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Title: Russian literature
Author: kniaz Petr Alekseevich Kropotkin
Release date: July 30, 2023 [eBook #71308]
Language: English
Original publication: United States: McClure, Phillips & Co, 1905
Credits: The Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive)
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK RUSSIAN LITERATURE ***
RUSSIAN
LITERATURE
BY
P. KROPOTKIN
[Illustration]
NEW YORK
McCLURE, PHILLIPS & CO.
MCMV
_Copyright, 1905, by_
McCLURE, PHILLIPS & CO.
_Published, April, 1905_
PREFACE
This book originated in a series of eight lectures on Russian
Literature during the Nineteenth Century which I delivered in March,
1901, at the Lowell Institute, in Boston.
In accepting the invitation to deliver this course, I fully realised
the difficulties which stood in my way. It is by no means an easy task
to speak or to write about the literature of a country, when this
literature is hardly known to the audience or to the readers. Only
three or four Russian writers have been properly and at all completely
translated into English; so that very often I had to speak _about_
a poem or a novel, when it could have been readily characterised by
simply reading a passage or two _from_ it.
However, if the difficulties were great, the subject was well worth
an effort. Russian literature is a rich mine of original poetic
thought. It has a freshness and youthfulness which is not found to
the same extent in older literatures. It has, moreover, a sincerity
and simplicity of expression which render it all the more attractive
to the mind that has grown sick of literary artificiality. And it has
this distinctive feature, that it brings within the domain of Art--the
poem, the novel, the drama--nearly all those questions, social and
political, which in Western Europe and America, at least in our present
generation, are discussed chiefly in the political writings of the day,
but seldom in literature.
In no other country does literature occupy so influential a position
as it does in Russia. Nowhere else does it exercise so profound and so
direct an influence upon the intellectual development of the younger
generation. There are novels of Turguéneff, and even of the less-known
writers, which have been real stepping stones in the development of
Russian youth within the last fifty years.
The reason why literature exercises such an influence in Russia is
self-evident. There is no open political life, and with the exception
of a few years at the time of the abolition of serfdom, the Russian
people have never been called upon to take an active part in the
framing of their country’s institutions.
The consequence has been that the best minds of the country have chosen
the poem, the novel, the satire, or literary criticism as the medium
for expressing their aspirations, their conceptions of national life,
or their ideals. It is not to blue-books, or to newspaper leaders, but
to its works of Art that one must go in Russia in order to understand
the political, economical, and social ideals of the country--the
aspirations of the history-making portions of Russian society.
As it would have been impossible to exhaust so wide a subject as
Russian Literature within the limits of this book, I have concentrated
my chief attention upon the modern literature. The early writers, down
to Púshkin and Gógol--the founders of the modern literature--are dealt
with in a short introductory sketch. The most representative writers in
poetry, the novel, the drama, political literature, and art criticism,
are considered next, and round them I have grouped the less prominent
writers, of whom the most important are mentioned in short notes. I am
fully aware that every one of the latter presents something individual
and well worth knowing; and that some of the less-known authors have
even succeeded occasionally in better representing a given current
of thought than their more famous colleagues; but in a book which is
intended to give only a broad, general idea of the subject, the plan I
have pursued was necessary.
Literary criticism has always been well represented in Russia, and the
views taken in this book must needs bear traces of the work of our
great critics--Byelínskiy, Tchernyshévskiy, Dobrolúboff, and Písareff,
and their modern followers, Mikhailóvsky, Arsénieff, Skabitchévskiy,
Venguéroff, and others. For biographical data concerning contemporary
writers I am indebted to the excellent work on modern Russian
literature by the last named author, and to the eighty volumes of the
admirable _Russian Encyclopædic Dictionary_.
I take this opportunity to express my hearty thanks to my old friend,
Mr. Richard Heath, who was kind enough to read over all this book, both
in manuscript and in proof.
BROMLEY, KENT,
_January, 1905_.
CONTENTS
PREFACE v
CHAPTER I: INTRODUCTION 1
The Russian Language--Early folk literature:
Folklore--Songs--Sagas--_Lay of Igor’s Raid_--Annals--Mongolian
Invasion; its consequences--Correspondence between John
IV. and Kúrbskiy--Religious splitting--Avvakúm’s _Memoirs_--The
eighteenth century--Peter I. and his contemporaries:
Tretiakóvskiy--Lomonósoff--Sumarókoff--The
times of Catherine II: Derzhávin--Von Wízin--The
Freemasons: Nóvikoff--Radíscheff--Early nineteenth century:
Karamzin and Zhukóvskiy--The Decembrists--Ryléeff.
CHAPTER II: PUSHKIN; LERMONTÓFF 39
PUSHKIN--Beauty of form--Pushkin and Schiller--His
youth; his exile; his later career and death--Fairy
tales: _Ruslán and Ludmíla_--His lyrics--“Byronism”--Drama--Evghéniy
Onyeghin--LERMONTÓFF--Pushkin or
Lermontóff? His life--The Caucasus--Poetry of nature--Influence
of Shelley--_The Demon_--_Mtsýri_--Love of Freedom--Pushkin
and Lermontóff as prose-writers--Other
poets and novelists of the same epoch.
CHAPTER III: GÓGOL 67
Little Russia--_Nights on a Farm near Dikánka_ and _Mírgorod_--Village
life and humour--_How Ivan Ivanovitch
quarrelled with Ivan Nikíforytch_--Historical novel: _Tarás
Búlba_--_The Cloak_--Drama: _The Inspector-General_--Its
influence--_Dead Souls_: Main types--Realism in the
Russian novel.
CHAPTER IV: TURGUÉNEFF; TOLSTÓY 88
Turguéneff--The Character of his art--_A Sportsman’s
Note-book_--Pessimism in his early novels--His series of novels
representing the leading types of Society: Rudin--Lavrétskiy--Helen
and Insároff--Bazároff--Why _Fathers
and Sons_ was misunderstood--_Hamlet_ and _Don Quixote_--_Virgin
Soil_--Movement towards the people--Tolstóy--_Childhood_
and _Boyhood_--During and after the Crimean
War--_Youth_: in search of an ideal--Small stories--_The
Cossacks_--Educational work--_War and Peace_--_Anna
Karénina_--Religious crisis--His interpretation of the Christian
teaching--Main points of Christian ethics--Latest
works of art--_Kreutzer Sonata_--_Resurrection_.
CHAPTER V: GONTCHARÓFF; DOSTOYÉVSKIY; NEKRÁSOFF 151
Gontcharóff--_Oblomoff_--The Russian malady of Oblomoffdom--Is
it exclusively Russian? _The Precipice_--Dostoyévskiy--His
first novel--General character of his work--_Memoirs
from a Dead House_--_Down-trodden and Offended_--_Crime and
Punishment_--_The Brothers Karamázoff_--Nekrasoff--Discussions
about his talent--His love
of the people--Apotheosis of Woman--Other prose-writers
of the same epoch--Serghéi Aksákoff--Dal--Ivan
Panaeff--Hvoschinskaya (V. Krestovskiy-pseudonyme)--Poets
of the same epoch--Koltsoff--Nikitin--Pleschéeff--The
admirers of pure art: Tutcheff; A. Maykoff;
Scherbina; A. Fet--A. K. Tolstóy--The Translators.
CHAPTER VI: THE DRAMA 191
Its origin--The Tsars Alexei and Peter I.--Sumarókoff--Pseudo-classical
tragedies: Knyazhnín; Ozeroff--First
comedies--The first years of the nineteenth century--Griboyedoff--The
Moscow stage in the fifties--Ostróvskiy:
his first dramas--_The Thunderstorm_--Ostrovskiy’s later
dramas--Historical dramas: A. K. Tolstóy--Other dramatic
writers.
CHAPTER VII: FOLK-NOVELISTS 221
Their position in Russian literature--The early
folk-novelists--Grigórovitch--Márko Vovtchók--Danilévskiy--Intermediate
period: Kókoreff; Písemskiy; Potyekhin--Ethnographical researches--The
realistic school: Pomyalóvskiy--Ryeshetnikoff--Levítoff--Gleb
Uspenskiy--Zlatovrátskiy and other folk-novelists:
Naúmoff--Zasódimskiy--Sáloff--Nefédoff--Modern realism: Maxim Gorkiy.
CHAPTER VIII: POLITICAL LITERATURE; SATIRE;
ART-CRITICISM; CONTEMPORARY NOVELISTS 263
POLITICAL LITERATURE--Difficulties of censorship--The circles:
Westerners and Slavophiles--Political literature abroad:
Herzen--Ogaryóff--Bakunin--Lavróff--Stepniak--_The Contemporary_ and
Tchernyshévskiy--SATIRE: Schedrin (Saltykoff)--ART-CRITICISM--Its
importance in Russia--Byelinskiy--Dobrolúboff--Písareff--Mihailóvskiy--
Tolstóy’s _What is Art?_--CONTEMPORARY NOVELISTS:
Oertel--Korolenko--Present drift of literature--Merezhovskiy--
Boborykin--Potápenko--Tchehoff.
BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTES 319
INDEX 321
PART I
Introduction: The Russian Language
CHAPTER I
The Russian Language--Early folk literature:
Folk-lore--Songs--Sagas--_Lay of Igor’s Raid_--Annals--The
Mongol Invasion; its consequences--Correspondence between
John IV. and Kúrbiskíy--Split in the Church--Avvakúm’s
_Memoirs_--The eighteenth century: Peter I. and his
contemporaries--Tretiakóvsky--Lomonósoff--Sumarókoff--The times
of Catherine II.--Derzhávin--Von Wízin--The Freemasons: Nóvikoff;
Radíscheff--Early nineteenth century: Karamzín and Zhukóvskiy--The
Decembrists--Ryléeff.
One of the last messages which Turguéneff addressed to Russian writers
from his death-bed was to implore them to keep in its purity “that
precious inheritance of ours--the Russian language.” He who knew in
perfection most of the languages spoken in Western Europe had the
highest opinion of Russian as an instrument for the expression of
all possible shades of thought and feeling, and he had shown in his
writings what depth and force of expression, and what melodiousness of
prose, could be obtained in his native tongue. In his high appreciation
of Russian, Turguéneff--as will often be seen in these pages--was
perfectly right. The richness of the Russian language in words is
astounding: many a word which stands alone for the expression of a
given idea in the languages of Western Europe has in Russian three or
four equivalents for the rendering of the various shades of the same
idea. It is especially rich for rendering various shades of human
feeling--tenderness and love, sadness and merriment--as also various
degrees of the same action. Its pliability for translation is such that
in no other language do we find an equal number of most beautiful,
correct, and truly poetical renderings of foreign authors. Poets of
the most diverse character, such as Heine and Béranger, Longfellow
and Schiller, Shelley and Goethe--to say nothing of that favourite
with Russian translators, Shakespeare--are equally well turned into
Russian. The sarcasm of Voltaire, the rollicking humour of Dickens,
the good-natured laughter of Cervantes are rendered with equal ease.
Moreover, owing to the musical character of the Russian tongue, it
is wonderfully adapted for rendering poetry in the same metres as
those of the original. Longfellow’s “Hiawatha” (in two different
translations, both admirable), Heine’s capricious lyrics, Schiller’s
ballads, the melodious folk-songs of different nationalities, and
Béranger’s playful _chansonnettes_, read in Russian with exactly the
same rhythms as in the originals. The desperate vagueness of German
metaphysics is quite as much at home in Russian as the matter-of-fact
style of the eighteenth century philosophers; and the short, concrete
and expressive, terse sentences of the best English writers offer no
difficulty for the Russian translator.
Together with Czech and Polish, Moravian, Serbian and Bulgarian,
as also several minor tongues, the Russian belongs to the great
Slavonian family of languages which, in its turn--together with the
Scandinavo-Saxon and the Latin families, as also the Lithuanian,
the Persian, the Armenian, the Georgian--belongs to the great
Indo-European, or Aryan branch. Some day--soon, let us hope: the sooner
the better--the treasures of both the folk-songs possessed by the South
Slavonians and the many centuries old literature of the Czechs and the
Poles will be revealed to Western readers. But in this work I have to
concern myself only with the literature of the Eastern, _i. e._, the
Russian, branch of the great Slavonian family; and in this branch I
shall have to omit both the South-Russian or Ukraïnian literature and
the White or West-Russian folk-lore and songs. I shall treat only of
the literature of the Great-Russians; or, simply, the Russians. Of all
the Slavonian languages theirs is the most widely spoken. It is the
language of Púshkin and Lérmontoff, Turguéneff and Tolstóy.
Like all other languages, the Russian has adopted many foreign words:
Scandinavian, Turkish, Mongolian, and, lately, Greek and Latin. But
notwithstanding the assimilation of many nations and stems of the
Ural-Altayan or Turanian stock which has been accomplished in the
course of ages by the Russian nation, her language has remained
remarkably pure. It is striking indeed to see how the translation
of the Bible which was made in the ninth century into the language
currently spoken by the Moravians and the South Slavonians remains
comprehensible, down to the present time, to the average Russian.
Grammatical forms and the construction of sentences are indeed quite
different now. But the roots, as well as a very considerable number
of words, remain the same as those which were used in current talk a
thousand years ago.
It must be said that the South-Slavonian had attained a high degree of
perfection, even at that early time. Very few words of the Gospels had
to be rendered in Greek--and these are names of things unknown to the
South Slavonians; while for none of the abstract words, and for none of
the poetical images of the original, had the translators any difficulty
in finding the proper expressions. Some of the words they used are,
moreover, of a remarkable beauty, and this beauty has not been lost
even to-day. Everyone remembers, for instance, the difficulty which the
learned Dr. Faust, in Goethe’s immortal tragedy, found in rendering the
sentence: “In the beginning was the Word.” “Word,” in modern German,
seemed to Dr. Faust to be too shallow an expression for the idea of
“the Word being God.” In the old Slavonian translation we have “Slóvo,”
which also means “Word,” but has at the same time, even for the modern
Russian, a far deeper meaning than that of _das Wort_. In old Slavonian
“Slóvo” included also the meaning of “Intellect”--German _Vernunft_;
and consequently it conveyed to the reader an idea which was deep
enough not to clash with the second part of the Biblical sentence.
I wish that I could give here an idea of the beauty of the structure
of the Russian language, such as it was spoken early in the eleventh
century in North Russia, a sample of which has been preserved in the
sermon of a Nóvgorod bishop (1035). The short sentences of this sermon,
calculated to be understood by a newly christened flock, are really
beautiful; while the bishop’s conceptions of Christianity, utterly
devoid of Byzantine gnosticism, are most characteristic of the manner
in which Christianity was and is still understood by the masses of the
Russian folk.
At the present time, the Russian language (the Great-Russian) is
remarkably free from _patois_. Little-Russian, or Ukraïnian,[1]
which is spoken by nearly 15,000,000 people, and has its own
literature--folk-lore and modern--is undoubtedly a separate language,
in the same sense as Norwegian and Danish are separate from Swedish, or
as Portuguese and Catalonian are separate from Castilian or Spanish.
White-Russian, which is spoken in some provinces of Western Russia, has
also the characteristics of a separate branch of the Russian, rather
than those of a local dialect. As to Great-Russian, or Russian, it is
spoken by a compact body of nearly eighty million people in Northern,
Central, Eastern, and Southern Russia, as also in Northern Caucasia and
Siberia. Its pronunciation slightly varies in different parts of this
large territory; nevertheless the literary language of Púshkin, Gógol,
Turguéneff, and Tolstóy is understood by all this enormous mass of
people. The Russian classics circulate in the villages by millions of
copies, and when, a few years ago, the literary property in Púshkin’s
works came to an end (fifty years after his death), complete editions
of his works--some of them in ten volumes--were circulated by the
hundred-thousand, at the almost incredibly low price of three shillings
(75 cents) the ten volumes; while millions of copies of his separate
poems and tales are sold now by thousands of ambulant booksellers
in the villages, at the price of from one to three farthings each.
Even the complete works of Gógol, Turguéneff, and Goncharóff, in
twelve-volume editions, have sometimes sold to the number of 200,000
sets each, in the course of a single year. The advantages of this
intellectual unity of the nation are self-evident.
EARLY FOLK-LITERATURE: FOLK-LORE--SONGS--SAGAS
The early folk-literature of Russia, part of which is still preserved
in the memories of the people alone, is wonderfully rich and full of
the deepest interest. No nation of Western Europe possesses such an
astonishing wealth of traditions, tales, and lyric folk-songs--some
of them of the greatest beauty--and such a rich cycle of archaic epic
songs, as Russia does. Of course, all European nations have had, once
upon a time, an equally rich folk-literature; but the great bulk of
it was lost before scientific explorers had understood its value or
begun to collect it. In Russia, this treasure was preserved in remote
villages untouched by civilisation, especially in the region round Lake
Onéga; and when the folk-lorists began to collect it, in the eighteenth
and nineteenth centuries, they found in Northern Russia and in Little
Russia old bards still going about the villages with their primitive
string instruments, and reciting poems of a very ancient origin.
Besides, a variety of very old songs are sung still by the village folk
themselves. Every annual holiday--Christmas, Easter, Midsummer Day--has
its own cycle of songs, which have been preserved, with their melodies,
even from pagan times. At each marriage, which is accompanied by a very
complicated ceremonial, and at each burial, similarly old songs are
sung by the peasant women. Many of them have, of course, deteriorated
in the course of ages; of many others mere fragments have survived;
but, mindful of the popular saying that “never a word must be cast out
of a song,” the women in many localities continue to sing the most
antique songs in full, even though the meaning of many of the words has
already been lost.
There are, moreover, the _tales_. Many of them are certainly the
same as we find among all nations of Aryan origin: one may read them
in Grimm’s collection of fairy tales; but others came also from the
Mongols and the Turks; while some of them seem to have a purely Russian
origin. And next come the songs recited by wandering singers--the
_Kalíki_--also very ancient. They are entirely borrowed from the
East, and deal with heroes and heroines of other nationalities than
the Russian, such as “Akib, the Assyrian King,” the beautiful Helen,
Alexander the Great, or Rustem of Persia. The interest which these
Russian versions of Eastern legends and tales offer to the explorer of
folk-lore and mythology is self-evident.
Finally, there are the epic songs: the _bylíny_, which correspond to
the Icelandic _sagas_. Even at the present day they are sung in the
villages of Northern Russia by special bards who accompany themselves
with a special instrument, also of very ancient origin. The old singer
utters in a sort of recitative one or two sentences, accompanying
himself with his instrument; then follows a melody, into which each
individual singer introduces modulations of his own, before he resumes
next the quiet recitative of the epic narrative. Unfortunately, these
old bards are rapidly disappearing; but some five-and-thirty years
ago a few of them were still alive in the province of Olónets, to
the north-east of St. Petersburg, and I once heard one of them, whom
A. Hilferding had brought to the capital, and who sang before the
Russian Geographical Society his wonderful ballads. The collecting of
the epic songs was happily begun in good time--during the eighteenth
century--and it has been eagerly continued by specialists, so
that Russia possesses now perhaps the richest collection of such
songs--about four hundred--which has been saved from oblivion.
The heroes of the Russian epic songs are knights-errant, whom popular
tradition unites round the table of the Kieff Prince, Vladímir the
Fair Sun. Endowed with supernatural physical force, these knights,
Ilyiá of Múrom, Dobrýnia Nikítich, Nicholas the Villager, Alexéi the
Priest’s Son, and so on, are represented going about Russia, clearing
the country of giants, who infested the land, or of Mongols and Turks.
Or else they go to distant lands to fetch a bride for the chief of
their _schola_, the Prince Vladímir, or for themselves; and they meet,
of course, on their journeys, with all sorts of adventures, in which
witchcraft plays an important part. Each of the heroes of these sagas
has his own individuality. For instance, Ilyiá, the Peasant’s Son, does
not care for gold or riches: he fights only to clear the land from
giants and strangers. Nicholas the Villager is the personificatlon
of the force with which the tiller of the soil is endowed: nobody can
pull out of the ground his heavy plough, while he himself lifts it with
one hand and throws it above the clouds; Dobrýnia embodies some of the
features of the dragon-fighters, to whom belongs St. George; Sádko is
the personification of the rich merchant, and Tchurílo of the refined,
handsome, urbane man with whom all women fall in love.
At the same time, in each of these heroes, there are doubtless
mythological features. Consequently, the early Russian explorers of
the _bylíny_, who worked under the influence of Grimm, endeavoured to
explain them as fragments of an old Slavonian mythology, in which the
forces of Nature are personified in heroes. In Iliyá they found the
features of the God of the Thunders. Dobrýnia the Dragon-Killer was
supposed to represent the sun in its passive power--the active powers
of fighting being left to Iliyá. Sádko was the personification of
navigation, and the Sea-God whom he deals with was Neptune. Tchurílo
was taken as a representative of the demoniacal element. And so on.
Such was, at least, the interpretation put upon the _sagas_ by the
early explorers.
V. V. STÁSOFF, in his _Origin of the Russian Bylíny_ (1868), entirely
upset this theory. With a considerable wealth of argument he proved
that these epic songs are not fragments of a Slavonic mythology, but
represent borrowings from Eastern tales. Iliyá is the Rustem of the
Iranian legends, placed in Russian surroundings. Dobrýnia is the
Krishna of Indian folk-lore; Sádko is the merchant of the Eastern
tales, as also of a Norman tale. All the Russian epic heroes have an
Eastern origin. Other explorers went still further than Stásoff. They
saw in the heroes of Russian epics insignificant men who had lived
in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries (Iliyá of Múrom is really
mentioned as a historic person in a Scandinavian chronicle), to whom
the exploits of Eastern heroes, borrowed from Eastern tales, were
attributed. Consequently, the heroes of the _bylíny_ could have had
nothing to do with the times of Vladímir, and still less with the
earlier Slavonic mythology.
The gradual evolution and migration of myths, which are successively
fastened upon new and local persons as they reach new countries,
may perhaps aid to explain these contradictions. That there are
mythological features in the heroes of the Russian epics may be taken
as certain; only, the mythology they belong to is not Slavonian but
Aryan altogether. Out of these mythological representations of the
forces of Nature, human heroes were gradually evolved in the East.
At a later epoch when these Eastern traditions began to spread in
Russia, the exploits of their heroes were attributed to Russian
men, who were made to act in Russian surroundings. Russian
folk-lore assimilated them; and, while it retained their deepest
semi-mythological features and leading traits of character, it endowed,
at the same time, the Iranian Rustem, the Indian dragon-killer, the
Eastern merchant, and so on, with new features, purely Russian. It
divested them, so to say, of the garb which had been put upon their
mystical substances when they were first appropriated and humanised
by the Iranians and the Indians, and dressed them now in a Russian
garb--just as in the tales about Alexander the Great, which I heard
in Transbaikalia, the Greek hero is endowed with Buryate features and
his exploits are located on such and such a Transbaikalian mountain.
However, Russian folk-lore did not simply change the dress of the
Persian prince, Rustem, into that of a Russian peasant, Iliyá. The
Russian _sagas_, in their style, in the poetical images they resort to,
and partly in the characteristics of their heroes, were new creations.
Their heroes are thoroughly Russian: for instance, they never seek
for blood-vengeance, as Scandinavian heroes would do; their actions,
especially those of “the elder heroes,” are not dictated by personal
aims, but are imbued with a communal spirit, which is characteristic of
Russian popular life. They are as much Russians as Rustem was Persian.
As to the time of composition of these sagas, it is generally believed
that they date from the tenth, eleventh, and twelfth centuries, but
that they received their definite shape--the one that has reached
us--in the fourteenth century. Since that time they have undergone but
little alteration.
In these _sagas_ Russia has thus a precious national inheritance of a
rare poetical beauty, which has been fully appreciated in England by
Ralston, and in France by the historian Rambaud.
“LAY OF IGOR’S RAID”
And yet Russia has not her Iliad. There has been no poet to inspire
himself with the exploits of Iliyá, Dobrýnia, Sádko, Tchurílo, and the
others, and to make out of them a poem similar to the epics of Homer,
or the “Kalevála” of the Finns. This has been done with only one cycle
of traditions: in the poem, _The Lay of Igor’s Raid_ (_Slóvo o Polkú
Igoreve_).
This poem was composed at the end of the twelfth century, or early in
the thirteenth (its full manuscript, destroyed during the conflagration
of Moscow in 1812, dated from the fourteenth or the fifteenth century).
It was undoubtedly the work of one author, and for its beauty and
poetical form it stands by the side of the _Song of the Nibelungs_,
or the _Song of Roland_. It relates a real fact that did happen in
1185. Igor, a prince of Kíeff, starts with his _drúzhina_ (_schola_)
of warriors to make a raid on the Pólovtsi, who occupied the prairies
of South-eastern Russia, and continually raided the Russian villages.
All sorts of bad omens are seen on the march through the prairies--the
sun is darkened and casts its shadow on the band of Russian warriors;
the animals give different warnings; but Igor exclaims: “Brothers
and friends: Better to fall dead than be prisoners of the Pólovtsi!
Let us march to the blue waters of the Don. Let us break our lances
against those of the Pólovtsi. And either I leave there my head, or I
will drink the water of the Don from my golden helmet.” The march is
resumed, the Pólovtsi are met with, and a great battle is fought.
The description of the battle, in which all Nature takes part--the
eagles and the wolves, and the foxes who bark after the red shields of
the Russians--is admirable. Igor’s band is defeated. “From sunrise to
sunset, and from sunset to sunrise, the steel arrows flew, the swords
clashed on the helmets, the lances were broken in a far-away land--the
land of the Pólovtsi.” “The black earth under the hoofs of the horses
was strewn with bones, and out of this sowing affliction will rise in
the land of the Russians.”
Then comes one of the best bits of early Russian poetry--the
lamentations of Yaroslávna, Igor’s wife, who waits for his return in
the town of Putívl:
“The voice of Yaroslávna resounds as the complaint of a cuckoo; it
resounds at the rise of the sunlight.
“I will fly as a cuckoo down the river. I will wet my beaver sleeves
in the Káyala; I will wash with them the wounds of my prince--the deep
wounds of my hero.
“Yaroslávna laments on the walls of Putívl.
“Oh, Wind, terrible Wind! Why dost thou, my master, blow so strong?
Why didst thou carry on thy light wings the arrows of the Khan against
the warriors of my hero? Is it not enough for thee to blow there, high
up in the clouds? Not enough to rock the ships on the blue sea? Why
didst thou lay down my beloved upon the grass of the Steppes?
“Yaroslávna laments upon the walls of Putívl.
“Oh, glorious Dniéper, thou hast pierced thy way through the rocky
hills to the land of Pólovtsi. Thou hast carried the boats of
Svyatosláv as they went to fight the Khan Kobyák. Bring, oh, my
master, my husband back to me, and I will send no more tears through
thy tide towards the sea.
“Yaroslávna laments upon the walls of Putívl.
“Brilliant Sun, thrice brilliant Sun! Thou givest heat to all, thou
shinest for all. Why shouldest thou send thy burning rays upon my
husband’s warriors? Why didst thou, in the waterless steppe, dry up
their bows in their hands? Why shouldest thou, making them suffer from
thirst, cause their arrows to weigh so heavy upon their shoulders?”
This little fragment gives some idea of the general character and
beauty of the _Saying about Igor’s Raid_.[2]
Surely this poem was not the only one that was composed and sung in
those times. The introduction itself speaks of bards, and especially
of one, Bayán, whose recitations and songs are compared to the wind
that blows in the tops of the trees. Many such Bayáns surely went
about and sang similar “Sayings” during the festivals of the princes
and their warriors. Unfortunately, only this one has reached us. The
Russian Church, especially in the fifteenth, sixteenth and seventeenth
centuries, pitilessly proscribed the singing of all the epic songs
which circulated among the people: it considered them “pagan,” and
inflicted the heaviest penalties upon the bards and those who sang old
songs in their rings. Consequently, only small fragments of this early
folk-lore have reached us.
And yet even these few relics of the past have exercised a powerful
influence upon Russian literature, ever since it has taken the liberty
of treating other subjects than purely religious ones. If Russian
versification took the rhythmical form, as against the syllabic, it was
because this form was imposed upon the Russian poets by the folk-song.
Besides, down to quite recent times, folk-songs constituted such an
important item in Russian country life, in the homes alike of the
landlord and the peasant, that they could not but deeply influence
the Russian poets; and the first great poet of Russia, Púshkin, began
his career by re-telling in verse his old nurse’s tales to which he
used to listen during the long winter nights. It is also owing to our
almost incredible wealth of most musical popular songs that we have
had in Russia, since so early a date as 1835, an opera (Verstóvskiy’s
_Askóld’s Grave_), based upon popular tradition, of which the purely
Russian melodies at once catch the ear of the least musically-educated
Russian. This is also why the operas of Dargomýzhsky and the younger
composers are now successfully sung in the villages to peasant
audiences and with local peasant choirs.
The folk-lore and the folk-song have thus rendered to Russia an
immense service. They have maintained a certain unity of the spoken
language all over Russia, as also a unity between the literary language
and the language spoken by the masses; between the music of Glínka,
Tchaykóvsky, Rímsky Kórsakoff, Borodín, etc., and the music of the
peasant choir--thus rendering both the poet and the composer accessible
to the peasant.
THE ANNALS
And finally, whilst speaking of the early Russian literature, a few
words, at least, must be said of the Annals.
No country has a richer collection of them. There were, in the tenth,
eleventh and twelfth centuries, several centres of development in
Russia, Kíeff, Nóvgorod, Pskov, the land of Volhýnia, the land of
Súzdal (Vladímir, Moscow[3]), Ryazán, etc., represented at that
time independent republics, linked together only by the unity of
language and religion, and by the fact that all of them elected their
Princes--military defenders and judges--from the house of Rúrik. Each
of these centers had its own annals, bearing the stamp of local life
and local character. The South Russian and Volhýnian annals--of which
the so-called _Nestor’s Annals_ are the fullest and the best known,
are not merely dry records of facts: they are imaginative and poetical
in places. The annals of Nóvgorod bear the stamp of a city of rich
merchants: they are very matter-of-fact, and the annalist warms to his
subject only when he describes the victories of the Nóvgorod republic
over the Land of Súzdal. The Annals of the sister-republic of Pskov, on
the contrary, are imbued with a democratic spirit, and they relate with
democratic sympathies and in a most picturesque manner the struggles
between the poor of Pskov and the rich--the “black people” and the
“white people.” Altogether, the annals are surely not the work of
monks, as was supposed at the outset; they must have been written for
the different cities by men fully informed about their political life,
their treaties with other republics, their inner and outer conflicts.
Moreover, the annals, especially those of Kíeff, or _Nestor’s Annals_,
are something more than mere records of events; they are, as may be
seen from the very name of the latter (_From whence and How came to
be the Land of Russia_), attempts at writing a history of the country,
under the inspiration of Greek models. Those manuscripts which have
reached us--and especially is this true of the Kíeff annals--have
thus a compound structure, and historians distinguish in them several
superposed “layers” dating from different periods. Old traditions;
fragments of early historical knowledge, probably borrowed from the
Byzantine historians; old treaties; complete poems relating certain
episodes, such as Igor’s raid; and local annals from different periods,
enter into their composition. Historical facts, relative to a very
early period and fully confirmed by the Constantinople annalists and
historians, are consequently mingled together with purely mythical
traditions. But this is precisely what makes the high literary value
of the Russian annals, especially those of Southern and South-western
Russia, which contain most precious fragments of early literature.
Such, then, were the treasuries of literature which Russia possessed at
the beginning of the thirteenth century.
MEDIÆVAL LITERATURE
The Mongol invasion, which took place in 1223, destroyed all this young
civilisation, and threw Russia into quite new channels. The main cities
of South and Middle Russia were laid waste. Kíeff, which had been a
populous city and a centre of learning, was reduced to the state of a
straggling settlement, and disappeared from history for the next two
centuries. Whole populations of large towns were either taken prisoners
by the Mongols, or exterminated, if they had offered resistance to the
invaders. As if to add to the misfortunes of Russia, the Turks soon
followed the Mongols, invading the Balkan peninsula, and by the end of
the fifteenth century the two countries from which and through which
learning used to come to Russia, namely Servia and Bulgaria, fell under
the rule of the Osmanlis. All the life of Russia underwent a deep
transformation.
Before the invasion the land was covered with independent republics,
similar to the mediæval city-republics of Western Europe. Now, a
military State, powerfully supported by the Church, began to be
slowly built up at Moscow, which conquered, with the aid of the
Mongol Khans, the independent principalities that surrounded it. The
main effort of the statesmen and the most active men of the Church
was now directed towards the building up of a powerful kingdom which
should be capable of throwing off the Mongol yoke. State ideals were
substituted for those of local autonomy and federation. The Church,
in its effort to constitute a Christian nationality, free from all
intellectual and moral contact with the abhorred pagan Mongols, became
a stern centralised power which pitilessly persecuted everything that
was a reminder of a pagan past. It worked hard, at the same time, to
establish upon Byzantine ideals the unlimited authority of the Moscow
princes. Serfdom was introduced in order to increase the military
power of the State. All Independent local life was destroyed. The
idea of Moscow becoming a centre for Church and State was powerfully
supported by the Church, which preached that Moscow was the heir to
Constantinople--“a third Rome,” where the only true Christianity was
now to develop. And at a later epoch, when the Mongol yoke had been
thrown off, the work of consolidating the Moscow monarchy was continued
by the Tsars and the Church, and the struggle was against the intrusion
of Western influences, in order to prevent the “Latin” Church from
extending its authority over Russia.
These new conditions necessarily exercised a deep influence upon
the further development of literature. The freshness and vigorous
youthfulness of the early epic poetry was gone forever. Sadness,
melancholy, resignation became the leading features of Russian
folk-lore. The continually repeated raids of the Tartars, who
carried away whole villages as prisoners to their encampments in the
South-eastern Steppes; the sufferings of the prisoners in slavery; the
visits of the _baskáks_, who came to levy a high tribute and behaved
as conquerors in a conquered land; the hardships inflicted upon the
populations by the growing military State--all this impressed the
popular songs with a deep note of sadness which they have never since
lost. At the same time the gay festival songs of old and the epic songs
of the wandering bards were strictly forbidden, and those who dared to
sing them were cruelly persecuted by the Church, which saw in these
songs not only a reminiscence of a pagan past, but also a possible link
of union with the Tartars.
Learning was gradually concentrated in the monasteries, every one of
which was a fortress built against the invaders; and it was limited,
of course, to Christian literature. It became entirely scholastic.
Knowledge of nature was “unholy,” something of a witchcraft. Asceticism
was preached as the highest virtue, and became the dominant feature
of written literature. Legends about the saints were widely read and
repeated verbally, and they found no balance in such learning as had
been developed In Western Europe in the mediæval universities. The
desire for a knowledge of nature was severely condemned by the Church,
as a token of self-conceit. All poetry was a sin. The annals lost their
animated character and became dry enumerations of the successes of the
rising State, or merely related unimportant details concerning the
local bishops and superiors of monasteries.
During the twelfth century there had been, in the northern republics
of Nóvgorod and Pksov, a strong current of opinion leading, on the
one side, to Protestant rationalism, and on the other side to the
development of Christianity on the lines of the early Christian
brotherhoods. The apocryphal Gospels, the books of the Old Testament,
and various books in which true Christianity was discussed, were
eagerly copied and had a wide circulation. Now, the head of the Church
in Central Russia violently antagonised all such tendencies towards
reformed Christianity. A strict adherence to the very letter of the
teachings of the Byzantine Church was exacted from the flock. Every
kind of interpretation of the Gospels became heresy. All intellectual
life in the domain of religion, as well as every criticism of the
dignitaries of the Moscow Church, was treated as dangerous, and those
who had ventured this way had to flee from Moscow, seeking refuge in
the remote monasteries of the far North. As to the great movement
of the Renaissance, which gave a new life to Western Europe, it did
not reach Russia: the Church considered it a return to paganism, and
cruelly exterminated its forerunners who came within her reach, burning
them at the stake, or putting them to death on the racks of her
torture-chambers.
I will not dwell upon this period, which covers nearly five centuries,
because it offers very little interest for the student of Russian
literature; I will only mention the two or three works which must not
be passed by in silence.
One of them is the letters exchanged between the Tsar John the Terrible
(John IV.), and one of his chief vassals, Prince Kúrbskiy, who had left
Moscow for Lithuania. From beyond the Lithuanian border he addressed to
his cruel, half-lunatic ex-master long letters of reproach, which John
answered, developing in his epistles the theory of the divine origin
of the Tsar’s authority. This correspondence is most characteristic of
the political ideas that were current then, and of the learning of the
period.
After the death of John the Terrible (who occupies in Russian history
the same position as Louis XI. in French, since he destroyed by
fire and sword--but with a truly Tartar cruelty--the power of the
feudal princes), Russia passed, as is known, through years of great
disturbance. The pretender Demetrius, who proclaimed himself a son of
John, came from Poland and took possession of the throne at Moscow.
The Poles invaded Russia, and were the masters of Moscow, Smolénsk,
and all the western towns; and when Demetrius was overthrown, a few
months after his coronation, a general revolt of the peasants broke
out, while all Central Russia was invaded by Cossack bands, and
several new pretenders made their appearance. These “Disturbed Years”
must have left traces in popular songs, but all such songs entirely
disappeared in Russia during the dark period of serfdom which followed,
and we know of them only through an Englishman, RICHARD JAMES, who was
in Russia in 1619, and who wrote down some of the songs relating to
this period. The same must be said of the folk-literature, which must
have come into existence during the later portion of the seventeenth
century. The definite introduction of serfdom under the first Romanoff
(Mikhail, 1612-1640); the wide-spread revolts of the peasants which
followed--culminating in the terrific uprising of Stepán Rázin, who
has become since then a favourite hero with the oppressed peasants;
and finally the stern and cruel persecution of the Non-conformists
and their migrations eastward into the depths of the Uráls--all these
events must have found their expression in folk-songs; but the State
and the Church so cruelly hunted down everything that bore trace of a
spirit of rebellion that no works of popular creation from that period
have reached us. Only a few writings of a polemic character and the
remarkable autobiography of an exiled priest have been preserved by the
Non-conformists.
SPLIT IN THE CHURCH--MEMOIRS OF AVVAKÚM
The first Russian Bible was printed in Poland in 1580. A few years
later a printing office was established at Moscow, and the Russian
Church authorities had now to decide which of the written texts then
in circulation should be taken for the printing of the Holy Books.
The handwritten copies which were in use at that time were full of
errors, and it was evidently necessary to revise them by comparing
them with the Greek texts before committing any of them to print. This
revision was undertaken at Moscow, with the aid of learned men brought
over partly from Greece and partly from the Greco-Latin Academy of
Kieff; but for many different reasons this revision became the source
of a widely spread discontent, and in the middle of the seventeenth
century a formidable split (_raskól_) took place in the Church. It
hardly need be said that this split was not a mere matter of theology,
nor of Greek readings. The seventeenth century was a century when the
Moscow Church had attained a formidable power in the State. The head
of it, the Patriarch Níkon, was, moreover, a very ambitious man, who
intended to play in the East the part which the Pope played in the
West, and to that end he tried to impress the people by his grandeur
and luxury--which meant, of course, heavy impositions upon the serfs
of the Church and the lower clergy. He was hated by both, and was soon
accused by the people of drifting into “Latinism”; so that the split
between the people and the clergy--especially the higher clergy--took
the character of a wide-spread separation of the people from the Greek
Church.
Most of the Non-conformist writings of the time are purely scholastic
in character and consequently offer no literary interest. But the
memoirs of a Non-conformist priest, AVVAKÚM (died 1681), who was exiled
to Siberia and made his way on foot, with Cossack parties, as far as
the banks of the Amúr, deserve to be mentioned. By their simplicity,
their sincerity, and absence of all sensationalism, they have remained
the prototype of Russian memoirs, down to the present day. Here are a
few quotations from this remarkable work:
“When I came to Yeniséisk,” Avvakúm wrote, “another order came from
Moscow to send me to Daúria, 2,000 miles from Moscow, and to place
me under the orders of Páshkoff. He had with him sixty men, and in
punishment of my sins he proved to be a terrible man. Continually
he burnt, and tortured, and flogged his men, and I had often spoken
to him, remonstrating that what he did was not good, and now I fell
myself into his hands. When we went along the Angará river he ordered
me, ‘Get out of your boat, you are a heretic, that is why the boats
don’t get along. Go you on foot, across the mountains.’ It was hard
to do. Mountains high, forests impenetrable, stony cliffs rising like
walls--and we had to cross them, going about with wild beasts and
birds; and I wrote him a little letter which began thus: ‘Man, be
afraid of God. Even the heavenly forces and all animals and men are
afraid of Him. Thou alone carest nought about Him.’ Much more was
written in this letter, and I sent it to him. Presently I saw fifty
men coming to me, and they took me before him. He had his sword in his
hand and shook with fury. He asked me: ‘Art thou a priest, or a priest
degraded?’ I answered, ‘I am Avvakúm, a priest, what dost thou want
from me?’ And he began to beat me on the head and he threw me on the
ground, and continued to beat me while I was lying on the ground, and
then ordered them to give me seventy-two lashes with the knout, and
I replied: ‘Jesus Christ, son of God, help me!’ and he was only the
more angered that I did not ask for mercy. Then they brought me to a
small fort, and put me in a dungeon, giving me some straw, and all the
winter I was kept in that tower, without fire. And the winter there is
terribly cold; but God supported me, even though I had no furs. I lay
there as a dog on the straw. One day they would feed me, another not.
Rats were swarming all around. I used to kill them with my cap--the
poor fools would not even give me a stick.”
Later on Avvakúm was taken to the Amúr, and when he and his wife had
to march, in the winter, over the ice of the great river, she would
often fall down from sheer exhaustion. “Then I came,” Avvakúm writes,
“to lift her up, and she exclaimed in despair: ‘How long, priest, how
long will these sufferings continue?’ And I replied to her: ‘Until
death even’; and then she would get up saying: ‘Well, then, priest; let
us march on.’” No sufferings could vanquish this great man. From the
Amúr he was recalled to Moscow, and once more made the whole journey on
foot. There he was accused of resistance to Church and State, and was
burned at the stake in 1681.
THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY
The violent reforms of Peter I., who created a military European State
out of the semi-Byzantine and semi-Tartar State which Russia had been
under his predecessors, gave a new turn to literature. It would be out
of place to appreciate here the historical significance of the reforms
of Peter I., but it must be mentioned that in Russian literature one
finds, at least, two forerunners of Peter’s work.
One of them was KOTOSHÍKHIN (1630-1667), an historian.[4] He ran away
from Moscow to Sweden, and wrote there, fifty years before Peter
became Tsar, a history of Russia, in which he strenuously criticised
the condition of ignorance prevailing at Moscow, and advocated wide
reforms. His manuscript was unknown till the nineteenth century, when
it was discovered at Upsala. Another writer, imbued with the same
ideas, was a South Slavonian, KRYZHÁNITCH, who was called to Moscow in
1659, in order to revise the Holy Books, and wrote a most remarkable
work, in which he also preached the necessity of thorough reforms. He
was exiled two years later to Siberia, where he died.
Peter I., who fully realised the importance of literature, and was
working hard to introduce European learning amongst his countrymen,
understood that the old Slavonian tongue, which was then in use among
Russian writers, but was no longer the current language of the nation,
could only hamper the development of literature and learning. Its
forms, its expressions, and grammar were already quite strange to the
Russians. It could be used still in religious writings, but a book on
geometry, or algebra, or military art, written in the Biblical Old
Slavonian, would have been simply ridiculous. Consequently, Peter
removed the difficulty in his usual trenchant way. He established a new
alphabet, to aid in the introduction into literature of the spoken but
hitherto unwritten language. This alphabet, partly borrowed from the
Old Slavonian, but very much simplified, is the one now in use.
Literature proper little interested Peter I.: he looked upon printed
matter from the strictly utilitarian point of view, and his chief
aim was to familiarise the Russians with the first elements of the
exact sciences, as well as with the arts of navigation, warfare, and
fortification. Accordingly, the writers of his time offer but little
interest from the literary point of view, and I need mention but a very
few of them.
The most interesting writer of the time of Peter I. and his immediate
successors was perhaps PROCOPÓVITCH, a priest, without the slightest
taint of religious fanaticism, a great admirer of West-European
learning, who founded a Greco-Slavonian academy. The courses of
Russian literature also make mention of KANTEMIR (1709-1744), the son
of a Moldavian prince who had emigrated with his subjects to Russia.
He wrote satires, in which he expressed himself with a freedom of
thought that was quite remarkable for his time.[5] TKRETIAÓVSKIY
(1703-1769) offers a certain melancholy interest. He was the son of a
priest, and in his youth ran away from his father, in order to study
at Moscow. Thence he went to Amsterdam and Paris, travelling mostly
on foot. He studied at the Paris University and became an admirer of
advanced ideas, about which he wrote in extremely clumsy verses. On
his return to St. Petersburg he lived all his after-life in poverty
and neglect, persecuted on all sides by sarcasms for his endeavours
to reform Russian versification. He was himself entirely devoid of
any poetical talent, and yet he rendered a great service to Russian
poetry. Up to that date Russian verse was syllabic; but he understood
that syllabic verse does not accord with the spirit of the Russian
language, and he devoted his life to prove that Russian poetry should
be written according to the laws of rhythmical versification. If he
had had even a spark of talent, he would have found no difficulty in
proving his thesis; but he had none, and consequently resorted to the
most ridiculous artifices. Some of his verses were lines of the most
incongruous words, strung together for the sole purpose of showing
how rhythm and rhymes may be obtained. If he could not otherwise
get his rhyme, he did not hesitate to split a word at the end of a
verse, beginning the next one with what was left of it. In spite of
his absurdities, he succeeded in persuading Russian poets to adopt
rhythmical versification, and its rules have been followed ever since.
In fact, this was only the natural development of the Russian popular
song.
There was also a historian, TATÍSCHEFF (1686-1750), who wrote a history
of Russia, and began a large work on the geography of the Empire--a
hard-working man who studied a great deal in many sciences, as well
as in Church matters, was superintendent of mines in the Uráls, and
wrote a number of political works as well as history. He was the
first to appreciate the value of the annals, which he collected and
systematised, thus preparing materials for future historians, but he
left no lasting trace in Russian literature. In fact, only one man of
that period deserves more than a passing mention. It was LOMONÓSOFF
(1712-1765). He was born in a village on the White Sea, near Archángel,
in a fisherman’s family. He also ran away from his parents, came on
foot to Moscow, and entered a school in a monastery, living there in
indescribable poverty. Later on he went to Kíeff, also on foot, and
there he very nearly became a priest. It so happened, however, that at
that time the St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences applied to the Moscow
Theological Academy for twelve good students who might be sent to study
abroad. Lomonósoff was chosen as one of them. He went to Germany, where
he studied natural sciences under the best natural philosophers of the
time, especially under Christian Wolff,--always in terrible poverty,
almost on the verge of starvation. In 1741 he came back to Russia, and
was nominated a member of the Academy of Sciences at St. Petersburg.
The Academy was then in the hands of a few Germans who looked upon all
Russian scholars with undisguised contempt, and consequently received
Lomonósoff in a most unfriendly manner. It did not help him that the
great mathematician, Euler, wrote that the work of Lomonósoff in
natural philosophy and chemistry revealed a man of genius, and that
any Academy might be happy to possess him. A bitter struggle soon
began between the German members of the Academy and the Russian who,
it must be owned, was of a very violent character, especially when he
was under the influence of drink. Poverty, his salary being confiscated
as a punishment; detention at the police station; exclusion from the
Senate of the Academy; and, worst of all, political persecution--such
was the fate of Lomonósoff, who had joined the party of Elizabeth, and
consequently was treated as an enemy when Catharine II. came to the
throne. It was not until the nineteenth century that Lomonósoff was
duly appreciated.
“Lomonósoff was himself a university,” was Púshkin’s remark, and this
remark was quite correct: so varied were the directions in which he
worked. Not only was he a distinguished natural philosopher, chemist,
physical geographer, and mineralogist: he laid also the foundations
of the grammar of the Russian language, which he understood as
part of a general grammar of all languages, considered in their
natural evolution. He also worked out the different forms of Russian
versification, and he created quite a new literary language, of which
he could say that it was equally appropriate for rendering “the
powerful oratory of Cicero, the brilliant earnestness of Virgil and the
pleasant talk of Ovid, as well as the subtlest imaginary conceptions
of philosophy, or discussing the various properties of matter and the
changes which are always going on in the structure of the universe and
in human affairs.” This he proved by his poetry, by his scientific
writings, and by his “Discourses,” in which he combined Huxley’s
readiness to defend science against blind faith with Humboldt’s
poetical conception of Nature.
His odes were, it is true, written in the pompous style which was dear
to the pseudo-classicism then reigning, and he retained Old Slavonian
expressions “for dealing with elevated subjects”, but in his scientific
and other writings he used the commonly spoken language with great
effect and force. Owing to the very variety of sciences which he had
to acclimatise in Russia, he could not give much time to original
research; but when he took up the defence of the ideas of Copernicus,
Newton, or Huyghens against the opposition which they met with on
theological grounds, a true philosopher of natural science, in the
modern sense of the term, was revealed in him. In his early boyhood
he used to accompany his father--a sturdy northern fisherman--on his
fishing expeditions, and there he got his love of Nature and a fine
comprehension of natural phenomena, which made of his Memoir on Arctic
Exploration a work that has not lost its value even now. It is well
worthy of note that in this last work he had stated the mechanical
theory of heat in such definite expressions that he undoubtedly
anticipated by a full century this great discovery of our own time--a
fact which has been entirely overlooked, even in Russia.
A contemporary of Lomonósoff, SUMARÓKOFF (1717-1777,) who was described
in those years as a “Russian Racine,” must also be mentioned in this
place. He belonged to the higher nobility, and had received an entirely
French education. His dramas, of which he wrote a great number, were
entirely imitated from the French pseudo-classical school; but he
contributed very much, as will be seen from a subsequent chapter, to
the development of the Russian theatre. Sumarókoff wrote also lyrical
verses, elegies, and satires--all of no great importance; but the
remarkably good style of his letters, free of the Slavonic archaisms,
which were habitual at that time, deserves to be mentioned.
THE TIMES OF CATHERINE II.
With Catherine II., who reigned from 1752 till 1796, commenced a
new era in Russian literature. It began to shake off its previous
dulness, and although the Russian writers continued to imitate French
models--chiefly pseudo-classical--they began also to introduce into
their writings various subjects taken from direct observation of
Russian life. There is, altogether, a frivolous youthfulness in the
literature of the first years of Catherine’s reign, when the Empress,
being yet full of progressive ideas borrowed from her intercourse with
French philosophers, composed--basing it on Montesquieu--her remarkable
_Instruction_ (_Nakáz_) to the deputies she convoked; wrote several
comedies, in which she ridiculed the old-fashioned representatives of
Russian nobility; and edited a monthly review in which she entered
into controversy both with some ultra-conservative writers and with
the more advanced young reformers. An academy of belles-lettres was
founded, and Princess VORONTSÓVA-DÁSHKOVA (1743-1819)--who had aided
Catherine II. in her _coup d’état_ against her husband, Peter III.,
and in taking possession of the throne--was nominated president of the
Academy of Sciences. She assisted the Academy with real earnestness in
compiling a dictionary of the Russian language, and she also edited
a review which left a mark in Russian literature; while her memoirs,
written in French (_Mon Histoire_) are a very valuable, though not
always impartial, historical document.[6] Altogether there began at
that time quite a literary movement, which produced a remarkable poet,
DERZHÁVIN (1743-1816); the writer of comedies, VON WÍZIN (1745-1792);
the first philosopher, NÓVIKOFF (1742-1818); and a political writer,
RADÍSCHFEF(1749-1802).
The poetry of Derzhávin certainly does not answer our modern
requirements. He was the poet laureate of Catherine, and sang in
pompous odes the virtues of the ruler and the victories of her generals
and favourites. Russia was then taking a firm hold on the shores
of the Black Sea, and beginning to play a serious part in European
affairs; and occasions for the inflation of Derzhávin’s patriotic
feelings were not wanting. However, he had some of the marks of the
true poet; he was open to the feeling of the poetry of Nature, and
capable of expressing it in verses that were positively good (_Ode to
God_, _The Waterfall_). Nay, these really poetical verses, which are
found side by side with unnatural, heavy lines stuffed with obsolete
pompous words, are so evidently better than the latter, that they
certainly were an admirable object-lesson for all subsequent Russian
poets. They must have contributed to induce our poets to abandon
mannerism. Púshkin, who in his youth admired Derzhávin, must have
felt at once the disadvantages of a pompous style, illustrated by his
predecessor, and with his wonderful command of his mother-tongue he was
necessarily brought to abandon the artificial language which formerly
was considered “poetical,”--he began to write as we speak.
The comedies of VON WÍZIN (or FONVIZIN), were quite a revelation for
his contemporaries. His first comedy, _The Brigadier_, which he wrote
at the age of twenty-two, created quite a sensation, and till now it
has not lost its interest; while his second comedy, _Nédorosl_ (1782),
was received as an event in Russian literature, and is occasionally
played even at the present day. Both deal with purely Russian subjects,
taken from every-day life; and although Von Wízin too freely borrowed
from foreign authors (the subject of _The Brigadier_ is borrowed from
a Danish comedy of Holberg, _Jean de France_), he managed nevertheless
to make his chief personages truly Russian. In this sense he certainly
was a creator of the Russian national drama, and he was also the first
to introduce into our literature the realistic tendency which became
so powerful with Púshkin, Gógol and their followers. In his political
opinions he remained true to the progressive opinions which Catherine
II. patronised in the first years of her reign, and in his capacity of
secretary to Count Pánin he boldly denounced serfdom, favouritism, and
want of education in Russia.
I pass in silence several writers of the same epoch, namely,
BOGDANÓVITCH (1743-1803), the author of a pretty and light poem,
_Dushenka_; HEMNITZER (1745-1784), a gifted writer of fables, who
was a forerunner of Krylóff; KAPNÍST (1757-1829), who wrote rather
superficial satires in good verse; Prince SCHERBÁTOFF (1733-1790), who
began with several others the scientific collecting of old annals and
folk-lore, and undertook to write a history of Russia, in which we find
a scientific criticism of the annals and other sources of information;
and several others. But I must say a few words upon the masonic
movement which took place on the threshold of the nineteenth century.
THE FREEMASONS: FIRST MANIFESTATION OF POLITICAL THOUGHT.
The looseness of habits which characterised Russian high society in
the eighteenth century, the absence of ideals, the servility of the
nobles, and the horrors of serfdom, necessarily produced a reaction
amongst the better minds, and this reaction took the shape, partly of
a widely spread Masonic movement, and partly of Christian mysticism,
which originated in the mystical teachings that had at that time
widely spread in Germany. The freemasons and their Society of Friends
undertook a serious effort for spreading moral education among the
masses, and they found in NÓVIKOFF (1744-1818) a true apostle of
renovation. He began his literary career very early, in one of those
satirical reviews of which Catherine herself took the initiative at
the beginning of her reign, and already in his amiable controversy
with “the grandmother” (Catherine) he showed that he would not remain
satisfied with the superficial satire in which the empress delighted,
but that, contrary to her wishes, he would go to the root of the evils
of the time: namely, serfdom and its brutalising effects upon society
at large. Nóvikoff was not only a well-educated man: he combined
the deep moral convictions of an idealist with the capacities of an
organiser and a business man; and although his review (from which the
net income went entirely for philanthropic and educational purposes)
was soon stopped by “the grandmother,” he started in Moscow a most
successful printing and book-selling business, for editing and
spreading books of an ethical character. His immense printing office,
combined with a hospital for the workers and a chemist’s shop, from
which medicine was given free to all the poor of Moscow, was soon
in business relations with booksellers all over Russia; while his
influence upon educated society was growing rapidly, and working in
an excellent direction. In 1787, during a famine, he organised relief
for the starving peasants--quite a fortune having been put for this
purpose at his disposal by one of his pupils. Of course, both the
Church and the Government looked with suspicion upon the spreading
of Christianity, as it was understood by the freemason Friends; and
although the metropolitan of Moscow testified that Nóvikoff was “the
best Christian he ever knew,” Nóvikoff was accused of political
conspiracy.
He was arrested, and in accordance with the personal wish of Catherine,
though to the astonishment of all those who knew anything about him,
was condemned to death in 1792. The death-sentence, however, was not
fulfilled, but he was taken for fifteen years to the terrible fortress
of Schüsselberg, where he was put in the secret cell formerly occupied
by the Grand Duke Ivan Antonovitch, and where his freemason friend,
Doctor Bagryánskiy, volunteered to remain imprisoned with him. He
remained there till the death of Catherine. Paul I. released him, in
1796, on the very day that he became emperor; but Nóvikoff came out of
the fortress a broken man, and fell entirely into mysticism, towards
which there was already a marked tendency in several lodges of the
freemasons.
The Christian mystics were not happier. One of them, LÁBZIN
(1766-1825), who exercised a great influence upon society by his
writings against corruption, was also denounced, and ended his days in
exile. However, both the mystical Christians and the freemasons (some
of whose lodges followed the Rosenkreuz teachings) exercised a deep
influence on Russia. With the advent of Alexander I. to the throne
the freemasons obtained more facilities for spreading their ideas;
and the growing conviction that serfdom must be abolished, and that
the tribunals, as well as the whole system of administration, were in
need of complete reform, was certainly to a great extent a result
of their work. Besides, quite a number of remarkable men received
their education at the Moscow Institute of the Friends--founded by
Nóvikoff--including the historian Karamzín, the brothers Turguéneff,
uncles of the great novelist, and several political men of mark.
RADÍSCHEFF (1749-1802), a political writer of the same epoch, had a
still more tragic end. He received his education in the Corps of Pages,
and was one of those young men whom the Russian Government had sent
in 1766 to Germany to finish there their education. He followed the
lectures of Hellert and Plattner at Leipzig, and studied very earnestly
the French philosophers. On his return, he published, in 1790, a
_Journey from St. Petersburg to Moscow_, the idea of which seems to
have been suggested to him by Sterne’s _Sentimental Journey_. In this
book he very ably intermingled his impressions of travel with various
philosophical and moral discussions and with pictures from Russian life.
He insisted especially upon the horrors of serfdom, as also upon the
bad organisation of the administration, the venality of the law-courts,
and so on, confirming his general condemnations by concrete facts
taken from real life. Catherine, who already before the beginning of
the revolution in France, and especially since the events of 1789, had
come to regard with horror the liberal ideas of her youth, ordered
the book to be confiscated and destroyed at once. She described the
author as a revolutionist, “worse than Pugatchóff”; he ventured to
“speak with approbation of Franklin” and was infected with French
ideas! Consequently, she wrote herself a sharp criticism of the book,
upon which its prosecution had to be based. Radíscheff was arrested,
confined to the fortress, later on transported to the remotest portions
of Eastern Siberia, on the Olenek. He was released only in 1801. Next
year, seeing that even the advent of Alexander the First did not mean
the coming of a new reformatory spirit, he put an end to his life by
suicide. As to his book, it still remains forbidden in Russia. A new
edition of it, which was made in 1872, was confiscated and destroyed,
and in 1888 the permission was given to a publisher to issue the work
in editions of a hundred copies only, which were to be distributed
among a few men of science and certain high functionaries.[7]
THE FIRST YEARS OF THE NINETEENTH CENTURY.
These were, then, the elements out of which Russian literature had
to be evolved in the nineteenth century. The slow work of the last
five hundred years had already prepared that admirable, pliable, and
rich instrument--the literary language in which Púshkin would soon
be enabled to write his melodious verses and Turguéneff his no less
melodious prose. From the autobiography of the Non-conformist martyr,
Avvakúm, one could already guess the value of the spoken language of
the Russian people for literary purposes.
Tretiakóvskiy, by his clumsy verses, and especially Lomonósoff and
Derzhávin by their odes, had definitely repelled the syllabic form that
had been introduced from France and Poland, and had established the
tonic, rhythmical form which was indicated by the popular song itself.
Lomonósoff had created a popular scientific language; he had invented
a number of new words, and had proved that the Latin and Old Slavonian
constructions were hostile to the spirit of Russian, and quite
unnecessary. The age of Catherine II. further introduced into written
literature the forms of familiar everyday talk, borrowed even from
the peasant class; and Nóvikoff had created a Russian philosophical
language--still heavy on account of its underlying mysticism, but
splendidly adapted, as it appeared a few decades later, to abstract
metaphysical discussions. The elements for a great and original
literature were thus ready. They required only a vivifying spirit which
should use them for higher purposes. This genius was Púshkin. But
before speaking of him, the historian and novelist Karamzín and the
poet Zhukóvskiy[8] must be mentioned, as they represent a link between
the two epochs.
KARAMZÍN (1766-1826), by his monumental work, _The History of the
Russian State_, did in literature what the great war of 1812 had done
in national life. He awakened the national consciousness and created
a lasting interest in the history of the nation, in the making of
the empire, in the evolution of national character and institutions.
Karamzín’s _History_ was reactionary in spirit. He was the historian
of the Russian State, not of the Russian people; the poet of the
virtues of monarchy and the wisdom of the rulers, but not an observer
of the work that had been accomplished by the unknown masses of the
nation. He was not the man to understand the federal principles which
prevailed in Russia down to the fifteenth century, and still less the
communal principles which pervaded Russian life and had permitted the
nation to conquer and to colonise an immense continent. For him, the
history of Russia was the regular, organic development of a monarchy,
from the first appearance of the Scandinavian _varingiar_ down to the
present times, and he was chiefly concerned with describing the deeds
of monarchs in their conquests and their building up of a State; but,
as it often happens with Russian writers, his foot-notes were a work
of history in themselves. They contained a rich mine of information
concerning the sources of Russia’s history, and they suggested to the
ordinary reader that the early centuries of mediæval Russia, with
her independent city-republics, were far more interesting than they
appeared in the book.[9] Karamzín was not the founder of a school, but
he showed to Russia that she has a past worth knowing. Besides, his
work was a work of art. It was written in a brilliant style, which
accustomed the public to read historical works. The result was, that
the first edition of his eight-volume _History_--3,000 copies--was sold
in twenty-five days.
However, Karamzín’s influence was not limited to his _History_: it
was even greater through his novels and his _Letters of a Russian
Traveller Abroad_. In the latter he made an attempt to bring the
products of European thought, philosophy, and political life into
circulation amidst a wide public; to spread broadly humanitarian
views, at a time when they were most needed as a counterpoise to the
sad realities of political and social life; and to establish a link of
connection between the intellectual life of our country and that of
Europe. As to Karamzín’s novels, he appeared in them as a true follower
of sentimental romanticism; but this was precisely what was required
then, as a reaction against the would-be classical school. In one of
his novels, _Poor Liza_ (1792), he described the misfortunes of a
peasant girl who fell in love with a nobleman, was abandoned by him,
and finally drowned herself in a pond. This peasant girl surely would
not answer to our present realistic requirements. She spoke in choice
language and was not a peasant girl at all; but all reading Russia
cried about the misfortune of “poor Liza,” and the pond where the
heroine was supposed to have been drowned became a place of pilgrimage
for the sentimental youths of Moscow. The spirited protest against
serfdom which we shall find later on in modern literature was thus
already born in Karamzín’s time.
