichkov, 108, 135
Chouvalov, 70, 74, 82, 107, no
Chtchedrine (Saltykov), 41, 79, 253,
299» 309-319, 399
Chtcherbatov, Prince, 125, 126
Chtchoukine, 405
Dachkov, Princess, 96, 123-127,
308
Dahl, 246
Danilevski, 297, 439
Danilov (Kircha), 10, 85
Danilov, lO
Delwig, 157, 179-180
Dierjavine, 105, 106-II2
Dievnitski, 124
Dmitriev, 84, 109, 1 40
Dmiirievski, 84
Dobrolioubov, 6, 1 76, 205, 274
Dolgoroukaia, Princess, 85-87
Domostro'i, the, 36, 54, 59
Dostoievski, F., 4, 46, 102, 1 66,
200, 309, 330-360
448
INDEX
Dragomanov, 309
Droujinine, 203
Edelsohn, 203
Emine, 113
Fadieiev, 308
Feodorov, 36
Fiodorov, 329
Foeth, 415
Fotii (the Metropolitan), 35
Frol SkobUiev^ The Adventures of,
45.89
Frug, 417
Gagarine, 308
Galakhov, 208
Garchine, 421
Gmeline, 74
Gnieditch, 68
Gogol, 21, 46, 99, 113, 143, 197,
200, 246-265
Golikov, 126
GonteBarov, 165, 200, 265-270, 309
Granovski, 209, 348
Griboiedov, 182-188
Grietch, 189
Giigoriev, 178, 203
Grigorovitch, 200, 270, 298
Hagemeister, 433
Halmersen, 433
Herzen, 41, 195, 200, 222, 283, 299,
301-309, 405
Hilarion (the Metropolitan), 31
Hilferding, 10
Iaiiontov, 329
lelaguine, 126, 308
Igor^ The Band of , lO, 13, 25, 29
Ilia de Mourotn, The Legend of, 10
Ismailov, 113
Ismai\v:;d, 31
Ivan the Terrible, 37
JANSON, 433
Javorski, 51-54
Jemtchoujnikov, 410
Joachim, 32
Joukovski, 108, 129, 142-146, 161,
324
Kalatchov, 218
Kamienski, 435
Kantemir, 54, 60, 141
Kapnist, 21, 103, 109
Karamzine, 104, 108, 126, 129, 133-
140, 170, 210, 435
Katchenovski, 190
Katkov, 221, 224-226, 286
Kaveline, 213, 218, 308
Khalanski, ii
Khemnitzer, 114
Kheraskov, 68, 112, 1 15
Khliebnikov, 32
Khomiakov, 195, 2io, 211, 308
Khvochtchinskaia, Mme., 309,
433
Kircha Danilov. See Danilov
Kirieievski, I., 202, 210, 215
Kirieievski, P., 10, 23, 195, 21 1,
221
Klioutcharev, iii
Klioutchevski, 434
Klioutchnikov, 198
Kniajnine, 103, 115
Kochelev, 308
Koltsov, 200, 244, 298, 416
Koni, 359
Korch, 179
Korolienko, 422, 425
Kostomarov, 218, 221, 296
Kostrov, 112
Kotielnikov, 70
Kotochikhine, 41
Koulich, 220
Koukolnik, 190, 246, 296
Kourbski, Prince, 38, 39
Kourotchkine, 410
INDEX
449
Kovalevski, 405, 406, 43$
Kozitski, 70, 82, 92
Krachennikov, 70
Krapotkine, Prince, 309
Krassov, 198
Krestovski, V., 433
Krestovski, pseudonym of Mme.