ZHUKÓVSKIY (1783-1852) was a romantic poet in the true sense of the
word, and a true worshipper of poetry, who fully understood its
elevating power. His original productions were few. He was mainly a
translator and rendered in most beautiful Russian verses the poems of
Schiller, Uhland, Herder, Byron, Thomas Moore, and others, as well as
the Odyssey, the Hindu poem of Nal and Ramayanti, and the songs of the
Western Slavonians. The beauty of these translations is such that I
doubt whether there are in any other language, even in German, equally
beautiful renderings of foreign poets. However, Zhukóvskiy was not
a mere translator: he took from other poets only what was agreeable
to his own nature and what he would have liked to sing himself. Sad
reflections about the unknown, an aspiration towards distant lands, the
sufferings of love, and the sadness of separation--all lived through by
the poet--were the distinctive features of his poetry. They reflected
his inner self. We may object now to his ultra-romanticism, but this
direction, at that time, was an appeal to the broadly humanitarian
feelings, and it was of first necessity for progress. By his poetry,
Zhukóvskiy appealed chiefly to women, and when we deal later on with
the part that Russian women played half a century later in the general
development of their country, we shall see that his appeal was not made
in vain. Altogether, Zhukóvskiy appealed to the best sides of human
nature. One note, however, was missing entirely in his poetry: it was
the appeal to the sentiments of freedom and citizenship. This appeal
came from the “Decembrist” poet, Ryléeff.
THE “DECEMBRISTS”
The Tsar Alexander I. went through the same evolution as his
grandmother, Catherine II. He was educated by the republican, La Harpe,
and began his reign as a quite liberal sovereign, ready to grant to
Russia a constitution. He did it in fact for Poland and Finland, and
made a first step towards it in Russia. But he did not dare to touch
serfdom, and gradually he fell under the influence of German mystics,
became alarmed at liberal ideas, and surrendered his will to the
worst reactionaries. The man who ruled Russia during the last ten or
twelve years of his reign was General Arakchéeff--a maniac of cruelty
and militarism, who maintained his influence by means of the crudest
flattery and simulated religiousness.
A reaction against these conditions was sure to grow up, the more
so as the Napoleonic wars had brought a great number of Russians in
contact with Western Europe. The campaigns made in Germany, and the
occupation of Paris by the Russian armies, had familiarised many
officers with the ideas of liberty which reigned still in the French
capital, while at home the endeavours of Nóvikoff were bearing fruit,
and the freemason Friends continued his work. When Alexander I., having
fallen under the influence of Madame Krüdener and other German mystics,
concluded in 1815 the Holy Alliance with Germany and Austria, in order
to combat all liberal ideas, secret societies began to be formed in
Russia--chiefly among the officers--in order to promote the ideas of
liberty, of abolition of serfdom, and of equality before the law, as
the necessary steps towards the abolition of absolute rule. Everyone
who has read Tolstóy’s _War and Peace_ must remember “Pierre” and the
impression produced upon this young man by his first meeting with an
old freemason. “Pierre” is a true representative of many young men
who later on became known as “Decembrists.” Like “Pierre,” they were
imbued with humanitarian ideas; many of them hated serfdom, and they
wanted the introduction of constitutional guarantees; while a few of
them (Péstel, Ryléef), despairing of monarchy, spoke of a return to
the republican federalism of old Russia. With such ends in view, they
created their secret societies.
It is known how this conspiracy ended. After the sudden death of
Alexander I. in the South of Russia, the oath of allegiance was given
at St. Petersburg to his brother Constantine, who was proclaimed his
successor. But when, a few days later, it became known in the capital
that Constantine had abdicated, and that his brother Nicholas was going
to become emperor, and when the conspirators learned that they had
been denounced in the meantime to the State police, they saw nothing
else to do but to proclaim their programme openly in the streets, and
to fall in an unequal fight. They did so, on December 14 (26), 1825,
in the Senate Square of St. Petersburg, followed by a few hundred
men from several regiments of the guard. Five of the insurgents were
hanged by Nicholas I., and the remainder, _i. e._, about a hundred
young men who represented the flower of Russian intelligence, were
sent to hard labour in Siberia, where they remained till 1856. One can
hardly imagine what it meant, in a country which was not over-rich
in educated and well-intentioned men, when such a number of the
best representatives of a generation were taken out of the ranks
and reduced to silence. Even in a more civilised country of Western
Europe the sudden disappearance of so many men of thought and action
would have dealt a severe blow to progress. In Russia the effect was
disastrous--the more so as the reign of Nicholas I. lasted thirty
years, during which every spark of free thought was stifled as soon as
it appeared.
One of the most brilliant literary representatives of the “Decembrists”
was RYLÉEF (1795-1826), one of the five who were hanged by Nicholas I.
He had received a good education, and in 1814 was already an officer.
He was thus by a few years the elder of Púshkin. He twice visited
France, in 1814 and 1815, and after the conclusion of peace became a
magistrate at St. Petersburg. His earlier productions were a series
of ballads dealing with the leading men of Russian history. Most of
them were merely patriotic, but some already revealed the sympathies
of the poet for freedom. Censorship did not allow these ballads
to be printed, but they circulated all over Russia in manuscript.
Their poetical value was not great; but the next poem of Ryléef,
_Voinaróvsky_, and especially some fragments of unfinished poems,
revealed in him a powerful poetical gift, which Ryléef’s great friend,
Púshkin, greeted with effusion. It is greatly to be regretted that the
poem _Voinaróvsky_ has never been translated into English. Its subject
is the struggle of Little Russia for the recovery of its independence
under Peter I. When the Russian Tsar was engaged in a bitter struggle
against the great northern warrior, Charles XII., then the ruler of
Little Russia, the _hétman_ Mazépa conceived the plan of joining
Charles XII. against Peter I. for freeing his mother country from the
Russian yoke. Charles XII., as is known, was defeated at Poltáva, and
both he and the _hétman_ had to flee to Turkey. As to Voinaróvsky, a
young patriot friend of Mazépa, he was taken prisoner, and transported
to Siberia. There, at Yakútsk, he was visited by the historian Müller,
and Ryléeff makes him tell his story to the German explorer. The
scenes of nature in Siberia, at Yakútsk, with which the poem begins;
the preparations for the war in Little Russia and the war itself; the
flight of Charles XII. and Mazépa; then the sufferings of Voinaróvsky
at Yakútsk, when his young wife came to rejoin him in the land of
exile, and died there--all these scenes are most beautiful, while in
places the verses, by their simplicity and the beauty of their images,
evoked the admiration even of Púshkin. Two or three generations have
now read this poem, and it continues to inspire each new one with the
same love of liberty and hatred of oppression.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] Pronounce _Ook-ra-ee-nian_.
[2] English readers will find the translation of this poem in full
in the excellent _Anthology of Russian Literature from the Earliest
Period to the Present Time_, by Leo Wiener, published in two volumes,
in 1902, by G. P. Putnam & Sons, at New York. Professor Wiener knows
Russian literature perfectly well, and has made a very happy choice of
a very great number of the most characteristic passages from Russian
writers, beginning with the oldest period (911), and ending with our
contemporaries, Górkiy and Merezhkóvskiy.
[3] The Russian name of the first capital of Russia is Moskvà. However,
“Moscow,” like “Warsaw,” etc., is of so general a use that it would be
affectation to use the Russian name.
[4] In all names the vowels _a_, _e_, _i_, _o_, _u_ have to be
pronounced as in Italian (_father_, _then_, _in_, _on_, _push_).
[5] In the years 1730-1738 he was ambassador at London.
[6] In 1775-1782 she spent a few years at Edinburgh for the education
of her son.
[7] Two free editions of it were made, one by Herzen at London:
_Prince Scherbátoff and A. Radíscheff_, 1858; and another at Leipzig:
_Journey_, in 1876. See A. Pypin’s _History of Russian Literature_,
vol. iv.
[8] Pronounce _Zh_ as a French _j_ (_Joukóvskiy_ in French).
[9] It is now known how much of the preparatory work which rendered
Karamzín’s _History_ possible was done by the Academicians Schlötzer,
Müller, and Stritter, as well as by the above-mentioned historian
Scherbátoff, who had thoroughly studied the annals and whose views
Karamzín closely followed in his work.
PART II
Púshkin--Lérmontoff
CHAPTER II
PÚSHKIN AND LÉRMONTOFF
Púshkin: Beauty of form--Púshkin and Schiller--His youth; his exile;
his later career and death--Fairy tales: _Ruslán and Ludmíla_--His
lyrics--“Byronism”--Drama--_Evghéniy Onyéghin_--LÉRMONTOFF: Púshkin or
Lérmontoff?--His life--The Caucasus--Poetry of Nature--Influence of
Shelley--_The Demon_--_Mtsyri_--Love of freedom--His death--Púshkin
and Lérmontoff as prose-writers--Other poets and novelists of the same
epoch.
PÚSHKIN
Púshkin is not quite a stranger to English readers. In a valuable
collection of review articles dealing with Russian writers which
Professor Coolidge, of Cambridge, Massachusetts, put at my disposal,
I found that in 1832, and later on in 1845, Púshkin was spoken of as
a writer more or less familiar in England, and translations of some
of his lyrics were given in the reviews. Later on Púshkin was rather
neglected in Russia itself, and the more so abroad, and up to the
present time there is no English translation, worthy of the great poet,
of any of his works. In France, on the contrary--owing to Turguéneff
and Prosper Mérimée, who saw in Púshkin one of the great poets of
mankind--as well as in Germany, all the chief works of the Russian
poet are known to literary men in good translations, of which some are
admirable. To the great reading public the Russian poet is, however,
nowhere well known outside his own mother country.
The reason why Púshkin has not become a favourite with West European
readers is easily understood. His lyric verse is certainly inimitable:
it is that of a great poet. His chief novel in verse, _Evghéniy
Onyéghin_, is written with an easiness and a lightness of style, and
a picturesqueness of detail, which makes it stand unique in European
literature. His renderings in verses of Russian popular tales are
delightful reading. But, apart from his very latest productions in
the dramatic style, there is in whatever Púshkin wrote none of the
depth and elevation of ideas which characterised Goethe and Schiller,
Shelley, Byron, and Browning, Victor Hugo and Barbier. The beauty
of form, the happy ways of expression, the incomparable command of
verse and rhyme, are his main points--not the beauty of his _ideas_.
And what we look for in poetry is always the higher inspiration, the
noble ideas which can help to make us better. In reading Púshkin’s
verses the Russian reader is continually brought to exclaim: “How
beautifully this has been told! It could not, it ought not, to be told
in a different way.” In this beauty of form Púshkin is inferior to
none of the greatest poets. In his ways of expressing even the most
insignificant remarks, and describing the most insignificant details of
everyday life; in the variety of human feeling that he has expressed,
and the delicate expression of love under a variety of aspects which is
contained in his poetry; and finally, in the way he deeply impressed
his own personality upon everything he wrote--he is certainly a great
poet.
It is extremely interesting to compare Púshkin with Schiller, in
their lyrics. Leaving aside the greatness and the variety of subjects
touched upon by Schiller, and comparing only those pieces of poetry
in which both poets speak of themselves, one feels at once that
Schiller’s personality is infinitely superior, in depth of thought and
philosophical comprehension of life, to that of the bright, somewhat
spoiled and rather superficial child that Púshkin was. But, at the
same time, the individuality of Púshkin is more deeply impressed upon
his writings than that of Schiller upon his. Púshkin was full of vital
intensity, and his own self is reflected in everything he wrote; a
human heart, full of fire, is throbbing intensely in all his verses.
This heart is far less sympathetic than that of Schiller, but it is
more intimately revealed to the reader. In his best lyrics Schiller did
not find either a better expression of feeling, or a greater variety
of expression, than Púshkin did. In that respect the Russian poet
decidedly stands by the side of Goethe.
Púshkin was born in an aristocratic family at Moscow. Through his
mother he had African blood in his veins: she was a beautiful creole,
the granddaughter of a negro who had been in the service of Peter
I. His father was a typical representative of the noblemen of those
times: squandering a large fortune, living all his life anyhow and
anyway, amidst feasts, in a house half-furnished and half-empty;
fond of the lighter French literature of the time, fond of entering
into a discussion upon anything that he had just learned from the
encyclopædists, and bringing together at his house all possible
notabilities of literature, Russian and French, who happened to be at
Moscow.
Púshkin’s grandmother and his old nurse were the future poet’s best
friends in his childhood. From them he got his perfect mastership
of the Russian language; and from his nurse, with whom he used to
spend, later on, the long winter nights at his country house, when he
was ordered by the State police to reside on his country estate, he
borrowed that admirable knowledge of Russian folk-lore and Russian
ways of expression which rendered his poetry and prose so wonderfully
Russian. To these two women we thus owe the creation of the modern,
easy, pliable Russian language which Púshkin introduced into our
literature.
He was educated at St. Petersburg, at the Tsárskoe Seló Lyceum, and
even before he left school he became renowned as a most extraordinary
poet, in whom Derzhávin recognised more than a mere successor, and
whom Zhukóvskiy presented was his portrait bearing the following
inscription: “To a pupil, from his defeated teacher.” Unfortunately,
Púshkin’s passionate nature drew him away from both the literary
circles and the circles of his best friends--the Decembrists Púschin
and Küchelbecker--into the circles of the lazy, insignificant
aristocrats, amongst whom he spent his vital energy in orgies.
Something of the shallow, empty sort of life he lived then he has
himself described in _Evghéniy Onyéghin_.
Being friendly with the political youth who appeared six or seven years
later, on the square of Peter I. at St. Petersburg, as insurgents
against autocracy and serfdom, Púshkin wrote an _Ode to Liberty_, and
numbers of small pieces of poetry expressing the most revolutionary
ideas, as well as satires against the rulers of the time. The result
was that in 1820, when he was only twenty years old, he was exiled
to Kishinyóff, a very small town at that time, in newly annexed
Bessarabia, where he led the most extravagant life, eventually joining
a party of wandering gypsies. Happily enough he was permitted to leave
for some time this dusty and uninteresting little spot, and to make,
in company with the charming and educated family of the Rayévskys, a
journey to the Crimea and the Caucasus, from which journey he brought
back some of his finest lyrical works.
In 1824, when he had rendered himself quite impossible at Odessa
(perhaps also from fear that he might escape to Greece, to join Byron),
he was ordered to return to Central Russia and to reside at his small
estate, Mikhaílovskoye, in the province of Pskov, where he wrote his
best things. On December 14, 1825, when the insurrection broke out at
St. Petersburg, Púshkin was at Mikhaílovskoye; otherwise, like so many
of his Decembrist friends, he would most certainly have ended his life
in Siberia. He succeeded in burning all his papers before they could be
seized by the secret police.
Shortly after that he was allowed to return to St. Petersburg: Nicholas
I. undertaking to be himself the censor of his verses, and later on
making Púshkin a chamberlain of his Court. Poor Púshkin had thus to
live the futile life of a small functionary of the Winter Palace, and
this life he certainly hated. The Court nobility and bureaucracy could
never pardon him that he, who did not belong to their circle, was
considered such a great man in Russia, and Púshkin’s life was full of
little stings to his self-respect, coming from these classes. He had
also the misfortune to marry a lady who was very beautiful but did not
in the least appreciate his genius. In 1837 he had to fight on her
account a duel, in which he was killed, at the age of thirty-five.
One of his earliest productions, written almost immediately after he
left school, was _Ruslán and Ludmíla_, a fairy tale, which he put into
beautiful verse. The dominating element of this poem is that wonderland
where “a green oak stands on the sea-beach, and a learned cat goes
round the oak,--to which it is attached by a golden chain,--singing
songs when it goes to the left, and telling tales when it goes to the
right.” It is the wedding day of Ludmíla, the heroine; the long bridal
feast comes at last to an end, and she retires with her husband; when
all of a sudden comes darkness, thunder resounds, and in the storm
Ludmíla disappears. She has been carried away by the terrible sorcerer
from the Black Sea--a folk-lore allusion, of course, to the frequent
raids of the nomads of Southern Russia. Now, the unhappy husband, as
also three other young men, who were formerly suitors of Ludmíla,
saddle their horses and go in search of the vanished bride. From their
experiences the tale is made up, and it is full of both touching
passages and very humorous episodes. After many adventures, Ruslán
recovers his Ludmíla, and everything ends to the general satisfaction,
as folk-tales always do.[10]
This was a most youthful production of Púshkin, but its effect in
Russia was tremendous. Classicism, _i. e_. the pseudo-classicism which
reigned then, was defeated for ever. Everyone wanted to have the poem,
everyone retained in memory whole passages and even pages from it, and
with this tale the modern Russian literature--simple, realistic in its
descriptions, modest in its images and fable, earnest and slightly
humouristic--was created. In fact, one could not imagine a greater
simplicity in verse than that which Púshkin had already obtained in
this poem. But to give an idea of this simplicity to English readers
remains absolutely impossible so long as the poem is not translated by
some very gifted English poet. Suffice it to say that, while its verses
are wonderfully musical, it contains not one single passage in which
the author has resorted to unusual or obsolete words--to any words,
indeed, but those which everyone uses in common conversation.
Thunders came upon Púshkin from the classical camp when this poem
made its appearance. We have only to think of the Daphnes and the
Chloes with which poetry used to be embellished at that time, and
the sacerdotal attitude which the poet took towards his readers, to
understand how the classical school was offended at the appearance of a
poet who expressed his thoughts in beautiful images, without resorting
to any of these embellishments, who spoke the language which everyone
speaks, and related adventures fit for the nursery. With one cut of his
sword Púshkin had freed literature from the ties which were keeping it
enslaved.
The tales which he had heard from his old nurse gave him the matter,
not only for _Ruslán and Ludmíla_, but also for a series of popular
tales, of which the verses are so natural that as soon as you have
pronounced one word that word calls up immediately the next, and this
the following, because you cannot say the thing otherwise than in the
way in which Púshkin has told it. “Is it not exactly so that tales
should be told?” was asked all over Russia; and, the reply being in the
affirmative, the fight against pseudo-classicism was won forever.
This simplicity of expression characterised Púshkin in everything he
afterwards wrote. He did not depart from it, even when he wrote about
so-called elevated subjects, nor in the passionate or philosophical
monologues of his latest dramas. It is what makes Púshkin so difficult
to translate into English; because, in the English literature of the
nineteenth century, Wordsworth is the only poet who has written with
the same simplicity. But, while Wordsworth applied this simplicity
mainly to the description of the lovely and quiet English landscape,
Púshkin spoke with the same simplicity of human life, and his verses
continued to flow, as easy as prose and as free from artificial
expressions, even when he described the most violent human passions.
In his contempt of everything exaggerated and theatrical, and in his
determination to have nothing to do with “the lurid tragic actor who
wields a cardboard sword,” he was thoroughly Russian: and at the same
time he powerfully contributed towards establishing, in both the
written literature and on the stage, that taste for simplicity and
honest expression of feeling of which so many examples will be given in
the course of this book.
The main force of Púshkin was in his lyric poetry, and the chief
note of his lyrics was love. The terrible contradictions between the
ideal and the real, from which deeper minds, like those of Goethe, or
Byron, or Heine, have suffered, were strange to him. Púshkin was of
a more superficial nature. It must also be said that a West-European
poet has an inheritance which the Russian has not. Every country of
Western Europe has passed through periods of great national struggle,
during which the great questions of human development were at stake.
Great political conflicts have produced deep passions and resulted
in tragical situations; but in Russia the great struggles and the
religious movements which took place in the seventeenth century, and
under Pugatchóff in the eighteenth, were uprisings of peasants, in
which the educated classes took no part. The intellectual horizon of a
Russian poet is thus necessarily limited. There is, however, something
in human nature which always lives and appeals to every mind. This is
love, and Púshkin, in his lyric poetry, represented love under so many
aspects, in such beautiful forms, and with such a variety of shades,
as one finds in no other poet. Besides, he often gave to love an
expression so refined, so high, that his higher comprehension of love
left as deep a stamp upon subsequent Russian literature as Goethe’s
refined types of women left in the world’s literature. After Púshkin
had written, it was impossible for Russian poets to speak of love in a
lower sense than he did.
In Russia Púshkin has sometimes been described as a Russian Byron.
This appreciation, however, is hardly correct. He certainly imitated
Byron in some of his poems, although the imitation became, at least in
_Evghéniy Onyéghin_, a brilliant original creation. He certainly was
deeply impressed by Byron’s spirited protest against the conventional
life of European society, and there was a time when, if he only could
have left Russia, he probably would have joined Byron in Greece.
But, with his light character, Púshkin could not fathom, and still less
share, the depth of hatred and contempt towards post-revolutionary
Europe which consumed Byron’s heart. Púshkin’s “Byronism” was
superficial; and, while he was ready to defy “respectable” society,
he knew neither the longings for freedom nor the hatred of hypocrisy
which inspired Byron.
Altogether, Púshkin’s force was not in his elevating or
freedom-inspiring influence. His epicureanism, his education received
from French _emigrés_, and his life amidst the high and frivolous
classes of St. Petersburg society, prevented him from taking to heart
the great problems which were already ripening in Russian life. This
is why, towards the end of his short life, he was no longer in touch
with those of his readers who felt that to glorify the military power
of Russia, after the armies of Nicholas I. had crushed Poland, was
not worthy of a poet; and that to describe the attractions of a St.
Petersburg winter-season for a rich and idle gentleman was not to
describe Russian life, in which the horrors of serfdom and absolutism
were being felt more and more heavily.
Púshkin’s real force was in his having created in a few years the
Russian literary language, and having freed literature from the
theatrical, pompous style which was formerly considered necessary in
whatever was printed in black and white. He was great in his stupendous
powers of poetical creation: in his capacity of taking the commonest
things of everyday life, or the commonest feelings of the most ordinary
person, and of so relating them that the reader lived them through;
and, on the other side, constructing out of the scantiest materials,
and calling to life, a whole historical epoch--a power of creation
which, of those coming after him, only Tolstóy has to the same extent.
Púshkin’s power was next in his profound realism--that realism,
understood in its best sense, which he was the first to introduce in
Russia, and which, we shall see, became afterwards characteristic of
the whole of Russian literature. And it is in the broadly humanitarian
feelings with which his best writings are permeated, in his bright love
of life, and his respect for women. As to beauty of form, his verses
are so “easy” that one knows them by heart after having read them twice
or thrice. Now that they have penetrated into the villages, they are
the delight of millions of peasant children, after having been the
delight of such refined and philosophical poets as Turguéneff.
Púshkin also tried his hand at the drama; and, so far as may be
judged from his latest productions, _Don Juan_ and _The Miser-Knight_,
he surely would have achieved great results had he lived to continue
them. His _Mermaid_ (_Rusálka_) unfortunately remained unfinished, but
its dramatic qualities can be judged from what Darmýzhsky has made of
it in his opera. His historical drama, _Boris Godunóff_, taken from
the times of the pretender Demetrius, is enlivened here and there by
most beautiful scenes, some of them very amusing, and some of them
containing a delicate analysis of the sentiments of love and ambition;
but it remains rather a dramatic chronicle than a drama. As to _The
Miser-Knight_, it shows an extraordinary power of mature talent, and
contains passages undoubtedly worthy of Shakespeare; while _Don Juan_,
imbued with a true Spanish atmosphere, gives a far better comprehension
of the Don Juan type than any other representation of it in any
literature, and has all the qualities of a first-rate drama.
Towards the end of his very short life a note of deeper comprehension
of human affairs began to appear in Púshkin’s writings. He had had
enough of the life of the higher classes; and, when he began to write a
history of the great peasant uprising which took place under Pugatchóff
during the reign of Catherine II., he began also to understand and
to feel the inner springs of the life of the Russian peasant-class.
National life appeared to him under a much broader aspect than before.
But at this stage of the development of his genius his career came to
a premature end. He was killed, as already stated, in a duel with a
society man.
The most popular work of Púshkin is his novel in verse, _Evghéniy
Onyéghin_. In its form it has much in common with Byron’s _Childe
Harold_, but it is thoroughly Russian, and contains perhaps the best
description of Russian life, both in the capitals and on the smaller
estates of noblemen in the country, that has ever been written in
Russian literature. Tchaykóvsky, the musician, has made of it an
opera which enjoys a great success on the Russian stage. The hero
of the novel, Onyéghin, is a typical representative of what society
people were at that time. He has received a superficial education,
partly from a French _emigré_, partly from a German teacher, and has
learned “something and anyhow.” At the age of nineteen he is the
owner of a great fortune--consisting, of course, of serfs, about whom
he does not care in the least--and he is engulfed in the “high-life”
of St. Petersburg. His day begins very late, with reading scores of
invitations to tea-parties, evening parties, and fancy balls. He is,
of course, a visitor at the theatre, in which he prefers ballet to the
clumsy productions of the Russian dramatists; and he spends a good
deal of his day in fashionable restaurants, while his nights are given
to balls, where he plays the part of a disillusioned young man, who
is tired of life, and wraps himself in the mantle of Byronism. For
some reason or other he is compelled to spend a summer on his estate,
where he has for a neighbour a young poet, educated in Germany and
full of German romanticism. They become great friends, and they make
acquaintance with a squire’s family in their neighbourhood. The head of
the family--the old mother--is admirably described. Her two daughters,
Tatiána and Olga, are very different in nature: Olga is a quite artless
girl, full of the joy of living, who worries herself with no questions,
and the young poet is madly in love with her; they are going to marry.
As to Tatiána, she is a poetical girl, and Púshkin bestows on her all
the wonderful powers of his talent, describing her as an ideal woman:
intelligent, thoughtful, and inspired with vague aspirations towards
something better than the prosaic life which she is compelled to live.
Onyéghin produces upon her, from the first, a deep impression: she
falls in love with him; but he, who has made so many conquests in the
high circles of the capital, and now wears the mask of disgust of
life, takes no notice of the naïve love of the poor country girl. She
writes to him and tells him her love with great frankness and in most
pathetic words; but the young snob finds nothing better to do than to
lecture her about her rashness, and seems to take great pleasure in
turning the knife in her wound. At the same time, at a small country
ball Onyéghin, moved by some spirit of mischief, begins to flirt in
the most provoking way with the other sister, Olga. The young girl
seems to be delighted with the attention paid to her by the gloomy
hero, and the result is that the poet provokes his friend to a duel.
An old retired officer, a true duelist, is mixed up in the affair, and
Onyéghin, who cares very much about what the country gentlemen, whom
he pretends to despise, may say about him, accepts the provocation and
fights the duel. He kills his poet friend and is compelled to leave the
country. Several years pass. Tatiána, recovered from an illness, goes
one day to the house where formerly Onyéghin stayed and, making friends
with an old keeper, spends days and months reading in his library; but
life has no attraction for her. After insistent supplication from her
mother, she goes to Moscow, and there she marries an old general. This
marriage brings her to St. Petersburg, where she plays a prominent part
in the Court circles. In these surroundings Onyéghin meets her once
more, and hardly recognises his Tánya in the worldly lady whom he sees
now; he falls madly in love with her. She takes no notice of him, and
his letters remain unanswered. At last one day he goes, at an unseemly
hour, into her house. He finds her reading his letters, her eyes full
of tears, and makes her a passionate declaration of his love. To this
Tatiána replies by a monologue which is so beautiful that it ought to
be quoted here, if there existed an English translation which rendered
at least the touching simplicity of Tatiána’s words, and consequently
the beauty of the verses. A whole generation of Russian women have
cried over this monologue, as they were reading these lines:
“Onyéghin, I was younger then, and better looking, I suppose; and I
loved you” ... but the love of a country girl offered nothing new to
Onyéghin. He paid no attention to her.... “Why then does he follow her
now at every step? Why such display of his attention? Is it because she
is now rich and belongs to the high society, and is well received at
Court?
“_Because my fall, in such condition,
Would be well noted ev’rywhere,
And bring to you an envied reputation?_”
And she continues:
“_For me, Onyéghin, all this wealth,
This showy tinsel of Court life,
All my successes in the world,
My well-appointed house and balls ...
For me are nought!--I gladly would
Give up these rags, this masquerade,
And all the brilliancy and din,
For a small shelf of books, a garden wild,
Our weather-beaten house so poor--
Those very places where I met
With you, Onyéghin, that first time;
And for the churchyard of our village,
Where now a cross and shady trees
Stand on the grave of my poor nurse._
* * * * *
_And happiness was possible then!
It was so near!_” ...
She supplicates Onyéghin to leave her. “I love you,” she says:
“_Why should I hide from you the truth?
But I am given to another,
And true to him I shall remain._”[11]
How many thousands of young Russian women have later on repeated these
same verses, and said to themselves: “I would gladly give up all these
rags and all this masquerade of luxurious life for a small shelf of
books, for life in the country, amidst the peasants, and for the grave
of my old nurse in our village.” How many have done it! And we shall
see how this same type of Russian girl was developed still further in
the novels of Turguéneff--and in Russian life. Was not Púshkin a great
poet to have foreseen and predicted it?
LÉRMONTOFF
It is said that when Turguéneff and his great friend, Kavélin, came
together--Kavélin was a very sympathetic philosopher and a writer
upon law--a favourite theme of their discussions was: “Púshkin or
Lérmontoff?” Turguéneff, as is known, considered Púshkin one of the
greatest poets, and especially one of the greatest artists, among
men; while Kavélin must have insisted upon the fact that in his best
productions Lérmontoff was but slightly inferior to Púshkin as an
artist, that his verses were real music, while at the same time the
inspiration of his poetry was of a much higher standard than that of
Púshkin. When it is added that eight years was the entire limit of
Lérmontoff’s literary career--he was killed in a duel at the age of
twenty-six--the powers and the potentialities of this poet will be seen
at once.
Lérmontoff had Scotch blood in his veins. At least, the founder of the
family was a Scotchman, George Learmonth, who, with sixty Scotchmen
and Irishmen, entered the service of Poland first, and afterwards, in
1613, of Russia. The inner biography of the poet remains still but
imperfectly known. It is certain that his childhood and boyhood were
anything but happy. His mother was a lover of poetry--perhaps a poet
herself; but he lost her when he was only three years old--she was only
twenty-one. His aristocratic grandmother on the maternal side took him
from his father--a poor army officer, whom the child worshipped--and
educated him, preventing all intercourse between the father and the
son. The boy was very gifted, and at the age of fourteen had already
begun to write verses and poems--first in French, (like Púshkin), and
soon in Russian. Schiller and Shakespeare and, from the age of sixteen,
Byron and Shelley were his favourites. At the age of sixteen Lérmontoff
entered the Moscow University, from which he was, however, excluded
next year for some offence against a very uninteresting professor. He
then entered a military school at St. Petersburg, to become at the age
of eighteen an officer of the hussars.
A young man of twenty-two, Lérmontoff suddenly became widely known
for a piece of poetry which he wrote on the occasion of Púshkin’s
death (1837). A great poet, as well as a lover of liberty and a foe of
oppression, was revealed at once in this passionate production of the
young writer, of which the concluding verses were especially powerful.
“But you,” he wrote, “who stand, a haughty crowd, around the throne,
You hang men of genius, of liberty, and fame! You have now the law to
cover you, And justice must close her lips before you! But there is a
judgment of God,--you, dissolute crowd! There is a severe judge who
waits for you. You will not buy him by the sound of your gold.... And,
with all your black blood, You will not wash away the stain of the
poet’s pure blood!” In a few days all St. Petersburg, and very soon all
Russia, knew these verses by heart; they circulated in thousands of
manuscript copies.
For this passionate cry of his heart, Lérmontoff was exiled at once.
Only the intervention of his powerful friends prevented him from being
marched straight to Siberia. He was transferred from the regiment
of guards to which he belonged to an army regiment in the Caucasus.
Lérmontoff was already acquainted with the Caucasus: he had been taken
there as a child of ten, and he had brought back from this sojourn
an ineffaceable impression. Now the grandeur of the great mountain
range impressed him still more forcibly. The Caucasus is one of the
most beautiful regions on earth. It is a chain of mountains much
greater than the Alps, surrounded by endless forests, gardens, and
steppes, situated in a southern climate, in a dry region where the
transparency of the air enhances immensely the natural beauty of the
mountains. The snow-clad giants are seen from the Steppes scores of
miles away, and the immensity of the chain produces an impression which
is equalled nowhere in Europe. Moreover, a half-tropical vegetation
clothes the mountain slopes, where the villages nestle, with their
semi-military aspect and their turrets, basking in all the gorgeous
sunshine of the East, or concealed in the dark shadows of the narrow
gorges, and populated by a race of people among the most beautiful of
Europe. Finally, at the time Lérmontoff was there the mountaineers were
fighting against the Russian invaders with unabated courage and daring
for each valley of their native mountains.
All these natural beauties of the Caucasus have been reflected in
Lérmontoff’s poetry, in such a way that in no other literature are
there descriptions of nature so beautiful, or so impressive and
correct. Bodenstedt, his German translator and personal friend, who
knew the Caucasus well, was quite right in observing that they are
worth volumes of geographical descriptions. The reading of many
volumes about the Caucasus does not add any concrete features to those
which are impressed upon the mind by reading the poems of Lérmontoff.
Turguéneff quotes somewhere Shakespeare’s description of the sea as
seen from the cliffs of Dover (in _King Lear_), as a masterpiece of
objective poetry dealing with nature. I must confess, however, that
the concentration of attention upon small details in this description
does not appeal to my mind. It gives no impression of the immensity of
the sea as seen from the Dover cliffs, nor of the wonderful richness
of colour displayed by the waters on a sunny day. No such reproach
could ever be made against Lérmontoff’s poetry of nature. Bodenstedt
truly says that Lérmontoff has managed to satisfy at the same time
both the naturalist and the lover of art. Whether he describes the
gigantic chain, where the eye loses itself--here in snow clouds, there
in the unfathomable depths of narrow gorges; or whether he mentions
some detail: a mountain stream, or the endless woods, or the smiling
valleys of Georgia covered with flowers, or the strings of light
clouds floating in the dry breezes of Northern Caucasia,--he always
remains so true to nature that his picture rises before the eye in
life-colours, and yet it is imbued with a poetical atmosphere which
makes one feel the freshness of these mountains, the balm of their
forests and meadows, the purity of the air. And all this is written in
verses wonderfully musical. Lérmontoff’s verses, though not so “easy”
as Púshkin’s, are very often even more musical. They sound like a
beautiful melody. The Russian language is always rather melodious, but
in the verses of Lérmontoff it becomes almost as melodious as Italian.
The intellectual aspect of Lérmontoff is nearer to Shelley than to
any other poet. He was deeply impressed by the author of _Prometheus
Bound_; but he did not try to imitate Shelley. In his earliest
productions he did indeed imitate Púshkin and Púshkin’s Byronism; but
he very soon struck a line of his own. All that can be said is, that
the mind of Lérmontoff was disquieted by the same great problems of
Good and Evil struggling in the human heart, as in the universe at
large, which disquieted Shelley. Like Shelley among the poets, and
like Schopenhauer among the philosophers, he felt the coming of that
burning need of a revision of the moral principles now current, so
characteristic of our own times. He embodied these ideas in two poems,
_The Demon_ and _Mtsýri_, which complete each other. The leading idea
of the first is that of a fierce soul which has broken with both earth
and heaven, and looks with contempt upon all who are moved by petty
passions. An exile from paradise and a hater of human virtues, he knows
these petty passions, and despises them with all his superiority. The
love of this demon towards a Georgian girl who takes refuge from his
love in a convent, and dies there--what more unreal subject could be
chosen? And yet, on reading the poem, one is struck at every line
by its incredible wealth of purely realistic, concrete descriptions
of scenes and of human feelings, all of the most exquisite beauty.
The dance of the girl at her Georgian castle before the wedding, the
encounter of the bridegroom with robbers and his death, the galloping
of his faithful horse, the sufferings of the bride and her retirement
to a convent, nay, the love itself of the demon and every one of the
demon’s movements--this is of the purest realism in the highest sense
of the word: that realism with which Púshkin had stamped Russian
literature once and for all.
_Mtsýri_ is the cry of a young soul longing for liberty. A boy, taken
from a Circassian village, from the mountains, is brought up in a small
Russian monastery. The monks think that they have killed in him all
human passions and longings; but the dream of his childhood is--be it
only once, be it only for a moment--to see his native mountains where
his sisters sang round his cradle, and to press his burning bosom
against the heart of one who is not a stranger. One night, when a storm
rages and the monks are praying in fear in their church, he escapes
from the monastery, and wanders for three days in the woods. For once
in his life he enjoys a few moments of liberty; he feels all the
energy and all the forces of his youth: “As for me, I was like a wild
beast,” he says afterwards, “and I was ready to fight with the storm,
the lightning, the tiger of the forest.” But, being an exotic plant,
weakened by education, he does not find his way to his native country.
He is lost in the forests which spread for hundreds of miles round him,
and is found a few days later, exhausted, not far from the monastery.
He dies from the wounds which he has received in a fight with a leopard.
“The grave does not frighten me,” he says to the old monk who attends
him. “Suffering, they say, goes to sleep there in the eternal cold
stillness. But I regret to part with life.... I am young, still
young.... hast thou ever known the dreams of youth? Or hast thou
forgotten how thou once lovedst and hatedst? Maybe, this beautiful
world has lost for thee its beauty. Thou art weak and grey; thou hast
lost all desires. No matter! Thou hast lived once; thou hast something
to forget in this world. Thou hast lived--I might have lived, too!” And
he tells about the beauty of the nature which he saw when he had run
away, his frantic joy at feeling free, his running after the lightning,
his fight with a leopard. “Thou wishest to know what I did while I was
free?--I lived, old man! I lived! And my life, without these three
happy days, would have been gloomier and darker than thy powerless old
age!” But it is impossible to _tell_ all the beauties of this poem. It
must be read, and let us hope that a good translation of it will be
published some day.
Lérmontoff’s demonism or pessimism was not the pessimism of despair,
but a militant protest against all that is ignoble in life, and in
this respect his poetry has deeply impressed itself upon all our
subsequent literature. His pessimism was the irritation of a strong
man at seeing others round him so weak and so base. With his inborn
feeling of the Beautiful, which evidently can never exist without
the True and the Good, and at the same time surrounded--especially
in the worldly spheres he lived in, and on the Caucasus--by men and
women who could not or did not dare to understand him, he might
easily have arrived at a pessimistic contempt and hatred of mankind;
but he always maintained his faith in the higher qualities of man.
It was quite natural that in his youth--especially in those years of
universal reaction, the thirties--Lérmontoff should have expressed his
discontent with the world in such a general and abstract creation
as is _The Demon_. Something similar we find even with Schiller. But
gradually his pessimism took a more concrete form. It was not mankind
altogether, and still less heaven and earth, that he despised in his
latter productions, but the negative features of his own generation. In
his prose novel, _The Hero of our Own Time_, in his _Thoughts (Duma)_,
etc., he perceived higher ideals, and already in 1840--_i. e._, one
year before his death--he seemed ready to open a new page in his
creation, in which his powerfully constructive and critical mind would
have been directed towards the real evils of actual life, and real,
positive good would apparently have been his aim. But it was at this
very moment that, like Púshkin, he fell in a duel.
Lérmontoff was, above all, a “humanist,”--a deeply humanitarian poet.
Already at the age of twenty-three, he had written a poem from the
times of John the Terrible, _Song about the Merchant Kaláshnikoff_,
which is rightly considered as one of the best gems of Russian
literature, both for its powers, its artistic finish, and its wonderful
epic style. The poem, which produced a great impression when it became
known in Germany in Bodenstedt’s translation, is imbued with the
fiercest spirit of revolt against the courtiers of the Terrible Tsar.
Lérmontoff deeply loved Russia, but not the official Russia: not the
crushing military power of a fatherland, which is so dear to the
so-called patriots, and he wrote:
_I love my fatherland; but strange that love,
In spite of all my reasoning may say;
Its glory, bought by shedding streams of blood,
Its quietness, so full of fierce disdain,
And the traditions of its gloomy past
Do not awake in me a happy vision._...
What he loved in Russia was its country life, its plains, the life of
its peasants. He was inspired at the same time with a deep love towards
the natives of the Caucasus, who were waging their bitter fight against
the Russians for their liberty. Himself a Russian, and a member of
two different expeditions against the Circassians, his heart throbbed
nevertheless in sympathy with that brave, warm-hearted people in their
struggle for independence. One poem, _Izmail-Bey_, is an apotheosis
of this struggle of the Circassians against the Russians; in another,
one of his best--a Circassian is described as fleeing from the field
of battle to run home to his village, and there his mother herself
repudiates him as a traitor. Another gem of poetry, one of his shorter
poems, _Valérik_, is considered by those who know what real warfare is
as the most correct description of it in poetry. And yet, Lérmontoff
disliked war, and he ends one of his admirable descriptions of fighting
with these lines:
“I thought: How miserable is man! What does he want? The sky is pure,
and under it there’s room for all; but without reason and necessity,
his heart is full of hatred.--Why?”
He died in his twenty-seventh year. Exiled for a second time to the
Caucasus (for a duel which he had fought at St. Petersburg with
a Barrante, the son of the French ambassador), he was staying at
Pyatigórsk, frequenting the shallow society which usually comes
together in such watering places. His jokes and sarcasms addressed
to an officer, Martýnoff, who used to drape himself in a Byronian
mantle the better to capture the hearts of young girls, led to a duel.
Lérmontoff, as he had already done in his first duel, shot sideways
purposely; but Martýnoff slowly and purposely took his aim so as even
to call forth the protests of the seconds--and killed Lérmontoff on the
spot.
PÚSHKIN AND LÉRMONTOFF AS PROSE-WRITERS
Towards the end of his life Púshkin gave himself more and more to
prose writing. He began an extensive history of the peasant uprising
of 1773 under Pugatchóff, and undertook for that purpose a journey to
East Russia, where he collected, besides public documents, personal
reminiscences and popular traditions relating to this uprising. At
the same time he also wrote a novel, _The Captain’s Daughter_, the
scene of which was laid in that disturbed period. The novel is not
very remarkable in itself. True, the portraits of Pugatchóff and of
an old servant, as well as the description of the whole life in the
small forts of East Russia, garrisoned at that time by only a few
invalid soldiers, are very true to reality and brilliantly pictured;
but in the general construction of the novel Púshkin paid a tribute
to the sentimentalism of the times. Nevertheless, _The Captain’s
Daughter_, and especially the other prose novels of Púshkin, have
played an important part in the history of Russian literature. Through
them Púshkin introduced into Russia the realistic school, long before
Balzac did so in France, and this school has since that time prevailed
in Russian prose-literature. I do not mean, of course, Realism in the
sense of dwelling mainly upon the lowest instincts of man, as it was
misunderstood by some French writers, but in the sense of treating both
high and low manifestations of human nature in a way true to reality,
and in their real proportions. Moreover, the _simplicity_ of these
novels, both as regards their plots and the way the plots are treated,
is simply marvellous, and in this way they have traced the lines upon
which the development of Russian novel writing has ever since been
pursued. The novels of Lérmontoff, of Hérzen (_Whose Fault?_), and of
Turguéneff and Tolstóy descend, I dare to say, in a much more direct
line from Púshkin’s novels than from those of Gógol.
Lérmontoff also wrote one novel in prose, _The Hero of our Own Time_,
of which the hero, Petchórin, was to some extent a real representative
of a portion of the educated society in those years of romanticism.
It is true that some critics saw in him the portraiture of the author
himself and his acquaintances; but, as Lérmontoff wrote in his preface
to a second edition of this novel--“The hero of our own time is indeed
a portrait, but not of one single man: it is the portrait of the vices
of our generation,”--the book indicates “the illness from which this
generation suffers.”
Petchórin is an extremely clever, bold, enterprising man who regards
his surroundings with cold contempt. He is undoubtedly a superior man,
superior to Púshkin’s Onyéghin; but he is, above all, an egotist who
finds no better application for his superior capacities than all sorts
of mad adventures, always connected with love-making. He falls in love
with a Circassian girl whom he sees at a native festival. The girl is
also taken by the beauty and the gloomy aspect of the Russian. To marry
her is evidently out of question, because her Mussulman relatives would
never give her to a Russian. Then, Petchórin daringly kidnaps her, with
the aid of her brother, and the girl is brought to the Russian fort,
where Petchórin is an officer. For several weeks she only cries and
never speaks a word to the Russian, but by and bye she feels love for
him. That is the beginning of the tragedy. Petchórin soon has enough
of the Circassian beauty; he deserts her more and more for hunting
adventures, and during one of them she is kidnapped by a Circassian who
loves her, and who, on seeing that he cannot escape with her, kills her
with his dagger. For Petchórin this solution is almost welcome.
A few years later the same Petchórin appears amidst Russian society
in one of the Caucasus watering towns. There he meets with Princess
Mary, who is courted by a young man--Grushnísky,--a sort of Caucasian
caricature of Byron, draped in a mantle of contempt for mankind, but
in reality a very shallow sort of personage. Petchórin, who cares but
little for the Princess Mary, finds, however, a sort of wicked pleasure
in rendering Grushnítsky ridiculous in her eyes, and uses all his wit
to bring the girl to his feet. When this is done, he loses all interest
in her. He makes a fool of Grushnítsky, and when the young man provokes
him to a duel, he kills him. This was the hero of the time, and it must
be owned that it was not a caricature. In a society free from care
about the means of living--it was of course in serfdom times, under
Nicholas I.--when there was no sort of political life in the country, a
man of superior ability very often found no issue for his forces but in
such adventures as Petchórin’s.
It need not be said that the novel is admirably written--that it is
full of living descriptions of Caucasus “society”; that the characters
are splendidly delineated, and that some of them, like the old Captain
Maxím Maxímytch, have remained living types of some of the best
specimens of mankind. Through these qualities _The Hero of our own
Time_, like _Evghéniy Onyéghin_, became a model for quite a series of
subsequent novels.
OTHER POETS AND NOVELISTS OF THE SAME EPOCH KRYLÓFF
The fable-writer KRYLÓFF (1768-1844) is perhaps the Russian writer who
is best known abroad. English readers know him through the excellent
work and translations of so great a connoisseur of Russian literature
and language as Ralston was, and little can be added to what Ralston
has said of this eminently original writer.
He stands on the boundary between two centuries, and reflects both the
end of the one and the beginning of the other. Up to 1807 he wrote
comedies which, even more than the other comedies of the time, were
mere imitations from the French. It was only in 1807-1809 that he found
his true vocation and began writing fables, in which domain he attained
the first rank, not only in Russia, but among the fable-writers in
all modern literatures. Many of his fables--at any rate, the best
known ones--are translations from Lafontaine; and yet they are
entirely original productions. Lafontaine’s animals are academically
educated French gentlemen; even the peasants in his fables come from
Versailles. There is nothing of the sort in Krylóff. Every animal in
his fables is a character--wonderfully true to life. Nay, even the
cadence of his verses changes and takes a special aspect each time a
new animal is introduced--that heavy simpleton, the Bear, or the fine
and cunning Fox, or the versatile Monkey. Krylóff knew every one of
them intimately; he knew each of their movements, and above all he
had noticed and enjoyed long since in his own self the humorous side
of every one of the dwellers of the forests or the companions of Man,
before he undertook to put them in his fables. This is why Krylóff
may be taken as the greatest fable-writer not only of Russia--where
he had a not to be neglected rival in DMÍTREFF (1760-1837)--but also
of all nations of modern times. True, there is no depth, no profound
and cutting irony, in Krylóff’s fables. Nothing but a good-natured,
easy-going irony, which made the very essence of his heavy frame, his
lazy habits, and his quiet contemplation. But, is this not the true
domain of fable, which must not be confounded with satire?
At the same time there is no writer who has better possessed and
better understood the true essence of the really popular Russian
language, the language spoken by the men and women of the people. At
a time when the Russian _littérateurs_ hesitated between the elegant,
Europeanised style of Karamzín, and the clumsy, half-Slavonic style of
the nationalists of the old school, Krylóff, even in his very first
fables, written in 1807, had already worked out a style which at once
gave him a quite unique position in Russian literature, and which has
not been surpassed even by such masters of the popular Russian language
as was Ostróvskiy and some of the folk-novelists of a later epoch. For
terseness, expressiveness and strict adherence to the true spirit of
the popularly-spoken Russian, Krylóff has no rivals.
THE MINOR POETS
Several minor poets, contemporary of Púshkin and Lérmontoff, and some
of them their personal friends, must be mentioned in this place. The
influence of Púshkin was so great that he could not but call to life a
school of writers who should try to follow in his steps. None of them
reached such a height as to claim to be considered a world poet; but
each of them has made his contribution in one way or another to the
development of Russian poetry, each one has had his humanising and
elevating influence.
KÓZLOFF (1779-1840) has reflected in his poetry the extremely sad
character of his life. At the age of about forty he was stricken
with paralysis, losing the use of his legs, and soon after that his
sight; but his poetical gift remained with him, and he dictated to
his daughter some of the saddest elegies which Russian literature
possesses, as also a great number of our most perfect translations.
His _Monk_ made everyone in Russia shed tears, and Púshkin hastened to
acknowledge the strength of the poem. Endowed with the most wonderful
memory--he knew by heart all Byron, all the poems of Walter Scott,
all Racine, Tasso, and Dante,--Kozlóff, like Zhukóvskiy, with whom
he had much in common, made a great number of translations from
various languages, especially from the English idealists, and some of
his translations from the Polish, such as _The Crimean Sonnets_ of
Mickiewicz, are real works of art.
DÉLWIG (1798-1831) was a great personal friend of Púshkin, whose
comrade he was at the Lyceum. He represented in Russian literature the
tendency towards reviving ancient Greek forms of poetry, but happily
enough he tried at the same time to write in the style of the Russian
popular songs, and the lyrics which he wrote in this manner especially
contributed to make of him a favourite poet of his own time. Some of
his romances have remained popular till now.
BARATÝNSKIY (1800-1844) was another poet of the same group of friends.
Under the influence of the wild nature of Finland, where he spent
several years in exile, he became a romantic poet, full of the love of
nature, and also of melancholy, and deeply interested in philosophical
questions, to which he could find no reply. He thus lacked a definite
conception of life, but what he wrote was clothed in a beautiful form,
and in very expressive, elegant verses.
YAZÝKOFF (1803-1846) belongs to the same circle. He was intimate with
Púshkin, who much admired his verses. It must be said, however, that
the poetry of Yazýkoff had chiefly an historical influence in the sense
of perfecting the forms of poetical expression. Unfortunately, he had
to struggle against almost continual illness, and he died just when he
had reached the full development of his talent.
VENEVÍTINOFF (1805-1822) died at a still younger age; but there is
no exaggeration in saying that he promised to become a great poet,
endowed with the same depth of philosophical conception as was Goethe,
and capable of attaining the same beauty of form. The few verses he
wrote during the last year of his life revealed the suddenly attained
maturity of a great poetical talent, and may be compared with the
verses of the greatest poets.
PRINCE ALEXANDER ODÓEVSKIY (1803-1839) and POLEZHÁEFF (1806-1838) are
two other poets who died very young, and whose lives were entirely
broken by political persecution. Odóevskiy was a friend of the
Decembrists. After the 14th of December, 1825, he was arrested, taken
to the fortress of St. Peter and St. Paul, and then sentenced to hard
labour in Siberia, whence he was not released till twelve years later,
to be sent as a soldier to the Caucasus. There he became the friend of
Lérmontoff, one of whose best elegies was written on Odóevskiy’s death.
The verses of Odóevskiy (they were not printed abroad while he lived)
lack finish, but he was a real poet and a patriot too, as is seen from
his _Dream of a Poet_, and his historical poem, _Vasilkó_.
The fate of POLEZHÁEFF was even more tragic. He was only twenty years
old--a brilliant student of the Moscow University--when he wrote an
autobiographical poem, _Sáshka_, full of allusions to the evils of
autocracy and of appeals for freedom. This poem was shown to Nicholas
I., who ordered the young poet to be sent as a soldier to an army
regiment. The duration of service was then twenty-five years, and
Polezháeff saw not the slightest chance of release. More than that: for
an unauthorised absence from his regiment (he had gone to Moscow with
the intention of presenting a petition of release to the Tsar) he was
condemned to receive one thousand strokes with the sticks, and only
by mere luck escaped the punishment. He never succumbed to his fate,
and in the horrible barracks of those times he remained what he was:
a pupil of Byron, Lamartine, and Macpherson, never broken, protesting
against tyranny In verses that were written in tears and blood. When he
was dying from consumption in a military hospital at Moscow Nicholas I.
pardoned him: his promotion to the grade of officer came when he was
dead.
A similar fate befell the Little Russian poet SHEVCHÉNKO (1814-1861),
who, for some of his poetry, was sent in 1847 to a battalion as a
common soldier. His epical poems from the life of the free Cossacks
in olden times, heart rending poems from the life of the serfs, and
lyrics, all written in Little Russian and thoroughly popular in both
form and content, belong to the fine specimens of poetry of all nations.
Of prose writers of the same epoch only a few can be mentioned in this
book, and these in a few lines. ALEXANDER BESTÚZHEFF (1797-1837), who
wrote under the _nom de plume_ of MARLÍNSKIY--one of the “Decembrists,”
exiled to Siberia, and later on sent to the Caucasus as a soldier--was
the author of very widely-read novels. Like Púshkin and Lérmontoff he
was under the influence of Byron, and described “titanic passions” in
Byron’s style, as also striking adventures in the style of the French
novelists of the Romantic school; but he deserves at the same time to
be regarded as the first to write novels from Russian life in which
matters of social interest were discussed.
Other favourite novelists of the same epoch were: ZAGÓSKIN
(1789-1852), the author of extremely popular historical novels, _Yúriy
Miloslávskiy_, _Róslavleff_, etc., all written in a sentimentally
patriotic style; NARYÉZHNYI (1780-1825), who is considered by some
Russian critics as a forerunner of Gógol, because he wrote already in
the realistic style, describing, like Gógol, the dark sides of Russian
life; and LAZHÉCHNIKOFF (1792-1868), the author of a number of very
popular historical novels from Russian life.
FOOTNOTES:
[10] The great composer Glínka has made of this fairy tale a most
beautiful opera (_Ruslán i Ludmíla_), in which Russian, Finnish,
Turkish, and Oriental music are intermingled in order to characterise
the different heroes.
[11] For all translations, not otherwise mentioned, it is myself who
is responsible.
PART III
Gógol
CHAPTER III
GÓGOL
Little Russia--_Nights on a Farm near Dikánka_, and
_Mírgorod_--Village life and humour--_How Iván Ivánovitch quarrelled
with Iván Nikíforytch_--Historical novel, _Tarás Búlba_--_The
Cloak_--Drama, _The Inspector-General_--Its influence--_Dead Souls_:
main types--Realism in the Russian novel.
With Gógol begins a new period of Russian literature, which is called
by Russian literary critics “the Gógol period,” and which lasts to the
present date.
Gógol was not a Great Russian. He was born in 1809, in a Little Russian
or Ukraïnian nobleman’s family. His father had already displayed some
literary talent and wrote a few comedies in Little Russian, but Gógol
lost him at an early age. The boy was educated in a small provincial
town, which he left, however, while still young, and when he was only
nineteen he was already at St. Petersburg. At that time the dream of
his life was to become an actor, but the manager of the St. Petersburg
Imperial theatres did not accept him, and Gógol had to look for another
sphere of activity. The Civil Service, in which he obtained the
position of a subordinate clerk, was evidently insufficient to interest
him, and he soon entered upon his literary career.
His début was in 1829, with little novels taken from the village-life
of Little Russia. _Nights on a Farm near Dikánka_, soon followed by
another series of stories entitled _Mírgorod_, immediately won for him
literary fame and introduced him into the circle of Zhukóvskiy and
Púshkin. The two poets at once recognised Gógol’s genius, and received
him with open arms.
Little Russia differs considerably from the central parts of the
empire, _i. e._, from the country round Moscow, which is known as Great
Russia. It has a more southern position, and everything southern has
always a certain attraction for northerners. The villages in Little
Russia are not disposed in streets as they are in Great Russia, but the
white-washed houses are scattered, as in Western Europe, in separate
little farms, each of which is surrounded by charming little gardens.
The more genial climate, the warm nights, the musical language,
the beauty of the race, which probably contains a mixture of South
Slavonian with Turkish and Polish blood, the picturesque dress and the
lyrical songs--all these render Little Russia especially attractive for
the Great Russian. Besides, life in Little-Russian villages is more
poetical than it is in the villages of Great Russia. There is more
freedom in the relations between the young men and the young girls,
who freely meet before marriage; the stamp of seclusion of the women
which has been impressed by Byzantine habits upon Moscow does not exist
in Little Russia, where the influence of Poland was prevalent. Little
Russians have also maintained numerous traditions and epic poems and
songs from the times when they were free Cossacks and used to fight
against the Poles in the north and the Turks in the south. Having had
to defend the Greek orthodox religion against these two nations, they
strictly adhere now to the Russian Church, and one does not find in
their villages the same passion for scholastic discussions about the
letter of the Holy Books which is often met with in Great Russia among
the Non-conformists. Their religion has altogether a more poetical
aspect.
The Little-Russian language is certainly more melodious than the
Great Russian, and there is now a movement of some importance for its
literary development; but this evolution has yet to be accomplished,
and Gógol very wisely wrote in Great Russian--that is, in the language
of Zhukóvskiy, Púshkin, and Lérmontoff. We have thus in Gógol a sort of
union between the two nationalities.
It would be impossible to give here an idea of the humour and wit
contained in Gógol’s novels from Little Russian life, without quoting
whole pages. It is the good-hearted laughter of a young man who himself
enjoys the fulness of life and himself laughs at the comical positions
into which he has put his heroes: a village chanter, a wealthy peasant,
a rural matron, or a village smith. He is full of happiness; no dark
apprehension comes to disturb his joy of life. However, those whom
he depicts are not rendered comical in obedience to the poet’s whim:
Gógol always remains scrupulously true to reality. Every peasant, every
chanter, is taken from real life, and the truthfulness of Gógol to
reality is almost ethnographical, without ever ceasing to be poetical.
All the superstitions of a village life on a Christmas Eve or during
a mid-summer night, when the mischievous spirits and goblins get free
till the cock crows, are brought before the reader, and at the same
time we have all the wittiness which is inborn in the Little Russian.
It was only later on that Gógol’s comical vein became what can be truly
described as “humour,”--that is, a sort of contrast between comical
surroundings and a sad substratum of life, which made Púshkin say of
Gógol’s productions that “behind his laughter you feel the unseen
tears.”
Not all the Little-Russian tales of Gógol are taken from peasant life.
Some deal also with the upper class of the small towns; and one of
them, _How Iván Ivánovitch quarrelled with Iván Nikíforytch_, is one
of the most humorous tales in existence. Iván Ivánovitch and Iván
Nikíforytch were two neighbours who lived on excellent terms with each
other; but the inevitableness of their quarrelling some day appears
from the very first lines of the novel. Iván Ivánovitch was a person
of fine behaviour. He would never offer snuff to an acquaintance
without saying: “May I dare, Sir, to ask you to be so kind as to
oblige yourself.” He was a man of the most accurate habits; and when
he had eaten a melon he used to wrap its seeds in a bit of paper, and
to inscribe upon it: “This melon was eaten on such a date,” and if
there had been a friend at his table he would add: “In the presence
of Mr. So and So.” At the same time he was, after all, a miser, who
appreciated very highly the comforts of his own life, but did not care
to share them with others. His neighbour, Iván Nikíforytch, was quite
the opposite. He was very stout and heavy, and fond of swearing. On a
hot summer day he would take off all his clothes and sit in his garden,
in the sunshine, warming his back. When he offered snuff to anyone, he
would simply produce his snuff box saying: “Oblige yourself.” He knew
none of the refinements of his neighbour, and loudly expressed what he
meant. It was inevitable that two men, so different, whose yards were
only separated by a low fence, should one day come to a quarrel; and so
it happened.
One day the stout and rough Iván Nikíforytch, seeing that his friend
owned an old useless musket, was seized with the desire to possess
the weapon. He had not the slightest need of it, but all the more
he longed to have it, and this craving led to a feud which lasted
for years. Iván Ivánovitch remarked very reasonably to his neighbour
that he had no need of a rifle. The neighbour, stung by this remark,
replied that this was precisely the thing he needed, and offered, if
Iván Ivánovitch was not disposed to accept money for his musket, to
give him in exchange--a pig.... This was understood by Iván Ivánovitch
as a terrible offence: “How could a musket, which is the symbol of
hunting, of nobility, be exchanged by a gentleman for a pig!” Hard
words followed, and the offended neighbour called Iván Ivánovitch a
gander.... A mortal feud, full of the most comical incidents, resulted
from these rash words. Their friends did everything to re-establish
peace, and one day their efforts seemed to be crowned with success; the
two enemies had been brought together--both pushed from behind by their
friends; Iván Ivánovitch had already put his hand into his pocket to
take out his snuff-box and to offer it to his enemy, when the latter
made the unfortunate remark: “There was nothing particular in being
called a gander; no need to be offended by that.”... All the efforts of
the friends were brought to nought by these unfortunate words. The feud
was renewed with even greater acrimony than before; and, tragedy always
following in the steps of comedy, the two enemies, by taking the affair
from one Court to another, arrived at old age totally ruined.
TARÁS BÚLBA--THE CLOAK
The pearl of Gógol’s Little-Russian novels is an historical novel,
_Tarás Búlba_, which recalls to life one of the most interesting
periods in the history of Little Russia--the fifteenth century.
Constantinople had fallen into the hands of the Turks; and although
a mighty Polish-Lithuanian State had grown in the West, the Turks,
nevertheless, menaced both Eastern and Middle Europe. Then it was
that the Little Russians rose for the defence of Russia and Europe.
They lived in free communities of Cossacks, over whom the Poles were
beginning to establish feudal power. In times of peace these Cossacks
carried on agriculture in the prairies, and fishing in the beautiful
rivers of Southwest Russia, reaching at times the Black Sea; but
every one of them was armed, and the whole country was divided into
regiments. As soon as there was a military alarm they all rose to meet
an invasion of the Turks or a raid of the Tartars, returning to their
fields and fisheries as soon as the war was over.
The whole nation was thus ready to resist the invasions of the
Mussulmans; but a special vanguard was kept in the lower course of the
Dniéper, “beyond the rapids,” on an island which soon became famous
under the name of the Sícha. Men of all conditions, including runaways
from their landlords, outlaws, and adventurers of all sorts, could
come and settle in the Sícha without being asked any questions but
whether they went to church. “Well, then, make the sign of the cross,”
the hetman of the Sícha said, “and join the division you like.” The
Sícha consisted of about sixty divisions, which were very similar to
independent republics, or rather to schools of boys, who cared for
nothing and lived in common. None of them had anything of his own,
excepting his arms. No women were admitted, and absolute democracy
prevailed.
The hero of the novel is an old Cossack, Tarás Búlba, who has himself
spent many years in Sícha, but is now peacefully settled inland on
his farm. His two sons have been educated at the Academy of Kíeff
and return home after several years of absence. Their first meeting
with their father is very characteristic. As the father laughs at the
sons’ long clothes, which do not suit a Cossack, the elder son, Ostáp,
challenges him to a good boxing fight. The father is delighted, and
they fight until the old man, quite out of breath, exclaims: “By God,
this is a good fighter; no need to test him further; he will be a
good Cossack!--Now, son, be welcome; let us kiss each other.” On the
very next day after their arrival, without letting the mother enjoy
the sight of her sons, Tarás takes them to the Sícha, which--as often
happened in those times--was quickly drawn into war, in consequence of
the exactions which the Polish landlords made upon the Little Russians.
The life of the free Cossacks in the republic “beyond the rapids” and
their ways of conducting war are wonderfully described; but, paying a
tribute to the then current romanticism, Gógol makes Tarás’ younger
son, a sentimentalist, fall in love with a noble Polish lady, during
the siege of a Polish town, and go over to the enemy; while the
father and the elder son continue fighting the Poles. The war lasts
for a year or so, with varying success, till at length, in one of the
desperate sorties of the besieged Poles, the younger son of Tarás is
taken prisoner, and the father himself kills him for his treason. The
elder son is next taken prisoner by the Poles and carried away to
Warsaw, where he perishes on the rack; while Tarás, returning to Little
Russia, raises a formidable army and makes one of those invasions into
Poland with which the history of the two countries was filled for two
centuries. Taken prisoner himself, Tarás perishes at the stake, with
a disregard of life and suffering which were characteristic of this
strong, fighting race of men. Such is, in brief, the theme of this
novel, which is replete with admirable separate scenes.
Read in the light of modern requirements, Tarás Búlba certainly would
not satisfy us. The influence of the Romantic school is too strongly
felt. The younger son of Tarás is not a living being, and the Polish
lady is entirely invented in order to answer the requirements of a
novel, showing that Gógol never knew a single woman of that type. But
the old Cossack and his son, as well as all the life of the Cossack
camps, is quite real; it produces the illusion of real life. The reader
is carried away in sympathy with old Tarás, while the ethnographer
cannot but feel that he has before him a wonderful combination of
an ethnographical document of the highest value, with a poetical
reproduction--only the more real because it is poetical--of a bygone
and most interesting epoch.
* * * * *
The Little-Russian novels were followed by a few novels taken from
the life of Great Russia, chiefly of St. Petersburg, and two of
them, _The Memoirs of a Madman_ and _The Cloak_ (_Shinél_) deserve a
special mention. The psychology of the madman is strikingly drawn.
As to _The Cloak_, it is in this novel that Gógol’s laughter which
conceals “unseen tears” shows at its best. The poor life of a small
functionary, who discovers with a sense of horror that his old cloak
is so worn out as to be unfit to stand further repairs; his hesitation
before he ventures to speak to a tailor about a new one; his nervous
excitement on the day that it is ready and that he tries it on for the
first time; and finally his despair, amidst general indifference, when
night-robbers have robbed him of his cloak--every line of this work
bears the stamp of one of the greatest artists. Sufficient to say that
this novel produced at its appearance, and produces still, such an
impression, that since the times of Gógol every Russian novel-writer
has been aptly said to have re-written _The Cloak_.
THE INSPECTOR-GENERAL
Gógol’s prose-comedy, _The Inspector-General_ (_Revizór_), has become,
in its turn, a starting point for the Russian drama--a model which
every dramatic writer after Gógol has always kept before his eyes.
“Revizór,” in Russian, means some important functionary who has
been sent by the ministry to some provincial town to inquire into
the conditions of the local administration--an Inspector-General;
and the comedy takes place in a small town, from which “you may
gallop for three years and yet arrive nowhere.” The little spot--we
learn it at the rising of the curtain--is going to be visited by an
Inspector-General. The local head of the Police (in those times the
head of the Police was also the head of the town)--the Gorodníchiy
or Governor--has convoked the chief functionaries of the place to
communicate to them an important news. He has had a bad dream; two
rats came in, sniffed and then went away; there must be something in
that dream, and so there is; he has just got this morning a letter
from a friend at St. Petersburg, announcing that an inspector-general
is coming, and--what is still worse--is coming incognito! Now, the
honourable Governor advises the functionaries to put some order in
their respective offices. The patients in the hospital walk about in
linen so dirty that you might take them for chimney sweeps. The chief
magistrate, who is a passionate lover of sport, has his hunting apparel
hanging about in the Court, and his attendants have made a poultry-yard
of the entrance hall. In short, everything has to be put in order.
The Governor feels very uncomfortable. Up to the present day he has
freely levied tribute upon the merchants, pocketed the money destined
for building a church, and within a fortnight he has flogged the wife
of a non-commissioned officer, which he had no right to do; and now,
there’s the Inspector-General coming! He asks the postmaster “just to
open a little” the letters which may be addressed from this town to St.
Petersburg and, if he finds in them some reports about town matters,
to keep them. The postmaster--a great student of human character--has
always indulged, even without getting this advice, in the interesting
pastime of reading the letters, and he falls in with the Governor’s
proposal.
At that very moment enter Petr Iványch Dóbchinsky and Petr Iványch
Bóbchinsky. Everyone knows them, you know them very well: they play
the part of the town Gazette. They go about the town all day long, and
as soon as they have learnt something interesting they both hurry to
spread the news, interrupting each other in telling it, and hurrying
immediately to some other place to be the first to communicate the news
to someone else. They have been at the only inn of the town, and there
they saw a very suspicious person: a young man, “who has something,
you know, extraordinary about his face.” He is living there for a
fortnight, never paying a penny, and does not journey any further.
“What is his object in staying so long in town like ours?” And then,
when they were taking their lunch he passed them by and looked so
inquisitively in their plates--who may he be? Evidently, the Governor
and all present conclude, he must be the Inspector-General who stays
there incognito.... A general confusion results from the suspicion.
The Governor starts immediately for the inn, to make the necessary
enquiries. The womenfolk are in a tremendous excitement.
The stranger is simply a young man who is travelling to rejoin his
father. On some post-station he met with a certain captain--a great
master at cards--and lost all he had in his pocket. Now he cannot
proceed any farther, and he cannot pay the landlord, who refuses
to credit him with any more meals. The young man feels awfully
hungry--no wonder he looked so inquisitively into the plates of the two
gentlemen--and resorts to all sorts of tricks to induce the landlord
to send him something for his dinner. Just as he is finishing some
fossil-like cutlet enters the Gorodníchiy; and a most comic scene
follows, the young man thinking that the Governor came to arrest him,
and the Governor thinking that he is speaking to the Inspector-General
who is trying to conceal his identity. The Governor offers to remove
the young man to some more comfortable place. “No, thank you, I have no
intent to go to a jail,” sharply retorts the young man.... But it is to
his own house that the Governor takes the supposed Inspector, and now
an easy life begins for the adventurer. All the functionaries appear in
turn to introduce themselves, and everyone is only too happy to give
him a bribe of a hundred roubles or so. The merchants come to ask his
protection from the Governor; the widow who was flogged comes to lodge
a complaint.... In the meantime the young man enters into a flirtation
with both the wife and the daughter of the Governor; and, finally,
being caught at a very pathetic moment when he is kneeling at the feet
of the daughter, without further thought he makes a proposition of
marriage. But, having gone so far, the young man, well-provided now
with money, hastens to leave the town on the pretext of going to see an
uncle; he will be back in a couple of days....
The delight of the Governor can easily be imagined. His Excellency, the
Inspector-General, going to marry the Governor’s daughter! He and his
wife are already making all sorts of plans. They will remove to St.
Petersburg, the Gorodníchiy will soon be a general, and you will see
how he will keep the other Gorodníchies at his door!... The happy news
spreads about the town, and all the functionaries and the society of
the town hasten to offer their congratulations to the old man. There is
a great gathering at his house--when the postmaster comes in. He has
followed the advice of the Governor, and has opened a letter which the
supposed Inspector-General had addressed to somebody at St. Petersburg.
He now brings this letter. The young man is no inspector at all, and
here is what he writes to a Bohemian friend of his about his adventures
in the provincial town:[12]
In short, the letter produces a great sensation. The friends of the
Governor are delighted to see him and his family in such straits,
all accuse each other, and finally fall upon the two gentlemen, when
a police soldier enters the room and announces in a loud voice: “A
functionary from St. Petersburg, with Imperial orders, wants to see
you all immediately. He stays at the hotel.” Thereupon the curtain
drops over a living picture of which Gógol himself had made a most
striking sketch in pencil, and which is usually reproduced in his
works; it shows how admirably well, with what a fine artistic sense, he
represented to himself his characters.
_The Inspector-General_ marks a new era in the development of dramatic
art in Russia. All the comedies and dramas which were being played in
Russia at that time (with the exception, of course, of _Misfortune from
Intelligence_, which, however, was not allowed to appear on the stage)
hardly deserved the name of dramatic literature: so imperfect and
puerile they were. _The Inspector-General_, on the contrary, would have
marked at the time of its appearance (1835) an epoch in any language.
Its stage qualities, which will be appreciated by every good actor;
its sound and hearty humour; the natural character of the comical
scenes, which result from the very characters of those who appear in
this comedy; the sense of measure which pervades it--all these make
it one of the best comedies in existence. If the conditions of life
which are depicted here were not so exclusively Russian, and did not so
exclusively belong to a bygone stage of life which is unknown outside
Russia, it would have been generally recognised as a real pearl of the
world’s literature. This is why, when it was played a few years ago in
Germany, by actors who properly understood Russian life, it achieved
such a tremendous success.
_The Inspector-General_ provoked such a storm of hostile criticism on
the part of all reactionary Russia, that it was hopeless to expect
that the comedy which Gógol began next, concerning the life of the St.
Petersburg functionaries (_The Vladimir Cross_), could ever be admitted
on the stage, and Gógol never finished it, only publishing a few
striking scenes from it: _The Morning of a Busy Man_, _The Law Suit_,
etc. Another comedy, _Marriage_, in which he represented the hesitation
and terror through which an inveterate bachelor goes before a marriage,
which he finally eludes by jumping out of a window a few moments before
the beginning of the ceremony, has not lost its interest even now. It
is so full of comical situations, which fine actors cannot but highly
appreciate, that it is still a part of the current _répertoire_ of the
Russian stage.
DEAD SOULS
Gógol’s main work was _Dead Souls_. This is a novel almost without a
plot, or rather with a plot of the utmost simplicity. Like the plot of
_The Inspector-General_, it was suggested to Gógol by Púshkin. In those
times, when serfdom was flourishing in Russia, the ambition of every
nobleman was to become the owner of at least a couple of hundred serfs.
The serfs used to be sold like slaves and could be bought separately. A
needy nobleman, Tchítchikoff, conceives accordingly a very clever plan.
A census of the population being made only every ten or twenty years,
and every serf-owner having in the interval to pay taxes for every male
soul which he owned at the time of the last census, even though part of
his “souls” be dead since, Tchítchikoff conceives the idea of taking
advantage of this anomaly. He will buy the dead souls at a very small
expense: the landlords will be only too pleased to get rid of this
burden and surely will sell them for anything; and after Tchítchikoff
has bought two or three hundred of these imaginary serfs, he will buy
cheap land somewhere in the southern prairies, transfer the dead souls,
on paper, to that land, register them as if they were really settled
there, and mortgage that new sort of estate to the State Landlords’
Bank. In this way he can easily make the beginnings of a fortune.
With this plan Tchítchikoff comes to a provincial town and begins his
operations. He makes, first of all, the necessary visits.
“The newcomer made visits to all the functionaries of the town. He
went to testify his respects to the Governor, who like Tchítchikoff
himself, was neither stout nor thin. He was decorated with a cross
and was spoken of as a person who would soon get a star; but was,
after all, a very good fellow and was fond of making embroideries upon
fine muslin. Tchítchikoff’s next visits were to the Vice-Governor, to
the Chief Magistrate, to the Chief of Police, the Head of the Crown
Factories ... but it is so difficult to remember all the powerful
persons in this world ... sufficient to say that the newcomer showed
a wonderful activity as regards visits. He even went to testify
his respects to the Sanitary Inspector, and to the Town Surveyor,
and after that he sat for a long time in his carriage trying to
remember to whom else he might pay a visit; but he could think of no
more functionaries in the town. In his conversations with all these
influential persons he managed to say something to flatter every one
of them. In talking with the Governor he accidentally dropped the
remark that when one enters this province one thinks of paradise--all
the roads being quite like velvet; and that ‘governments which
nominate wise functionaries surely deserve universal gratitude.’ To
the Chief of the Police he said something very gratifying about the
police force, and while he was talking to the Vice-Governor and to
the presiding magistrate, who were only State-Councillors, he twice
made the mistake of calling them ‘Your Excellency,’ with which mistake
they were both immensely pleased. The result of all this was that the
Governor asked Tchítchikoff to come that same day to an evening party,
and the other functionaries invited him, some to dine with them,
others to a cup of tea, and others again to a party of whist.
“About himself Tchítchikoff avoided talking, and if he spoke at
all it was in vague sentences only, with a remarkable modesty, his
conversation taking in such cases a rather bookish turn. He said that
he was a mere nobody in this world and did not wish people to take
any particular interest in him; that he had had varied experiences
in his life, suffered in the service of the State for the sake of
truth, had had many enemies, some of whom had even attempted his life,
but that now, wishing to lead a quiet existence, he intended to find
at last some corner to live in, and, having come to this town, he
considered it his imperative duty to testify his respect to the chief
functionaries of the place. This was all they could learn in town
about the new person who soon made his appearance at the Governor’s
evening party.
“Here, the newcomer once more produced the most favourable
impression.... He always found out what he ought to do on every
occasion; and he proved himself an experienced man of the world.
Whatsoever the conversation might be about, he always knew how to
support it. If people talked about horses, he spoke about horses; if
they began talking about the best hunting dogs, here also Tchítchikoff
would make remarks to the point. If the conversation related to
some inquest which was being made by the Government, he would show
that he also knew something about the tricks of the Civil Service
functionaries. When the talk was about billiards, he showed that in
billiards he could keep his own; if people talked about virtue, he
also spoke about virtue, even with tears in his eyes; and if the
conversation turned on making brandy, he knew all about brandy; as
to Custom officers, he knew everything about them, as though he had
himself been a Custom officer, or a detective; but the most remarkable
thing was that he knew how to cover all this with a certain sense of
propriety, and in every circumstance knew how to behave. He never
spoke too loudly, and never in too subdued a tone, but exactly as one
ought to speak. In short, take him from any side you like, he was a
very respectable man. All the functionaries were delighted with the
arrival of such a person in their town.”
It has often been said that Gógol’s Tchítchikoff is a truly
Russian type. But--is it so? Has not every one of us met
Tchítchikoff?--middle-aged; not too thick and not too thin; moving
about with the lightness almost of a military man.... The subject he
wishes to speak to you about may offer many difficulties, but he knows
how to approach it and to interest you in it in a thousand different
ways. When he talks to an old general he rises to the understanding
of the greatness of the country and her military glory. He is not a
jingo--surely not--but he has, just in the proper measure, the love
of war and victories which are required in a man who wishes to be
described as a patriot. When he meets with a sentimental reformer, he
is sentimental and desirous of reforms, and so on, and he always will
keep in view the object he aims at at any given moment, and will try to
interest you in it. Tchítchikoff may buy dead souls, or railway shares,
or he may collect funds for some charitable institution, or look for
a position in a bank, but he is an immortal international type; we
meet him everywhere; he is of all lands and of all times; he but takes
different forms to suit the requirements of nationality and time.
One of the first landlords to whom Tchítchikoff spoke of his intention
of buying dead souls was Maníloff--also a universal type, with
the addition of those special features which the quiet life of a
serf-owner could add to such a character. “A very nice man to look at,”
as Gógol says; his features possessed something very pleasant--only
it seemed as if too much sugar had been put into them. “When you meet
him for the first time you cannot but exclaim after the first few
minutes of conversation: ‘What a nice and pleasant man he is.’ The
next moment you say nothing, but the next but one moment you say to
yourself: ‘The deuce knows what he is,’ and you go away; but if you
don’t, you feel mortally bored.” You could never hear from him a lively
or animated word. Everyone has some point of interest and enthusiasm.
Maníloff had nothing of the kind; he was always in the same mild
temper. He seemed to be lost in reflection; but what about, no one
knew. Sometimes, as he looked from his window on his wide courtyard
and the pond behind, he would say to himself: “How nice it would be
to have there an underground passage leading from the mansion to the
pond, and to have across the pond a stone bridge, with pretty shops
on both its sides, in which shops all sorts of things useful for the
poor people could be bought.” His eyes became in this case wonderfully
soft, and his face took on a most contented expression. However,
even less strange intentions remained mere intentions. In his house
something was always missing; his drawing room had excellent furniture
covered with fine silk stuff, which probably had cost much money; but
for two of the chairs there was not sufficient of the stuff, and so
they remained covered with plain sack-cloth; and for many years in
succession the proprietor used to stop his guests with these words:
“Please, do not take that chair; it is not yet ready.” “His wife....
But they were quite satisfied with each other. Although more than
eight years had passed since they had married, one of them would still
occasionally bring to the other a piece of apple or a tiny sweet, or
a nut, saying in a touchingly sweet voice which expressed infinite
love: ‘Open, my dearest, your little mouth,--I will put into it this
little sweet.’ Evidently the mouth was opened in a very charming way.
For her husband’s birthday the wife always prepared some surprise--for
instance, an embroidered sheath for his tooth-pick, and very often,
sitting on the sofa, all of a sudden, no one knows for what reason,
one of them would leave his pipe and the other her work, and impress on
each other such a sweet and long kiss that during it one might easily
smoke a little cigarette. In short, they were what people call quite
happy.”
It is evident that of his estate and of the condition of his peasants
Maníloff never thought. He knew absolutely nothing about such matters,
and left everything in the hands of a very sharp manager, under whose
rule Maníloff’s serfs were worse off than under a brutal landlord.
Thousands of such Maníloffs peopled Russia some fifty years ago, and
I think that if we look closer round we shall find such would-be
“sentimental” persons under every latitude.
It is easy to conceive what a gallery of portraits Gógol was enabled
to produce as he followed Tchítchikoff in his wanderings from one
landlord to another, while his hero tried to buy as many “dead souls”
as he could. Every one of the landlords described in _Dead Souls_--the
sentimentalist Maníloff, the heavy and cunning Sobakévitch, the
arch-liar and cheat Nózdreff, the fossilised, antediluvian lady
Koróbotchka, the miser Plyúshkin--have become common names in Russian
conversation. Some of them, as for instance the miser Plyúshkin, are
depicted with such a depth of psychological insight that one may ask
one’s self whether a better and more humane portrait of a miser can be
found in any literature?
* * * * *
Towards the end of his life Gógol, who was suffering from a nervous
disease, fell under the influence of “pietists”--especially of
Madame O. A. Smirnóff (born Rossett), and began to consider all his
writings as a sin of his life. Twice, in a paroxysm of religious
self-accusation, he burned the manuscript of the second volume of
_Dead Souls_, of which only some parts have been preserved, and were
circulated in his lifetime in manuscript. The last ten years of his
life were extremely painful. He repented with reference to all his
writings, and published a very unwholesome book, _Correspondence with
Friends_, in which, under the mask of Christian humility, he took a
most arrogant position with respect to all literature, his own writings
included. He died at Moscow in 1852.
It hardly need be added that the Government of Nicholas I. considered
Gógol’s writings extremely dangerous. The author had the utmost
difficulties in getting permission for _The Inspector-General_ to
be played at all on the stage, and the permission was only obtained
by Zhukóvskiy, at the express will of the Tsar himself. Before the
authorisation was given to print the first volume of _Dead Souls_,
Gógol had to undergo most incredible trouble; and when the volume was
out of print a second edition was never permitted in Nicholas I.’s
reign. When Gógol died, and Turguéneff published in a Moscow paper
a short obituary notice, which really contained absolutely nothing
(“any tradesman might have had a better one,” as Turguéneff himself
said), the young novelist was arrested, and it was only because of the
influence of his friends in high position that the punishment which
Nicholas I. inflicted upon him was limited to exile from Moscow and a
forced residence on his estate in the country. Were it not for these
influences, Turguéneff very probably would have been exiled, like
Púshkin and Lérmontoff, either to the Caucasus or to Siberia.
The police of Nicholas I. were not wrong when they attributed to Gógol
a great influence upon the minds of Russians. His works circulated
immensely in manuscript copies. In my childhood we used to copy the
second volume of _Dead Souls_--the whole book from beginning to end,
as well as parts from the first volume. Everyone considered then this
work as a formidable indictment against serfdom; and so it was. In
this respect Gógol was the forerunner of the literary movement against
serfdom which began in Russia with such force, a very few years later,
during and especially after the Crimean War. Gógol never expressed his
personal ideas about this subject, but the life-pictures of serf-owners
which he gave and their relations to their serfs--especially the waste
of the labour of the serfs--were a stronger indictment that if Gógol
had related facts of brutal behaviour of landlords towards their men.
In fact, it is impossible to read _Dead Souls_ without being impressed
by the fact that serfdom was an institution which had produced its own
doom. Drinking, gluttony, waste of the serf’s labour in order to keep
hundreds of retainers, or for things as useless as the sentimentalist
Maníloff’s bridges, were characteristic of the landlords; and when
Gógol wanted to represent one landlord who, at least, obtained some
pecuniary advantage from the forced labour of his serfs and enriched
himself, he had to produce a landlord who was not a Russian: in
fact, among the Russian landlords such a man would have been a most
extraordinary occurrence.
As to the literary influence of Gógol, it was immense, and it continues
down to the present day. Gógol was not a deep thinker, but he was a
very great artist. His art was pure realism, but it was imbued with
the desire of making for mankind something good and great. When he
wrote the most comical things, it was not merely for the pleasure of
laughing at human weaknesses, but he also tried to awaken the desire of
something better and greater, and he always achieved that aim. Art, in
Gógol’s conception, is a torch-bearer which indicates a higher ideal;
and it was certainly this high conception of art which induced him
to give such an incredible amount of time to the working out of the
schemes of his works, and afterwards, to the most careful elaboration
of every line which he published.
The generation of the Decembrists surely would have introduced social
and political ideas in the novel. But that generation had perished, and
Gógol was now the first to introduce the social element into Russian
literature, so as to give it its prominent and dominating position.
While it remains an open question whether realism in the Russian
novel does not date from Púshkin, rather even than from Gógol--this,
in fact, is the view of both Turguéneff and Tolstóy--there is yet
no doubt that it was Gógol’s writings which introduced into Russian
literature the social element, and social criticism based upon the
analysis of the conditions within Russia itself. The peasant novels of
Grigoróvitch, Turguéneff’s _Sportsman’s Notebook_, and the first works
of Dostoyévskiy were a direct outcome of Gógol’s initiative.
Realism in art was much discussed some time ago, in connection chiefly
with the first writings of Zola; but we, Russians, who had had Gógol,
and knew realism in its best form, could not fall in with the views of
the French realists. We saw in Zola a tremendous amount of the same
romanticism which he combated; and in his realism, such as it appeared
in his writings of the first period, we saw a step backwards from the
realism of Balzac. For us, realism could not be limited to a mere
anatomy of society: it had to have a higher background; the realistic
description had to be made subservient to an idealistic aim. Still
less could we understand realism as a description only of the lowest
aspects of life, because, to limit one’s observations to the lowest
aspects only, is _not_ to be a realist. Real life has beside and within
its lowest manifestations its highest ones as well. Degeneracy is not
the sole nor dominant feature of modern society, if we look at it as
a whole. Consequently, the artist who limits his observations to the
lowest and most degenerate aspects only, and not for a special purpose,
does not make us understand that he explores only one small corner of
life. Such an artist does not conceive life _as it is_: he knows but
one aspect of it, and this is not the most interesting one.
Realism in France was certainly a necessary protest, partly against
unbridled Romanticism, but chiefly against the elegant art which glided
on the surface and refused to glance at the often most inelegant
motives of elegant acts--the art which purposely ignored the often
horrible consequences of the so-called correct and elegant life. For
Russia, this protest was not necessary. Since Gógol, art could not be
limited to any class of society. It was bound to embody them all, to
treat them all realistically, and to penetrate beneath the surface
of social relations. Therefore there was no need of the exaggeration
which in France was a necessary and sound reaction. There was no
need, moreover, to fall into extremes in order to free art from dull
moralisation. Our great realist, Gógol, had already shown to his
followers how realism can be put to the service of higher aims, without
losing anything of its penetration or ceasing to be a true reproduction
of life.
FOOTNOTES:
[12] There is a good English translation of _The Inspector-General_,
from which, with slight revision, I take the following passage.
_The Postmaster_ (_reads_): “I hasten to inform you, my dear friend,
of the wonderful things which have happened to me. On my way hither
an infantry captain had cleared me out completely, so that the
innkeeper here intended to send me to jail, when, all of a sudden,
thanks to my St. Petersburg appearance and costume, all the town took
me for a Governor-General. Now I am staying at the Gorodníchiys’! I
have a splendid time, and flirt awfully with both his wife and his
daughter.... Do you remember how hard up we were, taking our meals
where we could get them, without paying for them, and how one day, in
a tea-shop, the pastry-cook collared me for having eaten his pastry
to the account of the king of England?[13] It is quite different now.
They all lend me money, as much as I care for. They are an awful set of
originals: you would split of laughter. I know you write sometimes for
the papers--put them into your literature. To begin with, the Governor
is as stupid as an old horse....”
_The Governor_ (_interrupting_): That cannot be there! There is no such
thing in the letter.
_Postmaster_ (_showing the letter_): Read it, then, yourself.
_Governor_ (_reads_): “As an old horse....” Impossible! You must have
added that.
_Postmaster_: How could I?
_The Guests_: Read! read!
_The Postmaster_ (_continues to read_): “The Governor is as stupid as
an old horse”....
_Governor_: The deuce! Now he must repeat it--as if it were not
standing there already!
_Postmaster_ (_continues reading_): Hm, Hm, yes! “an old horse. The
postmaster is also a good man.”... Well, he also makes an improper
remark about me....
_Governor_: Read it then.
_Postmaster_: Is it necessary?
_Governor_: The deuce! once we have begun to read it, we must read it
all through.
_Artémy Filípovitch_ (_head of the philanthropic institutions_): Permit
me, please, I shall read (_puts on his spectacles and reads_): “The
postmaster is quite like the old porter in our office, and the rascal
must drink equally hard.”...
_Postmaster_: A naughty boy, who ought to be flogged--that’s all!
_Art. Fil._ (_continues reading_): “The head of the philanthropic
in--in....”
_Korobkin_: Why do you stop now?
_Art. Fil._: Bad writing. But, after all, it is quite evident that he
is a scoundrel.
_Korobkin_: Give me the letter, please. I think, I have better eyes
(_tries to take the letter_).
_Art. Fil._ (_does not give it_): No use at all. This passage can be
omitted. Further on everything is quite readable.
_Korobkin_: Let me have it. I shall see all about it.
_Art. Fil._: I also can read it. I tell you that after that passage
everything is readable.
_Postm._: No, no, read it all. Everything was read so far.
_The Guests_: Artémy Filípovitch, pass the letter over. (_To Korobkin_)
Read it, read it!
_Art. Fil._: All right, all right. (_He passes the letter._) There it
is; but wait a moment (_he covers a part of it with his finger_). Begin
here (_all surround him_).
_Postma._: Go on. Nonsense, read it all.
_Korobkin_ (_reads_): “The head of the philanthropic institutions
resembles a pig that wears a cap”....
_Art. Fil._ (_to the audience_): Not witty at all! A pig that wears a
cap! Have you ever seen a pig wearing a cap?
_Korobkin_ (_continues reading_): “The inspector of the schools smells
of onions all through!”
_The Inspector_ (_to the audience_): Upon my honour, I never touch
onions.
_The Judge_ (_apart_): Thank God, there is nothing about me.
_Korobkin_ (_reading_): “The judge”....
_The Judge_: There!... (_aloud_): Well, gentlemen, I think the letter
is much too long, and quite uninteresting--why the deuce should we go
on reading that nonsense?
_Insp. of Schools_: No! no!
_Postm._: No!--go on!
_Art. Fil._: No, it must be read.
_Korobkin_ (_continues_): “The judge Lyápkin-Tyápkin is extremely
_mauvais ton_.” (_Stops._) That must be a French word?
_The Judge_: The deuce knows what it means. If it were only “a robber,”
then it would be all right, but it may be something worse.
[13] This was in those times an expression which meant “without
paying.”
PART IV
Turguéneff--Tolstóy
CHAPTER IV
TURGUÉNEFF--TOLSTÓY
Turguéneff: The main features of his Art--_A Sportsman’s
Notebook_--Pessimism of his early novels--His series
of novels representing the leading types of Russian
society--Rúdin--Lavrétskiy--Helen and Insároff--Bazároff--Why _Fathers
and Sons_ was misunderstood--_Hamlet and Don Quixote_--_Virgin Soil_:
movement towards the people--_Verses in Prose_. TOLSTÓY: _Childhood
and Boyhood_--During and after the Crimean War--_Youth_: In search of
an ideal--Small stories--_The Cossacks_--Educational work--_War and
Peace_--_Anna Karénina_--Religious crisis--His interpretation of the
Christian teaching--Main points of the Christian ethics--Latest works
of Art--_Kreutzer Sonata_--_Resurrection_.
TURGUÉNEFF
Púshkin, Lérmontoff, and Gógol were the real creators of Russian
literature; but to Western Europe they remained nearly total strangers.
It was only Turguéneff and Tolstóy--the two greatest novelists of
Russia, if not of their century altogether--and, to some extent,
Dostoyévskiy, who broke down the barrier of language which had kept
Russian writers unknown to West Europeans. They have made Russian
literature familiar and popular outside Russia; they have exercised
and still exercise their share of influence upon West-European thought
and art; and owing to them, we may be sure that henceforward the
best productions of the Russian mind will be part of the general
intellectual belongings of civilised mankind.
For the artistic construction, the finish and the beauty of his novels,
Turguéneff was very probably the greatest novel-writer of his century.
However, the chief characteristic of his poetical genius lay not only
in that sense of the beautiful which he possessed to so high a degree,
but also in the highly _intellectual_ contents of his creations. His
novels are not mere stories dealing at random with this or that type of
men, or with some particular current of life, or accident happening to
fall under the author’s observation. They are intimately connected with
each other, and they give the succession of the leading intellectual
types of Russia which have impressed their own stamp upon each
successive generation. The novels of Turguéneff, of which the first
appeared in 1845, cover a period of more than thirty years, and during
these three decades Russian society underwent one of the deepest and
the most rapid modifications ever witnessed in European history. The
leading types of the educated classes went through successive changes
with a rapidity which was only possible in a society suddenly awakening
from a long slumber, casting away an institution which hitherto had
permeated its whole existence (I mean serfdom), and rushing towards a
new life. And this succession of “history-making” types was represented
by Turguéneff with a depth of conception, a fulness of philosophical
and humanitarian understanding, and an artistic insight, almost equal
to foresight, which are found in none of the modern writers to the same
extent and in that happy combination.
Not that he would follow a preconceived plan. “All these discussions
about ‘tendency’ and ‘unconsciousness’ in art,” he wrote, “are nothing
but a debased coin of rhetorics.... Those only who cannot do better
will submit to a preconceived programme, because a truly talented
writer is the condensed expression of life itself, and he cannot write
either a panegyric or a pamphlet: either would be too mean for him.”
But as soon as a new leading type of men or women appeared amidst the
educated classes of Russia, it took possession of Turguéneff. He was
haunted by it, and haunted until he had succeeded in representing it
to the best of his understanding in a work of art, just as for years
Murillo was haunted by the image of a Virgin in the ecstasy of purest
love, until he finally succeeded in rendering on the canvas his full
conception.
When some human problem had thus taken possession of Turguéneff’s
mind, he evidently could not discuss it in terms of logic--this
would have been the manner of the political writer--he conceived it
in the shape of images and scenes. Even in his conversation, when he
intended to give you an idea of some problem which worried his mind,
he used to do it by describing a scene so vividly that it would for
ever engrave itself in the memory. This was also a marked trait in his
writings. His novels are a succession of scenes--some of them of the
most exquisite beauty--each of which helps him further to characterise
his heroes. Therefore all his novels are short, and need no plot to
sustain the reader’s attention. Those who have been perverted by
sensational novel-reading may, of course, be disappointed with a want
of sensational episode; but the ordinary intelligent reader feels
from the very first pages that he has _real_ and interesting men and
women before him, with really human hearts throbbing in them, and he
cannot part with the book before he has reached the end and grasped the
characters in full. Simplicity of means for accomplishing far-reaching
ends--that chief feature of truly good art--is felt in everything
Turguéneff wrote.
George Brandes, in his admirable study of Turguéneff (in _Moderne
Geister_), the best, the deepest, and the most poetical of all that has
been written about the great novelist, makes the following remark:
“It is not easy to say quite definitely what makes of Turguéneff an
artist of the first rank.... That he has in the highest degree the
capacity which makes a true poet, of producing living human beings,
does not, after all, comprise everything. What makes the reader feel
so much his artistic superiority is the concordance one feels between
the interest taken by the poet in the person whom he depicts, or the
poet’s judgment about this person, and the impression which the reader
himself gets; because it is in this point--the relation of the artist
to his own creations--that every weakness of either the man or the
poet must necessarily appear.”
The reader feels every such mistake at once and keeps the remembrance
of it, notwithstanding all the efforts of the author to dissipate its
impression.
“What reader of Balzac, or of Dickens, or of Auerbach--to speak of
the great dead only--does not know this feeling!” Brandes continues.
“When Balzac swims in warmed-up excitement, or when Dickens becomes
childishly touching, and Auerbach intentionally naïve, the reader
feels repulsed by the untrue, the unpleasant. Never do we meet with
anything artistically repulsive in Turguéneff.”
This remark of the great critic is absolutely true, and only a few
words need be added to it, with reference to the wonderful architecture
of all Turguéneff’s novels. Be it a small novel, or a large one, the
proportion of the parts is wonderfully held; not a single episode of a
merely “ethnographical” character comes in to disturb or to slacken the
development of the inner human drama; not one feature, and certainly
not one single scene, can be omitted without destroying the impression
of the whole; and the final accord, which seals the usually touching
general impression, is always worked out with wonderful finish.[14]
And then the beauty of the chief scenes. Every one of them could be
made the subject of a most artistic and telling picture. Take, for
instance, the final scenes of Helen and Insároff in Venice: their
visit to the picture gallery, which made the keeper exclaim, as he
looked at them, _Poveretti!_ or the scene in the theatre, where in
response to the imitated cough of the actress (who played Violetta in
_Traviata_) resounded the deep, real cough of the dying Insároff. The
actress herself, with her poor dress and bony shoulders, who yet took
possession of the audience by the warmth and reality of her feeling,
and created a storm of enthusiasm by her cry of dying joy on the return
of Alfred; nay, I should even say, the dark harbour where one sees the
gull drop from rosy light into the deep blackness of the night--each
of these scenes comes to the imagination on canvas. In his lecture,
_Hamlet and Don Quixote_, where he speaks of Shakespeare and Cervantes
being contemporaries, and mentions that the romance of Cervantes was
translated into English in Shakespeare’s lifetime, so that he might
have read it, Turguéneff exclaims: “What a picture, worthy of the brush
of a thoughtful painter: Shakespeare reading Don Quixote!” It would
seem as if in these lines he betrayed the secret of the wonderful
beauty--the pictorial beauty--of such a number of his scenes. He must
have imagined them, not only with the music of the feeling that speaks
in them, but also as _pictures_, full of the deepest psychological
meaning and in which all the surroundings of the main figures--the
Russian birch wood, or the German town on the Rhine, or the harbour of
Venice--are in harmony with the feeling.
Turguéneff knew the human heart deeply, especially the heart of a
young, thoroughly honest, and reasoning girl when she awakes to higher
feelings and ideas, and that awakening takes, without her realising
it, the shape of love. In the description of that moment of life
Turguéneff stands quite unrivalled. On the whole, love is the leading
motive of all his novels; and the moment of its full development is
the moment when his hero--he may be a political agitator or a modest
squire--appears in full light. The great poet knew that a human type
cannot be characterised by the daily work in which such a man is
engaged--however important that work may be--and still less by a flow
of words. Consequently, when he draws, for instance, the picture of an
agitator in _Dmitri Rúdin_, he does not report his fiery speeches--for
the simple reason that the agitator’s words would not have
characterised him. Many have pronounced the same appeals to Equality
and Liberty before him, and many more will pronounce them after his
death. But that special type of apostle of equality and liberty--the
“man of the word, and of no action” which he intended to represent in
Rúdin--is characterised by the hero’s relations to different persons,
and particularly, above all, by his love. By his love--because it is
in love that the human being appears in full, with its individual
features. Thousands of men have made “propaganda by word,” all very
much in the same expressions, but each of them has loved in a different
way. Mazzini and Lassalle did similar work; but how different they were
in their loves! You do not know Lassalle unless you know his relations
to the Countess of Hatzfeld.
In common with all great writers, Turguéneff combined the qualities of
a pessimist and a lover of mankind.
“There flows a deep and broad stream of melancholy in Turguéneff’s
mind,” remarks Brandes, “and therefore it flows also through all
his works. Though his description be objective and impersonal, and
although he hardly ever introduces into his novels lyric poetry,
nevertheless they produce on the whole the impression of lyrics. There
is so much of Turguéneff’s own personality expressed in them, and this
personality is always sadness--a specific sadness without a touch of
sentimentality. Never does Turguéneff give himself up entirely to his
feelings: he impresses by restraint; but no West European novelist
is so sad as he is. The great melancholists of the Latin race, such
as Leopardi and Flaubert, have hard, fast outlines in their style;
the German sadness is of a caustic humour, or it is pathetic, or
sentimental; but Turguéneff’s melancholy is, in its substance, the
melancholy of the Slavonian races in its weakness and tragical aspect,
it is a descendant in a straight line from the melancholy of the
Slavonian folk-song.... When Gógol is melancholy, it is from despair.
When Dostoyévskiy expresses the same feeling, it is because his heart
bleeds with sympathy for the down-trodden, and especially for great
sinners. Tolstóy’s melancholy has its foundation in his religious
fatalism. Turguéneff alone is a philosopher.... He loves man, even
though he does not think much of him and does not trust him very much.”
The full force of Turguéneff’s talent appeared already in his earlier
productions--that is, in the series of short sketches from village
life, to which the misleading title of _A Sportsman’s Note-Book_ was
given in order to avoid the rigours of censorship. Notwithstanding the
simplicity of their contents and the total absence of the satirical
element, these sketches gave a decided blow to serfdom. Turguéneff
did not describe in them such atrocities of serfdom as might have
been considered mere exceptions to the rule; nor did he idealise the
Russian peasant; but by giving life-portraits of sensible, reasoning,
and loving beings, bent down under the yoke of serfdom, together with
life-pictures of the shallowness and meanness of the life of the
serf-owners--even the best of them--he awakened the consciousness of
the wrong done by the system. The social influence of these sketches
was very great. As to their artistic qualities, suffice it to say that
in these short sketches we find in a few pages most vivid pictures
of an incredible variety of human characters, together with most
beautiful sketches of nature. Contempt, admiration, sympathy, or deep
sadness are impressed in turns on the reader at the will of the young
author--each time, however, in such a form and by such vivid scenes
that each of these short sketches is worth a good novel.
In the series of short novels, _A Quiet Corner_, _Correspondence_,
_Yákov Pásynkov_, _Faust_, and _Asya_, all dated 1854 and 1855, the
genius of Turguéneff revealed itself fully: his manner, his inner
self, his powers. A deep sadness pervades these novels. A sort of
despair in the educated Russian, who, even in his love, appears utterly
incapable of a strong feeling which would carry away all obstacles,
and always manages, even when circumstances favour him, to bring the
woman who loves him to grief and despair. The following lines from
_Correspondence_ characterise best the leading idea of three of these
novels: _A Quiet Corner_, _Correspondence_, and _Asya_. It is a girl of
twenty-six who writes to a friend of her childhood:
“Again I repeat that I do not speak of the girl who finds it difficult
and hard to think.... She looks round, she expects, and asks herself,
when the one whom her soul is longing for will come.... At last he
appears: she is carried away by him; she is like soft wax in his
hands. Happiness, love, thought--all these come now in streams; all
her unrest is settled, all doubts resolved by him; truth itself seems
to speak through his lips. She worships him, she feels ashamed of her
own happiness, she learns, she loves. Great is his power over her at
that time!... If he were a hero he could have fired her, taught her
how to sacrifice herself, and all sacrifices would have been easy
for her! But there are no heroes nowadays.... Still, he leads her
wherever he likes; she takes to what interests him; each of his words
penetrates into her soul--she does not know yet how insignificant
and empty, how false, words can be, how little they cost the one who
pronounces them, how little they can be trusted. Then, following
these first moments of happiness and hopes, comes usually--owing to
circumstances (circumstances are always the fault)--comes usually the
separation. I have heard it said that there have been cases when the
two kindred souls have united immediately; I have also heard that they
did not always find happiness in that ... however, I will not speak
of what I have not seen myself. But--the fact that calculation of the
pettiest sort and the most miserable prudence can live in a young
heart by the side of the most passionate exaltation, this I have
unfortunately learned from experience. So, the separation comes....
Happy the girl who at once sees that this is the end of all, and will
not soothe herself by expectations! But you, brave and just men, you
mostly have not the courage, nor the desire, to tell us the truth ...
it is easier for you to deceive us ... or, after all, I am ready to
believe that, together with us, you deceive yourselves.”
A complete despair in the capacity for action of the educated man in
Russia runs through all the novels of this period. Those few men who
seem to be an exception--those who have energy, or simulate it for
a short time, generally end their lives in the billiard room of the
public house, or spoil their existences in some other way. The years
1854 and 1855, when these novels were written, fully explain the
pessimism of Turguéneff. In Russia they were perhaps the darkest years
of that dark period of Russian history--the reign of Nicholas I.--and
in Western Europe, too, the years closely following the _coup d’état_
of Napoleon III. were years of a general reaction after the great
unrealised hopes of 1848.
Turguéneff, who came very near being marched to Siberia in 1852 for
having printed at Moscow his innocent necrological note about Gógol,
after it had been forbidden by the St. Petersburg censorship, was
compelled to live now on his estate, beholding round him the servile
submissiveness of all those who had formerly shown some signs of
revolt. Seeing all round the triumph of the supporters of serfdom
and despotism, he might easily have been brought to despair. But the
sadness which pervades the novels of this period was not a cry of
despair; it was not a satire either; it was the gentle touch of a
loving friend, and that constitutes their main charm. From the artistic
point of view, _Asya_ and _Correspondence_ are perhaps the finest gems
which we owe to Turguéneff.
* * * * *
To judge of the importance of Turguéneff’s work one must read in
succession--so he himself desired--his six novels: _Dmitri Rúdin_, _A
Nobleman’s Retreat_ (_Une nichée de Gentilshommes_, or, _Liza_, in
Mr. Ralston’s version), _On the Eve_, _Fathers and Sons_, _Smoke_,
and _Virgin Soil_. In them, one sees his poetical powers in full;
at the same time one gets an insight into the different aspects
which intellectual life took in Russia from 1848 to 1876, and one
understands the poet’s attitude towards the best representatives of
advanced thought in Russia during that most interesting period of
her development. In some of his earlier short tales Turguéneff had
already touched upon Hamletism in Russian life. In his _Hamlet of the
Schigróvsky District_, and his _Diary of a Useless Man_, he had already
given admirable sketches of that sort of man. But it was in _Rúdin_
(1855) that he achieved the full artistic representation of that type
which had grown upon Russian soil with especial profusion at a time
when our best men were condemned to inactivity and--words. Turguéneff
did not spare men of that type; he represented them with their worst
features, as well as with their best, and yet he treated them with
tenderness. He loved Rúdin, with all his defects, and in this love he
was at one with the best men of his generation, and of ours, too.
Rúdin was a man of the “forties,” nurtured upon Hegel’s philosophy,
and developed under the conditions which prevailed under Nicholas I.,
when there was no possibility whatever for a thinking man to apply
his energy, unless he chose to become an obedient functionary of an
autocratic, slave-owning State. The scene is laid in one of the estates
in middle Russia, in the family of a lady who takes a superficial
interest in all sorts of novelties, reads books that are prohibited
by censorship, such as Tocqueville’s _Democracy in America_; and must
always have round her, whether it be in her _salon_ in the capital or
on her estate, all sorts of men of mark. It is in her drawing-room that
Rúdin makes his first appearance. In a few moments he becomes master of
the conversation, and by his intelligent remarks to the point wins the
admiration of the hostess and the sympathy of the younger generation.
The latter is represented by the daughter of the lady and by a young
student who is the tutor of her boys. Both are entirely captivated by
Rúdin. When he speaks, later on in the evening, of his student years,
and touches upon such taking subjects as liberty, free thought, and
the struggles in Western Europe for freedom, his words are full of so
much fire, so much poetry and enthusiasm, that the two younger people
listen to him with a feeling which approaches worship. The result is
evident: Natásha, the daughter, falls in love with him. Rúdin is much
older than Natásha--silver streaks already appear in his beautiful
hair, and he speaks of love as of something which, for him, belongs to
the past. “Look at this oak,” he says; “the last autumn’s leaves still
cover it, and they will never fall off until the young green leaves
have made their appearance.” Natásha understands this in the sense
that Rúdin’s old love can only fade away when a new one has taken its
place--and gives him her love. Breaking with all the traditions of the
strictly correct house of her mother, she gives an interview to Rúdin
in the early morning on the banks of a remote pond. She is ready to
follow him anywhere, anyhow, without making any conditions; but he,
whose love is more in his brain than in his heart, finds nothing to say
to her but to talk about the impossibility of obtaining the permission
of her mother for this marriage. Natásha hardly listens to his words.
She would follow him with or without the consent of her mother, and
asks: “What is then to be done?”--“To submit,” is Rúdin’s reply.
The hero who spoke so beautifully about fighting against all possible
obstacles has broken down before the first obstacle that appeared in
his way. Words, words, and no actions, was indeed the characteristic of
these men, who in the forties represented the best thinking element of
Russian society.
Later on we meet Rúdin once more. He has still found no work for
himself, neither has he made peace with the conditions of life at
that time. He remains poor, exiled by the government from one town to
another, till at last he goes abroad, and during the insurrection of
June, 1848, he is killed on a barricade in Paris. There is an epilogue
to the novel, and that epilogue is so beautiful that a few passages
from it must be produced here. It is Lézhneff, formerly Rúdin’s enemy,
who speaks.
“I know him well,” continued Lézhneff, “I am aware of his faults. They
are the more conspicuous because he is not to be regarded on a small
scale.”
“His is a character of genius!” cried Bassístoff.
“Genius, very likely he has!” replied Lézhneff, “but as for
character.... That’s just his misfortune: there’s no force of
character in him.... But I want to speak of what is good, of what is
rare in him. He has enthusiasm; and, believe me, who am a phlegmatic
person enough, that is the most precious quality in our times. We have
all become insufferably reasonable, indifferent, and slothful; we are
asleep and cold, and thanks to anyone who will wake us up and warm us!
It is high time! Do you remember, Sásha, once when I was talking to
you about him, I blamed him for coldness? I was right, and wrong too,
then. The coldness is in his blood--that is not his fault--and not
in his head. He is not an actor, as I called him, nor a cheat, nor a
scoundrel; he lives at other people’s expense, not like a swindler,
but like a child.... Yes; no doubt he will die somewhere in poverty
and want; but are we to throw stones at him for that? He never does
anything himself precisely, he has no vital force, no blood; but who
has the right to say that he has not been of use, that his words
have not scattered good seeds in young hearts, to whom nature has
not denied, as she has to him, powers for action, and the faculty of
carrying out their own ideas? Indeed, I myself, to begin with, have
gained all that I have from him. Sásha knows what Rúdin did for me in
my youth. I also maintained, I recollect, that Rúdin’s words could not
produce an effect on men; but I was speaking then of men like myself,
at my present age, of men who have already lived and been broken in by
life. One false note in a man’s eloquence, and the whole harmony is
spoiled for us; but a young man’s ear, happily, is not so over-fine,
not so trained. If the substance of what he hears seems fine to him,
what does he care about the intonation? The intonation he will supply
for himself!”
“Bravo, bravo!” cried Bassístoff, “that is justly spoken! And as
regards Rúdin’s influence, I swear to you, that man not only knows
how to move you, he lifts you up, he does not let you stand still, he
stirs you to the depths and sets you on fire!”[15]
However, with such men as Rúdin further progress in Russia would have
been impossible: new men had to appear. And so they did: we find
them in the subsequent novels of Turguéneff--but they meet with what
difficulties, what pains they undergo! This we see in Lavrétskiy and
Líza (_A Nobleman’s Retreat_) who belonged to the intermediate period.
Lavrétskiy could not be satisfied with Rúdin’s rôle of an errant
apostle; he tried his hands at practical activity; but he also could
not find his way amidst the new currents of life. He had the same
artistic and philosophical development as Rúdin; he had the necessary
will; but his powers of action were palsied--not by his power of
analysis in this case, but by the mediocrity of his surroundings and by
his unfortunate marriage. Lavrétskiy ends also in wreck.
_A Nobleman’s Retreat_ was an immense success. It was said that,
together with the autobiographic tale, _First Love_, it was the most
artistic of Turguéneff’s works. This, however, is hardly so. Its great
success was surely due, first of all, to the wide circle of readers to
whom it appealed. Lavrétskiy has married most unfortunately--a lady who
soon becomes a sort of a second-rate Parisian lioness. They separate;
and then he meets with a girl, Líza, in whom Turguéneff has given the
best impersonation imaginable of the average, thoroughly good and
honest Russian girl of those times. She and Lavrétskiy fall in love
with each other. For a moment both she and Lavrétskiy think that the
latter’s wife is dead--so it stood, at least, in a Paris _feuilleton_;
but the lady reappears bringing with her all her abominable atmosphere,
and Líza goes to a convent. Unlike Rúdin or Bazároff, all the persons
of this drama, as well as the drama itself, are quite familiar to the
average reader, and for merely that reason the novel appealed to an
extremely wide circle of sympathisers. Of course, the artistic powers
of Turguéneff appear with a wonderful force in the representation
of such types as Líza and Lavrétskiy’s wife, Líza’s old aunt, and
Lavrétskiy himself. The note of poetry and sadness which pervades the
novel carries away the reader completely. And yet, I may venture to
say, the following novel, _On the Eve_, far superseded the former both
in the depth of its conception and the beauty of its workmanship.
Already, in Natásha, Turguéneff had given a life-picture of a Russian
girl who has grown up in the quietness of village life, but has in her
heart, and mind, and will the germs of that which moves human beings
to higher action. Rúdin’s spirited words, his appeals to what is grand
and worth living for, inflamed her. She was ready to follow him, to
support him in the great work which he so eagerly and uselessly
searched for, but it was he who proved to be her inferior. Turguéneff
thus foresaw, since 1855, the coming of that type of woman who later
on played so prominent a part in the revival of Young Russia. Four
years later, in _On the Eve_, he gave, in Helen, a further and fuller
development of the same type. Helen is not satisfied with the dull,
trifling life in her own family, and she longs for a wider sphere of
action. “To be good is not enough; to do good--yes; that is the great
thing in life,” she writes in her diary. But whom does she meet in her
surroundings? Shúbin, a talented artist, a spoiled child, “a butterfly
which admires itself”; Berséneff, a future professor, a true Russian
nature--an excellent man, most unselfish and modest, but wanting
inspiration, totally lacking in vigour and initiative. These two are
the best. There is a moment when Shúbin, as he rambles on a summer
night with his friend Berséneff, says to him: “I love Helen, but Helen
loves you.... Sing, sing louder, if you can; and if you cannot, then
take off your hat, look above, and smile to the stars. They all look
upon you, upon you alone: they always look on those who are in love.”
But Berséneff returns to his small room, and--opens Raumer’s “History
of the Hohenstauffens,” on the same page where he had left it the last
time....
Thereupon comes Insároff, a Bulgarian patriot, entirely absorbed by
_one_ idea--the liberation of his mother-country; a man of steel, rude
to the touch, who has cast away all melancholy philosophical dreaming,
and marches straight forward, towards the aim of his life--and the
choice of Helen is settled. The pages given to the awakening of
her feeling and to its growth are among the best ever written by
Turguéneff. When Insároff suddenly becomes aware of his own love for
Helen, his first decision is to leave at once the suburb of Moscow,
where they are all staying, and Russia as well. He goes to Helen’s
house to announce there his departure. Helen asks him to promise
that he will see her again to-morrow before he leaves, but he does
not promise. Helen waits for him, and when he has not come in the
afternoon, she herself goes to him. Rain and thunder overtake her on
the road, and she steps into an old chapel by the roadside. There
she meets Insároff, and the explanation between the shy, modest girl
who perceives that Insároff loves her, and the patriot, who discovers
in her the force which, far from standing in his way, would only
double his own energy, terminates by Insároff exclaiming: “Well, then,
welcome, my wife before God and men!”
In Helen we have the true type of that Russian woman who a few years
later joined heart and soul in all movements for Russian freedom:
the woman who conquered her right to knowledge, totally reformed the
education of children, fought for the liberation of the toiling masses,
endured unbroken in the snows and gaols of Siberia, died if necessary
on the scaffold, and at the present moment continues with unabated
energy the same struggle. The high artistic beauty of this novel has
already been incidentally mentioned. Only one reproach can be made to
it: the hero, Insároff, the man of action, is not sufficiently living.
But both for the general architecture of the novel and the beauty of
its separate scenes, beginning with the very first and ending with the
last, _On the Eve_ stands among the highest productions of the sort in
all literatures.
* * * * *
The next novel of Turguéneff was _Fathers and Sons_. It was written in
1859 when, instead of the sentimentalists and “æsthetical” people of
old, quite a new type of man was making its appearance in the educated
portion of Russian society--the nihilist. Those who have not read
Turguéneff’s works will perhaps associate the word “nihilist” with the
struggle which took place in Russia in 1879-1881 between the autocratic
power and the terrorists; but this would be a great mistake. “Nihilism”
is not “terrorism,” and the type of the nihilist is infinitely deeper
and wider than that of a terrorist. Turguéneff’s _Fathers and Sons_
must be read in order to understand it. The representative of this
type in the novel is a young doctor, Bazároff--“a man who bows before
no authority, however venerated it may be, and accepts of no principle
unproved.” Consequently he takes a negative attitude towards all the
institutions of the present time and he throws overboard all the
conventionalities and the petty lies of ordinary society life. He
comes on a visit to his old parents and stays also at the country
house of a young friend of his, whose father and uncle are two typical
representatives of the old generation. This gives to Turguéneff the
possibility of illustrating in a series of masterly scenes the conflict
between the two generations--“the fathers” and “the sons.” That
conflict was going on in those years with bitter acrimony all over
Russia.
One of the two brothers, Nikolái Petróvitch, is an excellent, slightly
enthusiastic dreamer who in his youth was fond of Schiller and Púshkin,
but never took great interest in practical matters; he now lives, on
his estate, the lazy life of a landowner. He would like, however, to
show to the young people that he, too, can go a long way with them:
he tries to read the materialistic books which his son and Bazároff
read, and even to speak their language; but his entire education stands
in the way of a true “realistic” comprehension of the real state of
affairs.
The elder brother, Peter Petróvitch, is, on the contrary, a direct
descendant from Lérmontoff’s Petchórin--that is, a thorough, well-bred
egotist. Having spent his youth in high society circles, he, even now
in the dulness of the small country estate, considers it as a “duty” to
be always properly dressed “as a perfect gentleman,” strictly to obey
the rules of “Society,” to remain faithful to Church and State, and
never to abandon his attitude of extreme reserve--which he abandons,
however, every time that he enters into a discussion about “principles”
with Bazároff. The “nihilist” inspires him with hatred.
The nihilist is, of course, the out-and-out negation of all the
“principles” of Peter Petróvitch. He does not believe in the
established principles of Church and State, and openly professes a
profound contempt for all the established forms of society-life. He
does not see that the wearing of a clean collar and a perfect necktie
should be described as the performance of a duty. When he speaks, he
says what he thinks. Absolute sincerity--not only in what he says,
but also towards himself--and a common sense standard of judgments,
without the old prejudices, are the ruling features of his character.
This leads, evidently, to a certain assumed roughness of expression,
and the conflict between the two generations must necessarily take a
tragical aspect. So it was everywhere in Russia at that time. The novel
expressed the real tendency of the time and accentuated it, so that--as
has been remarked by a gifted Russian critic, S. Venguéroff--the novel
and the reality mutually influenced each other.
_Fathers and Sons_ produced a tremendous impression. Turguéneff was
assailed on all sides: by the old generation, which reproached him with
being “a nihilist himself”; and by the youth, which was discontented
at being identified with Bazároff. The truth is that, with a very
few exceptions, among whom was the great critic, Písareff, we do not
properly understand Bazároff. Turguéneff had so much accustomed us to
a certain poetical halo which surrounded his heroes, and to his own
tender love which followed them, even when he condemned them, that
finding nothing of the sort in his attitude towards Bazároff, we saw
in the absence of these features a decided hostility of the author
towards the hero. Moreover, certain features of Bazároff decidedly
displeased us. Why should a man of his powers display such a harshness
towards his old parents: his loving mother and his father--the poor
old village-doctor who has retained, to old age, faith in his science.
Why should Bazároff fall in love with that most uninteresting,
self-admiring lady, Madame Odintsóff, and fail to be loved, even by
her? And then why, at a time when in the young generation the seeds
of a great movement towards freeing the masses were already ripening,
why make Bazároff say that he is ready to work for the peasant, but
if somebody comes and says to him that he is bound to do so, he will
hate that peasant? To which Bazároff adds, in a moment of reflection:
“And what of that? Grass will grow out of me when this peasant acquires
well-being!” We did not understand this attitude of Turguéneff’s
nihilist, and it was only on re-reading _Fathers and Sons_ much later
on, that we noticed, in the very words that so offended us, the germs
of a realistic philosophy of solidarity and duty which only now
begins to take a more or less definite shape. In 1860 we, the young
generation, looked on it as Turguéneff’s desire to throw a stone at a
new type with which he did not sympathise.
And yet, as Písareff understood at once, Bazároff _was_ a real
representative of the young generation. Turguéneff, as he himself wrote
later on, merely did not “add syrup” to make his hero appear somewhat
sweeter.
“Bazároff,” he wrote, “puts all the other personalities of my novel
in the shade. He is honest, straightforward, and a democrat of the
purest water, and you find no good qualities in him! The duel with
Petr Petróvitch is only introduced to show the intellectual emptiness
of the elegant, noble knighthood; in fact, I even exaggerated and
made it ridiculous. My conception of Bazároff is such as to make him
appear throughout much superior to Petr Petróvitch. Nevertheless, when
he calls himself nihilist you must read _revolutionist_. To draw on
one side a functionary who takes bribes, and on the other an ideal
youth--I leave it to others to make such pictures. My aim was much
higher than that. I conclude with one remark: If the reader is not won
by Bazároff, notwithstanding his roughness, absence of heart, pitiless
dryness and terseness, then the fault is with me--I have missed my
aim; but to sweeten him with syrup (to use Bazároff’s own language),
this I did not want to do, although perhaps through that I would have
won Russian youth at once to my side.”
The true key to the understanding of _Fathers and Sons_, and, in
fact, of whatever Turguéneff wrote, is given, I will permit myself to
suggest, in his admirable lecture, _Hamlet and Don Quixote_ (1860).
I have already elsewhere intimated this; but I am bound to repeat it
here, as I think that, better than any other of Turguéneff’s writings,
this lecture enables us to look into the very philosophy of the great
novelist. Hamlet and Don Quixote--Turguéneff wrote--personify the two
opposite particularities of human nature. All men belong more or less
to the one or to the other of these two types. And, with his wonderful
powers of analysis, he thus characterised the two heroes:
“Don Quixote is imbued with devotion towards his ideal, for which he
is ready to suffer all possible privations, to sacrifice his life;
life itself he values only so far as it can serve for the incarnation
of the ideal, for the promotion of truth, of justice on Earth.... He
lives for his brothers, for opposing the forces hostile to mankind:
the witches, the giants--that is, the oppressors.... Therefore he is
fearless, patient; he is satisfied with the most modest food, the
poorest cloth: he has other things to think of. Humble in his heart,
he is great and daring in his mind.” ... “And who is Hamlet? Analysis,
first of all, and egotism, and therefore no faith. He lives entirely
for himself, he is an egotist; but to believe in one’s self--even an
egotist cannot do that: we can believe only in something which is
outside us and above us.... As he has doubts of everything, Hamlet
evidently does not spare himself; his intellect is too developed
to remain satisfied with what he finds in himself: he feels his
weakness, but each self-consciousness is a force wherefrom results
his irony, the opposite of the enthusiasm of Don Quixote.” ... “Don
Quixote, a poor man, almost a beggar, without means and relations,
old, isolated--undertakes to redress all the evils and to protect
oppressed strangers over the whole earth. What does it matter to him
that his first attempt at freeing the innocent from his oppressor
falls twice as heavy upon the head of the innocent himself?... What
does it matter that, thinking that he has to deal with noxious giants,
Don Quixote attacks useful windmills?... Nothing of the sort can ever
happen with Hamlet: how could he, with his perspicacious, refined,
sceptical mind, ever commit such a mistake! No, he will not fight with
windmills, he does not believe in giants ... but he would not have
attacked them even if they did exist.... And yet, although Hamlet
is a sceptic, although he disbelieves in good, he does not believe
in evil. Evil and deceit are his inveterate enemies. His scepticism
is not indifferentism.” ... “But in negation, as in fire, there is
a destructive power, and how to keep it in bounds, how to tell it
where to stop, when that which it must destroy, and that which it
must spare are often inseparably welded together? Here it is that the
often-noticed tragical aspect of human life comes in: for action we
require will, and for action we require thought; but thought and will
have parted from each other, and separate every day more and more....
“_And thus the native hue of resolution
Is sicklied o’er by the pale cast of thought...._”
This lecture fully explains, I believe, the attitude of Turguéneff
towards Bazároff. He himself belonged to a great extent to the
Hamlets. Among them he had his best friends. He loved Hamlet; yet he
admired Don Quixote--the man of action. He felt his superiority; but,
while describing this second type of men, he never could surround
it with that tender poetical love for a sick friend which makes the
irresistible attraction of those of his novels which deal with one or
other of the Hamlet type. He admired Bazároff--his roughness as well as
his power; Bazároff overpowered him; but he could by no means have for
him the tender feelings which he had had for men of his own generation
and his own refinement. In fact, with Bazároff they would have been out
of place.
This we did not notice at that time, and therefore we did not
understand Turguéneff’s intention of representing the _tragic_ position
of Bazároff amidst his surroundings. “I entirely share Bazároff’s
ideas,” he wrote later on. “All of them, with the exception of his
negation of art.” “I _loved_ Bazároff; I will prove it to you by my
diary,” he told me once in Paris. Certainly he loved him--but with an
intellectually admiring love, quite different from the compassionate
love which he had bestowed upon Rúdin and Lavrétskiy. This difference
escaped us, and was the chief cause of the misunderstanding which was
so painful for the great poet.