Khvochtchinskaia, 310
Krijanitch, 41
Krylov, 21, 136, 147, 149-163, I79
Lajetchnikov, 246, 296
Lapoukhine, 122
Lavrov, 308
Leontiev, 226
Lermontov, 227-239
Lieskov, 399 •
Lomonossov, 67, 69, 71, 75, 76, yS,
81, 105
Loukine, 103
Lvov, 109
Magnitski, 72
Maikov, V. I., 114
Maikov, A., 413-415
Maksinnov, 41
Manouilov, 435
Margarita 34
Marlinski, pseudonym of Bestoujev,
190
Matvieiev, 263
Maximus the Greek, 35
Mechtcherski, Prince, 352
Melchine, 341
Merechkovski, 409
Miedviediev, 46
Mielnikov, 298
Mietchnikov, 406
Mikhailov, pseudonym of Scheller,
309
Mikhailovski, 404
Milioukov, 404-405, 435
Minski, 417
Mordvinov, 131
Morochkine, 217
Moussine-Pouchkine, 25, 1 26
Muller, 85, 124
Nachtchokine, 85
Nadiejdine, 155, 195, 284
Nadsohn, 417
Nekrassov, 200, 201, 245, 323-329,
410
Nepanov, pseudonym of Chtchedrine,
309
Nestor, 27, 32
Nicone (the Patriarch), 40
Nicone, Chronicles of, 34
Niebolchine, 433
Niedooumko, pseudonym of Nadiej-
dine, 195
Nikifor, 196
Nikitine, 244
Nossov, 84
Novikov, 10, 90, 91, 94, 1 18-123
Novitski, 395
Odo'ievski, 245
Ogariov, 245
Omoulevski, pseudonym of Fiodorov,
329
Onieguine, 406
Ostrovski, 244, 271-277
Oustrialov, 217
Ozieretskovski, 124
Ozierov, 141-142
Pabiedonostsov, 433
Pallia, 31
Pallas, 97
Panaiev, 201
Pavlov, 246
Paul I., 103, 130
Perepielski, pseudonym of Nekrassov,
325
Peter the Great, 47
Pietcherski, pseudonym of Mielnikov,
298
450
INDEX
Pietrachevski, 301, 336
Pietrov, 112
Pirogov, 206
Pissarev, 203, 207
Pissemski, 41, 277, 319-323
Pletniev, 260
Pogodine, 218, 219, 246
Poletika, 82
Polevoi, 155, 190, 246
Polikarpov, 41
Polonski, 416
Pclotski, 44, 46, 72
Pomialovski, 309
Popov, 10, 67, 70
Possochkov, 54, 59
Potapienko, 425-426
Pouchkine, 21, 28, 67, 75, 77, 80,
105, 108, III, 118, 147, 154-179,
195, 200, 228, 249, 258, 410
Prokopovitch, 51, 60
Protassov, 116, 124
Proutkov (Kouzma), pseudonym of
A. Tolstoi and of Jemtchoujnikov,
410
Pypine, 208, 404, 408, 435
Radichtchev, 91, 116
Razoumovski, 70
Rekhmaninov, 1 15
Roberty, De, 405
Rostoptchine, Countess Eudoxia, 245
Rostoptchine, Countess Lydia, 406
Rovinski, 221
Rybnikov, lo
Ryleiev, 132, 133, 157, 185
Rtychtchev, 40
Sakharov, 13
Saltykov. See Chtchedrine
Samarine, 210, 212, 308
Saveliev-Rostislavitch, 217
Scheller, 309
Schilder, General, 434
Schlozer, 85
Schwartz, 113, 114, 12 1
Senkovski, 189
Serebrianski, 240
Serguienko, 364
Siemievski, 434
Silvestre, the Pope, 36, 274
Skabitchevski, 404
Skalkovski, 406
Slieptsov, 309
Smirnova, Mme., 281
Smotrytski, 40, 72
Sokolov, 124
Soloviov, S., 218, 296
Soloviov, N. , 203
Soloviov, v., 408
Sophiiski'i Vrdinien7tik, Annals of
Sophia, 34
Soumarokov, 69, 75, 78-85j ^^j ^^S'
114
Soutaiev, 395
Spasowicz, 403
Speranski, 131, 132
Sreznievski, ii
Staehlin, 76
Stankievitch, 197, 202, 240, 299
Stebnitski, pseudonym of Lieskov,
400
Strakhov, 124
Sviatoslav, 30
Tatichtchev, 32, 54, 56, 58, 61, 62
Tchadaiev, 156, 191-196, 405
Tchekhov, 254, 403, 426-432
Tchernichevski, 203
Tchij, 358
Tchoubinski, 433
Tchoulkov, 113
Thorner, 433
Tikhonravov, 208
Timofieiev, 36
Tioutchev, 41 1-4 13
Tolstoi, 'L.,^5, 122, 197,249, 273,
309, 33^, 343, 3'^o-399, 420
INDEX
451
Touptala, Danilo, St. Dmitri of Ros-
tov, 41
Tourgueniev, I., 18, 46, 155, 200,
243, 277, 278-297, 309, 322, 340,
370
Tourgueniev, N., 131
Trebotarev, 124
Trediakovski, 66, 72, 73, 82, 104
Tretiakov, 124
Valouiev, 210, 212
Vasska, son of Bousslai, Legend of,
19
Veneline, 217
Veniaminov, 124
Verevkine, 115
Vietrinski, 308
Volkov, 79, 84
Volynski, 404
Von-Visine, 87, 96, 98-102, 1 15,
242
Vorontsov, 408
Vosskressenskdia, Chronicle called ^
34
Vyroubov, 406
Weltmann, 246
Zabieline, 218
Zagoskine, 246, 296
Zablotski-Diessiatovski, 433
Zassoulitch, Vera, 309
Zlaiooust, 31
Zotov, 296
Zouiev, 124
Zybeline, 124, 218
OF _
UNIVERSITY
califob^
THE END