* * * * *
Turguéneff’s next novel, _Smoke_ (1867), need not be dwelt upon. One
object he had in it was to represent the powerful type of a Russian
society lioness, which had haunted him for years, and to which he
returned several times, until he finally succeeded in finding for
it, in _Spring Flood_, the fullest and the most perfect artistic
expression. His other object was to picture in its true colours the
shallowness--nay, the silliness, of that society of bureaucrats into
whose hands Russia fell for the next twenty years. Deep despair in the
future of Russia after the wreck of that great reform movement which
had given to us the abolition of serfdom pervades the novel; a despair
which can by no means be attributed entirely, or even chiefly, to the
hostile reception of _Fathers and Sons_ by the Russian youth, but must
be sought for in the wreck of the great hopes which Turguéneff and his
best friends had laid in the representatives of the reform movement of
1859-1863. This same despair made Turguéneff write “_Enough; from the
Memoirs of a Dead Artist_” (1865), and the fantastic sketch, “_Ghosts_”
(1867), and he recovered from it only when he saw the birth in Russia
of a new movement, “towards the people!” which took place amongst our
youth in the early seventies.
This movement he represented in his last novel of the above-mentioned
series, _Virgin Soil_ (1876). That he was fully sympathetic with it is
self-evident; but the question, whether his novel gives a correct idea
of the movement, must be answered to some extent in the negative--even
though Turguéneff had, with his wonderful intuition, caught some of the
most striking features of the movement. The novel was finished in 1876
(we read it, in a full set of proofs, at the house of P. L. Lavróff,
in London, in the autumn of that year)--that means, two years before
the great trial of those who were arrested for this agitation took
place. And in 1876 no one could possibly have known the youth of our
circles unless he had himself belonged to them. Consequently, _Virgin
Soil_ could only refer to the very beginnings of the movement. Besides,
Turguéneff did not meet with any of the best representatives of it.
Much of the novel is true, but the general impression it conveys is not
precisely the impression which Turguéneff himself would have received
if he had better known the Russian youth at that time.
With all the force of his immense talent, he could not supply
by intuition the lack of knowledge. And yet he understood two
characteristic features of the earliest part of the movement:
misconception of the peasantry, the peculiar incapacity of most of the
early promoters of the movement to understand the Russian peasant, on
account of the bias of their false literary, historical, and social
education; and the Hamletism: the want of resolution, or rather
“resolution sicklied o’er by the pale cast of thought,” which really
characterised the movement at its outset. If Turguéneff had lived a
few years more he surely would have noticed coming into the arena
the new type of men of action--the new modification of Insároff’s
and Bazároff’s type, which grew up in proportion as the movement was
taking firm root. He had already perceived them through the dryness of
official records of the trial of “the hundred-and-ninety three,” and in
1878 he asked me to tell him all I knew about Mýshkin, one of the most
powerful individualities of that trial.
He did not live to accomplish this. A disease which nobody understood
and was mistaken for “gout,” but which was in reality a cancer of the
spinal cord, kept him for the last few years of his life an invalid,
rivetted to his couch. Only his letters, full of thought and life,
where sadness and merriment go on in turn, are what remains from his
pen during that period of life, when he seems to have meditated upon
several novels which he left unfinished or perhaps unwritten. He died
at Paris in 1883 at the age of sixty-five.
In conclusion, a few words, at least, must be said about his “_Verse in
Prose_,” or “_Senilia_” (1882). These are “flying remarks, thoughts,
images,” which he wrote down from 1878 onwards under the impression of
this or that fact of his own personal life, or of public life. Though
written in prose, they are true pieces of excellent poetry, some of
them real gems; some deeply touching and as impressive as the best
verses of the best poets (_Old Woman_; _The Beggar_; _Másha_; _How
Beautiful, how Fresh were the Roses_); while others (_Nature_, _The
Dog_) are more characteristic of Turguéneff’s philosophical conceptions
than anything else he has written. And finally, in _On the Threshold_,
written a few months before his death, he expressed in most poetical
accents his admiration of those women who gave their lives for the
revolutionary movement and went on the scaffold, without being even
understood at the time by those for whom they died.
TOLSTÓY--CHILDHOOD AND BOYHOOD
More than half a century ago, _i. e._ in 1852, the first story of
Tolstóy, _Childhood_, soon followed by _Boyhood_, made its appearance
in the monthly review, _The Contemporary_, with the modest signature,
“L. N. T.” The little story was a great success. It was imbued with
such a charm; it had such freshness, and was so free of all the
mannerism of the literary trade, that the unknown author at once became
a favourite, and was placed by the side of Turguéneff and Gontcharóff.
There are excellent children’s stories in all languages. Childhood
is the period of life with which many authors have best succeeded
in dealing. And yet no one, perhaps, has so well described the life
of children from within, from their own point of view, as Tolstóy
did. With him, it is the child itself which expresses its childish
feelings, and it does this so as to compel the reader to judge
full-grown people with the child’s point of view. Such is the realism
of _Childhood_ and _Boyhood_--that is, their richness in facts caught
from real life--that a Russian critic, Písareff, developed quite a
theory of education chiefly on the basis of the data contained in these
two stories of Tolstóy’s.
It is related somewhere that one day, during their rambles in the
country, Turguéneff and Tolstóy came across an old hack of a horse
which was finishing its days in a lonely field. Tolstóy entered at
once into the feelings of the horse and began to describe its sad
reflections so vividly, that Turguéneff, alluding to the then new ideas
of Darwinism, could not help exclaiming, “I am sure, Lyov Nikoláevitch,
that you _must_ have had horses among your ancestors!” In the capacity
of entirely identifying himself with the feelings and the thoughts of
the beings of whom he speaks, Tolstóy has but few rivals; but with
children this power of identification attains its highest degree. The
moment he speaks of children, Tolstóy becomes himself a child.
_Childhood_ and _Boyhood_ are, it is now known, autobiographical
stories, in which only small details are altered, and in the boy
Irténeff we have a glimpse of what L. N. Tolstóy was in his childhood.
He was born in 1828, in the estate of Yásnaya Polyána, which now
enjoys universal fame, and for the first fifteen years of his life he
remained, almost without interruption, an inhabitant of the country.
His father and grandfather--so we are told by the Russian critic, S.
Venguéroff--are described in _War and Peace_, in Nicholas Róstoff
and the old Count Róstoff respectively; while his mother, who was
born a Princess Volkhónskaya, is represented as Mary Bolkónskaya. Leo
Tolstóy lost his mother at the age of two, and his father at the age of
nine, and after that time his education was taken care of by a woman
relative, T. A. Ergólskaya, in Yásnaya Polyána, and after 1840, at
Kazáñ, by his aunt P. I. Yúshkova, whose house, we are told, must have
been very much the same as the house of the Róstoffs in _War and Peace_.
Leo Tolstóy was only fifteen when he entered the Kazáñ University,
where he spent two years in the Oriental faculty and two years in the
faculty of Law. However, the teaching-staff of both faculties was so
feeble at that time that only a single professor was able to awaken in
the young man some passing interest in his subject. Four years later,
that is in 1847, when he was only nineteen, Leo Tolstóy had already
left the University and was making at Yásnaya Polyána some attempts at
improving the conditions of his peasant serfs, of which attempts he has
told us later on, with such a striking sincerity, in _The Morning of a
Landlord_.
The next four years of his life he spent, externally, like most
young men of his aristocratic circle, but internally, in a continual
reaction against the life he was leading. An insight into what he was
then--slightly exaggerated, of course, and dramatised--we can get from
the _Notes of a Billiard Marker_. Happily he could not put up with
such paltry surroundings and in 1851, he suddenly renounced the life
he had hitherto led--that of an idle aristocratic youth--and following
his brother Nicholas, he went to the Caucasus, in order to enter
military service. There he stayed first at Pyatigórsk--the place so
full of reminiscences of Lérmontoff--until, having passed the necessary
examinations, he was received as a non-commissioned officer (_yunker_)
in the artillery and went to serve in a Cossack village on the banks of
the Térek.
His experiences and reflections in these new surroundings, we know from
his _Cossacks_. But it was there also that in the face of the beautiful
nature which had so powerfully inspired Púshkin and Lérmontoff he found
his true vocation. He sent to the _Contemporary_ his first literary
experiment, _Childhood_, and this first story, as he soon learned from
a letter of the poet Nekrásoff, editor of the review, and from the
critical notes of Grigórieff, Annenkoff, Druzhínin, and Tchernyshévskiy
(they belonged to four different æsthetical schools), proved to be a
_chef d’œuvre_.
DURING AND AFTER THE CRIMEAN WAR
However, the great Crimean war began towards the end of the next year
(1853), and L. N. Tolstóy did not want to remain inactive in the
Caucasus army. He obtained his transfer to the Danube army, took part
in the siege of Silistria, and later on in the battle of Balakláva,
and from November, 1854, till August, 1855, remained besieged in
Sebastopol--partly in the terrible “Fourth bastion,” where he lived
through all the dreadful experiences of the heroic defenders of that
fortress. He has therefore the right to speak of War: he knows it from
within. He knows what it is, even under its very best aspects, in such
a significant and inspired phase as was the defence of these forts and
bastions which had grown up under the enemy’s shells. He obstinately
refused during the siege to become an officer of the Staff, and
remained with his battery in the most dangerous spots.
I perfectly well remember, although I was only twelve or thirteen,
the profound impression which his sketch, _Sebastopol in December,
1854_, followed, after the fall of the fortress, by two more Sebastopol
sketches--produced in Russia. The very character of these sketches
was original. They were not leaves from a diary, and yet they were
as true to reality as such leaves could be; in fact, even more true,
because they were not representing one corner only of real life--the
corner which accidentally fell under the writer’s observations--but
the whole life, the prevailing modes of thought and the habits of life
in the besieged fortress. They represented--and this is characteristic
of all subsequent works of Tolstóy--an interweaving of _Dichtung_ and
_Wahrheit_, of poetry and truth, truth and poetry, containing much more
truth than is usually found in a novel, and more poetry, more poetical
creation, than occurs in most works of pure fiction.
Tolstóy apparently never wrote in verse; but during the siege of
Sebastopol he composed, in the usual metre and language of soldiers’
songs, a satirical song in which he described the blunders of the
commanders which ended in the Balakláva disaster. The song, written in
an admirable popular style, could not be printed, but it spread over
Russia in thousands of copies and was widely sung, both during and
immediately after the campaign. The name of the author also leaked out,
but there was some uncertainty as to whether it was the author of the
Sebastopol sketches or some other Tolstóy.
On his return from Sebastopol and the conclusion of peace (1856)
Tolstóy stayed partly at St. Petersburg and partly at Yásnaya Polyána.
In the capital he was received with open arms by all classes of
society, both literary and worldly, as a “Sebastopol hero” and as a
rising great writer. But of the life he lived then he cannot speak
now otherwise than with disgust: it was the life of hundreds of young
men--officers of the Guard and _jeunesse dorée_ of his own class--which
was passed in the restaurants and _cafés chantants_ of the Russian
capital, amidst gamblers, horse dealers, Tsigane choirs, and French
adventuresses. He became at that time friendly with Turguéneff and
saw much of him, both at St. Petersburg and at Yásnaya Polyána--the
estates of the two great writers being not very far from each other;
but, although his friend Turguéneff was taking then a lively part in
co-editing with Hérzen the famous revolutionary paper, _The Bell_ (see
Chapter VIII.), Tolstóy, seems to have taken no interest in it; and
while he was well acquainted with the editing staff of the then famous
review, _The Contemporary_, which was fighting the good fight for the
liberation of the peasants and for freedom in general, Tolstóy, for
one reason or another, never became friendly with the Radical leaders
of that review--Tchernyshévskiy, Dobrolúboff, Mikháiloff, and their
friends.
Altogether, the great intellectual and reform movement which was
going on then in Russia seems to have left him cold. He did not join
the party of reforms. Still less was he inclined to join those young
Nihilists whom Turguéneff had portrayed to the best of his ability
in _Fathers and Sons_, or later on in the seventies, the youth
whose watchword became: “Be the people,” and with whom Tolstóy has
so much in common at the present time. What was the reason of that
estrangement we are unable to say. Was it that a deep chasm separated
the young epicuræan aristocrat from the ultra-democratic writers,
like Dobrolúboff, who worked at spreading socialistic and democratic
ideas in Russia, and still more from those who, like Rakhmétoff in
Tchernyshévskiy’s novel _What is to be done_, lived the life of the
peasant, thus practising then what Tolstóy began to preach twenty years
later?
Or, was it the difference between the two generations--the man of
thirty or more, which Tolstóy was, and the young people in their early
twenties, possessed of all the haughty intolerance of youth,--which
kept them aloof from each other. And was it not, in addition to all
this, the result of theories? namely, a fundamental difference in
the conceptions of the advanced Russian Radicals, who at that time
were mostly admirers of Governmental Jacobinism, and the Populist,
the No-Government man which Tolstóy must have already then been,
since it distinctly appeared in his negative attitude towards Western
civilisation, and especially in the educational work which he began in
1861 in the Yásnaya Polyána school?
The novels which Tolstóy brought out during these years, 1856-1862, do
not throw much light upon his state of mind, because, even though they
are to a great extent autobiographical, they mostly relate to earlier
periods of his life. Thus, he published two more of his Sebastopol
war-sketches. All his powers of observation and war-psychology, all
his deep comprehension of the Russian soldier, and especially of the
plain, un-theatrical hero who really wins the battles, and a profound
understanding of that inner spirit of an army upon which depend
success and failure: everything, in short, which developed into the
beauty and the truthfulness of _War and Peace_ was already manifested
in these sketches, which undoubtedly represented a new departure in
war-literature the world over.
YOUTH: IN SEARCH OF AN IDEAL
_Youth_, _The Morning of a Landed Proprietor_, and _Lucerne_ appeared
during the same years, but they produced upon us readers, as well
as upon the literary critics, a strange and rather unfavourable
impression. The great writer remained; and his talent was showing
evident signs of growth, while the problems of life which he touched
upon were deepening and widening; but the heroes who seemed to
represent the ideas of the author himself could not entirely win our
sympathies. In _Childhood_ and _Boyhood_ we had had before us the
boy Irténeff. Now, in _Youth_, Irténeff makes the acquaintance of
Prince Neklúdoff; they become great friends, and promise, without the
slightest reservation, to confess to each other their moral failings.
Of course, they do not always keep this promise; but it leads them to
continual self-probing, to a repentance one moment which is forgotten
the next, and to an unavoidable duality of mind which has the most
debilitating effect upon the two young men’s character. The ill results
of these moral endeavours Tolstóy did not conceal. He detailed them
with the greatest imaginable sincerity, but he seemed nevertheless to
keep them before his readers as something desirable; and with this we
could not agree.
Youth is certainly the age when higher moral ideals find their way into
the mind of the future man or woman; the years when one strives to get
rid of the imperfections of boyhood or girlhood; but this aim is never
attained in the ways recommended at monasteries and Jesuit schools. The
only proper way is to open before the young mind new, broad horizons;
to free it from superstitions and fears; to grasp man’s position amidst
Nature and Mankind; and especially to feel at one with some great cause
and to nurture one’s forces with the view of being able some day to
struggle for that cause. Idealism--that is, the capacity of conceiving
a poetical love towards something great, and to prepare for it--is
the only sure preservation from all that destroys the vital forces of
man: vice, dissipation, and so on. This inspiration, this love of an
ideal, the Russian youth used to find in the student circles, of which
Turguéneff has left us such spirited descriptions. Instead of that,
Irténeff and Neklúdoff, remaining during their university years in
their splendid aristocratic isolation, are unable to conceive a higher
ideal worth living for, and spent their forces in vain endeavours of
semi-religious moral improvement, on a plan that may perhaps succeed
in the isolation of a monastery, but usually ends in failure amidst
the attractions lying round a young man of the world. These failures
Tolstóy relates, as usual, with absolute earnestness and sincerity.
_The Morning of a Landed Proprietor_ produced again a strange
impression. The story deals with the unsuccessful philanthropic
endeavours of a serf-owner who tries to make his serfs happy and
wealthy--without ever thinking of beginning where he ought to begin:
namely, of setting his slaves free. In those years of liberation
of the serfs and enthusiastic hopes, such a story sounded as an
anachronism--the more so as it was not known at the time of its
appearance that it was a page from Tolstóy’s earlier autobiography
relating to the year 1847, when he settled in Yásnaya Polyána,
immediately after having left the University, and when extremely
few thought of liberating the serfs. It was one of those sketches
of which Brandes has so truly said that in them Tolstóy “thinks
aloud” about some page of his own life. It thus produced a certain
mixed, undefined feeling. And yet one could not but admire in it the
same great objective talent that was so striking in _Childhood_ and
the Sebastopol sketches. In speaking of peasants who received with
distrust the measures with which their lord was going to benefit
them, it would have been so easy, so humanly natural, for an educated
man to throw upon their ignorance their unwillingness to accept the
threshing machine (which, by the way, did not work), or the refusal of
a peasant to accept the free gift of a stone house (which was far from
the village).... But not a shade of that sort of pleading in favour
of the landlord is to be found in the story, and the thinking reader
necessarily concludes in favour of the common sense of the peasants.
Then came _Lucerne_. It is told in that story how the same Neklúdoff,
bitterly struck by the indifference of a party of English tourists who
sat on the balcony of a rich Swiss hotel and refused to throw even a
few pennies to a poor singer to whose songs they had listened with
evident emotion, brings the singer to the hotel, takes him to the
dining-hall, to the great scandal of the English visitors, and treats
him there to a bottle of champagne. The feelings of Neklúdoff are
certainly very just; but while reading this story one suffers all the
while for the poor musician, and experiences a sense of anger against
the Russian nobleman who uses him as a rod to chastise the tourists,
without even noticing how he makes the old man miserable during this
lesson in morals. The worst of it is that the author, too, seems not
to remark the false note which rings in the conduct of Neklúdoff, nor
to realise how a man with really humane feelings would have taken the
singer to some small wine-shop and would have had with him a friendly
talk over a _picholette_ of common wine. Yet we see again all Tolstóy’s
force of talent. He so honestly, so fully, and so truly describes the
uneasiness of the singer during the whole scene that the reader’s
unavoidable conclusion is that although the young aristocrat was right
in protesting against stone-heartedness, his ways were as unsympathetic
as those of the self-contented Englishmen at the hotel. Tolstóy’s
artistic power carries him beyond and above his theories.
This is not the only case where such a remark may be made concerning
Tolstóy’s work. His appreciation of this or that action, of this or
that of his heroes, may be wrong; his own “philosophy” may be open to
objection; but the force of his descriptive talent and his literary
honesty are always so great, that he will often make the feelings and
actions of his heroes speak against their creator, and prove something
very different from what he intended to prove.[16] This is probably
why Turguéneff, and apparently other literary friends, too, told him:
“Don’t put your ‘philosophy into your art.’ Trust to your artistic
feeling, and you will create great things.” In fact, notwithstanding
Tolstóy’s distrust of science, I must say that I always feel in reading
his works that he is possessed of the most _scientific_ insight I know
of among artists. He may be wrong in his conclusions, but never is
he wrong in his statement of data. True science and true art are not
hostile to each other, but always work in harmony.
SMALL STORIES--THE COSSACKS
Several of Tolstóy’s novels and stories appeared in the years 1857-1862
(_The Snow-Storm_, _The Two Hussars_, _Three Deaths_, _The Cossacks_)
and each one of them won new admiration for his talent. The first is a
mere trifle, and yet it is a gem of art; it concerns the wanderings
of a traveller during a snow-storm, in the plains of Central Russia.
The same remark is true of the _Two Hussars_, in which two generations
are sketched on a few pages with striking accuracy. As to the deeply
pantheistic _Three Deaths_, in which the death of a rich lady, a
poor horse-driver, and a birch-tree are contrasted, it is a piece of
poetry in prose that deserves a place beside Goethe’s best pieces of
pantheistic poetry, while for its social significance it is already a
forerunner of the Tolstóy of the later epoch.
_The Cossacks_ is an autobiographical novel, and relates to the time,
already mentioned on a previous page, when Tolstóy at twenty-four,
running away from the meaningless life he was living, went to
Pyatigórsk, and then to a lonely Cossack village on the Térek, hunted
there in company with the old Cossack Yeróshka and the young Lukáshka,
and found in the poetical enjoyment of a beautiful nature, in the plain
life of these squatters, and in the mute adoration of a Cossack girl,
the awakening of his wonderful literary genius.
The appearance of this novel, in which one feels a most genuine touch
of genius, provoked violent discussions. It was begun in 1852, but was
not published till 1860, when all Russia was awaiting with anxiety the
results of the work of the Abolition of Serfdom Committees, foreseeing
that when serfdom should be done away with a complete destruction of
all other rotten, obsolete, and barbarous institutions of past ages
would have to begin. For this great work of reform Russia looked to
Western civilisation for inspiration and for teachings. And there
came a young writer who, following in the steps of Rousseau, revolted
against that civilisation and preached a return to nature and the
throwing off of the artificialities we call civilised life, which are
in reality a poor substitute for the happiness of free work amidst a
free nature. Everyone knows by this time the dominant idea of _The
Cossacks_. It is the contrast between the natural life of these sons
of the prairies and the artificial life of the young officer thrown in
their midst. He tells of strong men who are similar to the American
squatters, and have been developed in the Steppes at the foot of the
Caucasus Mountains, by a perilous life, in which force, endurance, and
calm courage are a first necessity. Into their midst comes one of the
sickly products of our semi-intellectual town life, and at every step
he feels himself the inferior of the Cossack Lukáshka. He wishes to
do something on a grand scale, but has neither the intellectual nor
the physical force to accomplish it. Even his love is not the strong
healthy love of the prairie man, but a sort of slight excitement of
the nerves, which evidently will not last, and which only produces a
similar restlessness in the Cossack girl, but cannot carry her away.
And when he talks to her of love, in the force of which he himself does
not believe, she sends him off with the words: “Go away, you weakling!”
Some saw in that powerful novel such glorification of the semi-savage
state as that in which writers of the eighteenth century, and
especially Rousseau, are supposed to have indulged. There is in Tolstóy
nothing of the sort, as there was nothing of the sort in Rousseau. But
Tolstóy saw that in the life of the Cossacks there is more _vitality_,
more vigour, more power, than in his well-born hero’s life--and he
told it in a beautiful and impressive form. His hero--like whom there
are thousands upon thousands--has none of the powers that come from
manual work and struggle with nature; and neither has he those powers
which knowledge and true civilisation might have given him. A real
intellectual power is not asking itself at every moment, “Am I right,
or am I wrong?” It feels that there are principles in which it is not
wrong. The same is true of a moral force: it knows that to such an
extent it can trust to itself. But, like so many thousands of men in
the so-called educated classes, Neklúdoff has neither of these powers.
He is a weakling, and Tolstóy brought out his intellectual and moral
frailty with a distinctness that was bound to produce a deep impression.
EDUCATIONAL WORK
In the years 1859-1862 the struggle between the “fathers” and the
“sons” which called forth violent attacks against the young generation,
even from such an “objective” writer as Gontcharóff--to say nothing
of Písemskiy and several others,--was going on all over Russia. But
we do not know which side had Tolstóy’s sympathy. It must be said,
though, that most of this time he was abroad, with his elder brother
Nicholas, who died of consumption in the south of France. All we know
is that the failure of Western civilisation in attaining any approach
to well-being and equality for the great masses of the people deeply
struck Tolstóy; and we are told by Venguéroff that the only men of
mark whom he went to see during this journey abroad were Auerbach,
who wrote at that time his Schwartzwald stories from the life of the
peasants and edited popular almanacks, and Proudhon, who was then in
exile at Brussels. Tolstóy returned to Russia at the moment when the
serfs were freed, accepted the position of a _mirovóy posrédnik_, or
arbitrator of peace between the landlords and the freed serfs, and,
settling at Yásnaya Polyána, began there his work of education of
children. This he started on entirely independent lines,--that is, on
purely anarchistic principles, totally free from the artificial methods
of education which had been worked out by German pedagogists, and
were then greatly admired in Russia. There was no sort of discipline
in his school. Instead of working out programmes according to which
the children are to be taught, the teacher, Tolstóy said, must learn
from the children themselves what to teach them, and must adapt his
teaching to the individual tastes and capacities of each child. Tolstóy
carried this out with his pupils, and obtained excellent results. His
methods, however, have as yet received but little attention; and only
one great writer--another poet, William Morris,--has advocated (in
_News from Nowhere_) the same freedom in education. But we may be sure
that some day Tolstóy’s Yásnaya Polyána papers, studied by some gifted
teacher, as Rousseau’s _Emile_ was studied by Froebel, will become the
starting point of an educational reform much deeper than the reforms of
Pestalozzi and Froebel.
It is now known that a violent end to this educational experiment was
put by the Russian Government. During Tolstóy’s absence from his estate
a searching was made by the gendarmes, who not only frightened to death
Tolstóy’s old aunt (she fell ill after that) but visited every corner
of the house and read aloud, with cynical comments, the most intimate
diary which the great writer had kept since his youth. More searchings
were promised, so that Tolstóy intended to emigrate for ever to
London, and warned Alexander II., through the Countess A. A. Tolstáya
that he kept a loaded revolver by his side and would shoot down the
first police officer who would dare to enter his house. The school had
evidently to be closed.
WAR AND PEACE
In the year 1862 Tolstóy married the young daughter of a Moscow doctor,
Bers; and, staying nearly without interruption on his Túla estate, he
gave his time, for the next fifteen or sixteen years, to his great
work, _War and Peace_, and next to _Anna Karénina_. His first intention
was to write (probably utilising some family traditions and documents)
a great historical novel, _The Decembrists_ (see Chapter I.), and he
finished in 1863 the first chapters of this novel (Vol. III. of his
_Works_, in Russian; Moscow, 10th edition). But in trying to create the
types of the Decembrists he must have been taken back in his thoughts
to the great war of 1812. He had heard so much about it in the family
traditions of the Tolstóys and Volkhónskys, and that war had so much in
common with the Crimean war through which he himself had lived that he
came to write this great epopee, _War and Peace_, which has no parallel
in any literature.
A whole epoch, from 1805 to 1812, is reconstituted in these volumes,
and its meaning appears--not from the conventional historian’s point
of view, but as it was understood then by those who lived and acted in
those years. All the Society of those times passes before the reader,
from its highest spheres, with their heart-rending levity, conventional
ways of thinking, and superficiality, down to the simplest soldier in
the army, who bore the hardships of that terrible conflict as a sort
of ordeal that was sent by a supreme power upon the Russians, and who
forgot himself and his own sufferings in the life and sufferings of
the nation. A fashionable drawing-room at St. Petersburg, the _salon_
of a person who is admitted into the intimacy of the dowager-empress;
the quarters of the Russian diplomatists in Austria and the Austrian
Court; the thoughtless life of the Róstoff family at Moscow and on
their estate; the austere house of the old general, Prince Bolkónskiy;
then the camp life of the Russian General Staff and of Napoléon on the
one hand, and on the other, the inner life of a simple regiment of the
hussars or of a field-battery; then such world-battles as Schöngraben,
the disaster of Austerlitz, Smolénsk, and Borodinó; the abandonment
and the burning of Moscow; the life of those Russian prisoners who had
been arrested pell-mell during the conflagration and were executed
in batches; and finally the horrors of the retreat of Napoléon from
Moscow, and the guerilla warfare--all this immense variety of scenes,
events, and small episodes, interwoven with romance of the deepest
interest, is unrolled before us as we read the pages of this epopee of
Russia’s great conflict with Western Europe.
We make acquaintance with more than a hundred different persons, and
each of them is so well depicted, each has his or her own _human_
physiognomy so well determined, that each one appears with his or her
own individuality, distinct amongst the scores of actors in the same
great drama. It is not so easy to forget even the least important of
these figures, be it one of the ministers of Alexander I. or any one of
the ordinances of the calvary officers. Nay, every anonymous soldier
of various rank--the infantryman, the hussar, or the artilleryman--has
his own physiognomy; even the different chargers of Róstoff, or of
Denísoff, stand out with individual features. When you think of the
variety of human characters which pass under your eyes on these pages,
you have the real sensation of a vast crowd--of historical events that
you seem to have lived through--of a whole nation roused by a calamity;
while the impression you retain of human beings whom you have loved in
_War and Peace_, or for whom you have suffered when misfortune befell
them, or when they themselves have wronged others (as for instance,
the old countess Róstoff and Sónitchka)--the impression left by these
persons, when they emerge in your memory from the crowd, gives to that
crowd the same illusion of reality which little details give to the
personality of a hero.
The great difficulty in an historical novel lies not so much in the
representation of secondary figures as in painting the great historical
personalities--the chief actors of the historical drama--so as to
make of them real, living beings. But this is exactly where Tolstóy
has succeeded most wonderfully. His Bagratión, his Alexander I., his
Napoléon, and his Kutúzoff are living men, so realistically represented
that one _sees_ them and is tempted to seize the brush and paint them,
or to imitate their movements and ways of talking.
The “philosophy of war” which Tolstóy had developed in _War and Peace_
has provoked, as is well known, passionate discussion and bitter
criticism; and yet its correctness cannot but be recognised. In fact,
it is recognised by such as know war from within, or have witnessed
human mass-actions. Of course, those who know war from newspaper
reports, especially such officers as, after having recited many times
over an “improved” report of a battle as _they_ would have liked it
to be, giving themselves a leading _rôle_--such men will not agree
with Tolstóy’s ways of dealing with “heroes”; but it is sufficient to
read, for instance, what Moltke and Bismarck wrote in their private
letters about the war of 1870-71, or the plain, honest descriptions of
some historical event with which we occasionally meet, to understand
Tolstóy’s views of war and his conceptions of the extremely limited
part played by “heroes” in historical events. Tolstóy did not invent
the artillery officer Timókhin who had been forgotten by his superiors
in the centre of the Schöngraben position, and who, continuing all day
long to use his four guns with initiative and discernment, prevented
the battle from ending in disaster for the Russian rearguard: he knew
only too well of such Timókhins in Sebastopol. They compose the real
vital force of every army in the world; and the success of an army
depends infinitely more upon its number of Timókhins than upon the
genius of its high commanders. This is where Tolstóy and Moltke are of
one mind, and where they entirely disagree with the “war-correspondent”
and with the General Staff historians.
In the hands of a writer possessed of less genius than Tolstóy, such a
thesis might have failed to appear convincing; but in _War and Peace_
it appears almost with the force of self-evidence. Tolstóy’s Kutúzoff
is--as he was in reality--quite an ordinary man; but he was a great
man for the precise reason, that, forseeing the unavoidable and almost
fatal drift of events, instead of pretending that he directed them, he
simply did his best to utilise the vital forces of his army in order
to avoid still greater disasters.
It hardly need be said that _War and Peace_ is a powerful indictment
against war. The effect which the great writer has exercised in this
direction upon his generation can be actually seen in Russia. It was
already apparent during the great Turkish war of 1877-78, when it was
absolutely impossible to find in Russia a correspondent who would
have described how “_we_ have peppered the enemy with grape-shot,”
or how “we shot them down like nine-pins.” If a man could have been
found to use in his letters such survivals of savagery, no paper
would have dared to print them. The general character of the Russian
war-correspondent had grown totally different; and during the same war
there came to the front such a novelist as Gárshin and such a painter
as Vereschágin, with whom to combat war became a life work.
Everyone who has read _War and Peace_ remembers, of course, the hard
experiences of Pierre, and his friendship with the soldier Karatáeff.
One feels that Tolstóy is full of admiration for the quiet philosophy
of this man of the people,--a typical representative of the ordinary,
common-sense Russian peasant. Some literary critics concluded that
Tolstóy was preaching in Karatáeff a sort of Oriental fatalism. In
the present writer’s opinion there is nothing of the sort. Karatáeff,
who is a consistent pantheist, simply knows that there are natural
calamities, which it is impossible to resist; and he knows that the
miseries which befall him--his personal sufferings, and eventually the
shooting of a number of prisoners among whom to-morrow he may or may
not be included--are the unavoidable consequences of a much greater
event: the armed conflict between nations, which, once it has begun,
must unroll itself with all its revolting but absolutely ungovernable
consequences. Karatáeff acts as one of those cows on the slope of an
Alpine mountain, mentioned by the philosopher Guyau, which, when it
feels that it begins to slip down a steep mountain slope, makes at
first desperate efforts to hold its ground, but when it sees that no
effort can arrest its fatal gliding, lets itself quietly be dragged
down into the abyss. Karatáeff accepts the inevitable; but he is not a
fatalist. If he had felt that his efforts could prevent war, he would
have exerted them. In fact, towards the end of the work, when Pierre
tells his wife Natásha that he is going to join the Decembrists (it is
told in veiled words, on account of censorship, but a Russian reader
understands nevertheless), and she asks him: “Would Platón Karatáeff
approve of it?” Pierre, after a moment’s reflection, answers decidedly,
“Yes, he would.”
I don’t know what a Frenchman, an Englishman, or a German feels when he
reads _War and Peace_--I have heard educated Englishmen telling me that
they found it dull--but I know that for educated Russians the reading
of nearly every scene in _War and Peace_ is a source of indescribable
æsthetic pleasure. Having, like so many Russians, read the work many
times, I could not, if I were asked, name the scenes which delight me
most: the romances among the children, the mass-effects in the war
scenes, the regimental life, the inimitable scenes from the life of the
Court, aristocracy, the tiny details concerning Napoléon or Kutúzoff,
or the life of the Róstoffs--the dinner, the hunt, the departure from
Moscow, and so on.
Many felt offended, in reading this epopee, to see their hero,
Napoléon, reduced to such small proportions, and even ridiculed. But
the Napoléon who came to Russia was no longer the man who had inspired
the armies of the _sans-culottes_ in their first steps eastwards for
the abolition of serfdom, absolutism, and inquisition. All men in high
positions are actors to a great extent--as Tolstóy so wonderfully shows
in so many places of his great work--and Napoléon surely was not the
least actor among them. And by the time he came to Russia, an emperor,
now spoiled by the adulation of the courtiers of all Europe and the
worship of the masses, who attributed to him what was attributable
to the vast stir of minds produced by the Great Revolution, and
consequently saw in him a half-god--by the time he came to Russia, the
actor in him had got the upper hand over the man in whom there had
been formerly incarnated the youthful energy of the suddenly-awakened
French nation, in whom had appeared the expression of that awakening,
and through whom its force had been the further increased. To these
original characteristics was due the fascination which the name of
Napoléon exercised upon his contemporaries. At Smolénsky, Kutúzoff
himself must have experienced that fascination when, rather than rouse
the lion to a desperate battle, he opened before him the way to retreat.
ANNA KARÉNINA.
Of all the Tolstóy novels, _Anna Karénina_ is the one which has been
the most widely read in all languages. As a work of art it is a
master-piece. From the very first appearance of the heroine, you feel
that this woman must bring with her a drama; from the very outset her
tragical end is as inevitable as it is in a drama of Shakespeare. In
that sense the novel is true to life throughout. It is a corner of
real life that we have before us. As a rule, Tolstóy is not at his
best in picturing women--with the exception of very young girls--and I
don’t think that Anna Karénina herself is as deep, as psychologically
complete, and as living a creation as she might have been; but the more
ordinary woman, Dolly, is simply teeming with life. As to the various
scenes of the novel--the ball scenes, the races of the officers, the
inner family life of Dolly, the country scenes on Lévin’s estate, the
death of his brother, and so on--all these are depicted in such a way
that for its artistic qualities _Anna Karénina_ stands foremost even
amongst the many beautiful things Tolstóy has written.
And yet, notwithstanding all that, the novel produced in Russia
a decidedly unfavourable impression, which brought to Tolstóy
congratulations from the reactionary camp and a very cool reception
from the advanced portion of society. The fact is, that the question
of marriage and of an eventual separation between husband and wife had
been most earnestly debated in Russia by the best men and women, both
in literature and in life. It is self-evident that such indifferent
levity towards marriage as is continually unveiled before the Courts in
“Society” divorce cases was absolutely and unconditionally condemned;
and that any form of deceit, such as makes the subject of countless
French novels and dramas, was ruled out of question in any honest
discussion of the matter. But after the above levity and deceit had
been severely branded, the rights of a new love, serious and deep,
appearing after years of happy married life, had only been the more
seriously analysed. Tchernyshévskiy’s novel, _What is to be done_, can
be taken as the best expression of the opinions upon marriage which had
become current amongst the better portion of the young generation. Once
you are married, it was said, don’t take lightly to love affairs, or
so-called flirtation. Every fit of passion does not deserve the name
of a new love; and what is sometimes described as love is in a very
great number of cases nothing but temporary desire. Even if it were
real love, before a real and deep love has grown up, there is in most
cases a period when one has time to reflect upon the consequences that
would follow if the beginnings of his or her new sympathy should attain
the depth of such a love. But, with all that, there are cases when a
new love does come, and there are cases when such an event must happen
almost fatally, when, for instance, a girl has been married almost
against her will, under the continued insistence of her lover, or when
the two have married without properly understanding each other, or when
one of the two has continued to progress in his or her development
towards a higher ideal, while the other, after having worn for some
time the mask of idealism, falls into the Philistine happiness of
warmed slippers. In such cases separation not only becomes inevitable,
but it often is to the interest of both. It would be much better for
both to live through the sufferings which a separation would involve
(honest natures are by such sufferings made better) than to spoil the
entire subsequent existence of the one--in most cases, of both--and
to face moreover the fatal results that living together under such
circumstances would necessarily mean for the children. This was, at
least, the conclusion to which both Russian literature and the best
all-round portion of our society had come.
And now came Tolstóy with _Anna Karénina_, which bears the menacing
biblical epigraph: “Vengeance is mine, and I will repay it,” and in
which the biblical revenge falls upon the unfortunate Karénina, who
puts an end by suicide to her sufferings after her separation from
her husband. Russian critics evidently could not accept Tolstóy’s
views. The case of Karénina was one of those where there could be no
question of “vengeance.” She was married as a young girl to an old
and unattractive man. At that time she did not know exactly what she
was doing, and nobody had explained it to her. She had never known
love, and learned it for the first time when she saw Vrónskiy. Deceit,
for her, was absolutely out of the question; and to keep up a merely
conventional marriage would have been a sacrifice which would not
have made her husband and child any happier. Separation, and a new
life with Vrónskiy, who seriously loved her, was the only possible
outcome. At any rate, if the story of Anna Karénina had to end in
tragedy, it was not in the least in consequence of an act of supreme
justice. As always, the honest artistic genius of Tolstóy had itself
indicated another cause--the real one. It was the inconsistency of
Vrónskiy and Karénina. After having separated from her husband and
defied “public opinion”--that is, the opinion of women who, as Tolstóy
shows it himself, were not honest enough to be allowed any voice in
the matter--neither she nor Vrónskiy had the courage of breaking
entirely with that society, the futility of which Tolstóy knows and
describes so exquisitely. Instead of that, when Anna returned with
Vrónskiy to St. Petersburg, her own and Vrónskiy’s chief preoccupation
was--How Betsey and other such women would receive her, if she made her
appearance among them. And it was the opinion of the Betsies--surely
not Superhuman Justice--which brought Karénina to suicide.
RELIGIOUS CRISIS
Everyone knows the profound change which took place in Tolstóy’s
fundamental conceptions of life in the years 1875-1878, when he had
reached the age of about fifty. I do not think that one has the right
to discuss publicly what has been going on in the very depths of
another’s mind; but, by telling us himself the inner drama and the
struggles which he has lived through, the great writer has, so to say,
invited us to verify whether he was correct in his reasonings and
conclusions; and limiting ourselves to the psychological material
which he has given us, we may discuss it without undue intrusion into
the motives of his actions.
It is most striking to find, on re-reading the earlier works of
Tolstóy, how the ideas which he advocates at the present time were
always cropping up in his earlier writings. Philosophical questions and
questions concerning the moral foundations of life interested him from
his early youth. At the age of sixteen he used to read philosophical
works, and during his university years, and even through “the stormy
days of passion,” questions as to how we ought to live rose with their
full importance before him. His autobiographical novels, especially
_Youth_, bear deep traces of that inner work of his mind, even though,
as he says in _Confession_, he has never said all he might have said
on this subject. Nay, it is evident that although he describes his
frame of mind in those years as that of “a philosophical Nihilist,” he
had never parted, in reality, with the beliefs of his childhood.[17]
He always was an admirer and follower of Rousseau. In his papers on
education (collected in Vol. IV. of the tenth Moscow edition of his
_Works_) one finds treated in a very radical way most of the burning
social questions which he has discussed in his later years. These
questions even then worried him so much that, while he was carrying
on his school work in Yásnaya Polyána and was a Peace Mediator--that
is, in the years 1861-62--he grew so disgusted with the unavoidable
dualism of his position of a benevolent landlord, that--to quote his
own words--“I should have come then, perhaps, to the crisis which I
reached fifteen years later, if there had not remained one aspect of
life which promised me salvation--namely, married life.” In other
words, Tolstóy was already very near to breaking with the privileged
class point of view on Property and Labour, and to joining the great
populistic movement which was already beginning in Russia. This he
probably would have done, had not a new world of love, family life, and
family interests, which he embraced with the usual intensity of his
passionate nature, fastened the ties that kept him attached to his own
class.
Art, too, must have contributed to divert his attention from the
social problem--at least, from its economic aspects. In _War and
Peace_ he developed the philosophy of _the masses versus the heroes_,
a philosophy which in those years would have found among the educated
men of all Europe very few persons ready to accept it. Was it his
poetical genius which revealed to him the part played by the masses in
the great war of 1812, and taught him that they--the masses, and not
the heroes--had accomplished all the great things in history? Or, was
it but a further development of the ideas which inspired him in his
Yásnaya Polyána school, in opposition to all the educational theories
that had been elaborated by Church and State in the interest of the
privileged classes? At any rate, _War and Peace_ must have offered him
a problem great enough to absorb his thoughts for a number of years;
and in writing this monumental work, in which he strove to promote a
new conception of history, he must have felt that he was working in
the right way. As to _Anna Karénina_, which had no such reformatory or
philosophical purpose, it must have offered to Tolstóy the possibility
of living through once more, with all the intensity of poetical
creation, the shallow life of the leisured classes, and to contrast it
with the life of the peasants and their work. And it was while he was
finishing this novel that he began to fully realise how much his own
life was in opposition to the ideals of his earlier years.
A terrible conflict must have been going on then in the mind of the
great writer. The communistic feeling which had induced him to put in
italics the fact about the singer at _Lucerne_, and to add to it a hot
indictment against the civilisation of the moneyed classes; the trend
of thought which had dictated his severe criticisms against private
property in _Holstomyér: the History of a Horse_; the anarchistic ideas
which had brought him, in his Yásnaya Polyána educational articles, to
a negation of a civilisation based on Capitalism and State; and, on
the other hand, his individual property conceptions, which he tried to
conciliate with his communistic leanings (see the conversation between
the two brothers Lévin in _Anna Karénina_); his want of sympathy with
the parties which stood in opposition to the Russian Government
and, at the same time, his profound, deeply rooted dislike of that
Government, all these tendencies must have been in an irreconcilable
conflict in the mind of the great writer, with all the passionate
intensity which is characteristic of Tolstóy, as with all men of
genius. These constant contradictions were so apparent that while less
perspicacious Russian critics and the _Moscow Gazette_ defenders of
serfdom considered Tolstóy as having joined their reactionary camp,
a gifted Russian critic, Mihailóvskiy, published in 1875 a series of
remarkable articles, entitled _The Right Hand and the Left Hand of
Count Tolstóy_, in which he pointed out the two men who constantly
were in conflict in the great writer. In these articles, the young
critic, a great admirer of Tolstóy, analysed the advanced ideas which
he had developed in his educational articles, which were almost
quite unknown at that time, and contrasted them with the strangely
conservative ideas which he had expressed in his later writings. As a
consequence, Mihailóvskiy predicted a crisis to which the great writer
was inevitably coming.
“I will not speak,” he wrote, “of _Anna Karénina_, first of all
because it is not yet terminated, and second, because one must speak
of it very much, or not at all. I shall only remark that in this
novel--much more superficially, but for that very reason perhaps
even more distinctly than anywhere else--one sees the traces of the
drama which is going on in the soul of the author. One asks oneself
what such a man is to do, how can he live, how shall he avoid that
poisoning of his consciousness which at every step intrudes into the
pleasures of a satisfied need? Most certainly he must, even though
it may be instinctively, seek for a means to put an end to the inner
drama of his soul, to drop the curtain; but how to do it? I think
that if an ordinary man were in such a position, he would have ended
in suicide or in drunkenness. A man of value will, on the contrary,
seek for other issues, and of such issues there are several.”
(_Otéchestvennyia Zapíski_, a review, June, 1875; also Mihailóvskiy’s
_Works_, Vol. III, p. 491.)
One of these issues--Mihailóvskiy continued--would be to write for the
people. Of course, very few are so happy as to possess the talent and
the faculties which are necessary for that:
“But once he (Tolstóy) is persuaded that the nation consists of two
halves, and that even the ‘innocent’ pleasures of the one half are
to the disadvantage of the other half--why should he not devote his
formidable forces to this immense task? It is even difficult to
imagine that any other theme could interest the writer who carries in
his soul such a terrible drama as the one that Count Tolstóy carries.
So deep and so serious is it, so deeply does it go to the root of
all literary activity, that it must presumably destroy all other
interests, just as the creeper suffocates all other plants. And, is
it not a sufficiently high aim in life, always to remind ‘Society’
that its pleasures and amusements are not the pleasures and the
amusements of all mankind, to explain to ‘Society’ the true sense of
the phenomena of progress, to wake up, be it only in the few, the more
impressionable, the conscience and the feeling of justice? And is not
this field wide enough for poetical creation?...
“The drama which is going on in Count Tolstóy’s soul is my
hypothesis,” Mihailóvskiy concluded, “but it is a legitimate
hypothesis without which it is impossible to understand his writings.”
(_Works_, III, 496.)
It is now known how much Mihailóvskiy’s hypothesis was a prevision. In
the years 1875-76, as Tolstóy was finishing _Anna Karénina_, he began
fully to realise the shallowness and the duality of the life that he
had hitherto led. “Something strange,” he says, “began to happen within
me: I began to experience minutes of bewilderment, of arrest of life,
as if I did not know how to live and what to do.” “What for? What
next?” were the questions which began to rise before him. “Well,” he
said to himself, “you will have 15,000 acres of land in Samara, 3000
horses--but what of that? And I was bewildered, and did not know what
to think next.” Literary fame had lost for him its attraction, now that
he had reached the great heights to which _War and Peace_ had brought
him. The little picture of Philistine family-happiness which he had
pictured in a novel before his marriage (_Family Happiness_) he had now
lived through, but it no longer satisfied him. The life of Epicureanism
which he had led hitherto had lost all sense for him. “I felt,” he
writes in _Confession_, “that what I had stood upon had broken down;
that there was nothing for me to stand upon; that what I had lived by
was no more, and that there was nothing left me to live by. My life
had come to a stop.” The so-called “family duties” had lost their
interest. When he thought of the education of his children, he asked
himself, “What for?” and very probably he felt that in his landlord’s
surroundings he never would be able to give them a better education
than his own, which he condemned; and when he began thinking of the
well-being of the masses he would all of a sudden ask himself: “What
business have I to think of it?”
He felt that he had nothing to live for. He even had no wishes which
he could recognise as reasonable. “If a fairy had come to me, and
offered to satisfy my wish, I should not have known what to wish ...
I even could not wish to know Truth, because I had guessed of what it
would consist. The Truth was, that life is nonsense.” He had no aim in
life, no purpose, and he realised that without a purpose, and with its
unavoidable sufferings, life is not worth living (_Confession_, VI,
VII).
He had not--to use his own expression--“the moral bluntness of
imagination” which would be required not to have his Epicureanism
poisoned by the surrounding misery; and yet, like Schopenhauer, he had
not the Will that was necessary for adjusting his actions in accordance
with the dictates of his reason. Self-annihilation, death, appeared
therefore as a welcome solution.
However, Tolstóy was too strong a man to end his life in suicide. He
found an outcome, and that outcome was indicated to him by a return to
the love which he had cherished in his youth: _the love of the peasant
masses_. “Was it in consequence of a strange, so to say a physical love
of the truly working people,” he writes--or of some other cause? but
he understood at last that he must seek the sense of life among the
millions who toil all their life long. He began to examine with more
attention than before the life of these millions. “And I began,” he
says, “to love these people.” And the more he penetrated into their
lives, past and present, the more he loved them, and “the easier it
was for me to live.” As to the life of the men of his own circle--the
wealthy and cultured, “I not only felt disgust for it: it lost all
sense in my eyes.” He understood that if he did not see what life was
worth living for, it was his own life “in exclusive conditions of
epicureanism” which had obscured the truth.
“I understood,” he continues, “that my question, ‘What is life?’
and my reply to it, ‘Evil,’ were quite correct. I was only wrong in
applying them to life altogether. To the question, ‘What is life?’
I had got the reply, ‘Evil and nonsense!’ And so it was. My own
life--a life of indulgence in passions--was void of sense and full of
evil, but this was true of my life only, not of the life of all men.
Beginning with the birds and the lowest animals, all live to maintain
life and to secure it for others besides themselves, while I not only
did not secure it for others: I did not secure it even for myself. I
lived as a parasite, and, having put to myself the question, ‘What do
I live for?’ I got the reply, ‘For no purpose.’”
The conviction, then, that he must live as the millions live, earning
his own livelihood; that he must toil as the millions toil; and that
such a life is the _only_ possible reply to the questions which
had brought him to despair--the only way to escape the terrible
contradictions which had made Schopenhauer preach self-annihilation,
and Solomon, Sakiamuni, and so many others preach their gospel of
despairing pessimism, this conviction, then, saved him and restored to
him lost energy and the will to live. But that same idea had inspired
thousands of the Russian youth, in those same years, and had induced
them to start the great movement “_V narod!_” “Towards the people; be
the people!”
Tolstóy has told us in an admirable book, _What is, then, to be
done?_ the impressions which the slums of Moscow produced upon him in
1881, and the influence they had upon the ulterior development of his
thoughts. But we do not yet know what facts and impressions made him so
vividly realise in 1875-81 the emptiness of the life which he had been
hitherto leading. Is it then presuming too much if I suggest that it
was this very same movement, “towards the people,” which had inspired
so many of the Russian youth to go to the villages and the factories,
and to live there the life of the people, which finally brought
Tolstóy, also, to reconsider his position as a rich landlord?
That he knew of this movement there is not the slightest doubt. The
trial of the Netcháeff groups in 1871 was printed in full in the
Russian newspapers, and one could easily read through all the youthful
immaturity of the speeches of the accused the high motives and the love
of the people which inspired them. The trial of the Dolgúshin groups,
in 1875, produced a still deeper impression in the same direction; but
especially the trial, in March, 1877, of those of transcendent worth,
girls Bárdina, Lubatóvitch, the sisters Subbótin, “the Moscow Fifty”
as they were named in the circles, who, all from wealthy families,
had led the life of factory girls, in the horrible factory-barracks,
working fourteen and sixteen hours a day, in order to be with the
working people and to teach them.... And then--the trial of the
“Hundred-and-Ninety-Three” and of Véra Zasúlitch in 1878. However great
Tolstóy’s dislike of revolutionists might have been, he must have felt,
as he read the reports of these trials, or heard what was said about
them at Moscow and in his province of Túla, and witnessed round him
the impression they had produced--he, the great artist, must have felt
that this youth was much nearer to what he himself was in his earlier
days, in 1861-62, than to those among whom he lived now--the Katkóffs,
the “Fets,” and the like. And then, even if he knew nothing about
these trials and had heard nothing about the “Moscow Fifty,” he knew,
at least, Turguéneff’s _Virgin Soil_, which was published in January,
1877, and he must have felt, even from that imperfect picture, so
warmly greeted by young Russia, what this young Russia was.
If Tolstóy had been in his twenties, he might possibly have joined the
movement, in one form or another, notwithstanding all the obstacles.
Such as he was, in his surroundings, and especially with his mind
already preoccupied by the problem--“Where is the lever which would
move human hearts at large, and become the source of the deep moral
reform of every individual?” with such a question on his mind, he had
to live through many a struggle before he was brought consciously
to take the very same step. For our young men and women, the mere
statement that one who had got an education, thanks to the work of
the masses, owed it therefore to these masses to work in return for
them--this simple statement was sufficient. They left their wealthy
houses, took to the simplest life, hardly different from that of
a workingman, and devoted their lives to the people. But for many
reasons--such as education, habits, surroundings, age, and, perhaps,
the great philosophical question he had in his mind, Tolstóy had to
live through the most painful struggles, before he came to the very
same conclusion, but in a different way: that is to say, before he
concluded that he, as the bearer of a portion of the divine Unknown,
had to fulfil the will of that Unknown, which will was that everyone
should work for the universal welfare.[18]
The moment, however, that he came to this conclusion, he did not
hesitate to act in accordance with it. The difficulties he met in
his way, before he could follow the injunction of his conscience,
must have been immense. We can faintly guess them. The sophisms he
had to combat--especially when all those who understood the value of
his colossal talent began to protest against his condemnation of his
previous writing--we can also easily imagine. And one can but admire
the force of his convictions, when he entirely reformed the life he had
hitherto led.
The small room he took in his rich mansion is well known through a
world-renowned photograph. Tolstóy behind the plough, painted by
Ryépin, has gone the round of the world, and is considered by the
Russian Government so dangerous an image that it has been taken from
the public gallery where it was exhibited. Limiting his own living
to the strictly necessary minimum of the plainest sort of food, he
did his best, so long as his physical forces lasted, to earn that
little by physical work. And for the last years of his life he has
been writing even more than he ever did in the years of his greatest
literary productivity.
The effects of this example which Tolstóy has given mankind everyone
knows. He believes, however, that he must give also the philosophical
and religious reasons for his conduct, and this he did in a series of
remarkable works.
Guided by the idea that millions of plain working people realised the
sense of life, and found it in life itself, which they considered
as the accomplishment of “the will of the Creator of the universe,”
he accepted the simple creed of the masses of the Russian peasants,
even though his mind was reluctant to do so, and followed with them
the rites of the Greek Orthodox Church. There was a limit, however,
to such a concession, and there were beliefs which he positively
could not accept. He felt that when he was, for instance, solemnly
declaring during the mass, before communion, that he took the latter
in the literal sense of the words--not figuratively--he was affirming
something which he could not say in full conscience. Besides, he soon
made the acquaintance of the Non-conformist peasants, Sutyáeff and
Bondaryóff, whom he deeply respected, and he saw, from his intercourse
with them, that by joining the Greek Orthodox Church he was lending a
hand to all its abominable prosecutions of the Non-conformists--that he
was a party to the hatred which all Churches profess towards each other.
Consequently, he undertook a complete study of Christianity,
irrespective of the teachings of the different churches, including
a careful revision of the translations of the gospels, with the
intention of finding out what was the real meaning of the Great
Teacher’s precepts, and what had been added to it by his followers. In
a remarkable, most elaborate work (_Criticism of Dogmatic Theology_),
he demonstrated how fundamentally the interpretations of the Churches
differed from what was in his opinion the true sense of the words
of the Christ. And then he worked out, quite independently, an
interpretation of the Christian teaching which is quite similar to the
interpretations that have been given to it by all the great popular
movements--in the ninth century in Armenia,--later on by Wycliff, and
by the early Anabaptists, such as Hans Denck,[19] laying, however, like
the Quakers, especial stress on the doctrine of non-resistance.
HIS INTERPRETATION OF THE CHRISTIAN TEACHING
The ideas which Tolstóy thus slowly worked out are explained in a
succession of three separate works: (1) _Dogmatic Theology_, of which
the Introduction is better known as _Confession_ and was written
in 1882; (2) _What is my Faith?_ (1884); and (3) _What is then to
be Done?_ (1886), to which must be added _The Kingdom of God in
Yourselves, or Christianity, not as a mystic Teaching but as a new
Understanding of Life_ (1900) and, above all, a small book, _The
Christian Teaching_ (1902), which is written in short, concise,
numbered paragraphs, like a catechism, and contains a full and definite
exposition of Tolstóy’s views. A number of other works dealing with the
same subject--such as _The Life and the Teachings of the Christ_, _My
Reply to the Synod’s Edict of Excommunication_, _What is Religion_, _On
Life_, etc., were published during the same year. These books represent
the work of Tolstóy for the last twenty years, and at least four of
them (_Confession_, _My Faith_, _What is to be Done_, and _Christian
Teaching_) must be read in the indicated succession by everyone who
wishes to know the religious and moral conceptions of Tolstóy and
to extricate himself from the confused ideas which are sometimes
represented as Tolstóyism. As to the short work, _The Life and the
Teaching of Jesus_, it is, so to speak, the four gospels in one, told
in a language easy to be understood, and free of all mystical and
metaphorical elements; it contains Tolstóy’s reading of the gospels.
These works represent the most remarkable attempt at a rationalistic
interpretation of Christianity that has ever been ventured upon.
Christianity appears in them devoid of all gnosticism and mysticism,
as a purely spiritual teaching about the universal spirit which guides
man to a higher life--a life of equality and of friendly relations with
all men. If Tolstóy accepts Christianity as the foundation of his
faith, it is not because he considers it as a revelation, but because
its teaching, purified of all the additions that have been made to it
by the churches, contains “the very same solution of the problem of
life as has been given more or less explicitly by the best of men, both
before and since the gospel was given to us--a succession which goes
on from Moses, Isaiah, and Confucius, to the early Greeks, Buddha, and
Socrates, down to Pascal, Spinoza, Fichte, Feuerbach, and all others,
often unnoticed and unknown, who, taking no teachings on mere trust,
have taught us, and spoken to us with sincerity, about the meaning of
life”[20]; because it gives “an explanation of the meaning of life”
and “a solution of this contradiction between the aspiration after
welfare and life, and the consciousness of their being unattainable”
(_Chr. Teach._ §13)--“between the desire for happiness and life on the
one hand, and the increasingly clear perception of the certainty of
calamity and death on the other” (_ibid._, §10).
As to the dogmatic and mystical elements of Christianity, which he
treats as mere additions to the real teaching of Christ, he considers
them so noxious that even he makes the following remark: “It is
terrible to say so (but sometimes I have this thought): if the teaching
of Christ, together with the teaching of the Church that has grown upon
it, did not exist at all--those who now call themselves Christians
would have been nearer to the teachings of Christ--that is, to an
intelligent teaching about the good of life--than they are now. The
moral teachings of all the prophets of mankind would not have been
closed for them.”[21]
Putting aside all the mystical and metaphysical conceptions which
have been interwoven with Christianity, he concentrates his main
attention upon the moral aspects of the Christian teaching. One of the
most powerful means--he says--by which men are prevented from living
a life in accordance with this teaching is “religious deception.”
“Humanity moves slowly but unceasingly onward, towards an ever
higher development of consciousness of the true meaning of life, and
towards the organisation of life in conformity with this development
of consciousness;” but in this ascendant march all men do not move
at an equal pace, and “the less sensitive continue to adhere to the
previous understanding and order of life, and try to uphold it.” This
they achieve mainly by means of the religious deception which consists
“in the intentional confusion of faith with superstition, and the
substitution of the one for the other.” (_Chr. Teach._, §§181, 180.)
The only means to free one’s self from this deception is--he says--“to
understand and to remember that the only instrument which man possesses
for the acquisition of knowledge is reason, and that therefore every
teaching which affirms that which is contrary to reason is a delusion.”
Altogether, Tolstóy is especially emphatic upon this point of the
importance of reason. (See _The Christian Teaching_, §§206, 214.)
Another great obstacle to the spreading of the Christian teaching he
sees in the current belief in the immortality of the soul--such as it
is understood now. (_My Belief_, p. 134 of Tchertkoff’s Russ. ed.) In
this form he repudiates it; but we can--he says--give a deeper meaning
to our life by making it to be a service to men--to mankind--by merging
our life into the life of the universe; and although this idea may
seem less attractive than the idea of individual immortality, “though
little, it is sure.” (_Chr. Teaching._)
In speaking of God he takes sometimes a pantheistic position, and
describes God as Life, or as Love, or else as the Ideal which man is
conscious of in himself (_Thoughts about God_, collected by V. and
A. Tchertkoff); but in his last work (_Christian Teaching_, ch. VII.
and VIII.) he prefers to identify God with “the universal desire for
welfare which is the source of all life.” “So that, according to the
Christian teaching, God is that Essence of life which man recognises
both within himself and in the whole universe as the desire for
welfare; it being at the same time the cause by which this Essence
is enclosed and conditioned in individual and corporal life” (§36).
Every reasoning man--Tolstóy adds--comes to a similar conclusion. A
desire for _universal_ welfare appears in every reasoning man, after
his rational consciousness has been awakened at a certain age; and
in the world around Man the same desire is manifest in all separate
beings, each of whom strives for his own welfare (§37). These two
desires “converge towards one distinct purpose--definite, attainable,
and joyful for man.” Consequently, he concludes, Observation, Tradition
(religious), and Reason, all three, show him “that the greatest welfare
of man, towards which all men aspire, can only be obtained by perfect
union and concord among men.” All three show that the immediate work of
the world’s development, in which he is called upon to take part, is
“the substitution of union and harmony for division and discord.” “The
inner tendency of that spiritual being--love--which is in the process
of birth within him, impels him in the same direction.”
Union and harmony, and steady, relentless effort to promote them, which
means not only _all_ the work required for supporting one’s life, but
work also for increasing universal welfare--these are, then, the two
final accords in which all the discords, all the storms, which for
more than twenty years had raged in the distraught mind of the great
artist, all the religious ecstasies and the rationalistic doubts
which had agitated his superior intelligence in its insistent search
for truth finally found their solution. On the highest metaphysical
heights the striving of every living being for its own welfare, which
is Egoism and Love at the same time because it is Self-Love, and
rational Self-Love must embrace all congeners of the same species--this
striving for individual welfare by its very nature tends to comprise
all that exists. “It expands its limits naturally by love, first for
one’s family--one’s wife and children--then for friends, then for one’s
fellow-countrymen; but Love is not satisfied with this, and tends to
embrace all” (_ibid._, §46).
MAIN POINTS OF THE CHRISTIAN ETHICS
The central point of the Christian teaching Tolstóy sees in
non-resistance. During the first years after his crisis he preached
absolute “non-resistance to evil”--in full conformity with the verbal
and definite sense of the words of the gospel, which words, taken
in connection with the sentence about the right and the left cheek,
evidently mean complete humility and resignation. However, he must have
soon realised that such a teaching not only was not in conformity with
his above-mentioned conception of God, but that it also amounted simply
to abetting evil. It contains precisely that license to evil which
always has been preached by the State religions in the interest of the
ruling classes, and Tolstóy must have realised this. He tells us how
he once met in a train the Governor of the Túla province at the head
of a detachment of soldiers who were armed with rifles and provided
with a cart-load of birch-rods. They were going to flog the peasants
of a village in order to enforce an act of sheer robbery passed by the
Administration in favour of the landlord and in open breach of the
law. He describes with his well-known graphical powers how, in their
presence, a “Liberal lady” openly, loudly and in strong terms condemned
the Governor and the officers, and how they were ashamed. Then he
describes how, when such an expedition began its work, the peasants,
with truly Christian resignation, would cross themselves with trembling
hand and lie down on the ground, to be martyrised and flogged till the
heart of the victim stopped beating, without the officers having been
touched in the least by that Christian humility. What Tolstóy did when
he met the expedition, we don’t know: he does not tell us. He probably
remonstrated with the chiefs and advised the soldiers not to obey
them--that is, to revolt. At any rate, he must have felt that a passive
attitude in the face of this evil--the non-resistance to it--would have
meant a tacit approval of the evil; it would have meant giving support
to it. Moreover, a passive attitude of resignation in the face of evil
is so contrary to the very nature of Tolstóy, that he could not remain
for a long time a follower of such a doctrine, and he soon altered
his interpretation of the text of the gospel in the sense of: “Don’t
resist evil by violence.” All his later writings have consequently been
_a passionate resistance against the different forms of evil_ which he
has seen round about himself in the world. Continually he makes his
mighty voice resound against both evil and evil-doers; he only objects
to physical force in resisting evil because he believes that works harm.
The other four points of the Christian teaching, always according to
Tolstóy’s interpretation of it, are: Do not be angry, or, at least,
abstain from anger as much as you can: Remain true to the one woman
with whom you have united your life, and avoid all that excites
passion: Do not take oaths, which in Tolstóy’s opinion means: Never tie
your hands with an oath; oath-taking is the means resorted to by all
governments to bind men in their _consciences_ to do whatever they bid
them do; and finally, Love your enemies; or, as Tolstóy points it out
in several of his writings: Never judge, and never prosecute another
before a tribunal.
To these five rules Tolstóy gives the widest possible interpretation
and he deducts from them all the teachings of free communism. He proves
with a wealth of arguments that to live upon the work of others,
and not to earn one’s own living, is to break the very law of all
nature; it is the main cause of all social evils, as also of nearly
all personal unhappiness and discomforts. He shows how the present
capitalistic organisation of labour is as bad as slavery or serfdom has
ever been.
He insists upon the simplification of life--in food, dress, and
dwelling--which results from one’s taking to manual work, especially
on the land, and shows the advantages that even the rich and idle of
to-day would find in such labour. He shows how all the evils of present
misgovernment result from the fact that the very men who protest
against bad government make every effort to become a part of that
government.
As emphatically as he protests against the Church, he protests against
the State, as the only real means for bringing to an end the present
slavery imposed upon men by this institution. He advises men to refuse
having anything to do with the State. And finally, he proves with a
wealth of illustrations in which his artistic powers appear in full,
that the lust of the rich classes for wealth and luxury--a lust which
has no limits, and can have none--is what maintains all this slavery,
all these abnormal conditions of life, and all the prejudices and
teachings now disseminated by Church and State in the interest of the
ruling classes.
On the other hand, whenever he speaks of God, or of immortality,
his constant desire is to show that he needs none of the mystical
conceptions and metaphysical words which are usually resorted to. And
while his language is borrowed from religious writings, he always
brings forward, again and again, the rationalistic interpretation of
religious conceptions. He carefully sifts from the Christian teaching
all that cannot be accepted by followers of other religions, and brings
into relief all that is common to Christianity as well as to other
positive religions; all that is simply humane in them and thus might be
approved by reason, and therefore be accepted by disbelievers as well
as by believers.
In other words, in proportion as he has lately studied the teachings of
different founders of religions and those of moral philosophers, he has
tried to determine and to state _the elements of a universal religion_
in which all men could unite--a religion, however, which would have
nothing supernatural in it, nothing that reason and knowledge would
have to reject, but would contain a moral guidance for all men--at
whatever stage of intellectual development they may halt. Having thus
begun, in 1875-77, by joining the Greek Orthodox religion--in the
sense in which Russian peasants understand it--he came finally in _The
Christian Teaching_ to the construction of a Moral Philosophy which,
in his opinion, might be accepted by the Christian, the Jew, the
Mussulman, the Buddhist, and so on, and the naturalist philosopher as
well--a religion which would retain the only substantial elements of
all religions: namely, a determination of one’s _relation towards the
universe_ (_Weltanschaung_), in accordance with present knowledge, and
_a recognition of the equality of all men_.
Whether these two elements, one of which belongs to the domain of
knowledge and science and the other (justice) to the domain of ethics,
are sufficient to constitute a _religion_, and need no substratum of
mysticism--is a question which lies beyond the scope of this book.
LATEST WORKS OF ART
The disturbed conditions of the civilised world, and especially of
Russia, have evidently more than once attracted the attention of
Tolstóy, and induced him to publish a considerable number of letters,
papers, and appeals on various subjects. In all of them he advocates,
first of all, and above all, an attitude of negation towards Church and
State. Never enter the service of the State, even in the provincial
and urban institutions, which are granted by the State only as a
snare. Refuse to support exploitation in any form. Refuse to perform
military service, whatever the consequences may be: for this is the
only method of being truly anti-militarist. Never have anything to do
with Courts, even if you are offended or assailed;--nothing but evil
results from them. Such a negative and eminently sincere attitude, he
maintains, would better promote the cause of true progress than any
revolutionary means. As a first step, however, towards the abolition of
modern slavery, he also recommends the nationalisation, or rather the
municipalisation, of land.
It is manifest that the works of art which he wrote during the last
five-and-twenty years, after 1876, must bear deep traces of his new
point of view. He began, first, by writing for the people, and although
most of his small stories for popular reading are spoiled to some
extent by the too obvious desire of drawing a certain moral, and a
consequent distortion of facts, there are a few among them--especially
_How much Land is required for a Man_--which are wonderfully artistic.
_The Death of Iván Illýtch_ need only be named to recall the profound
impression produced by its appearance.
In order to speak to a still wider audience in the theatres for the
people, which began to be started in Russia about that time, he wrote
_The Power of Darkness_,--a most terrible drama from the life of the
peasants, in which he aimed at producing a deep impression by means
of a Shakespearian or rather Marlowian realism. His other play--_The
Fruits of Civilisation_--is in a comical vein. The superstitions of
the “upper classes” as regards spiritualism are ridiculed in it. Both
plays (the former--with alterations in the final scene) are played with
success on the Russian stage.
However, it is not only the novels and dramas of this period which
are works of Art. The five religious works which have been named on a
preceding page are also works of art in the best sense of the word, as
they contain descriptive pages of a high artistic value; while the very
ways in which Tolstóy explains the economical principles of Socialism,
or the No-Government principles of Anarchism, are as much masterpieces
as the best socialistic and anarchistic pages of William Morris--far
surpassing the latter in simplicity and artistic power.
_Kreutzer Sonata_ is surely, after _Anna Karénina_, the work of Tolstóy
which has been the most widely read. However, the strange theme of this
novel and the crusade against marriage altogether which it contains
so much attract the attention of the reader and usually become the
subject of so passionate a discussion among those who have read it,
that the high artistic qualities of this novel and the analysis of life
which it contains have hardly received the recognition they deserve.
The moral teaching that Tolstóy has put in _Kreutzer Sonata_ hardly
need be mentioned, the more so since the author himself has withdrawn
it to a very great extent. But for the appreciation of Tolstóy’s work
and for the comprehension of the artist’s inner life this novel has a
deep meaning. No stronger accusation against marriage for mere outer
attraction, without intellectual union or sympathy of purpose between
husband and wife, has ever been written; and the struggle that goes
on between Kóznysheff and his wife is one of the most deeply dramatic
pages of married life that we possess in any literature.
Tolstóy’s _What is Art?_ is mentioned in Chapter VIII. of this
book. His greatest production of the latest period is, however,
_Resurrection_. It is not enough to say that the energy and
youthfulness of the septuagenarian author which appear in this novel
are simply marvellous. Its absolute artistic qualities are so high
that if Tolstóy had written nothing else but _Resurrection_ he would
have been recognised as one of the great writers. All those parts
of the novel which deal with Society, beginning with the letter of
“Missie,” and Missie herself, her father, and so on, are of the same
high standard as the best pages of the first volume of _War and Peace_.
Everything which deals with the Court, the jurymen, and the prisons
is again of the same high standard. It may be said, of course, that
the principal hero, Neklúdoff, is not sufficiently living; but this
is quite unavoidable for a figure which is meant to represent, if not
the author himself, at least his ideas or his experience: this is
a drawback of all novels containing so much of an autobiographical
element. As regards all the other figures, however, of which so immense
a number pass under our eyes, each of them has its own character in
striking relief, even if the figure (like one of the judges or of the
jurymen, or the daughter of a jailer) appears only on a single page,
never to reappear again.
The number of questions which are raised in this novel--social,
political, party questions, and so on--is so great that a whole
society, such as it is, living and throbbing with all its problems and
contradictions, appears before the reader, and this is not Russian
Society only, but Society the civilised world over. In fact, apart from
the scenes which deal with the political prisoners, _Resurrection_
applies to all nations. It is the most international of all works of
Tolstóy. At the same time the main question: “Has Society the right
to judge? Is it reasonable in maintaining a system of tribunals and
prisons?” this terrible question which the coming century is bound to
solve, is so forcibly impressed upon the reader that it is impossible
to read the book without, at least, conceiving serious doubts about our
system of punishments. _Ce livre pèsera sur la conscience du siècle._
(“This book will weigh upon the conscience of the century”) was the
remark of a French critic, which I heard repeated. And of the justice
of this remark I have had the opportunity of convincing myself during
my numerous conversations in America with persons having anything to do
with prisons. The book weighs already on their consciences.
The same remark applies to the whole activity of Tolstóy. Whether his
attempt at impressing upon men the elements of a universal religion
which--he believes--reason trained by science might accept, and which
man might take as guidance for his moral life, attaining at the same
time towards the solution of the great social problem and all questions
connected with it--whether this bold attempt be successful or not, can
only be decided by time. But it is absolutely certain that no man since
the times of Rousseau has so profoundly stirred the human conscience as
Tolstóy has by his moral writings. He has fearlessly stated the moral
aspects of all the burning questions of the day, in a form so deeply
impressive that whoever has read any one of his writings can no longer
forget these questions or set them aside; one feels the necessity of
finding, in one way or another, some solution. Tolstóy’s influence,
consequently, is not one which may be measured by mere years or decades
of years: it will last long. Nor is it limited to one country only.
In millions of copies his works are read in all languages, appealing
equally to men and women of all classes and all nations, and everywhere
producing the same result. Tolstóy is now the most loved man--the most
touchingly loved man--in the world.
FOOTNOTES:
[14] The only exception to be made is the scene with the two old people
in _Virgin Soil_. It is useless and out of place. To have introduced it
was simply “a literary whim.”
[15] Taken from the excellent translation by Mrs. Constance Garnett, in
Heinemann’s edition of Turguéneff’s works.
[16] This has struck most critics. Thus, speaking of _War and Peace_,
Písareff wrote: “The images he has created have their own life,
independently of the intentions of the author; they enter into direct
relations with the readers, speak for themselves, and unavoidably bring
the reader to such thoughts and conclusions as the author never had in
view and of which he, perhaps, would not approve.” (_Works, VI._ p.
420.)
[17] _Introduction to the Criticism of Dogmatic Theology and to an
Analysis of the Christian Teaching_, or _Confession_; Vol. 1 of
Tchertkoff’s edition of _Works prohibited by the Russian Censorship_
(in Russian), Christchurch, 1902, p. 13.
[18] “That which some people told me, and of which I sometimes had
tried to persuade myself--namely, that a man should desire happiness,
not for himself only, but for others, his neighbours, and for all men
as well: this did not satisfy me. Firstly, I could not sincerely desire
happiness for others as much as for myself; secondly, and chiefly,
others, in like manner as myself, were doomed to unhappiness and death,
and therefore all my efforts for other people’s happiness were useless.
I despaired.” The understanding that personal happiness is best found
in the happiness of all did not appeal to him, and the very striving
towards the happiness of all, and an advance towards it, he thus found
insufficient as a purpose in life.
[19] See _Anabaptism from its Rise at Zwickau to its Fall at Münster_,
1521-1536, by Richard Heath (_Baptist Manuals_, I, 1895).
[20] _The Christian Teaching_, Introduction, p. vi. In another similar
passage he adds Marcus Aurelius and Lao-tse to the above-mentioned
teachers.
[21] _What is my Belief_, ch. X, p. 145 of Tchertkoff’s edition of
_Works prohibited by Russian Censorship_. On pp. 18 and 19 of the
little work, _What is Religion and What is its Substance_. Tolstóy
expresses himself even more severely about “Church Christianity.”
He also gives us in this remarkable little work his ideas about the
substance of religion altogether, from which one can deduct its
desirable relations to science, to synthetic philosophy, and to
philosophical ethics.
PART V
Goncharóff, Dostoyévskiy, Nekrásoff
CHAPTER V
GONCHARÓFF--DOSTOYÉVSKIY--NEKRASOFF
Goncharóff--_Oblómoff_--The Russian Malady of Oblómoffdom--Is
it exclusively Russian?--_The Precipice_--Dostoyévskiy--His
first Novel--General Character of his Work--_Memoirs from a Dead
House_--_Down-trodden and Offended_--_Crime and Punishment_--_The
Brothers Karamázoff_--Nekrasoff--Discussions about his Talent--His
Love of the People--Apotheosis of Woman--Other Prose-writers of the
same Epoch--Serghéi Aksákoff--Dahl--Ivan Panaeff--Hvoschinskaya (V.
Krestovskiy-pseudonyme). Poets of the same Epoch--Koltsoff--Nikitin
Pleschéeff. The Admirers of Pure Art: Tutcheff--A.
Maykoff--Scherbina--Polonskiy--A. Fet--A. K. Tolstóy--The Translators.
GONCHARÓFF.
Goncharóff occupies in Russian literature the next place after
Turguéneff and Tolstóy, but this extremely interesting writer is almost
entirely unknown to English readers. He was not a prolific writer
and, apart from small sketches, and a book of travel (_The Frigate
Pallas_), he has left only three novels: _A Common Story_ (translated
into English by Constance Garnett), _Oblómoff_, and _The Precipice_, of
which the second, _Oblómoff_, has conquered for him a position by the
side of the two great writers just named.
In Russia Goncharóff is always described as a writer of an eminently
objective talent, but this qualification must evidently be taken with
a certain restriction. A writer is never entirely objective--he has
his sympathies and antipathies, and do what he may, they will appear
even through his most objective descriptions. On the other hand, a
good writer seldom introduces his own individual emotions to speak for
his heroes: there is none of this in either Turguéneff or Tolstóy.
However, with Turguéneff and Tolstóy you feel that they live with
their heroes, that they suffer and feel happy with them--that they
are in love when the hero is in love, and that they feel miserable
when misfortunes befall him; but you do not feel that to the same
extent with Goncharóff. Surely he has lived through every feeling of
his heroes, but the attitude he tries to preserve towards them is
an attitude of strict impartiality--an attitude, I hardly need say,
which, properly speaking, a writer can never maintain. An epic repose
and an epic profusion of details certainly characterise Goncharóff’s
novels; but these details are not obtrusive, they do not diminish the
impression, and the reader’s interest in the hero is not distracted
by all these minutiæ, because, under Goncharóff’s pen, they never
appear insignificant. One feels, however, that the author is a person
who takes human life quietly, and will never give way to a burst of
passion, whatsoever may happen to his heroes.
The most popular of the novels of Goncharóff is _Oblómoff_, which,
like Turguéneff’s _Fathers and Sons_, and Tolstóy’s _War and Peace_
and _Resurrection_, is, I venture to say, one of the profoundest
productions of the last half century. It is thoroughly Russian, so
Russian indeed that only a Russian can fully appreciate it; but it is
at the same time universally human, as it introduces a type which is
almost as universal as that of Hamlet or Don Quixote.
Oblómoff is a Russian nobleman, of moderate means--the owner of six
or seven hundred serfs--and the time of action is, let us say, in
the fifties of the nineteenth century. All the early childhood of
Oblómoff was such as to destroy in him any capacity of initiative.
Imagine a spacious, well-kept nobleman’s estate in the middle of
Russia, somewhere on the picturesque banks of the Vólga, at a time when
there were no railways to disturb a peaceful patriarchal life, and no
“questions” that could worry the minds of its inhabitants. A “reign
of plenty,” both for the owners of the estate and the scores of their
servants and retainers, characterises their life. Nurses, servants,
serving boys and maids surround the child from its earliest days, their
only thoughts being how to feed it, make it grow, render it strong, and
never worry it with either much learning or, in fact, with any sort of
work. “From my earliest childhood, have I myself ever put on my socks?”
Oblómoff asks later on. In the morning, the coming mid-day meal is
the main question for all the household; and when the dinner is over,
at an early hour of the day, sleep--a reign of sleep, sleep rising to
an epical degree which implies full loss of consciousness for all the
inhabitants of the mansion and its dependencies--spreads its wings for
several hours from the bedchamber of the landlord even as far as the
remotest corner of the retainers’ dwellings.
In these surroundings Oblómoff’s childhood and youth were passed. Later
on, he enters the University; but his trustworthy servants follow
him to the capital, and the lazy, sleepy atmosphere of his native
‘Oblómovka’ (the estate) holds him even there in its enchanted arms. A
few lectures at the university, some elevating talk with a young friend
in the evening, some vague aspiration towards the ideal, occasionally
stir the young man’s heart; and a beautiful vision begins to rise
before his eyes--these things are certainly a necessary accompaniment
of the years spent at the university; but the soothing, soporific
influence of Oblómovka, its quietness and laziness, its feeling of a
fully guaranteed, undisturbed existence, deaden even these impressions
of youth. Other students grow hot in their discussions, and join
“circles.” Oblómoff looks quietly at all that and asks himself: “What
is it for?” And then, the moment that the young student has returned
home after his university years, the same atmosphere again envelops
him. “Why should you think and worry yourself with this or that?” Leave
that to “others.” Have you not there your old nurse, thinking whether
there is anything else she might do for your comfort?
“My people did not let me have even a wish,” Goncharóff wrote in his
short autobiography, from which we discovered the close connection
between the author and his hero: “all had been foreseen and attended
to long since. The old servants, with my nurse at their head, looked
into my eyes to guess my wishes, trying to remember what I liked best
when I was with them, where my writing table ought to be put, which
chair I preferred to the others, how to make my bed. The cook tried to
remember which dishes I had liked in my childhood--and all could not
admire me enough.”
Such was Oblómoff’s youth, and such was to a very great extent
Goncharóff’s youth and character as well.
The novel begins with Oblómoff’s morning in his lodgings at St.
Petersburg. It is late, but he is still in bed; several times already
he has tried to get up, several times his foot was in the slipper;
but, after a moment’s reflection, he has returned under his blankets.
His trusty Zakhár--his old faithful servant who formerly had carried
him as a baby in his arms--is by his side, and brings him his glass
of tea. Visitors come in; they try to induce Oblómoff to go out, to
take a drive to the yearly First of May promenade; but--“What for?” he
asks. “For what should I take all this trouble, and do all this moving
about?” And he remains in bed.
His only trouble is that the landlord wants him to leave the lodgings
which he occupies. The rooms are dull, dusty--Zakhár is no great
admirer of cleanliness; but to change lodgings is such a calamity for
Oblómoff that he tries to avoid it by all possible means, or at least
to postpone it.
Oblómoff is very well educated, well-bred, he has a refined taste, and
in matters of art he is a fine judge. Everything that is vulgar is
repulsive to him. He never will commit any dishonest act; he cannot. He
also shares the highest and noblest aspirations of his contemporaries.
Like many others, he is ashamed of being a serf-owner, and he has
in his head a certain scheme which he is going to put some day into
writing--a scheme which, if it is only carried out, will surely improve
the condition of his peasants and eventually free them.
“The joy of higher inspirations was accessible to him”--Goncharóff
writes; “the miseries of mankind were not strange to him. Sometimes
he cried bitterly in the depths of his heart about human sorrows. He
felt unnamed, unknown sufferings and sadness, and a desire of going
somewhere far away,--probably into that world towards which his
friend Stoltz had tried to take him in his younger days. Sweet tears
would then flow upon his cheeks. It would also happen that he would
himself feel hatred towards human vices, towards deceit, towards the
evil which is spread all over the world; and he would then feel the
desire to show mankind its diseases. Thoughts would then burn within
him, rolling in his head like waves in the sea; they would grow into
decisions which would make all his blood boil; his muscles would be
ready to move, his sinews would be strained, intentions would be on
the point of transforming themselves into decisions.... Moved by a
moral force he would rapidly change over and over again his position
in his bed; with a fixed stare he would half lift himself from it,
move his hand, look about with inspired eyes ... the inspiration
would seem ready to realise itself, to transform itself into an act
of heroism, and then, what miracles, what admirable results might one
not expect from so great an effort! But--the morning would pass away,
the shades of evening would take the place of the broad daylight,
and with them the strained forces of Oblómoff would incline towards
rest--the storms in his soul would subside--his head would shake off
the worrying thoughts--his blood would circulate more slowly in his
veins--and Oblómoff would slowly turn over, and recline on his back;
looking sadly through his window upon the sky, following sadly with
his eyes the sun which was setting gloriously behind the neighbouring
house--and how many times had he thus followed with his eyes that
sunset!”
In such lines as these Goncharóff depicts the state of inactivity
into which Oblómoff had fallen at the age of about thirty-five. It is
the supreme poetry of laziness--a laziness created by a whole life of
old-time landlordism.
Oblómoff, as I just said, is very uncomfortable in his lodgings;
moreover, the landlord, who intends to make some repairs in the
house, wants him to leave; but for Oblómoff to change his lodgings is
something so terrific, so extraordinary, that he tries by all sorts
of artifices to postpone the undesirable moment. His old Zakhár tries
to convince him that they cannot remain any longer in that house, and
ventures the unfortunate word, that, after all, “others” move when they
have to.
“I thought,” he said, “that others are not worse than we are, and that
they move sometimes; so we could move, too.”
“What, what?” exclaimed Oblómoff, rising from his easy chair, “what is
it that you say?”
Zakhár felt very ashamed. He could not understand what had provoked
the reproachful exclamation of his master, and did not reply.
“Others are not worse than we are!” repeated Iliyá Iliych (Oblómoff)
with a sense of horror. “That is what you have come to. Now I shall
know henceforth that I am for you the same as ‘the others’.”
After a time Oblómoff calls Zakhár back and has with him an explanation
which is worth reproducing.
“Have you ever thought what it meant--‘the others,’” Oblómoff began.
“Must I tell you what this means?”
Poor Zakhár shifted about uneasily, like a bear in his den, and sighed
aloud.
“‘Another’--that means a wild, uneducated man; he lives poorly,
dirtily, in an attic; he can sleep on a piece of felt stretched
somewhere on the floor--what does that matter to him?--Nothing! He
will feed on potatoes and herrings; misery compels him continuously to
shift from one place to another. He runs about all day long--_he_, he
may, of course, go to new lodgings. There is Lagáeff; he takes under
his arm his ruler and his two shirts wrapped in a handkerchief, and he
is off. ‘Where are you going?’ you ask him.--‘I am moving’, he says.
That is what ‘the others’ means.--Am I one of those others, do you
mean?”
Zakhár threw a glance upon his master, shifted from one foot to the
other, but said nothing.
“Do you understand now what ‘another’ means?” continued Oblómoff.
“‘Another,’ that is the man who cleans his own boots, who himself puts
on his clothes--without any help! Of course, he may sometimes look
like a gentleman, but that is mere deceit: he does not know what it
means to have a servant--he has nobody to send to the shop to make his
purchases; he makes them himself--he will even poke his own fire, and
occasionally use a duster.”
“Yes,” replied Zakhár sternly, “there are many such people among the
Germans.”
“That’s it, that’s it! And I? do you think that I am one of them?”
“No, you are different,” Zakhár said, still unable to understand what
his master was driving at.... “But God knows what is coming upon
you....”
“Ah! I am different! Most certainly, I am. Do I run about? do I
work? don’t I eat whenever I am hungry? Look at me--am I thin? am
I sickly to look at? Is there anything I lack? Thank God, I have
people to do things for me. I have never put on my own socks since I
was born, thank God! Must I also be restless like the others?--What
for?--And to whom am I saying all this? Have you not been with me from
childhood?... You have seen it all. You know that I have received
a delicate education; that I have never suffered from cold or from
hunger,--never knew want--never worked for my own bread--have never
done any sort of dirty work.... Well, how dare you put me on the same
level as the ‘others’?”
Later on, when Zakhár brought him a glass of water, “No, wait a
moment,” Oblómoff said. “I ask you, How did you dare to so deeply
offend your master, whom you carried in your arms while he was a
baby, whom you have served all your life, and who has always been a
benefactor to you?” Zakhár could not stand it any longer--the word
benefactor broke him down--he began to blink. The less he understood
the speech of Iliyá Iliych, the more sad he felt. Finally, the
reproachful words of his master made him break into tears, while Iliyá
Iliych seizing this pretext for postponing his letter-writing till
to-morrow, tells Zakhár, “you had better pull the blinds down and
cover me nicely, and see that nobody disturbs me. Perhaps I may sleep
for an hour or so, and at half past five wake me for dinner.”
About this time Oblómoff meets a young girl, Olga, who is perhaps one
of the finest representatives of Russian women in our novels. A mutual
friend, Stoltz, has said much to her about Oblómoff--about his talents
and possibilities, and also about the laziness of his life, which would
surely ruin him if it continued. Women are always ready to undertake
rescue work, and Olga tries to draw Oblómoff out of his sleepy,
vegetative existence. She sings beautifully, and Oblómoff, who is a
great lover of music, is deeply moved by her songs.
Gradually Olga and Oblómoff fall in love with each other, and she tries
to shake off his laziness, to arouse him to higher interests in life.
She insists that he shall finish the great scheme for the improvement
of his peasant serfs upon which he is supposed to have been working for
years. She tries to awaken in him an interest for art and literature,
to create for him a life in which his gifted nature shall find a field
of activity. It seems at first as if the vigour and charm of Olga
are going to renovate Oblómoff by insensible steps. He wakes up, he
returns to life. The love of Olga for Oblómoff, which is depicted in
its development with a mastery almost equalling that of Turguéneff,
grows deeper and deeper, and the inevitable next step--marriage--is
approaching.... But this is enough to frighten away Oblómoff. To take
this step he would have to bestir himself, to go to his estate, to
break the lazy monotony of his life, and this is too much for him. He
lingers and hesitates to make the first necessary steps. He postpones
them from day to day, and finally he falls back into his Oblómoffdom,
and returns to his sofa, his dressing gown, and his slippers. Olga is
ready to do the impossible; she tries to carry him away by her love
and her energy; but she is forced to realise that all her endeavours
are useless, and that she has trusted too much to her own strength:
the disease of Oblómoff is incurable. She has to abandon him, and
Goncharóff describes their parting in a most beautiful scene, from
which I will give here a few of the concluding passages:
“Then we must part?” she said.... “If we married, what would come
next?” He replied nothing. “You would fall asleep, deeper and deeper
every day--is it not so? And I--you see what I am--I shall not grow
old, I shall never be tired of life. We should live from day to day
and year to year, looking forward to Christmas, and then to the
Carnival; we should go to parties, dance, and think about nothing at
all. We should lie down at night thanking God that one day has passed,
and next morning we should wake up with the desire that to-day may be
like yesterday; that would be our future, is it not so? But is that
life? I should wither under it--I should die. And for what, Iliyá?
Could I make you happy?”
He cast his eyes around and tried to move, to run away, but his feet
would not obey him. He wanted to say something, but his mouth was dry,
his tongue motionless, his voice would not come out of his throat.
He moved his hand towards her, then he began something, with lowered
voice, but could not finish it, and with his look he said to her,
“Good-bye--farewell.”
She also wanted to say something, but could not--moved her hand in his
direction, but before it had reached his it dropped. She wanted to say
“Farewell,” but her voice broke in the middle of the word and took a
false accent. Then her face quivered, she put her hand and her head on
his shoulder and cried. It seemed now as if all her weapons had been
taken out of her hand--reasoning had gone--there remained only the
woman, helpless against her sorrow. “Farewell, Farewell” came out of
her sobbings....
“No,” said Olga, trying to look upon him through her tears, “it is
only now that I see that I loved in you what I wanted you to be, I
loved the future Oblómoff. You are good, honest, Iliyá, you are tender
as a dove, you put your head under your wing and want nothing more,
you are ready all your life to coo under a roof ... but I am not so,
that would be too little for me. I want something more--what, I do
not know; can you tell me what it is that I want? give me it, that I
should.... As to sweetness, there is plenty of it everywhere.”
They part, Olga passes through a severe illness, and a few months
later we see Oblómoff married to the landlady of his rooms, a very
respectable person with beautiful elbows, and a great master in kitchen
affairs and household work generally. As to Olga, she marries Stoltz
later on. But this Stoltz is rather a symbol of intelligent industrial
activity than a living man. He is invented, and I pass him by.
The impression which this novel produced in Russia, on its appearance
in 1859, was indescribable. It was a far greater event than the
appearance of a new work by Turguéneff. All educated Russia read
_Oblómoff_ and discussed “Oblómoffdom.” Everyone recognised something
of himself in Oblómoff, felt the disease of Oblómoff in his own veins.
As to Olga, thousands of young people fell in love with her: her
favourite song, the “Casta Diva,” became their favourite melody. And
now, forty years afterwards, one can read and re-read “Oblómoff” with
the same pleasure as nearly half a century ago, and it has lost nothing
of its meaning, while it has acquired many new ones: there are always
living Oblómoffs.
At the time of the appearance of this novel “Oblómoffdom” became a
current word to designate the state of Russia. All Russian life, all
Russian history, bears traces of the malady--that laziness of mind and
heart, that right to laziness proclaimed as a virtue, that conservatism
and inertia, that contempt of feverish activity, which characterise
Oblómoff and were so much cultivated in serfdom times, even amongst the
best men in Russia--and even among the malcontents. “A sad result of
serfdom”--it was said then. But, as we live further away from serfdom
times, we begin to realise that Oblómoff is not dead amongst us: that
serfdom is not the only thing which creates this type of men, but that
the very conditions of wealthy life, the routine of civilised life,
contribute to maintain it.
“A racial feature, distinctive of the Russian race,” others said;
and they were right, too, to a great extent. The absence of a love
for struggle; the “let me alone” attitude, the want of “aggressive”
virtue; non-resistance and passive submission--these are to a great
extent distinctive features of the Russian race. And this is probably
why a Russian writer has so well pictured the type. But with all
that, the Oblómoff type is not limited to Russia: It is a universal
type--a type which is nurtured by our present civilisation, amidst its
opulent, self-satisfied life. It is the conservative type. Not in the
political sense, but in the sense of the conservatism of well-being. A
man who has reached a certain welfare or has got it by inheritance is
not willingly moved to undertake anything new, because it might mean
introducing something unpleasant and full of worries into his quiet and
smooth existence. Therefore he lingers in a life devoid of the true
impulses of real life, from fear that these might disturb the quietness
of his vegetative existence.
Oblómoff knows the value of Art and its impulses; he knows the higher
enthusiasms of poetical love: he has felt both. But--“What is the use?”
he asks again. “Why all this trouble of going about and seeing people?
What is it for?” He is not a Diogenes who has no needs. Far from that.
If his meat be served too dry and his fowl be burned, he resents it.
It is the higher interests which he thinks not worth the trouble they
occasion. When he was young he thought of setting his serfs free--in
such a way that the step should not much diminish his income. But
gradually he has forgotten all about that, and now his main thought is,
how to shake off all the worries of the management of his estate. “I
don’t know”--he says--“what obligatory work is, what is farmer’s work,
what ownership means, what a poor farmer is and what a rich one; what
makes a quarter of wheat, when wheat has to be sown and reaped, or when
it has to be sold.” And when he dreams of country life on his estate he
thinks of pretty greenhouses, of picnics in the woods, of idyllic walks
in company with a goodly, submissive and plump wife, who looks into
his eyes and worships him. The question of why and how all this wealth
comes to him, and why all these people must work for him, never worries
his mind. But--how many of those all over the world, who own factories,
wheat fields and coal mines, or hold shares in them, ever think of
mines, wheat fields and factories otherwise than in the way Oblómoff
thought of his country seat--that is, in an idyllic contemplation of
how others work, without the slightest intention of sharing their
burdens?
The city-bred Oblómoffs may take the place of the country-bred, but
the type remains. And then comes the long succession of Oblómoffs
in intellectual, social, nay even in personal, life. Everything new
in the domain of the intellect makes them restless, and they are
only satisfied when all men have accepted the same ideas. They are
suspicious of social reform, because the very suggestion of a change
frightens them. Love itself frightens them. Oblómoff is loved by Olga;
he, too, loves her; but to take that step--marriage--frightens him. She
is too restless. She wants him to go about and to see pictures; to read
and to discuss this and that; to throw him into the whirl of life. She
loves him so much that she is ready to follow him without asking any
questions. But this very power of love, this very intensity of life,
frightens an Oblómoff.
He tries to find pretexts for avoiding this irruption of life into
his vegetative existence; he prizes so much his little material
comfort that he dares not love--dares not take love with all its
consequences--“its tears, its impulses, its life,” and soon falls back
into his cosy Oblómoffdom.
Decidedly, Oblómoffdom is not a racial disease. It exists on both
continents and in all latitudes. And besides the Oblómoffdom which
Goncharóff has so well depicted, and which even Olga was powerless
to break through, there is the squire’s Oblómoffdom, the red-tape
Oblómoffdom of the Government offices, the scientist’s Oblómoffdom and,
above all, the family-life Oblómoffdom, to which all of us readily pay
so large a tribute.
THE PRECIPICE
The last and longest novel of Goncharóff, _The Precipice_, has not the
unity of conception and workmanship which characterise _Oblómoff_. It
contains wonderful pages, worthy of a writer of genius; but, all said,
it is a failure. It took Goncharóff full ten years to write it, and
having begun to depict in it types of one generation, he remodelled
later on these types into types from the next generation--at a time
when the sons differed totally from their fathers: he has told this
himself in a very interesting critical sketch of his own work. As a
result there is no wholeness, so to speak, in the main personages of
the novel. The woman upon whom he has bestowed all his admiration,
Vyéra, and whom he tries to represent as most sympathetic, is
certainly interesting, but not sympathetic at all. One would say that
Goncharóff’s mind was haunted by two women of two totally different
types when he pictured his Vyéra--the one whom he tried--and failed--to
picture in Sophie Byelovódova, and the other--the coming woman of the
sixties, of whom he saw some features, and whom he admired, without
fully understanding her. Vyéra’s cruelty towards her grandmother, and
towards Ráisky, the hero, render her most unsympathetic, although you
feel that the author quite adores her. As to the Nihilist, Vólokhoff,
he is simply a caricature--taken perhaps from real life,--even
seemingly from among the author’s personal acquaintances,--but
obviously drawn with the desire of ventilating personal feelings of
dislike. One feels a personal drama concealed behind the pages of
the novel. Goncharóff’s first sketch of Vólokhoff was, as he wrote
himself, some sort of Bohemian Radical of the forties who had retained
in full the Don Juanesque features of the “Byronists” of the preceding
generation. Gradually, however, Goncharóff, who had not yet finished
his novel by the end of the fifties, transformed the figure into a
Nihilist of the sixties--a revolutionist--and the result is that one
has the sensation of the double origin of Vólokhoff, as one feels the
double origin of Vyéra.
The only figure of the novel really true to life is the grandmother of
Vyéra. This is an admirably painted figure of the simple, commonsense,
independent woman of old Russia, while Martha, the sister of Vyéra, is
an excellent picture of the commonplace girl, full of life, respectful
of old traditions--to be one day the honest and reliable mother of
a family. These two figures are the work of a great artist; but all
the other figures are made-up, and consequently are failures; and yet
there is much exaggeration in the tragical way in which Vyéra’s fall is
taken by her grandmother. As to the background of the novel--the estate
on a precipice leading to the Vólga--it is one of the most beautiful
landscapes in Russian literature.
DOSTOYÉVSKIY
Few authors have been so well received, from their very first
appearance in literature, as Dostoyévskiy was. In 1845 he arrived in
St. Petersburg, a quite unknown young man who only two years before had
finished his education in a school of military engineers, and after
having spent two years in the engineering service had then abandoned
it with the intention of devoting himself to literature. He was only
twenty-four when he wrote his first novel, _Poor People_, which his
school-comrade, Grigoróvitch, gave to the poet Nekrásoff, offering it
for a literary almanack. Dostoyévskiy had inwardly doubted whether
the novel would even be read by the editor. He was living then in a
poor, miserable room, and was fast asleep when at four o’clock in the
morning Nekrásoff and Grigoróvitch knocked at his door. They threw
themselves on Dostoyévskiy’s neck, congratulating him with tears in
their eyes. Nekrásoff and his friend had begun to read the novel late
in the evening; they could not stop reading till they came to the
end, and they were both so deeply impressed by it that they could not
help going on this nocturnal expedition, to see the author and tell
him what they felt. A few days later Dostoyévskiy was introduced to
the great critic of the time, Byelínskiy, and from him he received
the same warm reception. As to the reading public, the novel produced
quite a sensation. The same must be said about all subsequent novels of
Dostoyévskiy. They had an immense sale all over Russia.
The life of Dostoyévskiy was extremely sad. In the year 1849, four
years after he had won his first success with _Poor People_, he became
mixed up in the affairs of some Fourierists (members of the circles of
Petrashévskiy), who used to meet together to read the works of Fourier,
commenting on them, and talking about the necessity of a Socialistic
movement in Russia. At one of these gatherings Dostoyévskiy read, and
copied later on, a certain letter from Byelínskiy to Gógol, in which
the great critic spoke in rather sharp language about the Russian
Church and the State; he also took part in a meeting at which the
starting of a secret printing office was discussed. He was arrested,
tried (of course with closed doors), and, with several others, was
condemned to death. In December, 1849, he was taken to a public
square, placed on the scaffold, under a gibbet, to listen there to a
profusedly-worded death-sentence, and only at the last moment came a
messenger from Nicholas I., bringing a pardon. Three days later he was
transported to Siberia and locked up in a hard-labour prison at Omsk.
There he remained for four years, when owing to some influence at St.
Petersburg he was liberated, only to be made a soldier. During his
detention in the hard-labour prison he was submitted, for some minor
offence, to the terrible punishment of the cat-o’-nine-tails, and from
that time dates his disease--epilepsy--which he never quite got rid
of during all his life. The coronation amnesty of Alexander II. did
not improve Dostoyévskiy’s fate. Not until 1859--four years after the
advent of Alexander II. to the throne--was the great writer pardoned
and allowed to return to Russia. He died in 1883.
Dostoyévskiy was a rapid writer, and even before his arrest he had
published ten novels, of which _The Double_ was already a forerunner of
his later psycho-pathological novels, and _Nétochka Nezvánova_ showed a
rapidly maturing literary talent of the highest quality. On his return
from Siberia he began publishing a series of novels which produced
a deep impression on the reading public. He opened the series by a
great novel, _The Downtrodden and Offended_, which was soon followed
by _Memoirs from a Dead-House_, in which he described his hard-labour
experience. Then came an extremely sensational novel, _Crime and
Punishment_, which lately was widely read all over Europe and America.
_The Brothers Karamázoff_, which is considered his most elaborate work,
is even more sensational, while _The Youth_, _The Idiot_, _The Devils_
are a series of shorter novels devoted to the same psycho-pathological
problems.
If Dostoyévskiy’s work had been judged from the purely æsthetic
point of view, the verdict of critics concerning its literary value
would have been anything but flattering. Dostoyévskiy wrote with
such rapidity and he so little cared about the working out of his
novels, that, as Dobrolúboff has shown, the literary form is in many
places almost below criticism. His heroes speak in a slipshod way,
continually repeating themselves, and whatever hero appears in the
novel (especially is this so in _The Downtrodden_), you feel it is the
author who speaks. Besides, to these serious defects one must add the
extremely romantic and obsolete forms of the plots of his novels, the
disorder of their construction, and the unnatural succession of their
events--to say nothing of the atmosphere of the lunatic asylum with
which the later ones are permeated. And yet, with all this, the works
of Dostoyévskiy are penetrated with such a deep feeling of reality,
and by the side of the most unreal characters one finds characters so
well known to every one of us, and so real, that all these defects
are redeemed. Even when you think that Dostoyévskiy’s record of the
conversations of his heroes is not correct, you feel that the men whom
he describes--at least some of them--were exactly such as he wanted to
describe them.
The _Memoirs from a Dead-House_ is the only production of Dostoyévskiy
which can be recognised as truly artistic: its leading idea is
beautiful, and the form is worked out in conformity with the idea; but
in his later productions the author is so much oppressed by his ideas,
all very vague, and grows so nervously excited over them that he cannot
find the proper form. The favourite themes of Dostoyévskiy are the
men who have been brought so low by the circumstances of their lives,
that they have not even a conception of there being a possibility of
rising above these conditions. You feel moreover that Dostoyévskiy
finds a real pleasure in describing the sufferings, moral and physical,
of the down-trodden--that he revels in representing that misery of
mind, that absolute hopelessness of redress, and that completely
broken-down condition of human nature which is characteristic of
neuro-pathological cases. By the side of such sufferers you find a few
others who are so deeply human that all your sympathies go with them;
but the favourite heroes of Dostoyévskiy are the man and the woman who
consider themselves as not having either the force to compel respect,
or even the right of being treated as human beings. They once have
made some timid attempt at defending their personalities, but they
have succumbed, and never will try it again. They will sink deeper and
deeper in their wretchedness, and die, either from consumption or from
exposure, or they will become the victims of some mental affection--a
sort of half-lucid lunacy, during which man occasionally rises to the
highest conceptions of human philosophy--while some will conceive an
embitterment which will bring them to commit some crime, followed by
repentance the very next instant after it has been done.
In _Downtrodden and Offended_ we see a young man madly in love with
a girl from a moderately poor family. This girl falls in love with a
very aristocratic prince--a man without principles, but charming in
his childish egotism--extremely attractive by his sincerity, and with
a full capacity for quite unconsciously committing the worst crimes
towards those with whom life brings him into contact. The psychology
of both the girl and the young aristocrat is very good, but where
Dostoyévskiy appears at his best is in representing how the other young
man, rejected by the girl, devotes the whole of his existence to being
the humble servant of that girl, and against his own will becomes
instrumental in throwing her into the hands of the young aristocrat.
All this is quite possible, all this exists in life, and it is all told
by Dostoyévskiy so as to make one feel the deepest commiseration with
the poor and the down-trodden; but even in this novel the pleasure
which the author finds in representing the unfathomable submission
and servitude of his heroes, and the pleasure they find in the very
sufferings and the ill-treatment that has been inflicted upon them--is
repulsive to a sound mind.
The next great novel of Dostoyévskiy, _Crime and Punishment_, produced
quite a sensation. Its hero is a young student, Raskólnikoff, who
deeply loves his mother and his sister--both extremely poor, like
himself--and who, haunted by the desire of finding some money in
order to finish his studies and to become a support to his dear ones,
comes to the idea of killing an old woman--a private money-lender
whom he knows and who is said to possess a few thousand roubles. A
series of more or less fortuitous circumstances confirms him in this
idea and pushes him this way. Thus, his sister, who sees no escape
from their poverty, is going at last to sacrifice herself for her
family, and to marry a certain despicable, elderly man with much
money, and Raskólnikoff is firmly decided to prevent this marriage.
At the same time he meets with an old man--a small civil service
clerk and a drunkard who has a most sympathetic daughter from the
first marriage, Sónya. The family are at the lowest imaginable depths
of destitution--such as can only be found in a large city like St.
Petersburg, and Raskólnikoff is brought to take interest in them.
Owing to all these circumstances, while he himself sinks deeper and
deeper into the darkest misery, and realises the depths of hopeless
poverty and misery which surround him, the idea of killing the old
money-lending woman takes a firm hold of him. He accomplishes the crime
and, of course, as might have been foreseen, does not take advantage
of the money: he even does not find it in his excitement; and, after
having lived for a few days haunted by remorse and shame--again under
the pressure of a series of various circumstances which add to the
feeling of remorse--he goes to surrender himself, denouncing himself as
the murderer of the old woman and her sister.
This is, of course, only the framework of the novel; in reality it
is full of the most thrilling scenes of poverty on the one hand
and of moral degradation on the other, while a number of secondary
characters--an elderly gentleman in whose family Raskólnikoff’s
sister has been a governess, the examining magistrate, and so on--are
introduced. Besides, Dostoyévskiy, after having accumulated so many
reasons which might have brought a Raskólnikoff to commit such a
murder, found it necessary to introduce another theoretical motive.
One learns in the midst of the novel that Raskólnikoff, captivated
by the modern, current ideas of materialist philosophy, has written
and published a newspaper article to prove that men are divided into
superior and inferior beings, and that for the former--Napoleon being a
sample of them--the current rules of morality are not obligatory.
Most of the readers of this novel and most of the literary critics
speak very highly of the psychological analysis of Raskólnikoff’s
soul and of the motives which brought him to his desperate step.
However, I will permit myself to remark that the very profusion of
accidental causes accumulated by Dostoyévskiy shows how difficult he
felt it himself to prove that the propaganda of materialistic ideas
could in reality bring an honest young man to act as Raskólnikoff did.
Raskólnikoffs do not become murderers under the influence of such
theoretical considerations, while those who murder and invoke such
motives, like Lebiès at Paris, are not in the least of the Raskólnikoff
type. Behind Raskólnikoff I feel Dostoyévskiy trying to decide whether
he himself, or a man like him, might have been brought to act as
Raskólnikoff did, and what would be the psychological explanation if he
had been driven to do so. But such men do _not_ murder. Besides, men
like the examining magistrate and M. Swidrigailoff are purely romantic
inventions.
However, with all its faults, the novel produces a most powerful
effect by its real pictures of slum-life, and inspires every honest
reader with the deepest commiseration towards even the lowest sunken
inhabitants of the slums. When Dostoyévskiy comes to them, he becomes a
realist in the very best sense of the word, like Turguéneff or Tolstóy.
Marmeládoff--the old drunken official--his drunken talk and his death,
his family, and the incidents which happen after his burial, his wife
and his daughter Sónya--all these are living beings and real incidents
of the life of the poorest ones, and the pages that Dostoyévskiy gave
to them belong to the most impressive and the most moving pages in any
literature. They have the touch of genius.
_The Brothers Karamázoff_ is the most artistically worked out of
Dostoyévskiy’s novels, but it is also the novel in which all the inner
defects of the author’s mind and imagination have found their fullest
expression. The philosophy of this novel--incredulous Western Europe;
wildly passionate, drunken, unreformed Russia; and Russia reformed
by creed and monks--the three represented by the three brothers
Karamázoff--only faintly appears in the background. But there is
certainly not in any literature such a collection of the most repulsive
types of mankind--lunatics, half-lunatics, criminals in germ and in
reality, in all possible gradations--as one finds in this novel. A
Russian specialist in brain and nervous diseases finds representatives
of all sorts of such diseases in Dostoyévskiy’s novels, and especially
in _The Brothers Karamázoff_--the whole being set in a frame which
represents the strangest mixture of realism and romanticism run wild.
Whatsoever a certain portion of contemporary critics, fond of all sorts
of morbid literature, may have written about this novel, the present
writer can only say that he finds it, all through, so unnatural, so
much fabricated for the purpose of introducing--here, a bit of morals,
there, some abominable character taken from a psycho-pathological
hospital; or again, in order to analyse the feelings of some purely
imaginary criminal, that a few good pages scattered here and there
do not compensate the reader for the hard task of reading these two
volumes.
Dostoyévskiy is still very much read in Russia; and when, some twenty
years ago, his novels were first translated into French, German and
English, they were received as a revelation. He was praised as one
of the greatest writers of our own time, and as undoubtedly the one
who “had best expressed the mystic Slavonic soul”--whatever that
expression may mean! Turguéneff was eclipsed by Dostoyévskiy, and
Tolstóy was forgotten for a time. There was, of course, a great deal
of hysterical exaggeration in all this, and at the present time sound
literary critics do not venture to indulge in such praises. The
fact is, that there is certainly a great deal of power in whatever
Dostoyévskiy wrote: his powers of creation suggest those of Hoffman;
and his sympathy with the most down-trodden and down-cast products of
the civilisation of our large towns is so deep that it carries away the
most indifferent reader and exercises a most powerful impression in the
right direction upon young readers. His analysis of the most varied
specimens of incipient psychical disease is said to be thoroughly
correct. But with all that, the artistic qualities of his novels are
incomparably below those of any one of the great Russian masters:
Tolstóy, Turguéneff, or Gontcharóff. Pages of consummate realism are
interwoven with the most fantastical incidents worthy only of the most
incorrigible romantics. Scenes of a thrilling interest are interrupted
in order to introduce a score of pages of the most unnatural
theoretical discussions. Besides, the author is in such a hurry that he
seems never to have had the time himself to read over his novels before
sending them to the printer. And, worst of all, every one of the heroes
of Dostoyévskiy, especially in his novels of the later period, is a
person suffering from some psychical disease or from moral perversion.
As a result, while one may read some of the novels of Dostoyévskiy
with the greatest interest, one is never tempted to re-read them, as
one re-reads the novels of Tolstóy and Turguéneff, and even those of
many secondary novel writers; and the present writer must confess that
he had the greatest pain lately in reading through, for instance, _The
Brothers Karamázoff_, and never could pull himself through such a novel
as _The Idiot_. However, one pardons Dostoyévskiy everything, because
when he speaks of the ill-treated and forgotten children of our town
civilisation he becomes truly great through his wide, infinite love of
mankind--of man, even in his worst manifestations. Through his love
of those drunkards, beggars, petty thieves and so on, whom we usually
pass by without even bestowing upon them a pitying glance; through
his power of discovering what is human and often great in the lowest
sunken being; through the love which he inspires in us, even for the
least interesting types of mankind, even for those who never will make
an effort to get out of the low and miserable position into which life
has thrown them--through this faculty Dostoyévskiy has certainly won
a unique position among the writers of modern times, and he will be
read--not for the artistic finish of his writings but for the good
thoughts which are scattered through them, for their real reproduction
of slum life in the great cities--and for the infinite sympathy which a
being like Sónya can inspire in the reader.
NEKRÁSOFF
With Nekrásoff we come to a poet whose work has been the subject of
a lively controversy in Russian Literature. He was born in 1821--his
father being a poor army officer who married a Polish lady for love.
This lady must have been most remarkable, because in his poems
Nekrásoff continually refers to his mother in accents of love and
respect, such as perhaps have no parallel in any other poet. His
mother, however, died very early, and their large family, which
consisted of thirteen brothers and sisters, must have been in great
straits. No sooner had Nicholas Nekrásoff, the future poet, attained
his sixteenth year, than he left the provincial town where the family
were staying and went to St. Petersburg, to enter the University,
where he joined the philological department. Most Russian students
live very poorly--mostly by lessons, or entering as tutors in families
where they are paid very little, but have at least lodgings and food.
But Nekrásoff experienced simply black misery: “For full three years,”
he said at a later period, “I felt continually hungry every day.” “It
often happened that I entered one of the great restaurants where people
may go to read newspapers, even without ordering anything to eat, and
while I read my paper I would draw the bread plate towards myself and
eat the bread, and that was my only food.” At last he fell ill, and
during his convalescence the old soldier from whom he rented a tiny
room, and to whom he had already run into debt, one cold November
night refused to admit his lodger to his room. Nekrásoff would have
had to spend the night out of doors, but a passing beggar took pity
on him and took him to some slums on the outskirts of the town, to
a “doss-house,” where the young poet found also the possibility of
earning fifteen farthings for some petition that he wrote for one of
the inmates. Such was the youth of Nekrásoff; but during it he had the
opportunity of making acquaintance with the poorest and lowest classes
of St. Petersburg, and the love towards them which he acquired during
these peregrinations he retained all his life. Later on, by means of
relentless work, and by editing all sorts of almanacks, he improved
his material conditions. He became a regular contributor to the chief
review of the time, for which Turguéneff, Dostoyévskiy, Hérzen, and all
our best writers wrote, and in 1846 he even became the owner of this
review, _The Contemporary_, which for the next fifteen years played so
important a part in Russian literature. In _The Contemporary_ he came,
in the sixties, into close contact and friendship with two remarkable
men, Tchernyshévskiy and Dobrolúboff, and about this time he wrote his
best verses. In 1875 he fell seriously ill, and the next two years his
life was simply agony. He died in December, 1877, and thousands of
people, especially the University students, followed his body to the
grave.
Here, over his grave, began the passionate discussion which has never
ended, about the merits of Nekrásoff as a poet. While speaking over
his grave, Dostoyévskiy put Nekrásoff by the side of Púshkin and
Lérmontoff (“higher still than Púshkin and Lérmontoff,” exclaimed some
young enthusiast in the crowd), and the question, “Is Nekrásoff a great
poet, like Púshkin and Lérmontoff?” has been discussed ever since.
Nekrásoff’s poetry played such an important part in my own development,
during my youth, that I did not dare trust my own high appreciation
of it; and therefore to verify and support my impressions and
appreciations I have compared them with those of the Russian critics,
Arsénieff, Skabitchévskiy, and Venguéroff (the author of a great
biographical dictionary of Russian authors).
When we enter the period of adolescence, from sixteen years to twenty,
we need to find words to express the aspirations and the higher
ideas which begin to wake up in our minds. It is not enough to have
these aspirations: we want _words_ to express them. Some will find
these words in those of the prayers which they hear in the church;
others--and I belonged to their number--will not be satisfied with this
expression of their feelings: it will strike them as too vague, and
they will look for something else to express in more concrete terms
their growing sympathies with mankind and the philosophical questions
about the life of the universe which pre-occupy them. They will look
for poetry. For me, Goethe on the one side, by his philosophical
poetry, and Nekrásoff on the other, by the concrete images in which he
expressed his love of the peasant masses, supplied the words which the
heart wanted for the expression of its poetical feelings. But this is
only a personal remark. The question is, whether Nekrásoff can really
be put by the side of Púshkin and Lérmontoff as a great poet.
Some people repudiate such a comparison. He was not a poet, they say,
because he always wrote with a purpose. However, this reasoning, which
is often defended by the pure æsthetics, is evidently incorrect.
Shelley also had a purpose, which did not prevent him from being a
great poet; Browning has a purpose in a number of his poems, and this
did not prevent him from being a great poet. Every great poet has a
purpose in most of his poems, and the question is only whether he
has found a beautiful form for expressing this purpose, or not. The
poet who shall succeed in combining a really beautiful form, _i. e._,
impressive images and sonorous verses, with a grand purpose, will be
the greatest poet.
Now, one certainly feels, on reading Nekrásoff, that he had difficulty
in writing his verses. There is nothing in his poetry similar to
the easiness with which Púshkin used the forms of versification for
expressing his thoughts, nor is there any approach to the musical
harmony of Lérmontoff’s verse or A. K. Tolstóy’s. Even in his best
poems there are lines which are not agreeable to the ear on account of
their wooden and clumsy form; but you feel that these unhappy verses
could be improved by the change of a few words, without the beauty of
the images in which the feelings are expressed being altered by that.
One certainly feels that Nekrásoff was not master enough of his words
and his rhymes; but there is not one single poetical image which does
not suit the whole idea of the poem, or which strikes the reader as a
dissonance, or is not beautiful; while in some of his verses Nekrásoff
has certainly succeeded in combining a very high degree of poetical
inspiration with great beauty of form. It must not be forgotten that
the _Yambs_ of Barbier, and the _Châtiments_ of Victor Hugo also leave,
here and there, much to be desired as regards form.
Nekrásoff was a most unequal writer, but one of the above-named critics
has pointed out that even amidst his most unpoetical “poem”--the one
in which he describes in very poor verses the printing office of a
newspaper--the moment that he touches upon the sufferings of the
workingman there come in twelve lines which for the beauty of poetical
images and musicalness, connected with their inner force, have few
equals in the whole of Russian literature.
When we estimate a poet, there is something general in his poetry
which we either love or pass by indifferently, and to reduce literary
criticism exclusively to the analysis of the beauty of the poet’s
verses or to the correspondence between “idea and form” is surely to
immensely reduce its value. Everyone will recognise that Tennyson
possessed a wonderful beauty of form, and yet he cannot be considered
as superior to Shelley, for the simple reason that the general tenor
of the latter’s ideas was so much superior to the general tenor
of Tennyson’s. It is on the general contents of his poetry that
Nekrásoff’s superiority rests.
We have had in Russia several poets who also wrote upon social subjects
or the duties of a citizen--I need only mention Pleschéeff and
Mináyeff--and they attained sometimes, from the versifier’s point of
view, a higher beauty of form than Nekrásoff. But in whatever Nekrásoff
wrote there is an inner force which you do not find in either of
these poets, and this force suggests to him images which are rightly
considered as pearls of Russian poetry.
Nekrásoff called his Muse, “A Muse of Vengeance and of Sadness,” and
this Muse, indeed, never entered into compromise with injustice.
Nekrásoff is a pessimist, but his pessimism, as Venguéroff remarks,
has an original character. Although his poetry contains so many
depressing pictures representing the misery of the Russian masses,
nevertheless the fundamental impression which it leaves upon the reader
is an elevating feeling. The poet does not bow his head before the sad
reality: he enters into a struggle with it, and he is sure of victory.
The reading of Nekrásoff wakes up that discontent which bears in itself
the seeds of recovery.
The mass of the Russian people, the peasants and their sufferings, are
the main themes of our poet’s verses. His love to the people passes
as a red thread through all his works; he remained true to it all his
life. In his younger years that love saved him from squandering his
talent in the sort of life which so many of his contemporaries have
led; later on it inspired him in his struggle against serfdom; and
when serfdom was abolished he did not consider his work terminated,
as so many of his friends did: he became the poet of the dark masses
oppressed by the economical and political yoke; and towards the end of
his life he did not say: “Well, I have done what I could,” but till his
last breath his verses were a complaint about not having been enough of
a fighter. He wrote: “Struggle stood in the way of my becoming a poet,
and songs prevented me from becoming a fighter,” and again: “Only he
who is serviceable to the aims of his time, and gives all his life to
the struggle for his brother men--only he will live longer than his
life.”
Sometimes he sounds a note of despair; however, such a note is not
frequent in Nekrásoff. His Russian peasant is not a man who only sheds
tears. He is serene, sometimes humourous, and sometimes an extremely
gay worker. Very seldom does Nekrásoff idealise the peasant: for the
most part he takes him just as he is, from life itself; and the poet’s
faith in the forces of that Russian peasant is deep and vigorous. “A
little more freedom to breathe--he says--and Russia will shew that she
has men, and that she has a future.” This is an idea which frequently
recurs in his poetry.
The best poem of Nekrásoff is _Red-nosed Frost_. It is the apotheosis
of the Russian peasant woman. The poem has nothing sentimental in it.
It is written, on the contrary, in a sort of elevated epic style, and
the second part, where Frost personified passes on his way through the
wood, and where the peasant woman is slowly freezing to death, while
bright pictures of past happiness pass through her brain--all this is
admirable, even from the point of view of the most æsthetic critics,
because it is written in good verses and in a succession of beautiful
images and pictures.
_The Peasant Children_ is a charming village idyll. The “Muse of
Vengeance and Sadness”--one of our critics remarks--becomes wonderfully
mild and gentle as soon as she begins to speak of women and children.
In fact, none of the Russian poets has ever done so much for the
apotheosis of women, and especially of the mother-woman, as this
supposedly severe poet of Vengeance and Sadness. As soon as Nekrásoff
begins to speak of a mother he grows powerful; and the strophes he
devoted to his own mother--a woman lost in a squire’s house, amidst
men thinking only of hunting, drinking, and exercising their powers as
slave owners in their full brutality--these strophes are real pearls in
the poetry of all nations.
His poem devoted to the exiles in Siberia and to the Russian
women--that is, to the wives of the Decembrists--in exile, is excellent
and contains really beautiful passages, but it is inferior to either
his poems dealing with the peasants or to his pretty poem, _Sasha_, in
which he describes, contemporaneously with Turguéneff, the very same
types as Rúdin and Natásha.
It is quite true that Nekrásoff’s verses often bear traces of a
painful struggle with rhyme, and that there are lines in his poems
which are decidedly inferior; but he is certainly one of our most
popular poets amidst the masses of the people. Part of his poetry
has already become the inheritance of all the Russian nation. He is
immensely read--not only by the educated classes, but by the poorest
peasants as well. In fact, as has been remarked by one of our critics,
to understand Púshkin a certain more or less artificial literary
development is required; while to understand Nekrásoff it is sufficient
for the peasant simply to know reading; and it is difficult to imagine,
without having seen it, the delight with which Russian children in the
poorest village schools are now reading Nekrásoff and learning full
pages from his verses by heart.
OTHER PROSE WRITERS OF THE SAME EPOCH
Having analysed the work of those writers who may be considered as
the true founders of modern Russian literature, I ought now to review
a number of prose-writers and poets of less renown, belonging to the
same epoch. However, following the plan of this book, only a few words
will be said, and only some of the most remarkable among them will be
mentioned.
A writer of great power, quite unknown in Western Europe, who
occupies a quite unique position in Russian literature, is SERGHÉI
TIMOFÉEVITCH AKSÁKOVV (1791-1859), the father of the two Slavophile
writers, Konstantín and Iván Aksákoff. He is in reality a contemporary
of Púshkin and Lérmontoff, but during the first part of his career
he displayed no originality whatever, and lingered in the fields of
pseudo-classicism. It was only after Gógol had written--that is,
after 1846--that he struck a quite new vein, and attained the full
development of his by no means ordinary talent. In the years 1847-1855
he published his _Memoirs of Angling_, _Memoirs of a Hunter with
his Fowling Piece in the Government of Orenbúrg_, and _Stories and
Remembrances of a Sportsman_; and these three works would have been
sufficient to conquer for him the reputation of a first-rate writer.
The Orenbúrg region, in the Southern Uráls, was very thinly inhabited
at that time, and its nature and physiognomy are so well described in
these books that Aksákoff’s work reminds one of the _Natural History of
Selbourne_. It has the same accuracy; but Aksákoff is moreover a poet
and a first-rate poetical landscape painter. Besides, he so admirably
knew the life of the animals, and he so well _understood_ them, that
in this respect his rivals could only be Krylóff on the one hand, and
Brehm the elder and Audubon among the naturalists.
The influence of Gógol induced S. T. Aksákoff to entirely abandon
the domain of pseudo-classical fiction. In 1846 he began to describe
real life, and the result was a large work, _A Family Chronicle
and Remembrances_ (1856), soon followed by _The Early Years of
Bagróff-the-Grandchild_ (1858), which put him in the first ranks among
the writers of his century. Slavophile enthusiasts described him even
as a Shakespeare, nay, as a Homer; but all exaggeration apart, S. T.
Aksákoff has really succeeded not only in reproducing a whole epoch in
his _Memoirs_, but also in creating real types of men of that time,
which have served as models for all our subsequent writers. If the
leading idea of these _Memoirs_ had not been so much in favour of the
“good old times” of serfdom, they would have been even much more widely
read than they are now. The appearance of _A Family Chronicle_--in
1856--was an event, and the marking of an epoch in Russian literature.
* * * * *
V. DAL (1801-1872) cannot be omitted even from this short sketch. He
was born in Southeastern Russia, of a Danish father and a Franco-German
mother, and received his education at the Dorpat university. He was
a naturalist and a doctor by profession, but his favourite study
was ethnography, and he became a remarkable ethnographer, as well
as one of the best connoisseurs of the Russian spoken language and
its provincial dialects. His sketches from the life of the people,
signed KOZAK LUGANSKIY (about a hundred of them are embodied in a
volume, _Pictures from Russian Life_, 1861), were very widely read in
the forties and the fifties, and were highly praised by Turguéneff
and Byelínskiy. Although they are mere sketches and leaflets from a
diary, without real poetical creation, they are delightful reading.
As to the ethnographical work of Dal it was colossal. During his
continual peregrinations over Russia, in his capacity of a military
doctor attached to his regiment, he made most wonderful collections of
words, expressions, riddles, proverbs, and so on, and embodied them in
two large works. His main work is _An Explanatory Dictionary of the
Russian Language_, in four quarto volumes (first edition in 1861-68,
second in 1880-1882). This is really a monumental work and contains
the first and very successful attempt at a lexicology of the Russian
language, which, notwithstanding some occasional mistakes, is of the
greatest value for the understanding and the etymology of the Russian
tongue as it is spoken in different provinces. It contains at the same
time a precious and extremely rich collection of linguistic material
for future research, part of which would have been lost by now if Dal
had not collected it, fifty years ago, before the advent of railways.
Another great work of Dal, only second to the one just mentioned, is a
collection of proverbs, entitled _The Proverbs of the Russian People_
(second edition in 1879).
A writer who occupies a prominent place in the evolution of the Russian
novel, but has not yet been sufficiently appreciated, is IVAN PANÁEFF
(1812-1862), who was a great friend of all the literary circle of
the _Sovreménnik_ (_Contemporary_). Of this review he was co-editor
with Nekrásoff, and he wrote for it a mass of literary notes and
_feuilletons_ upon all sorts of subjects, extremely interesting for
characterising those times. In his novels Panáeff, like Turguéneff,
took his types chiefly from the educated classes, both at St.
Petersburg and in the provinces. His collection of “Swaggerers”
(_hlyschí_), both from the highest classes in the capitals, and from
provincials, is not inferior to Thackeray’s collection of “snobs.”
In fact, the “swaggerer,” as Panáeff understood him, is even a much
broader and much more complicated type of man than the snob, and cannot
easily be described in a few words. The greatest service rendered by
Panáeff was, however, the creation in his novels of a series of such
exquisite types of Russian women that they were truly described by
some critics as “the spiritual mothers of the heroines of Turguéneff.”
A. HERZEN (1812-1870) also belongs to the same epoch, but he will be
spoke of in a subsequent chapter.
A very sympathetic woman writer, who belongs to the same group
and deserves in reality much more than a brief notice, is N. D.
HVOSCHINSKAYA (1825-1869; Zaionchkóvskaya after her marriage). She
wrote under the masculine _nom-de-plume_ of V. KRESTOVSKIY, and in
order not to confound her with a very prolific writer of novels in the
style of the French detective novel--the author of _St. Petersburg
Slums_, whose name was VSEVOLOD KRESTOVSKIY--she is usually known in
Russia as “V. Krestóvskiy-pseudonyme.”
N. D. Hvóschinskaya began to write very early, in 1847, and her novels
were endowed with such an inner charm that they were always admired by
the general public and were widely read. It must, however, be said that
during the first part of her literary career the full value of her work
was not appreciated, and that down to the end of the seventies literary
criticism remained hostile to her. It was only towards the end of her
career (in 1878-1880) that our best literary critics--Mihailóvskiy,
Arsénieff and the novelist Boborýkin--recognised the full value of this
writer, who certainly deserves being placed by the side of George Eliot
and the author of _Jane Eyre_.
N. D. Hvóschinskaya certainly was not one of those who conquer their
reputation at once; but the cause of the rather hostile attitude of
Russian critics towards her was that, having been born in a poor
nobleman’s family of Ryazán, and having spent all her life in the
province, her novels of the first period, in which she dealt with
provincial life and provincial types only, suffered from a certain
narrowness of view. This last defect was especially evident in those
types of men for whom the young author tried to win sympathy, but who,
after all, had no claims to it, and simply proved that the author felt
the need of idealising somebody, at least, in her sad surroundings.
Apart from this defect, N. D. Hvóschinskaya knew provincial life very
well and pictured it admirably. She represented it exactly in the same
pessimistic light in which Turguéneff saw it in those same years--the
last years of the reign of Nicholas I. She excelled especially in
representing the sad and hopeless existence of the girl in most of the
families of those times.
In her own family she meets the bigoted tyranny of her mother and the
“let-me-alone” egotism of her father, and among her admirers she finds
only a collection of good-for-nothings who cover their shallowness with
empty, sonorous phrases. Every novel written by our author during this
period contains the drama of a girl whose best self is crushed back in
such surroundings, or it relates the still more heart-rending drama of
an old maid compelled to live under the tyranny, the petty persecutions
and the pin-prickings of her relations.
When Russia entered into a better period, in the early sixties, the
novels of N. D. Hvóschinskaya also took a different, much more hopeful
character, and among them _The Great Bear_ (1870-71) is the most
prominent. At the time of its appearance it produced quite a sensation
amidst our youth, and it had upon them a deeper influence, in the very
best sense of the word, than any other novel. The heroine, Kátya,
meets, in Verhóvskiy, a man of the weakling type which we know from
Turguéneff’s _Correspondence_, but dressed this time in the garb of a
social reformer, prevented only by “circumstances” and “misfortunes”
from accomplishing greater things. Verhóvskiy, whom Kátya loves and
who falls in love with her--so far, at least, as such men can fall in
love--is admirably pictured. It is one of the best representatives in
the already rich gallery of such types in Russian literature. It must
be owned that there are in _The Great Bear_ one or two characters which
are not quite real, or, at least, are not correctly appreciated by the
author (for instance, the old Bagryánskiy); but we find also a fine
collection of admirably painted characters; while Kátya stands higher,
is more alive, and is more fully pictured, than Turguéneff’s Natásha or
even his Helen. She has had enough of all the talk about heroic deeds
which “circumstances” prevent the would-be heroes from accomplishing,
and she takes to a much smaller task: she becomes a loving school
mistress in a village school, and undertakes to bring into the
village-darkness her higher ideals and her hopes of a better future.
The appearance of this novel, just at the time when that great movement
of the youth “towards the people” was beginning in Russia, made it
favourite reading by the side of MORDÓVTSEFF’S _Signs of the Times_,
and Spielhagen’s _Amboss und Hammer_ and _In Reih und Glied_. The warm
tone of the novel and the refined, deeply humane, poetical touches of
which it is full--all these added immensely to the inner merits of _The
Great Bear_. In Russia it has sown many a good idea, and there is no
doubt that if it were known in Western Europe, it would be, here as
well, a favourite with the thinking and well inspired young women and
men.
A third period may be distinguished in the art of N. Hvóschinskaya,
after the end of the seventies. The novels of this period--among
which the series entitled _The Album: Groups and Portraits_ is the
most striking--have a new character. When the great liberal movement
which Russia had lived through in the early sixties came to an end,
and reaction had got the upper hand, after 1864, hundreds and hundreds
of those who had been prominent in this movement as representatives
of advanced thought and reform abandoned the faith and the ideals of
their best years. Under a thousand various pretexts they now tried
to persuade themselves--and, of course, those women who had trusted
them--that new times had come, and new requirements had grown up; that
they had only become “practical” when they deserted the old banner and
ranged themselves under a new one--that of personal enrichment; that to
do this was on their part a necessary self-sacrifice, a manifestation
of “virile citizenship,” which requires from every man that he should
not stop even before the sacrifice of his ideals in the interest of
his “cause.” “V. Krestovskiy,” as a woman who had loved the ideals,
understood better than any man the real sense of these sophisms. She
must have bitterly suffered from them in her personal life; and I doubt
whether in any literature there is a collection of such “groups and
portraits” of deserters as we see in _The Album_, and especially in
_At the Photographer’s_. In reading these stories we are conscious of
a loving heart which bleeds as it describes these deserters, and this
makes of “The groups and portraits” of N. D. Hvóschinskaya one of the
finest pieces of “subjective realism” we possess in our literature.
Two sisters of N. D. Hvóschinskaya, who wrote under the _noms-de-plume_
of ZIMAROFF and VESENIEFF, were also novelists. The former wrote a
biography of her sister Nathalie.
POETS OF THE SAME EPOCH
Several poets of the epoch described in the last two chapters ought to
be analysed at some length in this place, if this book pretended to be
a Course in Russian literature. I shall have, however, to limit myself
to very short notes, although most of the poets could not have failed
to be favourites with other nations if they had written in a language
better known abroad than Russian.
Such was certainly KOLTSOFF (1808-1842), a poet from the people, who
has sung in his songs, so deeply appealing to every poetical mind, the
borderless steppes of Southern Russia, the poor life of the tiller of
the soil, the sad existence of the Russian peasant woman, that love
which is for the loving soul only a source of acute suffering, that
fate which is not a mother but a step-mother, and that happiness which
has been so short and has left behind only tears and sadness.
The style, the contents, the form--all was original in this poet of
the Steppes. Even the form of his verse is not the form established in
Russian prosody: it is something as musical as the Russian folk-song
and in places is equally irregular. However, every line of the poetry
of the Koltsóff of his second period--when he had freed himself from
imitation and had become a true poet of the people--every expression
and every thought appeal to the heart and fill it with poetical love
for nature and men. Like all the best Russian poets he died very young,
just at the age when he was reaching the full maturity of his talent
and deeper questions were beginning to inspire his poetry.
NIKITIN (1824-1861) was another poet of a similar type. He was born
in a poor artisan’s family, also in South Russia. His life in this
family, of which the head was continually under the influence of drink,
and which the young man had to maintain, was terrible. He also died
young, but he left some very fine and most touching pieces of poetry,
in which, with a simplicity that we shall find only with the later
folk-novelists, he described scenes from popular life, coloured with
the deep sadness impressed upon him by his own unhappy life.
A. PLESCHÉEFF (1825-1893) has been for the last thirty years of his
life one of the favourite Russian poets. Like so many other gifted
men of his generation, he was arrested in 1849 in connection with the
affair of the “Petrashévskiy circles,” for which Dostoyévskiy was
sent to hard labour. He was found even less “guilty” than the great
novelist, and was marched as a soldier to the Orenbúrg region, where he
probably would have died a soldier, if Nicholas I. had not himself died
in 1856. He was pardoned by Alexander II., and permitted to settle at
Moscow.
Unlike so many of his contemporaries, Pleschéeff never let himself be
crushed by persecution, or by the dark years which Russia has lately
lived through. On the contrary, he always retained that same note of
vigour, freshness, and faith in his humanitarian though perhaps too
abstract ideals, which characterised his first poetical productions in
the forties. Only towards his very latest years, under the influence
of ill-health, did a pessimistic note begin to creep into his verses.
Besides writing original poetry he translated very much, and admirably
well, from the German, English, French and Italian poets.
* * * * *
Besides these three poets, who sought their inspiration in the
realities of life or in higher humanitarian ideals, we have a group
of poets who are usually described as admirers of “pure beauty” and
“Art for Art’s sake.” TH. TYÚTCHEFF (1803-1873) may be taken as the
best, or, at any rate, the eldest representative of this group.
Turguéneff spoke of him very highly--in 1854--praising his fine and
true feeling for nature and his fine taste. The influence of the epoch
of Púshkin upon him was evident, and he certainly was endowed with the
impressionability and sincerity which are necessary in a good poet.
With all that, his verses are not much read, and seem rather dull to
our generation.
APOLLON MAYKOFF (1821-1897) is often described as a poet of pure art
for art’s sake; at any rate, this is what he preached in theory; but
in reality his poetry belonged to four distinct domains. In his youth
he was a pure admirer of antique Greece and Rome, and his chief work,
_Two Worlds_, was devoted to the conflict between antique paganism
and natureism and Christianity--the best types in his poem being
representatives of the former. Later on he wrote several very good
pieces of poetry devoted to the history of the Church in mediæval
times. Still later, in the sixties, he was carried away by the liberal
movement in Russia and in Western Europe, and his poems were imbued
with its spirit of freedom. He wrote during those years his best poems,
and made numbers of excellent translations from Heine. And finally,
after the liberal period had come to an end in Russia, he also changed
his opinions and began to write in the opposite direction, losing more
and more both the sympathy of his readers and his talent. Apart from
some of the productions of this last period of decay, the verses of
Máykoff are as a rule very musical, really poetical, and not devoid
of force. In his earlier productions and in some pieces of his third
period, he attained real beauty.
N. SCHERBINA (1821-1869), also an admirer of classical Greece, may be
mentioned for his really good anthological poetry from the life of
Greek antiquity, in which he even excelled Máykoff.
POLONSKIY (1820-1898), a contemporary and a great friend of Turguéneff,
displayed all the elements of a great artist. His verses are full of
true melody, his poetical images are rich, and yet natural and simple,
and the subjects he took were not devoid of originality. This is why
his verses were always read with interest. But he had none of that
force, or of that depth of conception, or of that intensity of passion
which might have made of him a great poet. His best piece, _A Musical
Cricket_, is written in a jocose mood, and his most popular verses are
those which he wrote in the style of folk-poetry. One may say that they
have become the property of the people. Altogether Polonskiy appealed
chiefly to the quiet, moderate “intellectual” who does not much care
about going to the bottom of the great problems of life. If he touched
upon some of these, it was owing to a passing, rather than to a life
interest in them.
One more poet of this group, perhaps the most characteristic of it, was
A. SHENSHIN (1820-1892), much better known under his _nom-de-plume_ of
A. FET. He remained all his life a poet of “pure art for art’s sake.”
He wrote a good deal about economical and social matters, always in
the reactionary sense, but--in prose. As to verses, he never resorted
to them for anything but the worship of beauty for beauty’s sake. In
this direction he succeeded very well. His short verses are especially
pretty and sometimes almost beautiful. Nature, in its quiet, lovely
aspects, which lead to a gentle, aimless sadness, he depicted sometimes
to perfection, as also those moods of the mind which can be best
described as indefinite sensations, slightly erotic. However, taken as
a whole, his poetry appears monotonous.
To the same group one might add A. K. TOLSTÓY, whose verses attain
sometimes a rare perfection and sound like the best music. The feelings
expressed in them may not be very deep, but the form and the music
of the verses are delightful. They have, moreover, the stamp of
originality, because nobody could write poems in the style of Russian
folk-poetry better than Alexéi Tolstóy. Theoretically, he preached art
for art’s sake. But he never remained true to this canon and, taking
either the life of old epical Russia, or the period of the struggle
between the Moscow Tsars and the feudal boyars, he developed his
admiration of the olden times in very beautiful verses. He also wrote a
novel, _Prince Serébryanyi_, from the times of John the Terrible, which
was very widely read; but his main work was a trilogy of dramas from
the same interesting period of Russian history (see Ch. VI).
* * * * *
Almost all the poets just mentioned have translated a great deal,
and they have enriched Russian literature with such a number of
translations from all languages--so admirably done as a rule--that
no other literature of the world, not even the German, can claim
to possess an equally great treasury. Some translations, beginning
with Zhukóvskiy’s rendering of the _Prisoner of Chillon_, or the
translations of _Hiawatha_, are simply classical. All Schiller, most of
Goethe, nearly all Byron, a great deal of Shelley, all that is worth
knowing in Tennyson, Wordsworth, Crabbe, all that could be translated
from Browning, Barbier, Victor Hugo, and so on, are as familiar in
Russia as in the mother countries of these poets, and occasionally
even more so. As to such favourites as Heine, I really don’t know
whether his best poems lose anything in those splendid translations
which we owe to our best poets; while the songs of Béranger, in the
free translation of _Kúrotchkin_, are not in the least inferior to the
originals.
We have moreover some excellent poets who are chiefly known for their
translations. Such are: N. GERBEL (1827-1883), who made his reputation
by an admirable rendering of the _Lay of Igor’s Raid_ (see Ch. I.), and
later on, by his versions of a great number of West European poets. His
edition of _Schiller, translated by Russian Poets_ (1857), followed by
similar editions of Shakespeare, Byron, and Goethe, was epoch making.
MIKHAIL MIKHÁILOFF (1826-1865), one of the most brilliant writers of
the _Contemporary_, condemned in 1861 to hard labour in Siberia, where
he died four years later, was especially renowned for his translations
from Heine, as also for those from Longfellow, Hood, Tennyson, Lenan,
and others.
P. WEINBERG (born 1830) made his reputation by his excellent
translations from Shakespeare, Byron (_Sardanapal_), Shelley (_Cenci_),
Sheridan, Coppe, Gutzkow, Heine, etc., and for his editions of the work
of Goethe and Heine in Russian translations. He still continues to
enrich Russian literature with excellent versions of the masterpieces
of foreign literatures.
L. MEY (1822-1862), the author of a number of poems from popular life,
written in a very picturesque language, and of several dramas, of which
those from old Russian life are especially valuable and were taken by
RÍMSKY KORSÁKOFF as the subjects of his operas, has also made a great
number of translations. He translated not only from the modern West
European poets--English, French, German, Italian, and Polish--but also
from Greek, Latin, and Old Hebrew, all of which languages he knew to
perfection. Besides excellent translations of Anacreon and the idylls
of Theocritus, he wrote also beautiful poetical versions of the _Song
of Songs_ and of various other portions of the Bible.
D. MINÁYEFF (1835-1889), the author of a great number of satirical
verses, also belongs to this group of translators. His renderings from
Byron, Burns, Cornwall, and Moore, Goethe and Heine, Leopardi, Dante,
and several others, were, as a rule, extremely fine.
And finally I must mention one, at least, of the prose-translators,
VVEDÉNSKIY (1813-1855), for his very fine translations of the chief
novels of Dickens. His renderings are real works of art, the result of
a perfect knowledge of English life, and of such a deep assimilation
of the genius of Dickens that the translator almost identified himself
with the original author.
PART VI
The Drama
CHAPTER VI
THE DRAMA
Its Origin--The Tsars Alexei and Peter
I.--Sumarókoff--Pseudo-classical Tragedies: Knyazhnín, Ozeroff--First
Comedies--The First Years of the Nineteenth Century--Griboyedoff--The
Moscow Stage in the Fifties--Ostróvskiy; his first Dramas--“The
Thunderstorm”--Ostróvskiy’s later Dramas--Historical Dramas: A. K.
Tolstóy--Other Dramatic Writers.
The Drama in Russia, as everywhere else, had a double origin. It
developed out of the religious “mysteries” on the one hand and the
popular comedy on the other, witty interludes being introduced into the
grave, moral representations, the subjects of which were borrowed from
the Old or the New Testament. Several such mysteries were adapted in
the seventeenth century by the teachers of the Graeco-Latin Theological
Academy at Kíeff for representation in Little Russian by the students
of the Academy, and later on these adaptations found their way to
Moscow.
Towards the end of the seventeenth century--on the eve, so to speak,
of the reforms of Peter I.--a strong desire to introduce Western
habits of life was felt in certain small circles at Moscow, and the
father of Peter, the Tsar Alexis, was not hostile to it. He took a
liking to theatrical representations, and induced some foreigners
residing at Moscow to write pieces for representation at the palace.
A certain Gregory undertook this task and, taking German versions of
plays, which used to be called at that time “English Plays,” he adapted
them to Russian tastes. _The Comedy of Queen Esther and the Haughty
Haman_, _Tobias_, _Judith_, etc., were represented before the Tsar.
A high functionary of the Church, SIMEON PÓLOTSKIY, did not disdain
to write such mysteries, and several of them have come down to us;
while a daughter of Alexis, the princess Sophie (a pupil of Simeon),
breaking with the strict habits of isolation which were then obligatory
for women, had theatrical representations given at the palace in her
presence.
This was too much for the old Moscow Conservatives, and after the
death of Alexis the theatre was closed; and so it remained a quarter
of a century, _i. e._, until 1702, when Peter I., who was very fond
of the drama, opened a theatre in the old capital. He had a company
of actors brought for the purpose from Dantsig, and a special house
was built for them within the holy precincts of the Kremlin. More
than that, another sister of Peter I., Nathalie, who was as fond of
dramatic performances as the great reformer himself, a few years later
took all the properties of this theatre to her own palace, and had the
representations given there--first in German, and later on in Russian.
It is also very probable that she herself wrote a few dramas--perhaps
in collaboration with one of the pupils of a certain Doctor Bidlo, who
had opened another theatre at the Moscow Hospital, the actors being the
students. Later on the theatre of Princess Nathalie was transferred to
the new capital founded by her brother on the Nevá.
The _répertoire_ of this theatre was pretty varied, and included,
besides German dramas, like _Scipio the African_, _Don Juan and Don
Pedro_, and the like, free translations from Molière, as also German
farces of a very rough character. There were, besides a few original
Russian dramas (partly contributed, apparently, by Nathalie), which
were compositions drawn from the lives of the Saints, and from
some Polish novels, widely read at that time in Russian manuscript
translations.
It was out of these elements and out of West European models that
the Russian drama evolved, when the theatre became, in the middle
of the eighteenth century, a permanent institution. It is most
interesting to note, that it was not in either of the capitals, but
in a provincial town, Yarosláv, under the patronage of the local
tradesmen, that the first permanent Russian theatre was founded, in
1750, and also that it was by the private enterprise of a few actors:
the two brothers Vólkoff, Dmitrévsky, and several others. The Empress
Elisabeth--probably following the advice of Sumarókoff, who himself
began about that time to write dramas--ordered these actors to move to
St. Petersburg, where they became “artists of the Imperial Theatre,” in
the service of the Crown. Thus, the Russian theatre became, in 1756, an
institution of the Government.
SUMARÓKOFF (1718-1777), who wrote, besides verses and fables (the
latter of real value), a considerable number of tragedies and
comedies, played an important part in the development of the Russian
drama. In his tragedies he imitated Racine and Voltaire. He followed
strictly their rules of “unity,” and cared even less than they did for
historical truth; but as he had not the great talent of his French
masters, he made of his heroes mere personifications of certain virtues
or vices, figures quite devoid of life, and indulging in endless
pompous monologues. Several of his tragedies (_Hórev_, written in 1747,
_Sináv and Trúvor_, _Yaropólk and Dílitza_, _Dmítri the Impostor_) were
taken from Russian history; but after all their heroes were as little
Slavonian as Racine’s heroes were Greek and Roman. This, however, must
be said in favour of Sumarókoff, that he never failed to express in his
tragedies the more advanced humanitarian ideas of the times--sometimes
with real feeling, which pierced through even the conventional forms
of speech of his heroes. As to his comedies, although they had not the
same success as his serious dramas, they were much nearer to life.
They contained touches of the real life of Russia, especially of the
life of the Moscow nobility, and their satirical character undoubtedly
influenced Sumarókoff’s followers.
KNYAZHNÍN (1742-1791) followed on the same lines. Like Sumarókoff he
translated tragedies from the French, and also wrote imitations of
French tragedies, taking his subjects partly from Russian history
(_Rossláv_, 1784; _Vadím of Nóvgorod_, which was printed after his
death and was immediately destroyed by the Government on account of its
tendencies towards freedom).
OZEROFF (1769-1816) continued the work of Knyazhnín, but introduced
the sentimental and the romantic elements into his pseudo-classical
tragedies (_Oedipus in Athens_, _Death of Olèg_). With all their
defects these tragedies enjoyed a lasting success, and powerfully
contributed to the development of both the stage and a public of
serious playgoers.
At the same time comedies also began to be written by the same authors
(_The Brawler_, _Strange People_, by Knyazhnín) and their followers,
and although they were for the most part imitations of the French,
nevertheless subjects taken from Russian everyday life began to be
introduced. Sumarókoff had already done something in this direction,
and he had been seconded by CATHERINE II., who contributed a couple of
satirical comedies, taken from her surroundings, such as _The Fête of
Mrs. Grumbler_, and a comic opera from Russian popular life. She was
perhaps the first to introduce Russian peasants on the stage; and it is
worthy of note that the taste for a popular vein on the stage rapidly
developed--the comedies, _The Miller_ by ABLESÍMOFF, _Zbítenshik_ (_The
Hawker_), by Knyazhnín, and so on, all taken from the life of the
people, being for some time great favourites with the playgoers.
VON-WIZIN has already been mentioned in a previous chapter, and it is
sufficient here to recall the fact, that by his two comedies, _The
Brigadier_ (1768) and _Nédorosl_ (1782), which continued to be played
up to the middle of the nineteenth century he became the father of
the realistic satirical comedy in Russia. _Denunciation_ (_Yábeda_),
by KAPNÍST, and a few comedies contributed by the great fable-writer
KRYLÓFF belong to the same category.
THE FIRST YEARS OF THE NINETEENTH CENTURY
During the first thirty years of the nineteenth century the Russian
theatre developed remarkably. The stage produced, at St. Petersburg and
at Moscow, a number of gifted and original actors and actresses, both
in tragedy and in comedy. The number of writers for the stage became so
considerable that all the forms of dramatic art were able to develop
at the same time. During the Napoleonic wars patriotic tragedies,
full of allusions to current events, such as _Dmítri Donskói_ (1807),
by Ozeroff, invaded the stage. However, the pseudo-classical tragedy
continued to hold its own. Better translations and imitations of
Racine were produced (KATÉNIN, KOKÓSHKIN) and enjoyed a certain
success, especially at St. Petersburg, owing to good tragic actors of
the declamatory school. At the same time translations of KOTZEBUE had
an enormous success, as also the Russian productions of his sentimental
imitators.
Romanticism and pseudo-classicalism were, of course, at war with each
other for the possession of the stage, as they were in the domains
of poetry and the novel; but, owing to the spirit of the time,
and patronised as it was by KARAMZÍN and ZHUKÓVSKIY, romanticism
triumphed. It was aided especially by the energetic efforts of Prince
SHAHOVSKÓY, who wrote, with a good knowledge of the stage, more than
a hundred varied pieces--tragedies, comedies, operas, vaudevilles
and ballets--taking the subjects for his dramas from Walter Scott,
Ossian, Shakespeare, and Púshkin. At the same comedy, and especially
satirical comedy, as also the vaudeville (which approached comedy by a
rather more careful treatment of characters than is usual in that sort
of literature on the French stage), were represented by a very great
number of more or less original productions. Besides the excellent
translations of HMELNÍTZKIY from Molière, the public enjoyed also the
pieces of ZAGÓSKIN, full of good-hearted merriment, the sometimes
brilliant and always animated comedies and vaudevilles of Shahovskóy,
the vaudevilles of A. I. PÍSAREFF, and so on. True, all the comedies
were either directly inspired by Molière or were adaptations from the
French into which Russian characters and Russian manners had been
introduced. But as there was still some original creation in these
adaptions, which was carried a step further on the stage by gifted
actors of the natural, realist school, it all prepared the way for the
truly Russian comedy, which found its embodiment in Griboyédoff, Gógol
and Ostróvskiy.
GRIBOYÉDOFF.
GRIBOYÉDOFF (1795-1829) died very young, and all that he left was one
comedy, _Misfortune from Intelligence_ (_Góre ot Umá_), and a couple of
scenes from an unfinished tragedy in the Shakespearean style. However,
the comedy is a work of genius, and owing to it alone, Griboyédoff may
be described as having done for the Russian stage what Púshkin has done
for Russian poetry.
Griboyédoff was born at Moscow, and received a good education at home
before he entered the Moscow University, at the age of fifteen. Here
he was fortunate enough to fall under the influence of the historian
Schlötzer and Professor Buhle, who developed in him the desire for a
thorough acquaintance with the world-literature, together with habits
of serious work. It was consequently during his stay at the University
(1810-1812) that Griboyédoff wrote the first sketch of his comedy, at
which he worked for the next twelve years.
In 1812, during the invasion of Napoleon, he entered the military
service, and for four years remained an officer of the hussars, chiefly
in Western Russia. The spirit of the army was quite different then from
what it became later on, under Nicholas I.: it was in the army that the
“Decembrists” made their chief propaganda, and Griboyédoff met among
his comrades men of high humanitarian tendencies. In 1816 he left the
military service, and, obeying the desire of his mother, entered the
diplomatic service at St. Petersburg, where he became friendly with the
“Decembrists” Tchaadáeff (see Ch. VIII.), Ryléeff, and Odóevskiy (see
Ch. I. and II.).
A duel, in which Griboyédoff took part as a second, was the cause
of the future dramatist’s removal from St. Petersburg. His mother
insisted upon his being sent as far as possible from the capital, and
he was accordingly despatched to Teheran. He travelled a good deal
in Persia, and, with his wonderful activity and liveliness, took a
prominent part in the diplomatic work of the Russian Embassy. Later on,
staying at Tiflís, and acting as a secretary to the Lieutenant of the
Caucasus, he worked hard in the same diplomatic domain; but he worked
also all the time at his comedy, and in 1824 he finished it, while he
was for a few months in Central Russia. Owing to a mere accident the
manuscript of _Misfortune from Intelligence_ became known to a few
friends, and the comedy produced a tremendous sensation among them. In
a few months it was being widely read in manuscript copies, raising
storms of indignation amongst the old generation, and provoking the
greatest admiration among the young. All efforts, however, to obtain
its production on the stage, or even to have it represented once in
private, were thwarted by censorship, and Griboyédoff returned to the
Caucasus without having seen his comedy played at a theatre.
There, at Tiflís, he was arrested a few days after the 14th of
December, 1825 (see Ch. I.), and taken in all speed to the St.
Petersburg fortress, where his best friends were already imprisoned.
It is said in the Memoirs of one of the Decembrists that even in
the gloomy surroundings of the fortress the habitual brightness of
Griboyédoff did not leave him. He used to tell his unfortunate friends
such amusing stories by means of taps on the walls that they rolled on
their beds, laughing like children.
In June, 1826, he was set free, and sent back to Tiflís. But after the
execution of some of his friends--Ryléeff was among them--and the harsh
sentence to hard labour for life in Siberian mines, which was passed
upon all the others, his old gaiety was gone forever.
At Tiflís he worked harder than ever at spreading seeds of a better
civilisation in the newly conquered territory; but next year he had
to take part in the war of 1827-1828 against Persia, accompanying
the army as a diplomatic agent, and after a crushing defeat of the
Shah, Abbas-mirza, it was he who concluded the well-known Turkmanchái
treaty, by which Russia obtained rich provinces from Persia and gained
such an influence over her inner affairs. After a flying visit to St.
Petersburg, Griboyédoff was sent once more to Teheran--this time as an
ambassador. Before leaving, he married at Tiflís a Georgian princess
of remarkable beauty, but he felt, as he left the Caucasus for Persia,
that his chances of returning alive were few: “Abbas Miraz,” he wrote,
“will never pardon me the Turkmanchái treaty”--and so it happened. A
few months after his arrival at Teheran a crowd of Persians fell upon
the Russian embassy, and Griboyédoff was killed.
For the last few years of his life, Griboyédoff had not much time nor
taste for literary work. He knew that nothing he desired to write
could ever see the light. Even _Misfortune from Intelligence_ had been
so mutilated by censorship that many of its best passages had lost
all sense. He wrote, however, a tragedy in the romantic style, _A
Georgian Night_, and those of his friends who had read it in full rated
extremely high its poetic and dramatic qualities; but only two scenes
from this tragedy and the outline of its contents have reached us. The
manuscript was lost--perhaps at Teheran.
_Misfortune from Intelligence_ is a most powerful satire, directed
against the high society of Moscow in the years 1820-1830. Griboyédoff
knew this society from the inside, and his types are not invented. Real
men gave him the foundations for such immortal types as Fámusoff, the
aged nobleman, and Skalozúb, the fanatic of militarism, as well as for
all the secondary personages. As to the language in which Griboyédoff’s
personages speak, it has often been remarked that up to his time only
three writers had been such great masters of the truly Russian spoken
language: Púshkin, Krylóff, and Griboyédoff. Later on, Ostróvskiy could
be added to these three. It is the true language of Moscow. Besides,
the comedy is full of verses so strikingly satirical and so well said,
that scores of them became proverbs known all over Russia.
The idea of the comedy must have been suggested by Molière’s
_Misanthrope_, and the hero, Tchátskiy, has certainly much in common
with Alceste. But Tchátskiy is, at the same time, so much Griboyédoff
himself, and his cutting sarcasms are so much the sarcasms which
Griboyédoff must have launched against his Moscow acquaintances, while
all the other persons of the comedy are so truly Moscow people--so
exclusively Moscow nobles--that apart from its leading motive, the
comedy is entirely original and most thoroughly Russian.
Tchátskiy is a young man who returns from a long journey abroad, and
hastens to the house of an old gentleman, Fámusoff, whose daughter,
Sophie, was his playmate in childhood, and is loved by him now.
However, the object of his vows has meanwhile made the acquaintance
of her father’s secretary--a most insignificant and repulsive young
man, Moltchálin, whose rules of life are: First, “moderation and
punctuality,” and next, to please everyone in the house of his
superiors, down to the gatekeeper and his dog, “that even the dog may
be kind to me.” Following his rules, Moltchálin courts at the same
time the daughter of his principal and her maid: the former, to make
himself agreeable in his master’s house, and the latter, because she
pleases him. Tchátskiy is received in a very cold way. Sophie is afraid
of his intelligence and his sarcasm, and her father has already found
a partner for her in Colonel Skalozúb--a military man full six feet
high in his socks, who speaks in a deep bass voice, exclusively about
military matters, but has a fortune and will soon be a general.
Tchátskiy behaves just as an enamoured young man would do. He sees
nothing but Sophie, whom he pursues with his adoration, making in her
presence stinging remarks about Moltchálin, and bringing her father to
despair by his free criticism of Moscow manners--the cruelty of the old
serf-owners, the platitudes of the old courtiers, and so on; and as a
climax, at a ball, which Fámusoff gives that night, he indulges in long
monologues against the adoration of the Moscow ladies for everything
French. Sophie, in the meantime, offended by his remarks about
Moltchálin, retaliates by setting afloat the rumour that Tchátskiy is
not quite right in his mind, a rumour which is taken up with delight by
Society at the ball, and spreads like wildfire.
It has often been said in Russia that the satirical remarks of
Tchátskiy at the ball, being directed against such a trifling matter
as the adoration of foreigners, are rather superficial and irrelevant.
But it is more than probable that Griboyédoff limited himself to such
innocent remarks because he knew that no others would be tolerated by
the censorship; he must have hoped that these, at least, would not be
wiped out by the censor’s red ink. From what Tchátskiy says during
his morning call in Fámusoff’s study, and from what is dropped by
other personages, it is evident that Griboyédoff had far more serious
criticisms to put into his hero’s mouth.
Altogether, a Russian satirical writer is necessarily placed under a
serious disadvantage with foreigners. When Molière gives a satirical
description of Parisian society this satire is not strange to the
readers of other nations: we all know something about life in Paris;
but when Griboyédoff describes Moscow society in the same satirical
vein, and reproduces in such an admirable way purely Moscow types--not
even typical Russians, but Moscow types (“On all the Moscow people,”
he says, “there is a special stamp”)--they are so strange to the
Western mind that the translator ought to be half-Russian himself, and
a poet, in order to render Griboyédoff’s comedy in another language.
If such a translation were made, I am sure that this comedy would
become a favourite on the stages of Western Europe. In Russia it has
been played over and over again up to the present time, and although
it is now seventy years old, it has lost nothing of its interest and
attractiveness.
THE MOSCOW STAGE.
In the forties of the nineteenth century the theatre was treated
everywhere with great respect--and more than anywhere else was this
the case in Russia. Italian opera had not yet reached the development
it attained at St. Petersburg some twenty years later, and Russian
opera, represented by poor singers, and treated as a step-daughter by
the directors of the Imperial Theatres, offered but little attraction.
It was the drama and occasionally the ballet, when some star like
Fanny Elsler appeared on the horizon, which brought together the best
elements of educated society and aroused the youth of all classes,
including the university students. The dramatic stage was looked
upon--to speak in the style of those years--as “a temple of Art,” a
centre of far-reaching educational influence. As to the actors and
actresses, they endeavoured, in their turn, not merely to render on
the stage the characters created by the dramatist; they did their best
to contribute themselves, like Cruickshank in his illustrations of
Dickens’s novels, to the final creation of the character, by finding
its true personification.
Especially at Moscow did this intellectual intercourse between the
stage and society go on, and a superior conception of dramatic art
was there developed. The intercourse which Gógol established with
the actors who played his _Inspector-General_, and especially with
SCHÉPKIN; the influence of the literary and philosophical circles
which had then their seat at Moscow; and the intelligent appreciation
and criticism of their work which the actors found in the Press--all
this concurred in making of the Moscow Mályi Teátr (Small Theatre) the
cradle of a superior dramatic art. While St. Petersburg patronised
the so-called “French” school of acting--declamatory and unnaturally
refined--the Moscow stage attained a high degree of perfection in the
development of the naturalistic school. I mean the school of which Duse
is now such a great representative, and to which Lena Ashwell owed her
great success in _Resurrection_; that is, the school in which the actor
parts with the routine of conventional stage tradition, and provokes
the deepest emotions in his audience by the depth of his own real
feeling and by the natural truth and simplicity of its expression--the
school which occupies the same position on the stage that the realism
of Turguéneff and Tolstóy occupies in literature.
In the forties and the early fifties this school had attained
its highest perfection at Moscow, and had in its ranks such
first-class actors and actresses as Schépkin--the real soul
of this stage--MOTCHÁLOFF, SADÓSKIY, S. VASÍLIEFF, and MME.
NIKÚLINA-KOSSÍTSKAYA, supported by quite a pleiad of good secondary
aids. Their _répertoire_ was not very rich; but the two comedies
of Gógol (_Inspector-General_ and _Marriage_), occasionally
Griboyédoff’s great satire; a comedy, _The Marriage of Kretchínsky_,
by SUKHOVÓ-KOBÝLIN, which gave excellent opportunities for displaying
the best qualities of the artists just named; now and then a drama of
Shakespeare,[22] plenty of melodramas adapted from the French, and
vaudevilles which came nearer to light comedy than to farce--this was
the ever varied programme of the Small Theatre. Some plays were played
to perfection--combining the _ensemble_ and the “go” which characterise
the Odéon with the simplicity and naturalness already mentioned.
The mutual influence which the stage and dramatic authors necessarily
exercise upon each other was admirably illustrated at Moscow. Several
dramatists wrote specially for this stage--not in order that this or
that actress might eclipse all others, as happens nowadays in those
theatres where one play is played scores of nights in succession,
but for this given _stage_ and its actors as a whole. OSTRÓVSKIY
(1823-1886) was the one who best realised this mutual relation between
the dramatic author and the stage, and thus he came to hold with regard
to the Russian drama the same position that Turguéneff and Tolstóy hold
with regard to the Russian novel.
OSTRÓVSKIY: “POVERTY--NO VICE”
Ostróvskiy was born at Moscow in the family of a poor clergyman, and,
like the best of the younger generation of his time, he was from the
age of seventeen an enthusiastic visitor of the Moscow theatre. At
that age, we are told, his favourite talk with his comrades was the
stage. He went to the University, but two years later he was compelled
to leave, in consequence of a quarrel with a professor, and he became
an under clerk in one of the old Commercial tribunals. There he had
the very best opportunities for making acquaintance with the world
of Moscow merchants--a quite separate class which remained in its
isolation the keeper of the traditions of old Russia. It was from
this class that Ostróvskiy took nearly all the types of his first and
best dramas. Only later on did he begin to widen the circle of his
observations, taking in various classes of educated society.
His first comedy, _Pictures of Family Happiness_, was written in 1847,
and three years later appeared his first drama, _We shall settle
it among Ourselves_, or _The Bankrupt_, which at once gave him the
reputation of a great dramatic writer. It was printed in a review, and
had a great vogue all over Russia (the actor Sadóvskiy read it widely
in private houses at Moscow), but it was not allowed to be put on the
stage. The Moscow merchants even lodged a complaint with Nicholas I.
against the author, and Ostróvskiy was dismissed from the civil service
and placed under police supervision as a suspect. Only many years
later, four years after Alexander II. had succeeded his father--that
is, in 1860--was the drama played at Moscow, and even then the
censorship insisted upon introducing at the end of it a police officer
to represent the triumph of justice over the wickedness of the bankrupt.
For the next five years Ostróvskiy published nothing, but then
he brought out in close succession (1853 and 1854) two dramas of
remarkable power--_Don’t take a seat in other People’s Sledges_, and
_Poverty--No Vice_. The subject of the former was not new: a girl
from a tradesman’s family runs away with a nobleman, who abandons
and ill-treats her when he realises that she will get from her
father neither pardon nor money. But this subject was treated with
such freshness, and the characters were depicted in positions so
well-chosen, that for its literary and stage-qualities the drama is
one of the best Ostróvskiy has written. As to _Poverty--No Vice_,
it produced a tremendous impression all over Russia. We see in it a
family of the old type, the head of which is a rich merchant--a man
who is wont to impose his will upon all his surroundings and has
no other conception of life. He has, however, taken outwardly to
“civilisation”--that is, to restaurant-civilisation: he dresses in the
fashions of Western Europe and tries to follow Western customs in his
house--at least in the presence of the acquaintances he makes in the
fashionable restaurants. Nevertheless, his wife is his slave, and his
household trembles at his voice. He has a daughter who loves, and is
loved by, one of her father’s clerks, Mítya, a most timid but honest
young man, and the mother would like her daughter to marry this clerk;
but the father has made the acquaintance of a more or less wealthy
aged man--a sort of Armenian money-lender, who dresses according to
the latest fashion, drinks champagne instead of rye-whiskey, and
therefore plays among Moscow merchants a certain rôle of authority in
questions of fashion and rules of propriety. To this man the girl must
be married. She is saved, however, by the interference of her uncle,
Lubím Tortsóff. Lubím was once rich, like his brother, but he was
not satisfied with the dull Philistine life of his surroundings, and
seeing no way out of it and into a better social atmosphere, he took
to drink--to unmitigated drunkenness, such as was to be seen in olden
times at Moscow. His wealthy brother has helped him to get rid of his
fortune, and now, in a ragged mantle, he goes about the lower class
taverns, making of himself a sort of jester for a chance glass of gin.
Penniless, dressed in his rags, cold and hungry, he comes to the young
clerk’s room, asking permission to stay there over night.
The drama goes on at Christmas time, and this gives Ostróvskiy
the opportunity for introducing all sorts of songs and Christmas
masquerades, in true Russian style. In the midst of all this merriment,
which has been going on in his absence, Tortsóff, the father, comes in
with the bridegroom of his choice. All the “vulgar” pleasures must now
come to an end, and the father, full of veneration for his fashionable
friend, curtly orders his daughter to marry the man he has chosen for
her. The tears of the girl and her mother are of no avail: the father’s
orders must be obeyed. But there enters Lubím Tortsóff, in his rags and
with his jester’s antics--terrible in his degradation, and yet a man.
The father’s terror at such a sight can easily be imagined, and Lubím
Tortsóff, who during his wanderings has heard all about the Armenian’s
past, and who knows of his brother’s scheme, begins to tell before the
guests what sort of man the would-be bridegroom is. The latter, holding
himself insulted in his friend’s house, affects great anger and leaves
the room, while Lubím Tortsóff tells his brother what a crime he is
going to commit by giving his daughter to the old man. He is ordered to
leave the room, but he persists and, standing in the rear of the crowd,
he begins piteously to beg: “Brother, give your daughter to Mítya”
(the young clerk): “he, at least, will give me a corner in his house.
I have suffered enough from cold and hunger. My years are passing: it
becomes hard for me to get my piece of bread by performing my antics
in the bitter frost. Mítya will let me live honestly in my old age.”
The mother and daughter join with the uncle, and finally the father,
who resents the insults of his friend, exclaims: “Well, do you take me,
then, for a wild beast? I won’t give my daughter to that man. Mítya,
marry her!”
The drama has a happy end, but the audience feels that it might have
been as well the other way. The father’s whim might have ended in
the life-long misery and misfortune of the daughter, and this would
probably have been the outcome in most such cases.
Like Griboyédoff’s comedy, like Gontcharóff’s _Oblómoff_, and many
other good things in Russian literature, this drama is so typically
Russian that one is apt to overlook its broadly human signification.
It seems to be typically Moscovite; but, change names and customs,
change a few details and rise a bit higher or sink a bit lower in the
strata of society; put, instead of the drunkard Lubím Tortsóff, a poor
relation or an honest friend who has retained his common sense--and
the drama applies to any nation and to any class of society. It is
deeply human. This is what caused its tremendous success and made it
a favourite on every Russian stage for fifty years. I do not speak,
of course, of the foolishly exaggerated enthusiasm with which it was
received by the so-called nationalists, and especially the Slavophiles,
who saw in Lubím Tortsóff the personification of the “good old times”
of Russia. The more sensible of Russians did not go to such lengths;
but they understood what wonderful material of observation, drawn from
real life, this and the other dramas of Ostróvskiy were offering. The
leading review of the time was _The Contemporary_, and its leading
critic, Dobrolúboff, wrote two long articles to analyse Ostróvskiy’s
dramas, under the significant title of _The Kingdom of Darkness_; and
when he had passed in review all the darkness which then prevailed in
Russian life as represented by Ostróvskiy, he produced something which
has been one of the most powerful influences in the whole subsequent
intellectual development of the Russian youth.
“THE THUNDERSTORM”
One of the best dramas of Ostróvskiy is _The Thunderstorm_ (translated
by Mrs. Constance Garnett as _The Storm_). The scene is laid in a small
provincial town, somewhere on the upper Vólga, where the manners of
the local trades-people have retained the stamp of primitive wildness.
There is, for instance, one old merchant, Dikóy, very much respected
by the inhabitants, who represents a special type of those tyrants
whom Ostróvskiy has so well depicted. Whenever Dikóy has a payment
to make, even though he knows perfectly well that pay he must, he
stirs up a quarrel with the man to whom he is in debt. He has an old
friend, Madame Kabanóva, and when he is the worse for drink, and in a
bad temper, he always goes to her: “I have no business with you,” he
declares, “but I have been drinking.” Following is a scene which takes
place between them:
_Kabanóva_: I really wonder at you; with all the crowd of folks in
your house, not a single one can do anything to your liking.
_Dikóy_: That’s so!
_Kabanóva_: Come, what do you want of me?
_Dikóy_: Well, talk me out of my temper. You’re the only person in the
whole town who knows how to talk to me.
_Kabanóva_: How have they put you into such a rage?
_Dikóy_: I’ve been so all day since the morning.
_Kabanóva_: I suppose they’ve been asking for money.
_Dikóy_: As if they were in league together, damn them! One after
another, the whole day long they’ve been at me.
_Kabanóva_: No doubt you’ll have to give it them, or they wouldn’t
persist.
_Dikóy_: I know that; but what would you have me do, since I’ve a
temper like that? Why, I know that I must pay, still I can’t do
it with a good will. You’re a friend of mine, and I’ve to pay you
something, and you come and ask me for it--I’m bound to swear at you!
Pay I will, if pay I must, but I must swear too. For you’ve only to
hint at money to me, and I feel hot all over in a minute; red-hot all
over, and that’s all about it. You may be sure at such times I’d swear
at anyone for nothing at all.
_Kabanóva_: You have no one over you, and so you think you can do as
you like.
_Dikóy_: No, you hold your tongue! Listen to me! I’ll tell you the
sort of troubles that happen to me. I had fasted in Lent, and was all
ready for Communion, and then the Evil One thrusts a wretched peasant
under my nose. He had come for money, for wood he had supplied us.
And, for my sins, he must needs show himself at a time like that! I
fell into sin, of course; I pitched into him, pitched into him finely,
I did, all but thrashed him. There you have it, my temper! Afterwards
I asked his pardon, bowed down to his feet, upon my word I did. It’s
the truth I’m telling you, I bowed down to a peasant’s feet. That’s
what my temper brings me to: on the spot there, in the mud I bowed
down to his feet; before everyone, I did.[23]
Madame Kabanóva is well matched with Dikóy. She may be less primitive
than her friend, but she is an infinitely more tyrannical oppressor.
Her son is married and loves, more or less, his young wife; but he
is kept under his mother’s rule just as if he were a boy. The mother
hates, of course, the young wife, Katerína, and tyrannises over her as
much as she can; and the husband has no energy to step in and defend
her. He is only too happy when he can slip away from the house. He
might have shown more love to his wife if they had been living apart
from his mother; but being in this house, always under its tyrannical
rule, he looks upon his wife as part of it all. Katerína, on the
contrary, is a poetical being. She was brought up in a very good
family, where she enjoyed full liberty, before she married the young
Kabanóff, and now she feels very unhappy under the yoke of her terrible
mother-in-law, having nobody but a weakling husband to occasionally say
a word in her favour. There is also a little detail--she has a mortal
fear of thunderstorms. This is a feature which is quite characteristic
in the small towns on the upper Vólga: I have myself known well
educated ladies who, having once been frightened by one of these sudden
storms--they are of a terrific grandeur--retained a life-long fear of
thunder.
It so happens that Katerína’s husband has to leave his town for a
fortnight. Katerína, in the meantime, who has met occasionally on the
promenade a young man, Borís, a nephew of Dikóy, and has received some
attention from him, partly driven to it by her husband’s sister--a
very flighty girl, who is wont to steal from the back garden to meet
her sweethearts--has during these few days one or two interviews with
the young man, and falls in love with him. Borís is the first man who,
since her marriage, has treated her with respect; he himself suffers
from the oppression of Dikóy, and she feels half-sympathy, half-love
towards him. But Borís is also of weak, irresolute character, and as
soon as his uncle Dikóy orders him to leave the town he obeys and has
only the usual words of regret that “circumstances” so soon separate
him from Katerína. The husband returns, and when he, his wife, and
the old mother Kabanóva are caught by a terrific thunderstorm on the
promenade along the Vólga, Katerína, in mortal fear of sudden death,
tells in the presence of the crowd which has taken refuge in a shelter
on the promenade what has happened during her husband’s absence. The
consequences will best be learned from the following scene, which I
quote from the same translation. It also takes place on the high bank
of the Vólga. After having wandered for some time in the dusk on the
solitary bank, Katerína at last perceives Borís and runs up to him.
_Katerína_: At last I see you again! (_Weeps on his breast. Silence._)
_Borís_: Well, God has granted us to weep together.
_Katerína_: You have not forgotten me?
_Borís_: How can you speak of forgetting?
_Katerína_: Oh, no, it was not that, not that! You are not angry?
_Borís_: Angry for what?
_Katerína_: Forgive me! I did not mean to do you any harm. I was not
free myself. I did not know what I said, what I did.
_Borís_: Don’t speak of it! Don’t.
_Katerína_: Well, how is it with you? What are you going to do?
_Borís_: I am going away.
_Katerína_: Where are you going?
_Borís_: Far away, Kátya, to Siberia.
_Katerína_: Take me with you, away from here.
_Borís_: I cannot, Kátya. I am not going of my free will; my uncle is
sending me, he has the horses waiting for me already; I only begged
for a minute, I wanted to take a last farewell of the spot where we
used to see each other.
_Katerína_: Go, and God be with you! Don’t grieve over me. At first
your heart will be heavy, perhaps, poor boy, but then you will begin
to forget.
_Borís_: Why talk of me! I am free at least; how about you? what of
your husband’s mother?
_Katerína_: She tortures me, she locks me up. She tells everyone, even
my husband: “Don’t trust her, she is sly and deceitful.” They all
follow me about all day long, and laugh at me before my face. At every
word they reproach me with you.
_Borís_: And your husband?
_Katerína_: One minute he’s kind, one minute he’s angry, but he’s
drinking all the while. He is loathsome to me, loathsome; his kindness
is worse than his blows.
_Borís_: You are wretched, Kátya?
_Katerína_: So wretched, so wretched, that it were better to die!
_Borís_: Who could have dreamed that we should have to suffer such
anguish for our love! I’d better have run away then!
_Katerína_: It was an evil day for me when I saw you. Joy I have known
little of, but of sorrow, of sorrow, how much! And how much is still
before me! But why think of what is to be! I am seeing you now, that
much they cannot take away from me; and I care for nothing more. All I
wanted was to see you. Now my heart is much easier; as though a load
had been taken off me. I kept thinking you were angry with me, that
you were cursing me....
_Borís_: How can you! How can you!
_Katerína_: No, that is not what I mean; that is not what I wanted to
say! I was sick with longing for you, that’s it; and now, I have seen
you....
_Borís_: They must not come upon us here!
_Katerína_: Stay a minute! Stay a minute! Something I meant to say
to you! I’ve forgotten! Something I had to say! Everything is in
confusion in my head, I can remember nothing.
_Borís_: It’s time I went, Kátya!
_Katerína_: Wait a minute, a minute!
_Borís_: Come, what did you want to say?
_Katerína_: I will tell you directly. (_Thinking a moment._) Yes! As
you travel along the highroads, do not pass by one beggar, give to
everyone, and bid them pray for my sinful soul.
_Borís_: Ah, if these people knew what it is to me to part from you!
My God! God grant they may one day know such bitterness as I know now.
Farewell, Kátya! (_Embraces her and tries to go away._) Miscreants!
monsters! Ah, if I were strong!
_Katerína_: Stay, stay! Let me look at you for the last time (_gazes
into his face_). Now all is over with me. The end is come for me. Now,
God be with thee. Go, go quickly!
_Borís_: (_Moves away a few steps and stands still._) Kátya, I feel a
dread of something! You have something fearful in your mind? I shall
be in torture as I go, thinking of you.
_Katerína_: No, no! Go in God’s name! (_Borís is about to go up to
her._) No, no, enough.
_Borís_: (_Sobbing._) God be with thee! There’s only one thing to pray
God for, that she may soon be dead, that she may not be tortured long!
Farewell!
_Katerína_: Farewell!
(_Borís goes out. Katerína follows him with her eyes and stands for
some time, lost in thought._)
SCENE IV.
KATERÍNA (_alone_).
Where am I going now? Home? No, home or the grave--it is the same.
Yes, home or the grave!... the grave! Better the grave.... A little
grave under a tree ... how sweet.... The sunshine warms it, the sweet
rain falls on it ... in the spring the grass grows on it, soft and
sweet grass ... the birds will fly in the tree and sing, and bring
up their little ones, and flowers will bloom; golden, red and blue
... all sorts of flowers, (_dreamingly_) all sorts of flowers ... how
still! how sweet! My heart is as it were lighter! But of life I don’t
want to think! Live again! No, no, no use ... life is not good!... And
people are hateful to me, and the house is hateful, and the walls are
hateful! I will not go there! No, no, I will not go! if I go to them,
they’ll come and talk, and what do I want with that? Ah, it has grown
dark! And there is singing again somewhere! What are they singing? I
can’t make out.... To die now.... What are they singing? It is just
the same whether death comes, or of myself ... but live I cannot! A
sin to die so!... they won’t pray for me! If anyone loves me, he will
pray ... they will fold my arms crossed in the grave! Oh, yes.... I
remember. But when they catch me, and take me home by force.... Ah,
quickly, quickly! (_Goes to the river bank. Aloud._) My dear one! My
sweet! Farewell!
(_Exit._)
(_Enter Mme. Kabanóva, Kabanóv, Kulíghin and workmen with torches._)
_The Thunderstorm_ is one of the best dramas in the modern répertoire
of the Russian stage. From the stage point of view it is simply
admirable. Every scene is impressive, the drama develops rapidly,
and every one of the twelve characters introduced in it is a joy
to the dramatic artist. The parts of Dikóy, Varvára (the frivolous
sister), Kabanóff, Kudryásh (the sweetheart of Varvára), an old
artisan-engineer, nay even the old lady with two male-servants, who
appears only for a couple of minutes--each one will be found a source
of deep artistic pleasure by the actor or actress who takes it; while
the parts of Katerína and Mme. Kabanóva are such that no great actress
would neglect them.
Concerning the main idea of the drama, I shall have to repeat
here what I have already said once or twice in the course of these
sketches. At first sight it may seem that Mme. Kabanóva and her son
are exclusively Russian types--types which exist no more in Western
Europe. So it was said, at least, by several English critics. But such
an assertion seems to be hardly correct. The submissive Kabanóffs may
be rare in England, or at least their sly submissiveness does not go
to the same lengths as it does in _The Thunderstorm_. But even for
Russian society Kabanóff is not very typical. As to his mother, Mme.
Kabanóva, every one of us must have met her more than once in English
surroundings. Who does not know, indeed, the old lady who for the mere
pleasure of exercising her power will keep her daughters at her side,
prevent their marrying, and tyrannise over them till they have grown
grey-haired? or in thousands or other ways exercise her tyranny over
her household? Dickens knew Mme. Kabanóva well, and she is still alive
in these Islands, as everywhere else.
OSTRÓVSKIY’S LATER DRAMAS
As Ostróvskiy advanced in years and widened the scope of his
observations of Russian life, he drew his characters from other circles
besides that of the merchants, and in his later dramas he gave such
highly attractive, progressive types as _The Poor Bride_, Parásha (in
a beautiful comedy, _An Impetuous Heart_), Agniya in _Carnival has its
End_, the actor Neschastlívtseff (Mr. Unfortunate) in a charming idyll,
_The Forest_, and so on. And as regards his “negative” (undesirable)
types, taken from the life of the St. Petersburg bureaucracy or from
the millionaire and “company-promoters” circles, Ostróvskiy deeply
understood them and attained the artistic realisation of wonderfully
true, coldly-harsh, though apparently “respectable” types, such as no
other dramatic writer has ever succeeded in producing.
Altogether Ostróvskiy wrote about fifty dramas and comedies, and every
one of them is excellent for the stage. There are no insignificant
parts in them. A great actor or actress may take one of the smallest
parts, consisting of perhaps but a few words pronounced during a few
minutes’ appearance on the stage--and yet feel that there is material
enough in it to create a character. As for the main personages,
Ostróvskiy fully understood that a considerable part in the creation
of a character must be left to the actor. There are consequently parts
which without such a collaboration would be pale and unfinished,
while in the hands of a true actor they yield material for a deeply
psychological and profoundly dramatic personification. This is why
a lover of dramatic art finds such a deep æsthetic pleasure both in
playing in Ostróvskiy’s dramas and in reading them aloud.
Realism, in the sense which already has been indicated several times
in these pages--that is, a realistic description of characters and
events, subservient to ideal aims--is the distinctive feature of all
Ostróvskiy’s dramas. As in the novels of Turguéneff, the simplicity
of his plots is striking. But you see life--true life with all its
pettinesses--developing before you, and out of these petty details
grows insensibly the plot.
“One scene follows another, and all of them are so commonplace, such
an everyday matter!--and yet, out of them, a terrible drama has quite
imperceptibly grown into being. You could affirm that it is not a
comedy being played before you, but life itself unrolled before your
eyes--as if the author had simply opened a wall and shown you what is
going on inside this or that house.” In these just words one of our
critics, Skabitchévskiy, has described Ostróvskiy’s work.
In his dramas Ostróvskiy introduced an immense variety of characters
taken from all classes of Russian life; but he once for all abandoned
the old romantic division of human types into “good” and “bad” ones.
In real life these two divisions are blended together and merge into
another; and while even now an English dramatic author cannot conceive
a drama without “the villain,” Ostróvskiy never felt the need of
introducing that conventional personage. Nor did he feel the need of
resorting to the conventional rules of “dramatic conflict.” To quote
once more from the same critic:
“There is no possibility of bringing his comedies under some
general principle, such as a struggle of duty against inclination,
or a collision of passions which calls forth a fatal result, or an
antagonism between good and evil, or between progress and ignorance.
His comedies represent the most varied human relations. Just as we
find it in life, men stand in these comedies in different obligatory
relations towards each other, which relations have, of course, their
origin in the past; and when these men have been brought together,
conflicts necessarily arise between them, out of these very relations.
As to the outcome of the conflict, it is, as a rule quite unforeseen,
and often depends, as usually happens in real life, upon mere
accidents.”
Like Ibsen, Ostróvskiy sometimes will not even undertake to say how the
drama will end.
And finally, Ostróvskiy, notwithstanding the pessimism of all his
contemporaries--the writers of the forties--was not a pessimist. Even
amidst the most terrible conflicts depicted in his dramas he retained
the sense of the joy of life and of the unavoidable fatality of many
of the miseries of life. He never recoiled before painting the darker
aspects of the human turmoil, and he has given a most repulsive
collection of family-despots from the old merchant class, followed by a
collection of still more repulsive types from the class of industrial
“promoters.” But in one way or another he managed either to show
that there are better influences at work, or, at least, to suggest
the possible triumph of some better element. He thus avoided falling
into the pessimism which characterised his contemporaries, and he had
nothing of the hysterical turn of mind which we find in some of his
modern followers. Even at moments when, in some one of his dramas,
life all round wears the gloomiest aspect (as, for instance, in _Sin
and Misfortune may visit everyone_, which is a page from peasant life
as realistically dark, but better suited for the stage, than Tolstóy’s
_Power of Darkness_), even then a gleam of hope appears, at least, in
the contemplation of nature, if nothing else remains to redeem the
gloominess of human folly.
And yet, there is one thing--and a very important one--which stands in
the way of Ostróvskiy’s occupying in international dramatic literature
the high position to which his powerful dramatic talent entitled him,
and being recognised as one of the great dramatists of our century. The
dramatic conflicts which we find in his dramas are all of the simpler
sort. There are none of the more tragical problems and entanglements
which the complicated nature of the educated man of our own times and
the different aspects of the great social questions are giving birth
to in the conflicts arising now in every stratum and class of society.
But it must also be said that the dramatist who can treat these modern
problems of life in the same masterly way in which the Moscow writer
has treated the simpler problems which he saw in his own surroundings,
is yet to come.
HISTORICAL DRAMAS--A. K. TOLSTÓY.
At a later period of his life Ostróvskiy turned to historical drama,
which he wrote in excellent blank verse. But, like Shakespeare’s
plays from English history, and Púshkin’s _Borís Godunóff_, they have
more the character of dramatised chronicles than of dramas properly
speaking. They belong too much to the domain of the epic, and the
dramatic interest is too often sacrificed to the desire of introducing
historical colouring.
The same is true, though in a lesser degree, of the historical dramas
of Count ALEXÉI KONSTANTÍNOVITCH TOLSTÓY (1817-1875). A. K. Tolstóy
was above all a poet; but he also wrote a historical novel from the
times of John the Terrible, _Prince Serébryanyi_, which had a very
great success, partly because in it for the first time censorship had
permitted fiction to deal with the half-mad Tsar who played the part
of the Louis XI. of the Russian Monarchy, but especially on account
of its real qualities as a historical novel. He also tried his talent
in a dramatic poem, _Don Juan_, much inferior, however, to Púshkin’s
drama dealing with the same subject; but his main work was a trilogy of
three tragedies from the times of John the Terrible and the imposter
Demetrius: _The Death of John the Terrible_, _The Tsar Theódor
Ivánovitch_, and _Borís Godunóff_.
These three tragedies have a considerable value; in each the situation
of the hero is really highly dramatic, and treated in a most impressive
way, while the settings in the palaces of the old Moscow Tsars are
extremely decorative and impressive in their sumptuous originality.
But in all three tragedies the development of the dramatic element
suffers from the intrusion of the epical descriptive element, and
the characters are either not quite correct historically (Borís
Godunóff is deprived of his rougher traits in favour of a certain quiet
idealism which was a personal feature of the author), or they do not
represent that entireness of character which we are accustomed to find
in Shakespeare’s dramas. Of course, the tragedies of Tolstóy’s are
extremely far from the romanticism of the dramas of Victor Hugo; they
are, all things considered, realistic dramas; but in the framing of the
human characters some romanticism is felt still, and this is especially
evident in the construction of the character of John the Terrible.
An exception must, however, be made in favour of _The Tsar Theódor
Ivánovitch_. A. K. Tolstóy was a devoted personal friend of Alexander
II. and, refusing all administrative posts of honour which were offered
him, he preferred the modest position of a Head of the Imperial Hunt,
which permitted him to retain his independence, while remaining in
close contact with the Emperor. Owing to this intimacy he must have had
the best opportunities for observing, especially in the later years of
Alexander II.’s reign, the struggles to which a good-hearted man of
weak character is exposed when he is a Tsar of Russia. Of course the
Tsar Theódor is not in the least an attempt at portraying Alexander
II.--this would have been beneath an artist--but the weakness of
Alexander’s character must have suggested those features of reality in
the character of Theódor which makes it so much better painted than
either John the Terrible or Borís Godunóff. The Tsar Theódor is a
really living creation.
OTHER DRAMATIC WRITERS
Of other writers for the stage, we can only briefly mention the most
interesting ones.
TURGUÉNEFF wrote, in 1848-1851, five comedies, which offer all the
elements for refined acting, are very lively and, being written in a
beautiful style (Turguéneff’s prose!), are still the source of æsthetic
pleasure for the more refined playgoers.
SUKHOVÓ-KOBÝLIN has already been mentioned. He wrote one comedy, _The
Marriage of Kretchínskiy_, which made its mark and is still played
with success, and a trilogy, _The Affair_, which is a powerful satire
against bureaucracy, but is less effective on the stage than the former.
A. PÍSEMSKIY, the novelist (1820-1881), wrote, besides a few good
novels and several insignificant comedies, one remarkably good
drama--_A Bitter Fate_, from the peasants’ life, which he knew well
and rendered admirably. It must be said that Leo Tolstóy’s well known
_Power of Darkness_--taken also from peasant life--notwithstanding all
its power, has not eclipsed the drama of Písemskiy.
The novelist A. A. POTYÉKHIN (1829-1902) also wrote for the stage,
and must not be omitted even in such a rapid sketch of the Russian
drama as this. His comedies, _Tinsel_, _A Slice Cut-off_, _A Vacant
Situation_, _In Muddy Waters_, met with the greatest difficulties as
regards censorship, and the third was never put on the stage; but
those which were played were always a success, while the themes that
he treated always attracted the attention of our critics. The first of
them, _Tinsel_, can be taken as a fair representative of the talent of
Potyékhin.
This comedy answered a “question of the day.” For several years Russian
literature, following especially in the steps of SCHEDRIN (see Ch.
VIII.), delighted in the description of those functionaries of the
Government boards and tribunals who lived (before the reforms of the
sixties) almost entirely upon bribes. However, after the reforms had
been carried through, a new race of functionaries had grown up, “those
who took no bribes,” but at the same time, owing to their strait-laced
official rigorism, and their despotic and unbridled egotism, were even
worse specimens of mankind than any of the “bribe-takers” of old. The
hero of _Tinsel_ is precisely such a man. His character, with all its
secondary features--his ingratitude and especially his love (or what
passes for love in him)--is perhaps too much blackened for the purposes
of the drama: men so consistently egotistical and formalistic are
seldom, if ever, met with in real life. But one is almost convinced by
the author of the reality of the type--with so masterly a hand does he
unroll in a variety of incidents the “correct” and deeply egotistic
nature of his hero. In this respect the comedy is very clever, and
offers full opportunity for excellent acting.
A dramatic writer who enjoyed a long-standing success was A. I. PALM
(1823-1885). In 1849 he was arrested for having frequented persons
belonging to the circle of Petrashévskiy (see DOSTOYÉVSKIY), and from
that time his life was a series of misfortunes, so that he returned
to literary activity only at the age of fifty. He belonged to the
generation of Turguéneff, and, knowing well that type of noblemen, whom
the great novelist has depicted so well in his _Hamlets_, he wrote
several comedies from the life of their circles. _The Old Nobleman_ and
_Our Friend Neklúzheff_ were till lately favourite plays on the stage.
The actor, I. E. TCHERNYSHÓFE, who wrote several comedies and one
serious drama, _A Spoiled Life_, which produced a certain impression
in 1861; N. SOLOVIÓFF, and a very prolific writer, V. A. KRYLÓFF
(ALEXÁNDROFF), must also be mentioned in this brief sketch.
And finally, two young writers have brought out lately comedies and
dramatic scenes which have produced a deep sensation. I mean ANTON
TCHÉHOFF, whose drama _Ivánoff_ was a few years ago the subject of
the most passionate discussions, and MAXÍM GÓRKIY, whose drama, _The
Artisans_, undoubtedly reveals a dramatic talent, while his just
published “dramatic scenes,” _At the Bottom_--they are only scenes,
without an attempt at building a drama--are extremely powerful, and
even eclipse his best sketches. More will be said of them in the next
chapter.
FOOTNOTES:
[22] Shakespeare has always been a great favourite in Russia, but his
dramas require a certain wealth of scenery not always at the disposal
of the Small Theatre.
[23] Taken from the excellent translation of Mrs. C. Garnett (_The
Storm_, London, Duckworth & Co., 1899).
PART VII
Folk-Novelists
CHAPTER VII
FOLK-NOVELISTS
Their Position in Russian Literature--The
Early Folk-Novelists:--Grigoróvitch--Márko
Vovtchók--Danilévskiy--Intermediate Period:
Kókoreff--Písemskiy--Potyékhin--Ethnographical Researches--The
Realistic School:--Pomyalóvskiy--Ryeshétnikoff--Levítoff--Gleb
Uspénskiy--Zlatovrátskiy and other
Folk-Novelists--Naúmoff--Zasódimskiy--Sáloff--Nefédoff--Modern
Realism: Maxím Górkiy.
An important division of Russian novelists, almost totally unknown in
Western Europe, and yet representing perhaps the most typical portion
of Russian literature, are the “Folk-Novelists.” It is under this name
that we know them chiefly in Russia, and under this name the critic
Skabitchévskiy has analysed them--first, in a book bearing this title,
and then in his excellent _History of Modern Russian Literature_ (4th
ed. 1900). By “Folk-Novelists” we mean, of course, not those who write
_for_ the people, but those who write _about_ the people: the peasants,
the miners, the factory workers, the lowest strata of population in
towns, the tramps. Bret Harte in his sketches of the mining camps, Zola
in _L’Assommoir_ and _Germinal_, Mr. Gissing in _Liza of Lambeth_, Mr.
Whiting in _No. 5 John Street_, belong to this category; but what is
exceptional and accidental in Western Europe is organic in Russia.
Quite a number of talented writers have devoted themselves during the
last fifty years, some of them entirely, to the description of this
or that division of the Russian people. Every class of the toiling
masses, which in other literatures would have appeared in novels as the
background for events going on amidst educated people (as in Hardy’s
_Woodlanders_), has had in the Russian novel its own painter. All
great questions concerning popular life which are debated in political
and social books and reviews have been treated in the novel as well.
The evils of serfdom and, later on, the struggle between the tiller
of the soil and growing commercialism; the effects of factories upon
village life, the great coöperative fisheries, peasant life in certain
monasteries, and life in the depths of the Siberian forests, slum life
and tramp life--all these have been depicted by the folk-novelists, and
their novels have been as eagerly read as the works of the greatest
authors. And while such questions as, for instance, the future of the
village-community, or of the peasants’ Common Law Courts, are debated
in the daily papers, in the scientific reviews and the journals of
statistical research, they are also dealt with by means of artistic
images and types taken from life in the folk-novel.
Moreover, the folk-novelists, taken as a whole, represent a great
school of realism in art, and in true realism they have surpassed
all those writers who have been mentioned in the preceding chapters.
Of course, Russian “realism,” as the reader of this book is already
well aware, is something quite different from what was represented as
“naturalism” and “realism” in France by Zola. As already remarked,
Zola, notwithstanding his propaganda of realism, always remained an
inveterate romantic in the conception of his leading characters,
both of the “saint” and of the “villain” type; and no doubt because
of this--perhaps feeling it himself--he gave, as a compensation,
such an exaggerated importance to speculations about physiological
heredity and to the accumulation of pretty descriptive details, many
of which, especially amongst his repulsive types, might have been
omitted without depriving the characters of any really significant
feature. In Russia the “realism” of Zola has always been considered
too superficial, too outward, and while our folk-novelists also have
often indulged in an unnecessary profusion of detail--sometimes
decidedly ethnographical--they have aimed nevertheless at that _inner_
realism which appears in the construction of such characters as are
really representative of life taken as a whole. Their aim has been to
represent life without distortion--whether that distortion consists in
introducing petty details, which may be true, but are accidental, or
in endowing heroes with virtues or vices which are indeed met with here
and there, but ought not to be generalised. Several novelists, as will
be seen presently, have objected even to the usual ways of describing
_types_ and relating the individual dramas of a few typical heroes.
They have made the extremely bold attempt of describing _life itself_,
in its succession of petty actions, moving on amidst its grey and dull
surroundings, introducing only that dramatic element which results
from the endless succession of petty and depressing details and wonted
circumstances; and it must be owned that they have not been quite
unsuccessful in striking out this new line of art--perhaps the most
tragical of all. Others, again, have introduced a new type of artistic
representation of life, which occupies an intermediate position between
the novel, properly so-called, and a demographic description of a given
population. Thus, Gleb Uspénskiy knew how to intermingle artistic
descriptions of typical village-people with discussions belonging to
the domain of folk-psychology in so interesting a manner that the
reader willingly pardons him these digressions; while others like
Maxímoff succeeded in making out of their ethnographical descriptions
real works of art, without in the least diminishing their scientific
value.
THE EARLY FOLK-NOVELISTS
One of the earliest folk-novelists was GRIGORÓVITCH (1822-1899), a
man of great talent, who sometimes is placed by the side of Tolstóy,
Turguéneff, Gontcharóff and Ostróvskiy. His literary career was very
interesting. He was born of a Russian father and a French mother,
and at the age of ten hardly knew Russian at all. His education was
entirely foreign--chiefly French--and he never really lived the village
life amidst which Turguéneff or Tolstóy grew up. Moreover, he never
gave himself exclusively to literature: he was a painter as well as a
novelist, and at the same time a fine connoisseur of art, and for the
last thirty years of his life he wrote almost nothing, but gave all
his time to the Russian Society of Painters. And yet this half-Russian
was one of those who rendered the same service to Russia before the
abolition of serfdom that Harriet Beecher Stowe rendered to the United
States by her description of the sufferings of the negro slaves.
Grigoróvitch was educated in the same military school of engineers
as was Dostoyévskiy, and after having finished his education there,
he took a tiny room from the warder of the Academy of Arts, with the
intention of giving himself entirely to art. However, in the studios he
made the acquaintance of the Little Russian poet Shevtchénko, and next
of Nekrásoff and Valerián Máykoff (a critic of great power, who died
very young), and through them he found his vocation in literature.
In the early forties he was known only by a charming sketch, _The
Organ Grinders_, in which he spoke with great warmth of feeling of
the miserable life of this class of the St. Petersburg population.
Russian society, in those years, felt the impression of the Socialist
revival of France, and its best representatives were growing impatient
with serfdom and absolutism. Fourier and Pierre Leroux were favourite
writers in advanced intellectual circles, and Grigoróvitch was carried
on by the growing current. He left St. Petersburg, went to stay for a
year or two in the country, and in 1846 he published his first novel
dealing with country life, _The Village_. He depicted in it, without
any exaggeration, the dark sides of village life and the horrors of
serfdom, and he did it so vividly that Byelínskiy, the critic, at once
recognised in him a new writer of great power, and greeted him as such.
His next novel, _Antón the Unfortunate_, also drawn from village life,
was a tremendous success, and its influence was almost equal to that
of _Uncle Tom’s Cabin_. No educated man or woman of his generation or
of ours could have read the book without weeping over the misfortunes
of Antón, and finding better feelings growing in his heart towards the
serfs. Several novels of the same character followed in the next eight
years (1847 to 1855)--_The Fishermen_, _The Immigrants_, _The Tiller_,
_The Tramp_, _The Country Roads_--and then Grigoróvitch came to a
stop. In 1865 he took part with some of our best writers--Gontcharóff,
Ostróvskiy, Maxímoff (the ethnographer), and several others--in a
literary expedition organised by the Grand Duke Constantine for the
exploration of Russia and voyages round the world on board ships of the
Navy. Grigoróvitch made a very interesting sea-voyage; but his sketches
of travel--_The Ship Retvizan_--cannot be compared with Gontcharóff’s
_Frigate Pallas_. On returning from the expedition he abandoned
literature to devote himself entirely to art, and he subsequently
brought out only a couple of novels and his _Reminiscences_. He died in
1899.
Grigoróvitch thus published all his chief novels between the years 1846
and 1855. Opinion about his work is divided. Some of our critics speak
of it very highly, but others--and they are the greater number--say
that his peasants are not quite real. Turguéneff made also the
observation that his descriptions are too cold: the heart is not felt
in them. This last remark may be true, although the average reader who
did not know Grigoróvitch personally hardly would have made it: at any
rate, at the time of the appearance of _Antón_, _The Fishermen_, etc.,
the great public judged the author of these works differently. As to
his peasants, I will permit myself to make one suggestion. Undoubtedly
they are slightly idealised; but it must also be said that the Russian
peasantry does not present a compact, uniform mass. Several races have
settled upon the territory of European Russia, and different portions
of the population have followed different lines of development. The
peasant from South Russia is quite different from the Northerner, and
the Western peasants differ in every respect from the Eastern ones.
Grigoróvitch described chiefly those living directly south of Moscow,
in the provinces of Túla and Kalúga, and they are exactly that mild
and slightly poetical, downtrodden and yet inoffensive, good-hearted
race of peasants that Grigoróvitch described in his novels--a sort of
combination of the Lithuanian and the Little-Russian poetical mind,
with the Great-Russian communal spirit. Ethnographers themselves see
in the populations of this part of Russia a special ethnographical
division.
Of course, Turguéneff’s peasants (Túla and Oryól) are more real, his
types are more definite, and every one of the modern folk-novelists,
even of the less talented, has gone much further than Grigoróvitch
did into the depths of peasant character and life. But such as they
were, the novels of Grigoróvitch exercised a profound influence on a
whole generation. They made us love the peasants and feel how heavy
was the indebtedness towards them which weighed upon us--the educated
part of society. They powerfully contributed towards creating a
general feeling in favour of the serfs, without which the abolition of
serfdom would have certainly been delayed for many years to come, and
assuredly would not have been so sweeping as it was. And at a later
epoch his work undoubtedly contributed to the creation of that movement
“towards the people” (_v naród_) which took place in the seventies.
As to the literary influence of Grigoróvitch, it was such that it may
be questioned whether Turguéneff would ever have been bold enough to
write as he did about the peasants, in his _Sportsman’s Note Book_, or
Nekrásoff to compose his passionate verses about the people, if they
had not had a forerunner in him.
Another writer of the same school, who also produced a deep impression
on the very eve of the liberation of the serfs, was MME. MARIE
MÁRKOVITCH, who wrote under the pseudonym of MÁRKO VOVTCHÓK. She was
a Great Russian--her parents belonged to the nobility of Central
Russia--but she married the Little-Russian writer, MÁRKOVITCH, and
her first book of stories from peasant-life (1857-58) was written
in excellent Little Russian. (Turguéneff translated them into Great
Russian.) She soon returned, however, to her native tongue, and her
second book of peasant stories, as well as her subsequent novels from
the life of the educated classes, were written in Great Russian.
At the present time the novels of Márko Vovtchók may seem to be
too sentimental--the world-famed novel of Harriett Beecher Stowe
produces the same impression nowadays--but in those years, when the
great question for Russia was whether the serfs should be freed or
not, and when all the best forces of the country were needed for the
struggle in favour of their emancipation--in those years all educated
Russia read the novels of Márko Vovtchók with delight, and wept over
the fate of her peasant heroines. However, apart from this need of
the moment--and art is bound to be at the service of society in
such crises--the sketches of Márko Vovtchók had serious qualities.
Their “sentimentalism” was not the sentimentalism of the beginning
of the nineteenth century, behind which was concealed an absence
of real feeling. A loving heart throbbed in them; and there is in
them real poetry, inspired by the poetry of the Ukraïnian folklore
and its popular songs. With these, Mme. Márkovitch was so familiar
that, as has been remarked by Russian critics, she supplemented her
imperfect knowledge of real popular life by introducing in a masterly
manner many features inspired by the folklore and the popular songs
of Little Russia. Her heroes were invented, but the atmosphere of
a Little-Russian village, the colours of local life, are in these
sketches; and the soft poetical sadness of the Little-Russian peasantry
is rendered with the tender touch of a woman’s hand.
Among the novelists of that period DANILÉVSKIY (1829-1890) must also
be mentioned. Although he is better known as a writer of historical
romances, his three long novels, _The Runaways in Novoróssiya_ (1862),
_Freedom, or The Runways Returned_ (1863), and _New Territories_
(1867)--all dealing with the free settlers in Bessarabia--were widely
read. They contain lively and very sympathetic scenes from the life
of these settlers--mostly runaway serfs--who occupied the free lands,
without the consent of the central government, in the newly annexed
territories of southwestern Russia, and became the prey of enterprising
adventurers.
INTERMEDIATE PERIOD
Notwithstanding all the qualities of their work, Grigoróvitch and Márko
Vovtchók failed to realise that the very fact of taking the life of the
poorer classes as the subject of novels, ought to imply the working out
of a special literary manner. The usual literary technique evolved for
the novel which deals with the leisured classes--with its mannerism,
its “heroes,” poetised now, as the knights used to be poetised in
the tales of chivalry--is certainly not the most appropriate for
novels treating the life of American squatters or Russian peasants.
New methods and a different style had to be worked out; but this was
done step by step only, and it would be extremely interesting to
show this gradual evolution, from Grigoróvitch to the ultra-realism
of Ryeshétnikoff, and finally to the perfection of form attained
by the realist-idealist Górkiy in his shorter sketches. Only a few
intermediate steps can, however, be indicated in these pages.
I. T. KÓKOREFF (1826-1853), who died very young, after having written a
few tales from the life of the petty artisans in towns, had not freed
himself from the sentimentalism of a benevolent outsider; but he knew
this life from the inside: he was born and brought up in great poverty
among these very people; consequently, the artisans in his novels are
real beings, described, as Dobrolúboff said, “with warmth and yet with
tender restraint, as if they were his nearest kin.” However, “No shriek
of despair, no mighty wrath, no mordant irony came out of this tender,
patiently suffering heart.” There is even a note of reconciliation with
the social inequalities.
A considerable step in advance was made by the folk-novel in A. TH.
PÍSEMSKIY (1820-1881), and A. A. POTYÉKHINN (born 1829), although
neither of them was exclusively a folk-novelist. Písemskiy was a
contemporary of Turguéneff, and at a certain time of his career it
seemed as if he were going to take a place by the side of Turguéneff,
Tolstóy and Gontcharóff. He undoubtedly possessed a great talent.
There was power and real life in whatever he wrote, and his novel, _A
Thousand Souls_, appearing on the eve of the emancipation of the serfs
(1858), produced a deep impression. It was fully appreciated in Germany
as well, where it was translated the next year. But Písemskiy was not a
man of principle, and this novel was his last serious and really good
production. When the great Radical and Nihilist movement took place
(1858-1864), and it became necessary to take a definite position amidst
the sharp conflict of opinions, Písemskiy, who was deeply pessimistic
in his judgment of men and ideas, and considered “opinions” as a mere
cover for narrow egotism of the lowest sensual sort, took a hostile
position towards this movement, and wrote such novels as _The Unruly
Sea_, which were mere libels upon the young generation. This was, of
course, the death of his by no means ordinary talent.
Písemskiy wrote also, during the early part of his literary career, a
few tales from the life of the peasants (_The Carpenters’ Artel_, _The
St. Petersburg Man_, etc.), and a drama, from village life, _A Bitter
Fate_, all of which have a real literary value. He displayed in them a
knowledge of peasant life and a mastery of the spoken, popular Russian
language, together with a perfectly realistic perception of peasant
character. There was no trace of the idealisation which is so strongly
felt in the later productions of Grigoróvitch, written under the
influence of George Sand. The steady, common-sense peasant characters
that Písemskiy pictured are taken from a real, sound observation of
life, and rival the best peasant characters of Turguéneff. As to the
drama of Písemskiy (he was, by the way, a very good actor), it loses
nothing from comparison with the best dramas of Ostróvskiy, and is more
tragic than any of them, while in powerful realism it is by no means
inferior to Tolstóy’s _Power of Darkness_, with which it has much in
common, and which it perhaps surpasses in its stage qualities.
The chief work of Potyékhin was his comedies, mentioned in the
preceding chapter. All of them are from the life of the educated
classes, but he wrote also a few less known dramas from the peasant
life, and twice--in his early career in the fifties, and later on in
the seventies--he turned to the writing of short stories and novels
from popular life.
These stories and novels are most characteristic of the evolution of
the folk-novel during those years. In his earlier tales Potyékhin was
entirely under the spell of the then prevailing manner of idealising
the peasants; but in his second period, after having lived through the
years of realism in the sixties, and taken part in the above-mentioned
ethnographic expedition, he changed his manner. He entirely got rid of
benevolent idealisation, and represented the peasants as they were. In
the creation of individual characters he was undoubtedly successful,
but the life of the village--the _mir_--without which Russian
village-life cannot be represented, and which so well appears in the
works of the later folk-novelists, is yet missing. Altogether one feels
that Potyékhin knew well the outer symptoms of the life of the Russian
peasants, including their way of talking, but that he had not yet
grasped the real soul of the peasant. This came only later on.
ETHNOGRAPHICAL RESEARCH
Serfdom was abolished in 1861, and the time for mere lamentation
over its evils was gone. Proof that the peasants were human beings,
accessible to all human feelings, was no longer needed. New and far
deeper problems concerning the life and ideals of the Russian people
rose before every thinking Russian. Here was a mass of nearly fifty
million people, whose manners of life, whose creed, ways of thinking,
and ideals were totally different from those of the educated classes,
and who at the same time were as unknown to the would-be leaders of
progress as if these millions spoke a quite different language and
belonged to a quite different race.
Our best men felt that all the future development of Russia would be
hampered by that ignorance, if it continued--and literature did its
best to answer the great questions which besieged the thinking man at
every step of his social and political activity.
The years 1858-1878 were years of the ethnographical exploration
of Russia on such a scale that nowhere in Europe or America do we
find anything similar. The monuments of old folklore and poetry; the
common law of different parts and nationalities of the Empire; the
religious beliefs and the forms of worship, and still more the social
aspirations characteristic of the many sections of dissenters; the
extremely interesting habits and customs which prevail in the different
provinces; the economical conditions of the peasants; their domestic
trades; the immense communal fisheries n southeastern Russia; the
thousands of forms taken by the popular coöperative organisations
(the _Artels_); the “inner colonisation” of Russia, which can only be
compared with that of the United States; the evolution of ideas of
landed property, and so on--all these became the subjects of extensive
research.
The great ethnographical expedition organised by the Grand Duke
Constantine, in which a number of our best writers took part, was
only the forerunner of many expeditions, great and small, which were
organised by the numerous Russian scientific societies for the detailed
study of Russia’s ethnography, folklore, and economics. There were men
like YAKÚSHKIN (1820-1872), who devoted all his life to wandering on
foot from village to village, dressed like the poorest peasant, and
without any sort of thought of to-morrow; drying his wet peasant cloth
on his shoulders after a day’s march under the rain, living with the
peasants in their poor huts, and collecting folk-songs or ethnographic
material of the highest value.
A special type of the Russian “intellectuals” developed in the
so-called “Song-Collectors,” and “Zemstvo Statisticians,” a group of
people, old and young, who during the last twenty-five years have as
volunteers and at a ridiculously small price, devoted their lives to
house-to-house inquiry in behalf of the County Councils. (A. Oertel has
admirably described these “Statisticians” in one of his novels.)
Suffice it to say that, according to A. N. PÝPIN, the author of an
exhaustive _History of Russian Ethnography_ (4 vols.), not less than
4000 large works and bulky review articles were published during the
twenty years, 1858-1878, half of them dealing with the economical
conditions of the peasants, and the other half with ethnography in its
wider sense; and research still continues on the same scale. The best
of all this movement has been that it has not ended in dead material
in official publications. Some of the reports, like MAXÍMOFF’S _A
Year in the North_, _Siberia and Hard Labour_, and _Tramping Russia_,
AFANÁSIEFF (_Legends_), ZHELEZNÓFF’S _Ural Cossacks_, MÉLNIKOFF’S
(PETCHÉRSKY), _In the Woods_ and _On the Mountains_, or MORDÓVTSEFF’S
many sketches, were so well written that they were as widely read as
the best novels; while the dry statistical reports were summed up in
lively review articles (in Russia the reviews are much more bulky, and
the articles much longer than in England), which were widely read and
discussed all over the country. Besides, admirable researches dealing
with special classes of people, regions, and institutions were made
by men like PRUGÁVIN, ZASÓDIMSKIY, PYZHÓFF (_History of the Public
Houses_, which is in fact a popular history of Russia).
Russian educated society, which formerly hardly knew the peasants
otherwise than from the balcony of their country houses, was thus
brought in a few years into a close intercourse with all divisions of
the toiling masses; and it is easy to understand the influence which
this intercourse exercised, not only upon the development of political
ideas, but also upon the whole character of Russian literature.
The idealised novel of the past was now outgrown. The representation
of “the dear peasants” as a background for opposing their idyllic
virtues to the defects of the educated classes was possible no more.
The taking of the people as a mere material for burlesque tales, as
NICHOLAS USPÉNSKIY and V. A. SLYEPTSÓFF tried to do, enjoyed but a
momentary success. A new, eminently realistic school of folk-novelists
was wanted. And the result was the appearance of quite a number of
writers who broke new ground and, by cultivating a very high conception
concerning the duties of art in the representation of the poorer,
uneducated classes, opened, I am inclined to think, a new page in the
evolution of the novel for the literature of all nations.
POMYALÓVSKIY
The clergy in Russia--that is, the priests, the deacons, the cantors,
the bell-ringers--represent a separate class which stands between
“the classes” and “the masses”--much nearer to the latter than to the
former. This is especially true as regards the clergy in the villages,
and it was still more so some fifty years ago. Receiving no salary,
the village priest, with his deacon and cantors, lived chiefly by
the cultivation of the land that was attached to the village church;
and in my youth, in our Central Russia neighbourhood, during the hot
summer months when they were hay-making or taking in the crops, the
priest would always hurry through the mass in order to return to their
field-work. The priest’s house was in those years a log-house, only a
little better built than the houses of the peasants, alongside which it
stood sometimes thatched, instead of being simply covered with straw,
that is, held in position by means of straw ropes. His dress differed
from that of the peasants more by its cut than by the materials it was
made of, and between the church services and the fulfilment of his
parish duties the priest might always be seen in the fields, following
the plough or working in the meadows with the scythe.
All the children of the clergy receive free education in special
clerical schools, and later on, some of them, in seminaries; and it
was by the description of the abominable educational methods which
prevailed in these schools in the forties and fifties that POMYALÓVSKIY
(1835-1863) acquired his notoriety. He was the son of a poor deacon in
a village near St. Petersburg, and had himself passed through one of
these schools and a seminary. Both the lower and the higher schools
were then in the hands of quite uneducated priests--chiefly monks--and
the most absurd learning by rote of the most abstract theology was the
rule. The general moral tone of the schools was extremely low, drinking
went on to excess, and flogging for every lesson not recited by heart,
sometimes two or three times a day, with all sorts of refinements
of cruelty--was the chief instrument of education. Pomyalóvskiy
passionately loved his younger brother and wanted at all hazards to
save him from such an experience as his own; so he began to write for
a pedagogical review, on the education given in the clerical schools,
in order to get the means to educate his brother in a gymnasium. A
most powerful novel, evidently taken from real life in these schools,
followed, and numbers of priests, who had themselves been the victims
of a like “education,” wrote to the papers to confirm what Pomyalóvskiy
had said. Truth, without any decoration, naked truth, with an absolute
negation of art for art’s sake, were the distinctive features of
Pomyalóvskiy, who went so far in this direction as even to part with
the so-called heroes. The men whom he described were not sharply
outlined types, but, if I may be permitted to express myself in this
way, the “neutral-tint” types of real life: those indefinite, not too
good and not too bad characters of whom mankind is mostly composed, and
whose inertia is everywhere the great obstacle to progress.
Besides his sketches from the life of the clerical schools,
Pomyalóvskiy wrote also two novels from the life of the poorer
middle classes: _Philistine Happiness_, and _Mólotoff_--which is
autobiographic to a great extent--and an unfinished larger novel,
_Brother and Sister_. He displayed in these works the same broad
humanitarian spirit as Dostoyévskiy had for noticing humane redeeming
features in the most degraded men and women, but with the sound
realistic tendency which made the distinctive feature of the young
literary school of which he was one of the founders. And he depicted
also, in an extraordinarily powerful and tragic manner, the hero
from the poorer classes--who is imbued with hatred towards the upper
classes and toward all forms of social life which exist for their
advantage--and yet has not the faith in his own possibilities, which
knowledge gives, and which a real force always has. Therefore this
hero ends, either in a philistine family idyll, or, this failing, in a
propaganda of reckless cruelty and of contempt towards all mankind, as
the only possible foundation for personal happiness.
These novels were full of promise, and Pomyalóvskiy was looked upon
as the future leader of a new school of literature; but he died, even
before he had reached the age of thirty.
RYESHÉTNIKOFF
RYESHÉTNIKOFF (1841-1871) went still further in the same direction,
and, with Pomyalóvskiy, he may be considered as the founder of the
ultra-realistic school of Russian folk-novelists. He was born in the
Uráls and was the son of a poor church cantor who became a postman. The
family was in extreme poverty. An uncle took him to the town of Perm,
and there he was beaten and thrashed all through his childhood. When he
was ten years old they sent him to a miserable clerical school, where
he was treated even worse than at his uncle’s. He ran away, but was
caught, and they flogged the poor child so awfully that he had to lie
in a hospital for two months. As soon as he was taken back to school
he ran away a second time, joining a band of tramping beggars. He
suffered terribly during his peregrinations with them, and was caught
once more, and again flogged in the most barbarous way. His uncle
also was a postman, and Ryeshétnikoff, having nothing to read, used
to steal newspapers from the Post Office, and after reading them, he
destroyed them. This was, however, discovered, the boy having destroyed
some important Imperial manifesto addressed to the local authorities.
He was brought before a Court and condemned to be sent to a monastery
for a few months (there were no reformatories then). The monks were
kind to him, but they led a most dissolute life, drinking excessively,
over-eating, and stealing away from the monastery at night, and they
taught the boy to drink. In spite of all this, after his release from
the monastery Ryeshétnikoff passed brilliantly the examinations in the
district school, and was received as a clerk in the Civil Service, at
a salary of six shillings, and later on, half-a-guinea per month. This
meant, of course, the most wretched poverty, because the young man
took no bribes, as all clerks in those times were accustomed to do.
The arrival of a “revisor” at Perm saved him. This gentleman employed
Ryeshétnikoff as a copyist, and, having come to like him, gave him
the means to move to St. Petersburg, where he found him a position as
clerk in the Ministry of Finance at almost double his former salary.
Ryeshétnikoff had begun to write already, at Perm, and he continued to
do so at St. Petersburg, sending contributions to some of the lesser
newspapers, until he made the acquaintance of Nekrásoff. Then he
published his novel, _Podlípovtsy_, in _The Contemporary_ (_Ceux de
Podlipnaïa_, in a French translation).
Ryeshétnikoff’s position in literature is quite unique. “The sound
truth of Ryeshétnikoff”--in these words Turguéneff characterised his
writings. It is truth, indeed, nothing but truth, without any attempt
at decoration or lyric effects--a sort of diary in which the men
with whom the author lived in the mining works of the Uráls, in his
Permian village, or in the slums of St. Petersburg, are described.
“Podlípovtsy” means the inhabitants of a small village Podlípnaya, lost
somewhere in the mountains of the Uráls. They are Permians, not yet
quite Russified, and are still in the stage which so many populations
of the Russian Empire are living through nowadays--namely the early
agricultural. Few of them have for more than two months a year pure
rye-bread to eat: the remaining ten months they are compelled to add
the bark of trees to their flour in order to have “bread” at all. They
have not the slightest idea of what Russia is, or of the State, and
very seldom do they see a priest. They hardly know how to cultivate the
land. They do not know how to make a stove, and periodical starvation
during the months from January to July has taken the very soul and
heart out of them. They stand on a lower level than real savages.
One of their best men, Pilá, knows how to count up to five, but the
others are unable to do so. Pilá’s conceptions of space and time are
of the most primitive description, and yet this Pilá is a born leader
of his semi-savage village people, and is continually making something
for them. He tells them when it is time to plough; he tries to find a
sale for their small domestic industries; he knows how to go to the
next town, and when there is anything to be done there, he does it. His
relations with his family, which consists of an only daughter, Apróska,
are at a stage belonging to prehistorical anthropology, and yet he and
his friend Sysói love that girl Apróska so deeply, that after her death
they are ready to kill themselves. They abandon their village to lead
the hard life of boatmen on the river, dragging the heavy boats up the
current. But these semi-savages are deeply human, and one feels that
they are so, not merely because the author wants it, but in reality;
and one cannot read the story of their lives and the sufferings which
they endure, with the resignation of a patient beast, without being
moved at times even more deeply than by a good novel from our own life.
Another novel of Ryeshétnikoff, _The Glúmoffs_, is perhaps one of
the most depressing novels in this branch of literature. There is
nothing striking in it--no misfortunes, no calamities, no dramatic
effects; but the whole life of the ironworkers of the Uráls, who are
described in this novel, is so gloomy, there is so little possibility
of possible escape from this gloominess, that sheer despair seizes
you, as you gradually realise the immobility of the life which this
novel represents. In _Among Men_ Ryeshétnikoff tells the story of his
own terrible childhood. As to his larger two-volume novel--_Where
is it Better?_--it is an interminable string of misfortunes which
befell a woman of the poorer classes, who came to St. Petersburg in
search of work. We have here (as well as in another long novel, _One’s
Own Bread_) the same shapelessness and the same absence of strongly
depicted characters as in _The Glúmoffs_, and we receive the same
gloomy impression.
The literary defects of all Ryeshétnikoff’s work are only too
evident. Yet in spite of them, he may claim to be considered as the
initiator of a new style of novel, which has its artistic value,
notwithstanding its want of form and the ultra-realism of both its
conception and structure. Ryeshétnikoff certainly could not inspire a
school of imitators; but he has given hints to those who came after
him as to what must be done to create the true folk-novel, and what
must be avoided. There is not the slightest trace of romanticism
in his work; no heroes; nothing but that great, indifferent,
hardly individualised crowd, among which there are no striking
colours, no giants; all is small; all interests are limited to a
microscopically narrow neighbourhood. In fact, they all centre round
the all-dominating question, Where to get food and shelter, even at the
price of unbearable toil. Every person described has, of course, his
individuality; but all these individualities are merged into one single
desire: that of finding a living which shall not be sheer misery--shall
not consist of days of well-being alternating with days of starvation.
How lessen the hardships of work which is beyond a man’s forces? how
find a place in the world where work shall not be done amid such
degrading conditions? these questions make the unanimity of purpose
among all these men and women.
There are, I have just said, no heroes in Ryeshétnikoff’s novels: that
means, no “heroes” in our usual literary sense; but you see before you
real Titans--real heroes in the primitive sense of the word--heroes of
endurance--such as the species must produce when, a shapeless crowd,
it bitterly struggles against frost and hunger. The way in which
these heroes support the most incredible physical privations as they
tramp from one part of Russia to another, or have to face the most
cruel deceptions in their search for work--the way they struggle for
existence--is already striking enough; but the way in which they
die, is perhaps even more striking. Many readers remember, of course,
Tolstóy’s _Three Deaths_: the lady dying from consumption, and cursing
her illness; the peasant who in his last hours thinks of his boots, and
directs to whom they shall be given, so that they may go to the toiler
most in need of them; and the third--the death of the birch tree. For
Ryeshétnikoff’s heroes, who live all their lives without being sure of
bread for the morrow, death is not a catastrophe: it simply means less
and less force to get one’s food, less and less energy to chew one’s
dry piece of bread, less and less bread, less oil in the lamp--and the
lamp is blown out.
Another most terrible thing in Ryeshétnikoff’s novels is his picture
of how the habit of drunkenness takes possession of men. You see it
coming--see how it must come, organically, necessarily, fatally--how
it takes possession of the man, and how it holds him till his death.
This Shakespearian fatalism applied to drink--whose workings are only
too well known to those who know popular life--is perhaps the most
terrible feature of Ryeshétnikoff’s novels. Especially is it apparent
in _The Glúmoffs_, where you see how the teacher in a mining town,
because he refuses to join the administration in the exploitation of
children, is deprived of all means of living and although he marries in
the long run a splendid woman, sinks at last into the clutches of the
demon of habitual drunkenness. Only the women do not drink, and that
saves the race from utter destruction; in fact, nearly every one of
Ryeshétnikoff’s women is a heroine of persevering labour, of struggle
for the necessities of life, as the female is in the whole animal
world; and such the women are in real popular life in Russia.
If it is very difficult to avoid romantic sentimentalism, when
the author who describes the monotony of the everyday life of a
middle-class crowd intends to make the reader sympathise nevertheless
with this crowd, the difficulties are still greater when he descends
a step lower in the social scale and deals with peasants, or, still
worse, with those who belong to the lowest strata of city life. The
most realistic writers have fallen into sentimentalism and romanticism
when they attempted to do this. Even Zola in his last novel, _Work_,
falls into the trap. But that is precisely what Ryeshétnikoff never
did. His writings are a violent protest against æsthetics, and even
against all sorts of conventional art. He was a true child of the
epoch characterised by Turguéneff in Bazároff. “I do not care for the
form of my writings: truth will speak for itself,” he seems to say
to his readers. He would have felt ashamed if, even unconsciously,
he had resorted anywhere to dramatic effects in order to touch his
readers--just as the public speaker who entirely relies upon the beauty
of the thought he develops would feel ashamed if some merely oratorical
expression escaped his lips.
For myself, I think that a great creative genius was required in order
to pick, as Ryeshétnikoff did, out of the everyday, monotonous life
of the crowd, those trifling expressions, those exclamations, those
movements expressive of some feelings or some idea without which his
novels would have been quite unreadable. It has been remarked by one
of our critics that when you begin to read a novel of Ryeshétnikoff
you seem to have plunged into a chaos. You have the description of
a commonplace landscape, which, in fact, is no “landscape” at all;
then the future hero or heroine of the novel appears, and he or she
is a person whom you may see in every crowd--with no claims to rise
above this crowd, with hardly anything even to distinguish him or her
from the crowd. This hero speaks, eats, drinks, works, swears, as
everyone else in the crowd does. He is not a chosen creature--he is
not a demoniacal character--a Richard III. in a fustian jacket; nor
is she a Cordelia or even a Dickens’ “Nell.” Ryeshétnikoff’s men and
women are exactly like thousands of men and women around them; but
gradually, owing to those very scraps of thought, to an exclamation,
to a word dropped here and there, or even to a slight movement that is
mentioned--you begin to feel interested in them. After thirty pages
you feel that you are already decidedly in sympathy with them and
you are so captured that you read pages and pages of these chaotic
details with the sole purpose of solving the question which begins
passionately to interest you: Will Peter or Anna find to-day the piece
of bread which they long to have? Will Mary get the work which might
procure her a pinch of tea for her sick and half crazy mother? Will
the woman Praskóvia freeze during that bitterly cold night when she is
lost in the streets of St. Petersburg or will she be taken at last to
a hospital where she may have a warm blanket and cup of tea? Will the
postman abstain from the “fire-water,” and will he get a situation, or
not?
Surely, to obtain this result with such unconventional means reveals
a very great talent; it means, to possess that power of moving one’s
readers--of making them love and hate--which makes the very essence of
literary talent; and this is why those shapeless, and much too long,
and much too dreary novels of Ryeshétnikoff make a landmark in Russian
literature, and are the precursors not only of a Górkiy, but, most
surely, of a greater talent still.
LEVÍTOFF
Another folk-novelist of the same generation was LEVÍTOFF (1835 or
1842-1877). He described chiefly those portions of southern Middle
Russia which are in the borderland between the wooded parts of the
country and the treeless prairies. His life was extremely sad. He
was born in the family of a poor country priest in a village of the
province of Tambóf, and was educated in a clerical school of the type
described by Pomyalóvskiy. When he was only sixteen he went on foot
to Moscow, in order to enter the university, and then moved to St.
Petersburg. There he was soon involved in some “students’ affair,”
and was exiled, in 1858, to Shenkúrsk, in the far north, and next
removed to Vólogda. Here he lived in complete isolation from everything
intellectual, and in awful poverty verging on starvation. Not until
three years later was he allowed to return to Moscow, and, being
absolutely penniless, he made all the journey from Vólogda to Moscow on
foot, earning occasionally a few shillings by clerical work done for
the cantonal Board of some village. These years of exile left a deep
trace upon all his subsequent life, which he passed in extreme poverty,
never finding a place where he could settle, and drowning in drink the
sufferings of a loving, restless soul.
During his early childhood he was deeply impressed by the charm and
quiet of village life in the prairies, and he wrote later on: “This
quietness of village life passes before me, or rather flies, as
something really living, as a well defined image. Yes, I distinctly see
above our daily life in the village, somebody gliding--a little above
the cross of our church, together with the light clouds--somebody light
and soft of outline, having the mild and modest face of our prairie
girls. ... Thus, after many years spent amidst the untold sufferings of
my present existence, do I represent to myself the genius of country
life.”
The charm of the boundless prairies of South Russia--the Steppes--is
so admirably rendered by Levítoff that no Russian author has surpassed
him in the poetical description of their nature, excepting Koltsóff
in his poetry. Levítoff was a pure flower of the Steppes, full of
the most poetical love of his birthplace, and he certainly must have
suffered deeply when he was thrown amidst the intellectual proletarians
in the great, cold, and egotistic capital of the Nevá. Whenever he
stayed at St. Petersburg or at Moscow he always lived in the poorest
quarters, somewhere on the outskirts of the town: they reminded him
of his native village; and when he thus settled amongst the lowest
strata of the population, he did so, as he wrote himself, “to run away
from the moral contradictions, the artificiality of life, the would-be
humanitarianism, and the cut and dried imaginary superiority of the
educated classes.” He could not live, for even a couple of months in
succession, in relative well-being: he began to feel the gnawings of
conscience, and it ended in his leaving behind his extremely poor
belongings and going somewhere--anywhere where he would be poorer
still, amidst other poor who live from hand to mouth.
I do not even know if I am right in describing Levítoff’s works as
novels. They are more like shapeless, lyrical-epical improvisations in
prose. Only in these improvisations we have not the usual hackneyed
presentment of the writer’s compassion for other people’s sufferings.
It is an epical description of what the author has lived through in
his close contact with all classes of people of the poorest sort,
and its lyric element is the sorrow that he himself knew--not in
imagination--as he lived that same life; the sorrow of want, of
family troubles, of hopes unsatisfied, of isolation, of all sorts of
oppression, and of all sorts of human weakness. The pages which he has
given to the feelings of the drunken man and to the ways in which this
disease--drunkenness--takes possession of men, are something really
terrible. Of course, he died young--from an inflammation of the lungs
caught one day in January, as he went in an old summer coat to get ten
shillings from some petty editor at the other end of Moscow.
The best known work of Levítoff is a volume of _Sketches from the
Steppes_; but he has also written scenes from the life of the towns,
under the title of _Moscow Dens and Slums_, _Street Sketches_, etc.,
and a volume to which some of his friends must have given the title
of _Sorrows of the Villages, the High Roads, and the Towns_. In the
second of these works we find a simply terrifying collection of tramps
and outcasts of the large cities--of men sunk to the lowest level of
city slum-life, represented without the slightest attempt at idealising
them--and yet deeply human. _Sketches from the Steppes_ remains his
best work. It is a collection of poems, written in prose, full of the
most admirable descriptions of prairie nature and of tiny details
from the life of the peasants, with all their petty troubles, their
habits, customs, and superstitions. Plenty of personal reminiscences
are scattered through these sketches, and one often finds in them a
scene of children playing in the meadows of the prairies and living
in accordance with the life of nature, in which every little trait is
pictured with a warm, tender love; and almost everywhere one feels the
unseen tears of sorrow, shed by the author.
Amongst the several sketches of the life and work of Levítoff there is
one--written with deep feeling and containing charming idyllic features
from his childhood as well as a terrible account of his later years--by
A. Skabitchévskiy, in his _History of Modern Russian Literature_.
GLEB USPÉNSKIY
GLEB USPÉNSKIY (1840-1902) widely differs from all the preceding
writers. He represents a school in himself, and I know of no writer in
any literature with whom he might be compared. Properly speaking, he is
not a novelist; but his work is not ethnography or demography either,
because it contains, besides descriptions belonging to the domain of
folk-psychology, all the elements of a novel. His first productions
were novels with a leaning towards ethnography. Thus, _Ruin_ is a novel
in which Uspénskiy admirably described how all the life of a small
provincial town, which had flourished under the habits and manners of
serfdom, went to ruin after the abolition of that institution: but his
later productions, entirely given to village life, and representing the
full maturity of his talent, had more the character of ethnographic
sketches, written by a gifted novelist, than of novels proper. They
began like novels. Different persons appear before you in the usual
way, and gradually you grow interested in their doings and their life.
Moreover, they are not offered you haphazard, as they would be in the
diary of an ethnographer; they have been chosen by the author because
he considers them typical of those aspects of village life which he
intends to deal with. However, the author is not satisfied with merely
acquainting the reader with these types: he soon begins to discuss them
and to talk about their position in village life and the influence
they must exercise upon the future of the village; and, being already
interested in the people, you read the discussions with interest. Then
some admirable scene, which would not be out of place in a novel of
Tolstóy or Turguéneff, is introduced; but after a few pages of such
artistic creation Uspénskiy becomes again an ethnographer discussing
the future of the village-community. He was too much of a political
writer to always think in images and to be a pure novelist, but he was
also too passionately impressed by the individual facts which came
under his observation to calmly discuss them, as the merely political
writer would do. In spite of all this, notwithstanding this mixture of
political literature with art, because of his artistic gifts, you read
Uspénskiy just as you read a good novelist.
Every movement among the educated classes in favour of the poorer
classes begins by an idealisation of the latter. It being necessary to
clear away, first of all, a number of prejudices which exist among the
rich as regards the poor, some idealisation is unavoidable. Therefore,
the earlier folk-novelist takes only the most striking types--those
whom the wealthier people can better understand and sympathise with;
and he lightly passes over the less sympathetic features of the life of
the poor. This was done in the forties in France and England, and in
Russia by Grigoróvitch, Márko Vovtchók, and several others. Then came
Ryeshétnikoff with his artistic Nihilism: with his negation of all the
usual tricks of art, and his objectivism; his blunt refusal to create
“types” and his preference for the quite ordinary man; his manner
of transmitting to you his love of his people, merely through the
suppressed intensity of his own emotion. Later on, new problems arose
for Russian literature. The readers were now quite ready to sympathise
with the individual peasant or factory worker; but they wanted to know
something more: namely, what were the very foundations, the ideals,
the springs of village life? what were they worth in the further
development of the nation? what, and in what form, could the immense
agricultural population of Russia contribute to the further development
of the country and the civilised world altogether? All such questions
could not be answered by the statistician alone; they required the
genius of the artist, who must decipher the reply out of the thousands
of small indications and facts, and our folk-novelists understood this
new demand of the reader. A rich collection of individual peasant types
having already been given, it was now the life of the village--the
_mir_, with its advantages and drawbacks, and its promises for the
future--that the readers were anxious to find in the folk-novel. These
were the questions which the new generation of folk-novelists undertook
to discuss.
In this venture they were certainly right. It must not be forgotten
that in the last analysis every economical and social question is
a question of psychology of both the individual and the social
aggregation. It cannot be solved by arithmetic alone. Therefore, in
social science, as in human psychology, the poet often sees his way
better than the physiologist. At any rate, he too has his voice in the
matter.
When Uspénskiy began writing his first sketches of village life--it
was in the early seventies--Young Russia was in the grip of the
great movement “towards the people,” and it must be owned that in
this movement, as in every other, there was some idealisation. Those
who did not know village-life at all cherished exaggerated, idyllic
illusions about the village-community. In all probability Uspénskiy,
who was born in a large industrial town, Túla, in the family of a
small functionary and hardly knew country life at all, shared these
illusions to some extent, very probably in their most extreme aspect;
and still preserving them he went to a province of southeastern Russia,
Samára, which had lately become the prey of modern commercialism, and
where, owing to a number of peculiar circumstances, the abolition of
serfdom had been accomplished under conditions specially ruinous to the
peasants and to village-life altogether. Here he must have suffered
intensely from seeing his youthful dreams vanishing; and, as artists
often do, he hastened to generalise; but he had not the education of
the thorough ethnographer, which might have prevented him from making
too hasty ethnological generalisations from his limited materials,
and he began to write a series of scenes from village-life, imbued
with a deep pessimism. It was only much later on, while staying in a
village of Northern Russia, in the province of Nóvgorod, that he came
to understand the influences which the culture of the land and life in
an agricultural village may exercise upon the tiller of the soil; then
only had he some glimpses of what are the social and moral forces of
land cultivation and communal life, and of what free labour on a free
soil might be. These observations inspired Uspénskiy with perhaps the
best thing he wrote, _The Power of the Soil_ (1882). It will remain, at
any rate, his most important contribution in this domain--the artist
appearing here in all the force of his talent and in his true function
of explaining the inner springs of a certain mood of life.
ZLATOVRÁTSKIY AND OTHER FOLK-NOVELISTS
One of the great questions of the day for Russia is, whether we shall
abolish the communal ownership of the land, as it has been abolished
in Western Europe, and introduce instead of it individual peasant
proprietorship; or whether we shall endeavour to retain the village
community, and do our best to develop it further in the direction of
coöperative associations, both agricultural and industrial. A great
struggle goes on accordingly among the educated classes of Russia
upon this question, and in his first Samára sketches, entitled _From
a Village Diary_, Uspénskiy paid a great deal of attention to this
subject. He tried to prove that the village community, such as it is,
results in a formidable oppression of the individual, in a hampering
of individual initiative, in all sorts of oppression of the poorer
peasants by the richer ones, and, consequently, in general poverty. He
omitted, however, all the arguments which these same poorer peasants,
if they should be questioned, would bring forward in favour of the
present communal ownership of the land; and he attributed to this
institution what is the result of other general causes, as may be seen
from the fact that exactly the same poverty, the same inertia, and the
same oppression of the individual, are found in an even greater degree
in Little Russia, where the village community has ceased to exist long
since. Uspénskiy thus expressed--at least in those sketches which dealt
with the villages of Samára--the views which prevail among the middle
classes of Western Europe, and are current in Russia among the growing
village _bourgeoisie_.
This attitude called forth a series of replies from another
folk-novelist of an equally great talent, ZLATOVRÁTSKIY (born 1845),
who answered each sketch of Uspénskiy’s by a novel in which he took the
extreme opposite view. He had known peasant life in Middle Russia from
his childhood; and the less illusions he had about it, the better was
he able, when he began a serious study of the peasants, to see the good
features of their lives, and to understand those types of them who take
to heart the interests of the village as a whole--types that I also
well knew in my youth in the same provinces.
Zlatovrátskiy was accused, of course, of idealising the peasants; but
the reality is, that Uspénskiy and Zlatovrátskiy complement each other.
Just as they complement each other geographically--the latter speaking
for the truly agricultural region of Middle Russia, while Uspénskiy
spoke for the periphery of this region--so also they complement each
other psychologically. Uspénskiy was right in showing the drawbacks
of the village community institution--deprived of its vitality by an
omnipotent bureaucracy; and Zlatovrátskiy was quite right, too, in
showing what sort of men are nevertheless bred by the village-communal
institutions and by attachment to the land, and what services they
could render to the rural masses under different conditions of liberty
and independence.
Zlatovrátskiy’s novels are thus an important ethnographical
contribution, and they have at the same time an artistic value. His
_Everyday Life in the Village_, and perhaps even more his _Peasant
Jurymen_ (since 1864, the peasant heads of households have acted in
turn as jurors in the law courts), are full of the most charming
scenes of village-life; while his _Foundations_ represents a serious
attempt at grasping in a work of art the fundamental conceptions of
Russian rural life. In this last work we also find types of men, who
personify the revolt of the peasant against both external oppression
and the submissiveness of the mass to that oppression--men, who, under
favourable conditions might become the initiators of movements of a
deep purport. That types have not been invented will be agreed by
everyone who knows Russian village-life from the inside.
* * * * *
The writers who have been named in the preceding pages are far from
representing the whole school of folk-novelists. Not only has every
Russian novelist of the past, from Turguéneff down, been inspired in
some of his work by folk life, but some of the best productions of
the most prominent contemporary writers, such as Korolénko, Tchéhoff,
Oertel and many others (see next chapter), belong to the same category.
There are besides quite a number of novelists distinctively of this
class, who would be spoken of at some length in any course of Russian
literature, but whom, unfortunately, I am compelled to mention in but a
few lines.
NAÚMOFF was born at Tobólsk (in 1838) and, settling in Western Siberia
after he had received a university education at St. Petersburg, he
wrote a series of short novels and sketches in which he described life
in West Siberian villages and mining towns. These stories were widely
read, owing to their expressive, truly popular language, the energy
with which they were imbued, and the striking pictures they contained
of the advantage taken of the poverty of the mass by the richer
peasants, known in Russia as “_mir_-eaters” (_miroyéd_).
ZASÓDIMSKIY (born 1843) belongs to the same period. Like many of
his contemporaries, he spent years of his youth in exile, but he
remains still the same “populist” that he was in his youth, imbued
with the same love of the people and the same faith in the peasants.
His _Chronicle of the Village Smúrino_ (1874) and _Mysteries of the
Steppes_ (1882) are especially interesting, because Zasódimskiy
made in these novels attempts at representing types of intellectual
and protesting peasants, true to life, but usually neglected by
our folk-novelists. Some of them are rebels who revolt against the
conditions of village-life, chiefly in their own, personal interest,
while others are peaceful religious propagandists, and still others are
men who have developed under the influence of educated propagandists.
Another writer who excelled in the representation of the type of
“_mir_-eaters” in the villages of European Russia is SÁLOFF (1843-1902).
PETROPÁVLOVSKIY (1857-1892), who wrote under the pseudonym of KARÓNIN,
was, on the other hand, a real poet of village-life and of the
cultivation of the fields. He was born in southeastern Russia, in the
province of Samára, but was early exiled to the government of Tobólsk,
in Siberia, where he was kept many years, and from which he was
released only to die soon after from consumption. He gave in his novels
and stories several very dramatic types of village “ne’er-do-well’s,”
but the novel which is most typical of his talent is _My World_. In
it he tells how an “intellectual,” “rent in twain” and nearly losing
his reason in consequence of this dualism, finds inner peace and
reconciliation with life when he settles in a village and works in the
same almost superhuman way that the peasants do, when hay has to be
mown and the crops to be carried in. Thus living the life they live,
he is loved by them, and finds a healthy and intelligent girl to love
him. This is, of course, to some extent an idyll of village life; but
so slight is the idealisation, as we know from the experience of those
“intellectuals” who went to the villages as equals coming among equals,
that the idyll reads almost as a reality.
Several more folk-novelists ought to be mentioned. Such are L. MELSHIN
(born 1860), the pseudonym of an exile “P. YA.,” who is also a poet,
and who, having been kept for twelve years at hard labour in Siberia
as a political convict, has published two volumes of hard-labour
sketches, _In the World of the Outcasts_ (a work to put by the side
of Dostoyévskiy’s _Dead House_); S. ELPÁTIEVSKIY (born 1854), also
an exile, who has given good sketches of Siberian tramps; NEFÉDOFF
(1847-1902), an ethnographer who has made valuable scientific
researches and at the same time has published excellent sketches of
factory and village life, and whose writings are thoroughly imbued
with a deep faith in the store of energy and plastic creative power
of the masses of the country people; and several others. Every one of
these writers deserves, however, more than a short notice, because
each has contributed something, either to the comprehension of this
or that class of the people, or to the working out of those forms of
“idealistic realism” which are best suited for dealing with types taken
from the toiling masses, and which has lately made the literary success
of Maxím Górkiy.
MAXÍM GÓRKIY
Few writers have established their reputation so rapidly as MAXÍM
GÓRKIY. His first sketches (1892-95) were published in an obscure
provincial paper of the Caucasus, and were totally unknown to the
literary world, but when a short tale of his appeared in a widely-read
review, edited by Korolénko, it at once attracted general attention.
The beauty of its form, its artistic finish, and the new note of
strength and courage which rang through it, brought the young writer
immediately into prominence. It became known that “Maxím Górkiy” was
the pseudonym of a quiet young man, A. PYÉSHKOFF, who was born in 1868
in Níjniy Nóvgorod, a large town on the Vólga; that his father was a
merchant or an artisan, his mother a remarkable peasant woman, who
died soon after the birth of her son, and that the boy, orphaned when
only nine, was brought up in a family of his father’s relatives. The
childhood of “Górkiy” must have been anything but happy, for one day he
ran away and entered into service on a Vólga river steamer. This took
place when he was only twelve. Later on he worked as a baker, became
a street porter, sold apples in a street, till at last he obtained
the position of clerk at a lawyer’s. In 1891 he lived and wandered on
foot with the tramps in South Russia, and during these wanderings he
wrote a number of short stories, of which the first was published in
1892, in a newspaper of Northern Caucasia. The stories proved to be
remarkably fine, and when a collection of all that he had hitherto
written was published in 1900, in four small volumes, the whole of a
large edition was sold in a very short time, and the name of Górkiy
took its place--to speak of living novelists only--by the side of those
of Korolénko and Tchéhoff, immediately after the name of Leo Tolstóy.
In Western Europe and America his reputation was made with the same
rapidity as soon as a couple of his sketches were translated into
French and German, and re-translated into English.
It is sufficient to read a few of Górkiy’s short stories, for instance,
_Málva_, or _Tchelkásh_, or _The Ex-Men_, or _Twenty-Six Men and One
Girl_, to realise at once the causes of his rapidly won popularity.
The men and women he describes are not heroes: they are the most
ordinary tramps or slum-dwellers; and what he writes are not novels in
the proper sense of the word, but merely sketches of life. And yet,
in the literature of all nations, including the short stories of Guy
de Maupassant and Bret Harte, there are few things in which such a
fine analysis of complicated and struggling human feelings is given,
such interesting, original, and new characters are so well depicted,
and human psychology is so admirably interwoven with a background of
nature--a calm sea, menacing waves, or endless, sunburnt prairies. In
the first-named story you really _see_ the promontory that juts out
into “the laughing waters,” that promontory upon which the fisherman
has pitched his hut; and you understand why Málva, the woman who loves
him and comes to see him every Sunday, loves that spot as much as she
does the fisherman himself. And then at every page you are struck by
the quite unexpected variety of fine touches with which the love of
that strange and complicated nature, Málva, is depicted, or by the
unforeseen aspects under which both the ex-peasant fisherman and his
peasant-son appear in the short space of a few days. The variety of
strokes, refined and brutal, tender and terribly harsh, with which
Górkiy pictures human feelings is such that in comparison with his
heroes the heroes and heroines of our best novelists seem so simple--so
simplified--just like a flower in European decorative art in comparison
with a real flower.
Górkiy is a great artist; he is a poet; but he is also a child of
all that long series of folk-novelists whom Russia has had for the
last half century, and he has utilised their experience: he has
found at last that happy combination of realism with idealism for
which the Russian folk-novelists have been striving for so many
years. Ryeshétnikoff and his school had tried to write novels of an
ultra-realistic character without any trace of idealisation. They
restrained themselves whenever they felt inclined to generalise, to
create, to idealise. They tried to write mere diaries, in which events,
great and small, important and insignificant, were related with an
equal exactitude, without even changing the tone of the narrative. We
have seen that in this way, by dint of their talent, they were able to
obtain the most poignant effects; but like the historian who vainly
tries to be “impartial,” yet always remains a party man, they had
not avoided the idealisation which they so much dreaded. They could
not avoid it. A work of art is always personal; do what he may, the
author’s sympathies will necessarily appear in his creation, and he
will always idealise those who answer to them. Grigórovitch and Márko
Vovtchók had idealised the all-pardoning patience and the all-enduring
submissiveness of the Russian peasant; and Ryeshétnikoff had quite
unconsciously, and maybe against his will, idealised the almost
supernatural powers of endurance which he had seen in the Uráls and
in the slums of St. Petersburg. Both had idealised something: the
ultra-realist as well as the romantic. Górkiy must have understood the
significance of this; at all events he does not object in the least
to a certain idealisation. In his adherence to truth he is as much
of a realist as Ryeshétnikoff; but he idealises in the same sense as
Turguéneff did when he pictured Rúdin, Helen, or Bazároff. He even
says that we _must_ idealise, and he chooses for idealisation the type
he admired most among those tramps whom he knew--the rebel. This made
his success; it appeared to be exactly what the readers of all nations
were unconsciously calling for as a relief from the dull mediocrity and
absence of strong individuality all about them.
* * * * *
The stratum of society from which Górkiy took the heroes of his first
short stories--and in short stories he appears at his best--is that
of the tramps of Southern Russia: men who have broken with regular
society, who never accept the yoke of permanent work, labouring only as
long as they want to, as “casuals” in the sea-ports on the Black Sea;
who sleep in doss-houses or in ravines on the outskirts of the cities,
and tramp in the summer from Odessa to the Crimea, and from the Crimea
to the prairies of Northern Caucasia, where they are always welcome at
harvest time.
That eternal complaint about poverty and bad luck, that helplessness
and hopelessness which were the dominant notes with the early
folk-novelists, are totally absent from Górkiy’s stories. His tramps do
not complain. “Everything is all right,” one of them says; “no use to
whine and complain--that would do no good. Live and endure till you are
broken down, or if you are so already--wait for death. This is all the
wisdom in the world--do you understand?”
Far from his whining and complaining about the hard lot of his tramps,
a refreshing note of energy and courage, which is quite unique in
Russian literature, sounds through the stories of Górkiy. His tramps
are miserably poor, but they “don’t care.” They drink, but there
is nothing among them nearly approaching the dark drunkenness of
despair which we saw in Levítoff. Even the most “down-trodden” one of
them--far from making a virtue of his helplessness, as Dostoyévskiy’s
heroes always did--dreams of reforming the world and making it rich.
He dreams of the moment when “we, once ‘the poor,’ shall vanish, after
having enriched the Crœsuses with the richness of the spirit and the
power of life.” (_A Mistake_, I, 170.)
Górkiy cannot stand whining; he cannot bear that self-castigation
in which other Russian writers so much delight: which Turguéneff’s
sub-Hamlets used to express so poetically, of which Dostoyévskiy has
made a virtue, and of which Russia offers such an infinite variety
of examples. Górkiy knows the type, but he has no pity for such men.
Better anything than one of those egotistic weaklings who gnaw all the
time at their own hearts, compel others to drink with them in order to
perorate before them about their “burning souls”; those beings, “full
of compassion” which, however, never goes beyond self-commiseration,
and “full of love” which is never anything but self-love. Górkiy knows
only too well these men who never fail to wantonly ruin the lives
of those women who trust them; who do not even stop at murder, like
Raskólnikoff, or the brothers Karamázoff, and yet whine about the
circumstances which have brought them to it. “What’s all this talk
about circumstances!” he makes Old Izerghil say. “Everyone makes his
own circumstances! I see all sorts of men--but the strong ones--where
are they? There are fewer and fewer noble men!”
Knowing how much the Russian “intellectuals” suffer from this disease
of whining, knowing how rare among them are the aggressive idealists,
the real _rebels_, and how numerous on the other hand are the
Nezhdánoffs (Turguéneff’s _Virgin Soil_), even among those “politicals”
who march with resignation to Siberia, Górkiy does not take his types
from among “the intellectuals,” for he thinks that they too easily
become “the prisoners of life.”
In _Váreñka Olésova_ Górkiy expresses all his contempt for the average
“intellectual” of our own days. He introduces to us the interesting
type of a girl, full of vitality; a most primitive creature, absolutely
untouched by any ideals of liberty and equality, but so full of an
intense life, so independent, so much herself, that one cannot but feel
greatly interested in her. She meets with one of those “intellectuals”
who know and admire higher ideals, but are weaklings, utterly devoid of
the nerve of life. Of course, Váreñka laughs at the very idea of such a
man’s falling in love with her; and these are the expressions in which
Górkiy makes her define the usual hero of Russian novels:
“The Russian hero is always silly and stupid,” she says; “he is always
sick of something; always thinking about something that cannot be
understood, and is himself so miserable, so mi-i-serable! He will
think, think, then talk, then he will go and make a declaration of
love, and after that he thinks, and thinks again, till he marries....
And when he is married, he talks all sorts of nonsense to his wife,
and then abandons her.” (_Váreñka Olésova_, II, 281.)
Górkiy’s favourite type is the “rebel”--the man in full revolt against
Society, but at the same time a strong man, a power; and as he has
found among the tramps with whom he has lived at least the embryo of
this type, it is from this stratum of society that he takes his most
interesting heroes.
In _Konováloff_ Górkiy himself gives the psychology, or, rather, a
partial psychology, of his tramp hero:--“An ‘intellectual’ amongst
those whom fate has ill-used--amongst the ragged, the hungry and
embittered half-men and half-beasts with whom the city slums
teem.”--“Usually a being that can be included in no order,” the man
who has “been torn from all his moorings, who is hostile to everything
and ready to turn upon anything the force of his angry, embittered
scepticism” (II, 23). His tramp feels that he has been defeated in
life, but he does not seek excuse in circumstances. Konováloff, for
instance, will not admit the theory which is in such vogue among the
educated ne’er-do-well, namely, that he is the sad product of adverse
conditions. “One must be faint-hearted indeed,” he says, “to become
such a man.” “I live, and something goads me on” ... but “I have no
inner line to follow ... do you understand me? I don’t know how to say
it. I have not that spark in my soul, ... force, perhaps? Something is
missing; that’s all!” And when his young friend who has read in books
all sorts of excuses for weakness of character mentions “the dark
hostile forces round you,” Konováloff retorts: “Then make a stand!
take a stronger footing! find your ground, and make a stand!”
Some of Górkiy’s tramps are, of course, philosophers. They think about
human life, and have had opportunities to know what it is. “Everyone,”
he remarks somewhere, “who has had a struggle to sustain in his life,
and has been defeated by life, and now feels cruelly imprisoned amidst
its squalor, is more of a philosopher than Schopenhauer himself; for
abstract thought can never be cast into such a correct and vivid
plastic form as that in which is expressed the thought born directly
out of suffering.” (I, p. 31.) “The knowledge of life among such men is
striking,” he says again.
Love of nature is, of course, another characteristic feature of the
tramp--“Konováloff loved nature with a deep, inarticulate love, which
was betrayed only by a glitter in his eyes. Every time he was in the
fields, or on the river bank, he became permeated with a sort of peace
and love which made him still more like a child. Sometimes he would
exclaim looking at the sky: ‘Good!’ and in this exclamation there was
more sense and feeling than in the rhetoric of many poets.... Like all
the rest, poetry loses its holy simplicity and spontaneity when it
becomes a profession.” (I, 33-4.)
However, Górkiy’s rebel-tramp is not a Nitzscheite who ignores
everything beyond his narrow egotism, or imagines himself a “man”; the
“diseased ambition” of “an intellectual” is required to create the true
Nitzscheite type. In Górkiy’s tramps, as in his women of the lowest
class, there are flashes of greatness of character and a simplicity
which is incompatible with the super-man’s self-conceit. He does not
idealise them so as to make of them real heroes; that would be too
untrue to life: the tramp is still a defeated being. But he shows how
among these men, owing to an inner consciousness of strength, there are
moments of greatness, even though that inner force be not strong enough
to make out of Orlóff (in _The Orlóffs_) or Iliyá (in _The Three_) a
real power, a real hero--the man who fights against those much stronger
than himself. He seems to say: Why are not you, intellectuals, as truly
“individual,” as frankly rebellious against the Society you criticise,
and as strong as some of these submerged ones are?
In his short stories Górkiy is great; but like his two contemporaries,
Korolénko and Tchéhoff, whenever he has tried to write a longer novel,
with a full development of characters, he has not succeeded. Taken as
a whole, _Fomá Gordéeff_, notwithstanding several beautiful and deeply
impressive scenes, is weaker than most of Górkiy’s short stories; and
while the first portion of _The Three_--the idyllic life of the three
young people, and the tragical issues foreshadowed in it--makes us
expect to find in this novel one of the finest productions in Russian
literature--its end is disappointing. The French translator of _The
Three_ has even preferred to terminate it abruptly, at the point where
Iliyá stands on the grave of the man whom he has killed, rather than to
give Górkiy’s end of the novel.
Why Górkiy should fail in this direction is, of course, too delicate
and too difficult a question to answer. One cause, however, may be
suggested. Górkiy, like Tolstóy, is too honest an artist to “invent” an
end which the real lives of his heroes do not suggest to him, although
that end might have been very picturesque; and the class of men whom
he so admirably depicts is not possessed of that consistency and that
“oneness” which are necessary to render a work of art perfect and to
give it that final accord without which it is never complete.
Take, for instance, Orlóff in _The Orlóffs_. “My soul burns within
me,” he says. “I want space, to give full swing to my strength. I feel
within me an indomitable force! If the cholera, let us say, could
become a man, a giant--were it Iliyá Múromets himself--I would meet it!
‘Let it be a struggle to the death,’ I would say; ‘you are a force, and
I, Gríshka Orlóff, am a force, too: let us see which is the better!’”
But that power, that force does not last. Orlóff says somewhere that
“he is torn in all directions at once,” and that his fate is to be--not
a fighter of giants, but merely a tramp. And so he ends. Górkiy is
too great an artist to make of him a giant-killer. It is the same
with Iliyá in _The Three_. This is a powerful type, and one feels
inclined to ask, Why did not Górkiy make him begin a new life under the
influence of those young propagandists of socialism whom he meets?
Why should he not die, let us say, in one of those encounters between
workingmen on strike and soldiers which took place in Russia precisely
at the time Górkiy was finishing this novel? But here, too, Górkiy’s
reply probably would be that such things do not happen in real life.
Men, like Iliyá, who dream only of the “clean life of a merchant,”
do not join in labour movements. And he preferred to give a very
disappointing end to his hero--to make him appear miserable and small
in his attack upon the wife of the police-officer, so as to turn the
reader’s sympathies towards even this woman--rather than to make of
Iliyá a prominent figure in a strike-conflict. If it had been possible
to idealise Iliyá so much, without over-straining the permissible
limits of idealisation, Górkiy probably would have done it, because he
is entirely in favour of idealisation in realistic art; but this would
have been pure romanticism.
Over and over again he returns to the idea of the necessity of an ideal
in the work of the novel-writer. “The cause of the present opinion (in
Russian Society) is,” he says, “the neglect of idealism. Those who have
exiled from life all romanticism have stripped us so as to leave us
quite naked: this is why we are so uninteresting to one another, and so
disgusted with one another.” (_A Mistake_, I. 151.) And in _The Reader_
(1898), he develops his æsthetic canons in full. He tells how one of
his earliest productions, on its appearance in print, is read one night
before a circle of friends. He receives many compliments for it, and
after leaving the house is tramping along a deserted street, feeling
for the first time in his existence the happiness of life, when a
person unknown to him, and whom he had not noticed among those present
at the reading, overtakes him, and begins to talk about the duties of
the author.
“You will agree with me,” the stranger says, “that the duty of
literature is to aid man in understanding himself, to raise his faith
in himself, to develop his longing for truth; to combat what is bad
in men; to find what is good in them, and to wake up in their souls
shame, anger, courage, to do everything, in short, to render men
strong in a noble sense of the word, and capable of inspiring their
lives with the holy spirit of beauty.” (III, 271.) “It seems to me,
we need once more to have dreams, pretty creations of our fancy and
visions, because the life we have built up is poor in colour, is dim
and dull.... Well, let us try, perhaps imagination will help man to
rise for a moment above the earth and find his true place on it, which
he has lost.” (245.)
But further on Górkiy makes a confession which explains perhaps why
he has not yet succeeded in creating a longer character-novel: “I
discovered in myself,” he says, “many good feelings and desires--a
fair proportion of what is usually called good; but _a feeling which
could unify all this_--a well-founded, clear thought, embracing all the
phenomena of life--I did not find in myself.” And on reading this, one
at once thinks of Turguéneff, who saw in such a “freedom,” in such a
unified comprehension of the universe and its life, the first condition
for being a great artist.
“Can you,” the _Reader_ goes on to ask, “create for men ever so
small an illusion that has the power to raise them? No!” “All of
you teachers of the day take more than you give, because you speak
only about faults--you see only those. But there must also be good
qualities in men: you possess some, don’t you?... Don’t you notice
that owing to your continual efforts to define and to classify them,
the virtues and the vices have been entangled like two balls of black
and white thread which have become grey by taking colour from each
other?”... “I doubt whether God has sent you on earth. If he had sent
messengers, he would have chosen stronger men than you are. He would
have lighted in them the fire of a passionate love of life, of truth,
of men.”
“Nothing but everyday life, everyday life, only everyday people,
everyday thoughts and events!” the same pitiless _Reader_ continues.
“When will you, then, speak of ‘the rebel spirit,’ of the necessity of
a new birth of the spirit? Where is, then, the calling to the creation
of a new life? where the lessons of courage? where the words which
would give wings to the soul?”
“Confess you don’t know how to represent life, so that your pictures
of it shall provoke in a man a redemptive spirit of shame and a
burning desire of creating new forms of life.... Can you accelerate
the pulsation of life? Can you inspire it with energy, as others have
done?”
“I see many intelligent men round about me, but few noble ones among
them, and these few are broken and suffering souls. I don’t know why
it should be so, but so it is: the better the man, the cleaner and
the more honest his soul, the less energy he has; the more he suffers
and the harder is his life.... But although they suffer so much from
feeling the want of something better, they have not the force to
create it.”
“One thing more”--said after an interval my strange interlocutor.
“Can you awake in man a laughter full of the joy of life and at the
same time elevating to the soul? Look, men have quite forgotten good
wholesome laughter!”
“The sense of life is not in self-satisfaction; after all, man is
better than that. The sense of life is in the beauty and the force
of striving towards some aim; every moment of being ought to have
its higher aim.” “Wrath, hatred, shame, loathing, and finally a grim
despair--these are the levers by means of which you may destroy
everything on earth.” “What can you do to awake a thirst for life when
you only whine, sigh, moan, or coolly point out to man that he is
nothing but dust?”
“Oh, for a man, firm and loving, with a burning heart and a powerful
all-embracing mind. In the stuffy atmosphere of shameful silence, his
prophetic words would resound like an alarm-bell, and perhaps the mean
souls of the living dead would shiver!” (253.)
These ideas of Górkiy about the necessity of something better than
everyday life--something that shall elevate the soul, fully explain
also his last drama, _At the Bottom_, which has had such a success at
Moscow, but played by the very same artists at St. Petersburg met with
but little enthusiasm. The idea is the same as that of Ibsen’s _Wild
Duck_. The inhabitants of a doss-house, all of them, maintain their
life-power only as long as they cherish some illusion: the drunkard
actor dreams of recovery in some special retreat; a fallen girl takes
refuge in her illusion of real love, and so on. And the dramatic
situation of these beings with already so little to retain them in
life, is only the more poignant when the illusions are destroyed. The
drama is powerful. It must lose, though, on the stage on account of
some technical mistakes (a useless fourth act, the unnecessary person
of a woman introduced in the first scene and then disappearing); but
apart from these mistakes it is eminently dramatic. The positions are
really tragical, the action is rapid, and as to the conversations of
the inhabitants of the doss-house and their philosophy of life, both
are above all praise. Altogether one feels that Górkiy is very far
yet from having said his last word. The question is only whether in
the classes of society he now frequents he will be able to discover
the further developments--undoubtedly existing--of the types which he
understands best. Will he find among them further materials responding
to the æsthetic canons whose following has hitherto been the source of
his power?
PART VIII
Political Literature, Satire,
Art Criticism,
Contemporary Novelists,
Bibliography
CHAPTER VIII
POLITICAL LITERATURE: SATIRE: ART CRITICISM: CONTEMPORARY NOVELISTS
Political Literature--Difficulties of Censorship--The
Circles--Westerners and Slavophiles--Political Literature
abroad: Herzen--Ogaryóff--Bakunin--Lavróff--Stepniak--_The
Contemporary_ and Tchernyshévskiy--SATIRE: Schedrin
(Saltykoff)--ART CRITICISM: Its Importance in
Russia--Byelinskiy--Dobrolúboff--Písareff--Mihailóvskiy--Tolstóy’s
_What is Art?_--CONTEMPORARY NOVELISTS--Otel--Korolenko--Present Drift
of Literature--Merezherovskiy--Boborykin--Potápenko--Tchehoff.
POLITICAL LITERATURE
To speak of political literature in a country which has no political
liberty, and where nothing can be printed without having been
approved by a rigorous censorship, sounds almost like irony. And
yet, notwithstanding all the efforts of the Government to prevent
the discussion of political matters in the Press, or even in private
circles, that discussion goes on, under all possible aspects and under
all imaginable pretexts. As a result it would be no exaggeration
to say that in the necessarily narrow circle of educated Russian
“intellectuals” there is as much knowledge, all round, of matters
political as there is in the educated circles of any other European
country, and that a certain knowledge of the political life of other
nations is wide-spread among the reading portion of Russians.
It is well known that everything that is printed in Russia, even up
to the present time, is submitted to censorship, either before it
goes to print, or afterwards. To found a review or a paper the editor
must offer satisfactory guarantees of not being “too advanced” in
his political opinions, otherwise he will not be authorised by the
Ministry of the Interior to start the paper or the review and to act
in the capacity of its editor. In certain cases a paper or a review,
published in one of the two capitals but never in the provinces, may
be allowed to appear without passing through the censor’s hands before
going to print; but a copy of it must be sent to the censor as soon as
the printing begins, and every number may be stopped and prevented from
being put into circulation before it has left the printing office, to
say nothing of subsequent prosecution. The same condition of things
exists for books. Even after the paper or the book has been authorised
by the censor it may be subject to a prosecution. The law of 1864 was
very definite in stating the conditions under which such prosecution
could take place; namely, it had to be made before a regular court,
within one month after publication; but this law was never respected
by the Government. Books were seized and destroyed--reduced to
pulp--without the affair ever being brought before a Court, and I
know editors who have been plainly warned that if they insisted
upon this being done, they would simply be exiled, by order of the
administration, to some remote province. This is not all, moreover. A
paper or a review may receive a first, a second, and a third warning,
and after the third warning it is suspended, by virtue of that warning.
Besides, the Ministry of the Interior may at any time prohibit the sale
of the paper in the streets and the shops, or deprive the paper of the
right of inserting advertisements.
The arsenal of punishments is thus pretty large; but there is still
something else. It is the system of ministerial circulars. Suppose a
strike takes place, or some scandalous bribery has been discovered in
some branch of the administration. Immediately all papers and reviews
receive a circular from the Ministry of the Interior prohibiting them
to speak of that strike, or that scandal. Even less important matters
will be tabooed in this way. Thus a few years ago an anti-Semitic
comedy was put on the stage at St. Petersburg. It was imbued with the
worst spirit of national hatred towards the Jews, and the actress who
was given the main part in it refused to play. She preferred to break
her agreement with the manager rather than to play in that comedy.
Another actress was engaged. This became known to the public, and at
the first representation a formidable demonstration was made against
the actors who had accepted parts in the play, and also against the
author. Some eighty arrests--chiefly of students and other young
people and of litterateurs--were made from among the audience, and
for two days the St. Petersburg papers were full of discussions of
the incident; but then came the ministerial circular prohibiting any
further reference to the subject, and on the third day there was not a
word said about the matter in all the Press of Russia.
Socialism, the social question altogether, and the labour movement are
continually tabooed by ministerial circulars--to say nothing of Society
and Court scandals, or of the thefts which may be discovered from
time to time in the higher administration. At the end of the reign of
Alexander II. the theories of Darwin, Spencer, and Buckle were tabooed
in the same way, and their works were prevented from being kept by the
circulating libraries.
This is what censorship means nowadays. As to what was formerly, a very
amusing book could be made of the antics of the different censors,
simply by utilising Skabitchévskiy’s _History of Censorship_. Suffice
it to say that when Púshkin, speaking of a lady, wrote: “Your divine
features,” or mentioned “her celestial beauty,” the censorship would
cross out these verses and write, in red ink on the MS., that such
expressions were offensive to divinity and could not be allowed. Verses
were mutilated without any regard to the rules of versification; and
very often the censor introduced, in a novel, scenes of his own.
Under such conditions political thought had continually to find new
channels for its expression. Quite a special language was developed
therefore in the reviews and papers for the treatment of forbidden
subjects and for expressing ideas which censorship would have found
objectionable; and this way of writing was resorted to even in works
of art. A few words dropped by a Rúdin, or by a Bazároff in a novel by
Turguéneff, conveyed quite a world of ideas. However, other channels
besides mere allusion were necessary, and therefore political thought
found its expression in various other ways: first of all, in literary
and philosophical circles which impressed their stamp on the entire
literature of a given epoch; then, in art-criticism, in satire, and in
literature published abroad, either in Switzerland or in England.
THE “CIRCLES”--WESTERNERS AND SLAVOPHILES
It was especially in the forties and fifties of the nineteenth century
that “the circles” played an important part in the intellectual
development of Russia. No sort of expression of political thought
in print was possible at that time. The two or three semi-official
newspapers which were allowed to appear were absolutely worthless;
the novel, the drama, the poem, had to deal with the most superficial
matters only, and the heaviest books of science and philosophy were
as liable to be prohibited as the lighter sort of literature. Private
intercourse was the only possible means of exchanging ideas, and
therefore all the best men of the time joined some “circle,” in which
more or less advanced ideas were expressed in friendly conversation.
There are even men like STANKÉVITCH (1817-1840) who are mentioned in
every course of Russian literature, although they have never written
anything, simply for the moral influence they exercised within their
circle. (Turguéneff’s _Yákov Pásynkoff_ was inspired by such a
personality.)
It is quite evident that under such conditions there was no room for
the development of political parties properly speaking. However, from
the middle of the nineteenth century two main currents of philosophical
and social thought, which took the name of “Western” and “Slavophile,”
were always apparent. The Westerners were, broadly speaking, for
Western civilisation. Russia--they maintained--is no exception in the
great family of European nations. She will necessarily pass through the
same phases of development that Western Europe has passed through, and
consequently her next step will be the abolition of serfdom and, after
that, the evolution of the same constitutional institutions as have
been evolved in Western Europe. The Slavophiles, on the other side,
maintained that Russia has a mission of her own. She has not known
foreign conquest like that of the Normans; she has retained still the
structure of the old clan period, and therefore she must follow her
own quite original lines of development, in accordance with what the
Slavophiles described as the three fundamental principles of Russian
life: the Greek Orthodox Church, the absolute power of the Tsar, and
the principles of the patriarchal family.
These were, of course, very wide programmes, which admitted of many
shades of opinion and gradations. Thus, for the great bulk of the
Westerners, Western liberalism of the Whig or the Guizot type was the
highest ideal that Russia had to strive for. They maintained moreover
that everything which has happened in Western Europe in the course of
her evolution--such as the depopulation of the villages, the horrors of
freshly developing capitalism (revealed in England by the Parliamentary
Commissions of the forties), the powers of bureaucracy which had
developed in France, and so on, must necessarily be repeated in Russia
as well: they were unavoidable _laws_ of evolution. This was the
opinion of the rank-and-file “Westerner.”
The more intelligent and the better educated representatives of this
same party--Byelínskiy, Hérzen, Turguéneff, Tchernyshévskiy, who were
all under the influence of advanced European thought, held quite
different views. In their opinion the hardships suffered by workingmen
and agricultural labourers in Western Europe from the unbridled
power won in the parliaments, by both the landlords and the middle
classes, and the limitations of political liberties introduced in the
continental States of Europe by their bureaucratic centralisation, were
by no means “historical necessities.” Russia--they maintained--need not
necessarily repeat these mistakes; she must on the contrary, profit
by the experience of her elder sisters, and if Russia succeeds in
attaining the era of industrialism without having lost her communal
land-ownership, or the autonomy of certain parts of the Empire, or the
self-government of the _mir_ in her villages, this will be an immense
advantage. It would be therefore the greatest political mistake to
go on destroying her village community, to let the land concentrate
in the hands of a landed aristocracy, and to let the political life
of so immense and varied a territory be concentrated in the hands of
a central governing body, in accordance with the Prussian, or the
Napoleonic ideals of political centralisation--especially now that the
powers of Capitalism are so great.
Similar gradations of opinion prevailed among the Slavophiles. Their
best representatives--the two brothers AKSÁKOFF, the two brothers
KIRÉEVSKIY, HOMYAKÓFF, etc., were much in advance of the great bulk of
the party. The average Slavophile was simply a fanatic of absolute rule
and the Orthodox Church, to which feelings he usually added a sort of
sentimental attachment to the “old good times,” by which he understood
all sorts of things: patriarchal habits of the times of serfdom,
manners of country life, folk songs, traditions, and folk-dress. At a
time when the real history of Russia had hardly begun to be deciphered
they did not even suspect that the federalist principle had prevailed
in Russia down to the Mongol invasion; that the authority of the
Moscow Tsars was of a relatively late creation (15th, 16th and 17th
centuries); and that autocracy was not at all an inheritance of _old_
Russia, but was chiefly the work of that same Peter I. whom they
execrated for having violently introduced Western habits of life.
Few of them realised also that the religion of the great mass of
the Russian people was _not_ the religion which is professed by the
official “Orthodox” Church, but a thousand varieties of “Dissent.”
They thus imagined that they represented the ideals of the Russian
_people_, while in reality they represented the ideals of the Russian
_State_, and the Moscow _Church_, which are of a mixed Byzantine,
Latin, and Mongolian origin. With the aid of the fogs of German
metaphysics--especially of Hegel--which were in great vogue at that
time, and with that love of abstract terminology which prevailed in the
first half of the nineteenth century, discussion upon such themes could
evidently last for years without coming to a definite conclusion.
However, with all that, it must be owned that, through their best
representatives, the Slavophiles powerfully contributed towards the
creation of a school of history and law which put historical studies
in Russia on a true foundation, by making a sharp distinction between
the history and the law of the Russian _State_ and the history and
the law of the Russian _people_. KOSTOMÁROFF (1818-1885), ZABYÉLIN
(born 1820) and BYELÁEFF (1810-1873), were the first to write the real
history of the Russian people, and of these three, the two last were
Slavophiles; while the former--an Ukraïnian nationalist--had also
borrowed from the Slavophiles their scientific ideas. They brought
into evidence the federalistic character of early Russian history.
They destroyed the legend, propagated by Karamzín, of an uninterrupted
transmission of royal power, that was supposed to have taken place for
a thousand years, from the times of the Norman Rúrik till to-day. They
brought into evidence the violent means by which the princes of Moscow
crushed the independent city-republics of the pre-Mongolian period,
and gradually, with the aid of the Mongol Khans, became the Tsars of
Russia; and they told (especially Byeláeff, in his _History of the
Peasants in Russia_) the gruesome tale of the growth of serfdom from
the seventeenth century, under the Moscow Tsars. Besides, it is mainly
to the Slavophiles that we owe the recognition of the fact that two
different codes exist in Russia--the Code of the Empire, which is the
code of the educated classes, and the Common Law, which is (like the
Norman law in Jersey) widely different from the former, and very often
preferable, in its conceptions of land-ownership, inheritance, etc.,
and is the law which prevails among the peasants, its details varying
in different provinces. The recognition of this fact has already had
far-reaching consequences in the whole life of Russia and her colonies.
In the absence of political life the philosophical and literary
struggles between the Slavophiles and the Westerners absorbed the
minds of the best men of the literary circles of St. Petersburg and
Moscow in the years 1840-1860. The question whether or not each
nationality is the bearer of some pre-determined mission in history,
and whether Russia has some such special mission, was eagerly discussed
in the circles to which, in the forties, belonged Bakúnin, the critic
Byelínskiy, Hérzen, Turguéneff, the Aksákoffs and the Kiréevskiys,
Kavélin, Bótkin, and, in fact, all the best men of the time. But when
later on serfdom was being abolished (in 1857-63) the very realities
of the moment established upon certain important questions the most
remarkable agreement between Slavophiles and Westerners, the most
advanced socialistic Westerners, like Tchernyshévskiy, joining
hands with the advanced Slavophiles in their desire to maintain the
really fundamental institutions of the Russian peasants: the village
community, the common law, and the federalistic principles; while the
more advanced Slavophiles made substantial concessions as regards the
“Western” ideals embodied in the Declaration of Independence, and
the Declaration of the Rights of Man. It was to these years (1861)
that Turguéneff alluded when he said that in _A Nobleman’s Retreat_,
in the discussion between Lavrétskiy and Pánshin, he--“an inveterate
Westerner”--had given the superiority in argument to the defender of
Slavophile ideas because of the deference to them then in real life.
At present the struggle between the Westerners and the Slavophiles has
come to an end. The last representative of the Slavophile school, the
much-regretted philosopher, V. SOLOVIÓFF (1853-1900), was too well
versed in history and philosophy, and had too broad a mind to go to
the extremes of the old Slavophiles. As to the present representatives
of this school, having none of the inspiration which characterised
its founders, they have sunk to the level of mere Imperialistic
dreamers and warlike Nationalists, or of Orthodox Ultramontanes,
whose intellectual influence is _nil_. At the present moment the main
struggle goes on between the defenders of autocracy and those of
freedom; the defenders of capital and those of labour; the defenders
of centralisation and bureaucracy, and those of the republican
federalistic principle, municipal independence, and the independence of
the village community.
POLITICAL LITERATURE ABROAD
One great drawback in Russia has been that no portion of the Slavonian
countries has ever obtained political freedom, as did Switzerland
or Belgium, so as to offer to Russian political refugees an asylum
where they would not feel quite separated from their mother country.
Russians, when they have fled from Russia, have had therefore to go
to Switzerland or to England, where they have remained, until quite
lately, absolute strangers. Even France, with which they had more
points of contact, was only occasionally open to them; while the two
countries nearest to Russia--Germany and Austria--not being themselves
free, remained closed to all political refugees. In consequence, till
quite lately political and religious emigration from Russia has been
insignificant, and only for a few years in the nineteenth century has
political literature published abroad ever exercised a real influence
in Russia. This was during the times of Hérzen and his paper _The Bell_.
HÉRZEN (1812-1870) was born in a rich family at Moscow--his mother,
however, being a German--and he was educated in the old-nobility
quarter of the “Old Equerries.” A French emigrant, a German tutor, a
Russian teacher who was a great lover of freedom, and the rich library
of his father, composed of French and German eighteenth century
philosophers--these were his education. The reading of the French
encyclopædists left a deep trace in his mind, so that even later on,
when he paid, like all his young friends, a tribute to the study of
German metaphysics, he never abandoned the concrete ways of thought and
the naturalistic turn of mind which he had borrowed from the French
eighteenth century philosophers.
He entered the Moscow university in its physical and mathematical
department. The French Revolution of 1830 had just produced a deep
impression on thinking minds all over Europe; and a circle of young
men, which included Hérzen, his intimate friend, the poet Ogaryóff,
Pássek, the future explorer of folklore, and several others, came to
spend whole nights in reading and discussing political and social
matters, especially Saint-Simonism. Under the impression of what
they knew about the Decembrists, Hérzen and Ogaryóff, when they were
mere boys, had already taken “the Hannibal oath” of avenging the
memory of these forerunners of liberty. The result of these youthful
gatherings was that at one of them some song was sung in which there
was disrespectful allusion to Nicholas I. This reached the ears of the
State police. Night searchings were made at the lodgings of the young
men, and all were arrested. Some were sent to Siberia, and the others
would have been marched as soldiers to a battalion, like Polezháeff and
Shevtchénko, had it not been for the interference of certain persons
in high places. Hérzen was sent to a small town in the Uráls, Vyátka,
and remained full six years In exile.
When he was allowed to return to Moscow, in 1840, he found the literary
circles entirely under the influence of German philosophy, losing
themselves in metaphysical abstractions. “The absolute” of Hegel,
his triad-scheme of human progress, and his assertion to the effect
that “all that exists is reasonable” were eagerly discussed. This
last had brought the Hegelians to maintain that even the despotism of
Nicholas I. was “reasonable,” and even the great critic Byelínskiy
had been smitten with that recognition of the “historical necessity”
of absolutism. Hérzen too had, of course, to study Hegel; but this
study brought him, as well as his friend MIKHAIL BAKÚNIN (1824-1876),
to quite different conclusions. They both acquired a great influence
in the circles, and directed their studies toward the history of the
struggles for liberty in Western Europe, and to a careful knowledge of
the French Socialists, especially Fourier and Pierre Leroux. They then
constituted the left wing of “the Westerners,” to which Turguéneff,
Kavélin and so many of our writers belonged; while the Slavophiles
constituted the right wing which has already been mentioned on a
preceding page.
In 1842 Hérzen was exiled once more--this time to Nóvgorod, and only
with great difficulties could he obtain permission to go abroad. He
left Russia in 1847, never more to return. Bakúnin and Ogaryóff were
already abroad, and after a journey to Italy, which was then making
heroic efforts to free itself from the Austrian yoke, he soon joined
his friends in Paris, which was then on the eve of the Revolution of
1848.
He lived through the youthful enthusiasm of the movement which embraced
all Europe in the spring of 1848, and he also lived through all the
subsequent disappointments and the massacre of the Paris proletarians
during the terrible days of June. The quarter where he and Turguéneff
stayed at that time was surrounded by a chain of police-agents who
knew them both personally, and they could only rage in their rooms as
they heard the volleys of rifle-shots, announcing that the vanquished
workingmen who had been taken prisoners were being shot in batches by
the triumphing _bourgeoisie_. Both have left most striking descriptions
of those days--Hérzen’s _June Days_ being one of the best pieces of
Russian literature.
Deep despair took hold of Hérzen when all the hopes raised by the
revolution had so rapidly come to nought and a fearful reaction had
spread all over Europe, re-establishing Austrian rule over Italy and
Hungary, paving the way for Napoleon III. at Paris, and sweeping away
everywhere the very traces of a wide-spread Socialistic movement.
Hérzen then felt a deep despair as regards Western civilisation
altogether, and expressed it in most moving pages, in his book _From
the other Shore_. It is a cry of despair--the cry of a prophetic
politician in the voice of a great poet.
Later on Hérzen founded, at Paris, with Proudhon, a paper, _L’Ami du
Peuple_, of which almost every number was confiscated by the police
of Napoleon the Third. The paper could not live, and Hérzen himself
was soon expelled from France. He was naturalised in Switzerland,
and finally, after the tragic loss of his mother and his son in a
shipwreck, he definitely settled at London in 1857. Here the first
leaf of a free Russian Press was printed that same year, and very soon
Hérzen became one of the strongest influences in Russia. He started
first a review, the name of which, _The Polar Star_, was a remembrance
of the almanack published under this name by Ryléeff (see Ch. I.);
and in this review he published, besides political articles and
most valuable material concerning the recent history of Russia, his
admirable memoirs--_Past Facts and Thoughts_.
Apart from the historical value of these memoirs--Hérzen knew all the
historical personages of his time--they certainly are one of the best
pieces of poetical literature in any language. The descriptions of men
and events which they contain, beginning with Russia in the forties and
ending with the years of exile, reveal at every step an extraordinary,
philosophical intelligence; a profoundly sarcastic mind, combined with
a great deal of good-natured humour; a deep hatred of oppressors and a
deep personal love for the simple-hearted heroes of human emancipation.
At the same time these memoirs contain such fine, poetical scenes from
the author’s personal life, as his love of Nathalie--later his wife--or
such deeply impressive chapters as _Oceano Nox_, where he tells about
the loss of his son and mother. One chapter of these memoirs remains
still unpublished, and from what Turguéneff told me about it, it
must be of the highest beauty. “No one has ever written like him,”
Turguéneff said: “it is all written in tears and blood.”
A paper, _The Bell_, soon followed the _Polar Star_, and it was through
this paper that the influence of Hérzen became a real power in Russia.
It appears now, from the lately published correspondence between
Turguéneff and Hérzen, that the great novelist took a very lively part
in _The Bell_. It was he who supplied his friend Hérzen with the most
interesting material and gave him hints as to what attitude he should
take upon this or that subject.
These were, of course, the years when Russia was on the eve of the
abolition of serfdom and of a thorough reform of most of the antiquated
institutions of Nicholas I., and when everyone took interest in
public affairs. Numbers of memoirs upon the questions of the day were
addressed to the Tsar by private persons, or simply circulated in
private, in MS.; and Turguéneff would get hold of them, and they would
be discussed in _The Bell_. At the same time _The Bell_ was revealing
such facts of mal-administration as it was impossible to bring to
public knowledge in Russia itself, while the leading articles were
written by Hérzen with a force, an inner warmth, and a beauty of form
which are seldom found in political literature. I know of no West
European writer with whom I should be able to compare Hérzen. _The
Bell_ was smuggled into Russia in large quantities and could be found
everywhere. Even Alexander II. and the Empress Marie were among its
regular readers.
Two years after serfdom had been abolished, and while all sorts of
urgently needed reforms were still under discussion--that is, in
1863--began, as is known, the uprising of Poland; and this uprising,
crushed in blood and on the gallows, brought the liberation movement
in Russia to a complete end. Reaction got the upper hand; and the
popularity of Hérzen, who had supported the Poles, was necessarily
gone. _The Bell_ was read no more in Russia, and the efforts of Hérzen
to continue it in French brought no results. A new generation came then
to the front--the generation of Bazároff and of “the populists,” whom
Hérzen did not understand from the outset, although they were his own
intellectual sons and daughters, dressed now in a new, more democratic
and realistic garb. He died in isolation in Switzerland, in 1870.
The works of Hérzen, even now, are not allowed to be circulated in
Russia, and they are not sufficiently known to the younger generation.
It is certain, however, that when the time comes for them to be read
again Russians will discover in Hérzen a very profound thinker, whose
sympathies were entirely with the working classes, who understood the
forms of human development in all their complexity, and who wrote in
a style of unequalled beauty--the best proof that his ideas had been
thought out in detail and under a variety of aspects.
Before he had emigrated and founded a free press at London, Hérzen had
written in Russian reviews under the name of ISKANDER, treating various
subjects, such as Western politics, socialism, the philosophy of
natural sciences, art, and so on. He also wrote a novel, _Whose Fault
is it?_ which is often spoken of in the history of the development
of intellectual types in Russia. The hero of this novel, Béltoff,
is a direct descendant from Lérmontoff’s Petchórin, and occupies an
intermediate position between him and the heroes of Turguéneff.
The work of the poet OGARYÓFF (1813-1877) was not very large, and
his intimate friend, Hérzen, who was a great master in personal
characteristics, could say of him that his chief life-work was the
working out of such an ideal personality as he was himself. His private
life was most unhappy, but his influence upon his friends was very
great. He was a thorough lover of freedom, who, before he left Russia,
set free his ten thousand serfs, surrendering all the land to them,
and who, throughout all his life abroad remained true to the ideals of
equality and freedom which he had cherished in his youth. Personally,
he was the gentlest imaginable of men, and a note of resignation, in
the sense of Schiller’s, sounds throughout his poetry, amongst which
fierce poems of revolt and of masculine energy are few.
As to MIKHAIL BAKÚNIN (1824-1876), the other great friend of
Hérzen, his work belongs chiefly to the International Working Men’s
Association, and hardly can find a place in a sketch of Russian
literature; but his personal influence on some of the prominent writers
of Russia was very great. Suffice it to say that Byelínskiy distinctly
acknowledged in his letters that Bakúnin was his “intellectual father,”
and that it was in fact he who infused the Moscow circle, of which
I have just spoken, and the St. Petersburg literary circles with
socialistic ideas. He was the typical revolutionist, whom nobody could
approach without being inspired by a revolutionary fire. Besides,
if advanced thought in Russia has always remained true to the cause
of the different nationalities--Polish, Finnish, Little Russian,
Caucasian--oppressed by Russian tsardom, or by Austria, it owes this
to a very great extent to Ogaryóff and Bakúnin. In the international
labour movement Bakúnin became the soul of the left wing of the great
Working Men’s Association, and he was the founder of modern Anarchism,
or anti-State Socialism, of which he laid down the foundations upon his
wide historical and philosophical knowledge.
Finally I must mention among the Russian political writers abroad,
PETER LAVRÓFF (1823-1901). He was a mathematician and a philosopher who
represented, under the name of “anthropologism,” a reconciliation of
modern natural science materialism with Kantianism. He was a colonel
of artillery, a professor of mathematics, and a member of the St.
Petersburg newly-formed municipal government, when he was arrested
and exiled to a small town in the Uráls. One of the young Socialist
circles kidnapped him from there and shipped him off to London, where
he began to publish in the year 1874 the Socialist review _Forward_.
Lavróff was an extremely learned encyclopædist who made his reputation
by his _Mechanical Theory of the Universe_ and by the first chapters
of a very exhaustive history of mathematical sciences. His later work,
_History of Modern Thought_, of which unfortunately only the four
or five introductory volumes have been published, would certainly
have been an important contribution to evolutionist philosophy, if
it had been completed. In the socialist movement he belonged to the
social-democratic wing, but was too widely learned and too much of a
philosopher to join the German social-democrats in their ideals of
a centralised communistic State, or in their narrow interpretation
of history. However, the work of Lavróff which gave him the greatest
notoriety and best expressed his own personality was a small work,
_Historical Letters_, which he published in Russia under the pseudonym
of MÍRTOFF and which can now be read in a French translation. This
little work appeared at the right moment--just when our youth, in
the years 1870-73, were endeavouring to find a new programme of
action amongst the people. Lavróff stands out in it as a preacher of
activity amongst the people, speaking to the educated youth of their
indebtedness to the people, and of their duty to repay the debt which
they had contracted towards the poorer classes during the years they
had passed in the universities--all this, developed with a profusion of
historical hints, of philosophical deductions, and of practical advice.
These letters had a deep influence upon our youth. The ideas which
Lavróff preached in 1870 he confirmed by all his subsequent life. He
lived to the age of 82, and passed all his life in strict conformity
with his ideal, occupying at Paris two small rooms, limiting his daily
expenses for food to a ridiculously small amount, earning his living by
his pen, and giving all his time to the spreading of the ideas which
were so dear to him.
NICHOLAS TURGUÉNEFF (1789-1871) was a remarkable political writer,
who belonged to two different epochs. In 1818 he published in Russia
a _Theory of Taxation_--a book, quite striking for its time and
country, as it contained the development of the liberal economical
ideas of Adam Smith; and he was already beginning to work for the
abolition of serfdom. He made a practical attempt by partly freeing
his own serfs, and wrote on this subject several memoirs for the use
of Emperor Alexander I. He also worked for constitutional rule, and
soon became one of the most influential members of the secret society
of the Decembrists; but he was abroad in December, 1825, and therefore
escaped being executed with his friends. After that time N. Turguéneff
remained in exile, chiefly at Paris, and in 1857, when an amnesty was
granted to the Decembrists, and he was allowed to return to Russia, he
did so for a few weeks only.
He took, however, a lively part in the emancipation of the serfs, which
he had preached since 1818 and which he had discussed also in his
large work, _La Russie et les Russes_, published in Paris in 1847. Now
he devoted to this subject several papers in _The Bell_ and several
pamphlets. He continued at the same time to advocate the convocation
of a General Representative Assembly, the development of provincial
self-government, and other urgent reforms. He died at Paris in 1871,
after having had the happiness which had come to few Decembrists--that
of taking, towards the end of his days, a practical part in the
realisation of one of the dreams of his youth, for which so many of our
noblest men had given their lives.
I pass over in silence several other writers, like PRINCE DOLGORÚKIY,
and especially a number of Polish writers, who emigrated from Russia
for the sake of free speech.
I omit also quite a number of socialistic and constitutional papers
and reviews which have been published in Switzerland or in England
during the last twenty years, and will only mention, and that only in
a few words, my friend STEPNIAK (1852-1897). His writings were chiefly
in English, but now that they are translated into Russian they will
certainly win for him an honourable place in the history of Russian
literature. His two novels, _The Career of a Nihilist_ (_Andréi
Kozhuhóff_ in Russian) and _The Stundist Pável Rudénko_, as also
his earlier sketches, _Underground Russia_, revealed his remarkable
literary talent, but a stupid railway accident put an end to his young
life, so rich in vigour and thought and so full of promises. It must
also be mentioned that the greatest Russian writer of our own time,
LEO TOLSTÓY, cannot have many of his works printed in Russia, and that
therefore his friend, V. TCHERTKOFF, has started in England a regular
publishing office, both for editing Tolstóy’s works and for bringing to
light the religious movements which are going on now in Russia, and the
prosecutions directed against them by the Government.
TCHERNYSHÉVSKIY AND “THE CONTEMPORARY”
The most prominent among political writers in Russia itself has
undoubtedly been TCHERNYSHÉVSKIY (1828-1889), whose name is
indissolubly connected with that of the review, _Sovreménnik_ (_The
Contemporary_). The influence which this review exercised on public
opinion in the years of the abolition of serfdom (1857-62) was equal
to that of Hérzen’s _Bell_, and this influence was mainly due to
Tchernyshévskiy, and partly to the critic Dobrolúboff.
Tchernyshévskiy was born in Southeastern Russia, at Sarátoff--his
father being a well educated and respected priest of the cathedral--and
his early education he received, first at home, and next in the
Sarátoff seminary. He left the seminary, however, in 1844, and two
years later entered the philological department of the St. Petersburg
University.
The quantity of work which Tchernyshévskiy performed during his
life, and the immensity of knowledge which he acquired in various
branches, was simply stupendous. He began his literary career by
works on philology and literary criticism; and he wrote in this last
branch three remarkable works, _The Æsthetical Relations between Art
and Reality_, _Sketches of the Gógol period_, and _Lessing and his
Time_, in which he developed a whole theory of æsthetics and literary
criticism. His main work, however, was accomplished during the four
years, 1858-62, when he wrote in _The Contemporary_, exclusively
on political and economical matters. These were the years of the
abolition of serfdom, and opinion, both in the public at large and in
the Government spheres, was quite unsettled even as to the leading
principles which should be followed in accomplishing it. The two
main questions were: should the liberated serfs receive the land
which they were cultivating for themselves while they were serfs, and
if so--on what conditions? And next--should the village community
institutions be maintained and the land held, as of old, in common--the
village community becoming in this case the basis for the future
self-government institutions? All the best men of Russia were in favour
of an answer in the affirmative to both these questions, and even in
the higher spheres opinion went the same way; but all the reactionists
and “esclavagist” serf-owners of the old school bitterly opposed
this view. They wrote memoirs upon memoirs and addressed them to the
Emperor and the Emancipation Committees, and it was necessary, of
course, to analyse their arguments and to produce weighty historical
and economical proofs against them. In this struggle Tchernyshévskiy,
who was, of course, as was Hérzen’s _Bell_, with the advanced party,
supported it with all the powers of his great intelligence, his wide
erudition, and his formidable capacity for work; and if this party
carried the day and finally converted Alexander II. and the official
leaders of the Emancipation Committees to its views, it was certainly
to a great extent owing to the energy of Tchernyshévskiy and his
friends.
It must also be said that in this struggle _The Contemporary_ and
_The Bell_ found a strong support in two advanced political writers
from the Slavophile camp: KÓSHELEFF (1806-1883) and YÚRIY SAMARIN
(1819-1876). The former had advocated, since 1847--both in writing
and in practise--the liberation of the serfs “with the land,” the
maintenance of the village community, and peasant self-government, and
now Kósheleff and Samarin, both influential landlords, energetically
supported these ideas in the Emancipation Committees, while
Tchernyshévskiy fought for them in _The Contemporary_ and in his
_Letters without an Address_ (written apparently to Alexander II. and
published only later on in Switzerland).
No less a service did Tchernyshévskiy render to Russian Society by
educating it in economical matters and in the history of modern times.
In this respect he acted with a wonderful pedagogical talent. He
translated Mill’s _Political Economy_, and wrote _Notes_ to it, in a
socialistic sense; moreover, in a series of articles, like _Capital and
Labour_, _Economical Activity and the State_, he did his best to spread
sound economic ideas. In the domain of history he did the same, both in
a series of translations and in a number of original articles upon the
struggle of parties in modern France.
In 1863 Tchernyshévskiy was arrested, and while he was kept in the
fortress he wrote a remarkable novel, _What is to be Done?_ From the
artistic point of view this novel leaves much to be desired; but for
the Russian youth of the times it was a revelation, and it became a
programme. Questions of marriage, and separation after marriage in
case such a separation becomes necessary, agitated Russian society
in those years. To ignore such questions was absolutely impossible.
And Tchernyshévskiy discussed them in his novel, in describing
the relations between his heroine, Vyéra Pávlovna, her husband
Lopukhóff and the young doctor with whom she fell in love after her
marriage--indicating the only solutions which perfect honesty and
straightforward common sense could approve in such a case. At the same
time he preached--in veiled words, which were, however, perfectly well
understood--Fourierism, and depicted in a most attractive form the
communistic associations of producers. He also showed in his novel what
true “Nihilists” were, and in what they differed from Turguéneff’s
Bazároff. No novel of Turguéneff and no writings of Tolstóy or any
other writer have ever had such a wide and deep influence upon Russian
Society as this novel had. It became the watchword of Young Russia,
and the influence of the ideas it propagated has never ceased to be
apparent since.
In 1864 Tchernyshévskiy was exiled to hard labour in Siberia, for
the political and socialist propaganda which he had been making;
and for fear that he might escape from Transbaikália he was soon
transported to a very secluded spot in the far North of Eastern
Siberia--Vilúisk--where he was kept till 1883. Then only was he allowed
to return to Russia and to settle at Astrakhán. His health, however,
was already quite broken. Nevertheless, he undertook the translation
of the _Universal History_ of Weber, to which he wrote long addenda,
and he had translated twelve volumes of it when death overtook him in
1889. Storms of polemics have raged over his grave, although his name,
even yet, cannot be pronounced, nor his ideas discussed, in the Russian
Press. No other man has been so much hated by his political adversaries
as Tchernyshévskiy. But even these are bound to recognise now the great
services he rendered to Russia during the emancipation of the serfs,
and his immense educational influence.
THE SATIRE: SALTYKÓFF
With all the restrictions imposed upon political literature in Russia,
the satire necessarily became one of the favourite means of expressing
political thought. It would take too much time to give even a short
sketch of the earlier Russian satirists, as in order to do that one
would have to go back as far as the eighteenth century. Of Gógol’s
satire I have already spoken; consequently I shall limit my remarks
under this head to only one representative of modern satire, SALTYKÓFF,
who is better known under his _nom-de-plume_ of SCHEDRIN (1826-1889).
The influence of Saltykóff in Russia was very great, not only with the
advanced section of Russian thought, but among the general readers
as well. He was perhaps one of Russia’s most popular writers. Here I
must make, however, a personal remark. One may try as much as possible
to keep to an objective standpoint in the appreciation of different
writers, but a subjective element will necessarily interfere, and
I personally must say that although I admire the great talent of
Saltykóff, I never could become as enthusiastic over his writings as
the very great majority of my friends did. Not that I dislike satire:
on the contrary; but I like it much more definite than it is in
Saltykóff. I fully recognise that his remarks were sometimes extremely
deep, and always correct, and that in many cases he foresaw coming
events long before the common reader could guess their approach; I
fully admit that the satirical characterisations he gave of different
classes of Russian society belong to the domain of good art, and that
his types are really typical--and yet, with all this, I find that
these excellent characterisations and these acute remarks are too
much lost amidst a deluge of insignificant talk, which was certainly
meant to conceal their point from the censorship, but which mitigates
the sharpness of the satire and tends chiefly to deaden its effect.
Consequently, I prefer, in my appreciation of Saltykóff to follow
our best critics, and especially K. K. ARSÉNIEFF, to whom we owe two
volumes of excellent _Critical Studies_.
Saltykóff began his literary career very early and, like most of our
best writers, he knew something of exile. In 1848 he wrote a novel,
_A Complicated Affair_, in which some socialistic tendencies were
expressed in the shape of a dream of a certain poor functionary. It
so happened that the novel appeared in print just a few weeks after
the February revolution of 1848 had broken out, and when the Russian
Government was especially on the alert. Saltykóff was thereupon exiled
to Vyátka, a miserable provincial town in East Russia, and was ordered
to enter the civil service. The exile lasted seven years, during which
he became thoroughly acquainted with the world of functionaries grouped
around the Governor of the Province. Then in 1857 better times came for
Russian literature, and Saltykóff, who was allowed to return to the
capitals, utilised his knowledge of provincial life in writing a series
of _Provincial Sketches_.
The impression produced by these _Sketches_ was simply tremendous.
All Russia talked of them. Saltykóff’s talent appeared in them in
its full force, and with them was opened quite a new era in Russian
literature. A great number of imitators began in their turn to dissect
the Russian administration and the failure of its functionaries.
Of course, something of the sort had already been done by Gógol,
but Gógol, who wrote twenty years before, was compelled to confine
himself to generalities, while Saltykóff was enabled to name things by
their names and to describe provincial society as it was--denouncing
the venal nature of the functionaries, the rottenness of the whole
administration, the absence of comprehension of what was vital in the
life of the country, and so on.
When Saltykóff was permitted to return to St. Petersburg, after his
exile, he did not abandon the service of the State, which he had
been compelled to enter at Vyátka. With but a short interruption he
remained a functionary till the year 1868, and twice during that time
he was Vice-Governor, and even Governor of a province. It was only
then that he definitely left the service, to act, with Nekrásoff, as
co-editor of a monthly review, _Otéchestvennyia Zapíski_, which became
after _The Contemporary_ had been suppressed, the representative of
advanced democratic thought in Russia, and retained this position till
1884, when it was suppressed in its turn. By that time the health of
Saltykóff was broken down, and after a very painful illness, during
which he nevertheless continued to write, he died in 1889.
The _Provincial Sketches_ determined once for all the character of
Saltykóff’s work. His talent only deepened as he advanced in life, and
his satires went more and more profoundly into the analysis of modern
civilised life, of the many causes which stand in the way of progress,
and of the infinity of forms which the struggle of reaction against
progress is taking nowadays. In his _Innocent Tales_ he touched upon
some of the most tragic aspects of serfdom. Then, in his representation
of the modern knights of industrialism and plutocracy, with their
appetites for money-making and enjoyments of the lower sort, their
heartlessness, and their hopeless meanness, Saltykóff attained the
heights of descriptive art; but he excelled perhaps even more in the
representation of that “average man” who has no great passions, but for
the mere sake of not being disturbed in the process of enjoyment of his
philistine well-being will not recoil before any crime against the best
men of his time, and, if need be, will lend a ready hand to the worst
enemies of progress. In flagellating that “average man,” who, owing to
his unmitigated cowardice, has attained such a luxurious development in
Russia, Saltykóff produced his greatest creations. But when he came to
touch those who are the real geniuses of reaction--those who keep “the
average man” in fear, and inspire reaction, if need be, with audacity
and ferocity--then Saltykóff’s satire either recoiled before its task,
or the attack was veiled in so many funny and petty expressions and
words that all its venom was gone.
When reaction had obtained the upper hand, in 1863, and the carrying
out of the reforms of 1861 and of those still to be undertaken fell
into the hands of the very opponents of these reforms, and the former
serf-owners were doing all they could in order to recall serfdom once
again to life, or, at least, so to bind the peasant by over-taxation
and high rents as to practically enslave him once more, Saltykóff
brought out a striking series of satires which admirably represented
this new class of men. _The History of a City_, which is a comic
history of Russia, full of allusions to contemporary currents of
thought. _The Diary of a Provincial in St. Petersburg_, _Letters from
the Provinces_, and _The Pompadours_ belong to this series; while in
_Those Gentlemen of Tashkent_ he represented all that crowd which
hastened now to make fortunes by railway building, advocacy in reformed
tribunals, and annexation of new territories. In these sketches, as
well as in those which he devoted to the description of the sad and
sometimes psychologically unsound products of the times of serfdom
(_The Gentlemen Golovlóffs_, _Poshekhónsk Antiquity_), he created
types, some of which, like Judushka, have been described as almost
Shakespearian.
Finally, in the early eighties, when the terrible struggle of the
terrorists against autocracy was over, and with the advent of Alexander
III. reaction was triumphant, the satires of Schedrin became a cry of
despair. At times the satirist becomes great in his sad irony, and his
_Letters to my Aunt_ will live, not only as an historical but also as a
deeply human document.
It is also worthy of note that Saltykóff had a real talent for writing
tales. Some of them, especially those which dealt with children under
serfdom, were of great beauty.
LITERARY CRITICISM
The main channel through which political thought found its expression
in Russia during the last fifty years was literary criticism, which
consequently has reached with us a development and an importance
that it has in no other country. The real soul of a Russian monthly
review is its art-critic. His article is a much greater event than the
novel of a favourite writer which may appear in the same number. The
critic of a leading review is the intellectual leader of the younger
generation; and it so happened that throughout the last half-century
we have had in Russia a succession of art-critics who have exercised
upon the intellectual aspects of their own times a far greater, and
especially a far more wide-spread influence than any novelist or
any writer in any other domain. It is so generally true that the
intellectual aspect of a given epoch can be best characterised by
naming the art-critic of the time who exercised the main influence.
It was Byelínskiy in the thirties or forties, Tchernyshévskiy and
Dobrolúboff in the fifties and the early sixties, and Písareff in
the later sixties and seventies, who were respectively the rulers of
thoughts in their generation of educated youth. It was only later
on, when real political agitation began--taking at once two or three
different directions, even in the advanced camp--that Mihailóvskiy, the
leading critic from the eighties until the present time, stood not for
the whole movement but more or less for one of its directions.
This means, of course, that literary criticism has in Russia certain
special aspects. It is not limited to a criticism of works of art from
the purely literary or æsthetic point of view. Whether a Rúdin or a
Katerína are types of real, living beings, and whether the novel or
the drama is well built, well developed, and well written--these are,
of course, the first questions considered. But they are soon answered;
and there are infinitely more important questions, which are raised in
the thoughtful mind by every work of really good art: the questions
concerning the position of a Rúdin or a Katerína in society; the part,
bad or good, which they play in it; the ideas which inspire them, and
the value of these ideas; and then--the actions of the heroes, and the
causes of these actions, both individual and social. In a good work of
art the actions of the heroes are evidently what they would have been
under similar conditions in reality; otherwise it would not be good
art. They can be discussed as facts of life.
But these actions and their causes and consequences open the widest
horizons to a thoughtful critic, for an appreciation of both the ideals
and the prejudices of society, for the analysis of passions, for a
discussion of the types of men and women which prevail at a given
moment. In fact, a good work of art gives material for discussing
nearly the whole of the mutual relations in a society of a given type.
The author, if he is a thoughtful poet, has himself either consciously
or often unconsciously considered all that. It is his life-experience
which he gives in his work. Why, then, should not the critic bring
before the reader all those thoughts which must have passed through the
author’s brain, or have affected him unconsciously when he produced
these scenes, or pictured that corner of human life?
This is what Russian literary critics have been doing for the last
fifty years; and as the field of fiction and poetry is unlimited, there
is not one of the great social and human problems which they must not
thus have discussed in their critical reviews. This is also why the
works of the four critics just named are as eagerly read and re-read
now at this moment as they were twenty or fifty years ago: they have
lost nothing of their freshness and interest. If art is a school of
life--the more so are such works.
It is extremely interesting to note that art-criticism in Russia
took from the very outset (in the twenties) and quite independently
of all imitation of Western Europe, the character of _philosophical
æsthetics_. The revolt against pseudo-classicism had only just begun
under the banner of romanticism, and the appearance of Púshkin’s
_Ruslán and Ludmíla_ had just given the first practical argument
in favour of the romantic rebels, when the poet VENEVÍTINOFF (see
Ch. II.), soon followed by NADÉZHDIN (1804-1856) and POLEVÓY
(1796-1846)--the real founder of serious journalism in Russia--laid the
foundations of new art-criticism. Literary criticism, they maintained,
must analyse, not only the æsthetic value of a work of art, but, above
all, its leading idea--its “philosophical,”--its social meaning.
Venevítinoff, whose own poetry bore such a high intellectual stamp,
boldly attacked the absence of higher ideas among the Russian
romantics, and wrote that “the true poets of all nations have always
been philosophers who reached the highest summits of culture.” A poet
who is satisfied with his own self, and does not pursue aims of general
improvement, is of no use to his contemporaries.[24]
Nadézhdin followed on the same lines, and boldly attacked Púshkin for
his absence of higher inspiration and for producing a poetry of which
the only motives were “wine and women.” He reproached our romantics
with an absence of ethnographical and historic truth in their work,
and the meanness of the subjects they chose in their poetry. As to
Polevóy, he was so great an admirer of the poetry of Byron and Victor
Hugo that he could not pardon Púshkin and Gógol the absence of higher
ideas in their work. Having nothing in it that might raise men to
higher ideas and actions, their work could stand no comparison whatever
with the immortal creations of Shakespeare, Hugo, and Goethe. This
absence of higher leading ideas in the work of Púshkin and Gógol so
much impressed the last two critics that they did not even notice
the immense service which these founders of Russian literature were
rendering to us by introducing that sound naturalism and realism which
have become since a distinctive feature of Russian art, and the need of
which both Nadézhdin and Polevóy were the first to recognise. It was
Byelínskiy who had to take up their work, to complete it, and to show
what was the technique of really good art, and what its contents ought
to be.
To say that BYELÍNSKIY (1810-1848) was a very gifted art-critic would
thus mean nothing. He was in reality, at a very significant moment of
human evolution, a teacher and an educator of Russian society, not
only in art--its value, its purport, its comprehension--but also in
politics, in social questions, and in humanitarian aspirations.
He was the son of an obscure army-surgeon, and spent his childhood in
a remote province of Russia. Well prepared by his father, who knew
the value of knowledge, he entered the university of St. Petersburg,
but was excluded from it in 1832 for a tragedy which he wrote, in the
style of Schiller’s _Robbers_, and which was an energetic protest
against serfdom. Already he had joined the circle of Hérzen, Ogaryóff,
Stankévitch, etc., and in 1834 he began his literary career by a
critical review of literature which at once attracted notice. From that
time till his death he wrote critical articles and bibliographical
notes for some of the leading reviews, and he worked so extremely hard
that at the age of thirty-eight he died from consumption. He did not
die too soon. The revolution had broken out in Western Europe, and when
Byelínskiy was on his deathbed an agent of the State-police would call
from time to time to ascertain whether he was still alive. The order
was given to arrest him, if he should recover, and his fate certainly
would have been the fortress and at the best--exile.
When Byelínskiy first began to write he was entirely under the
influence of the idealistic German philosophy. He was inclined to
maintain that Art is something too great and too pure to have anything
to do with the questions of the day. It was a reproduction of “the
general idea of the life of nature.” Its problems were those of the
Universe--not of poor men and their petty events. It was from this
idealistic point of view of Beauty and Truth that he exposed the main
principles of Art, and explained the process of artistic creation. In a
series of articles on Púshkin he wrote, in fact, a history of Russian
literature down to Púshkin, from that point of view.
Holding such abstract views, Byelínskiy even came, during his stay
at Moscow, to consider, with Hegel, that “all that which exists is
reasonable,” and to preach “reconciliation” with the despotism of
Nicholas I. However, under the influence of Hérzen and Bakúnin he
soon shook off the fogs of German metaphysics, and, removing to St.
Petersburg, opened a new page of his activity.
Under the impression produced upon him by the realism of Gógol, whose
best works were just appearing, he came to understand that true poetry
is real: that it must be a poetry of life and of reality. And under
the influence of the political movement which was going on in France
he arrived at advanced political ideas. He was a great master of
style, and whatever he wrote was so full of energy, and at the same
time bore so truly the stamp of his most sympathetic personality, that
it always produced a deep impression upon his readers. And now all
his aspirations towards what is grand and high, and all his boundless
love of truth, which he formerly had given in the service of personal
self-improvement and ideal Art, were given to the service of man
within the poor conditions of Russian reality. He pitilessly analysed
that reality, and wherever he saw in the literary works which passed
under his eyes, or only felt, insincerity, haughtiness, absence of
general interest, attachment to old-age despotism, or slavery in any
form--including the slavery of woman--he fought these evils with all
his energy and passion. He thus became a political writer in the best
sense of the word at the same time that he was an art-critic; he became
a teacher of the highest humanitarian principles.
In his _Letter to Gógol_ concerning the latter’s _Correspondence with
Friends_ (see Ch. III.) he gave quite a programme of urgent social
and political reforms; but his days were numbered. His review of the
literature for the year 1847, which was especially beautiful and deep,
was his last work. Death spared him from seeing the dark cloud of
reaction in which Russia was wrapped from 1848 to 1855.
* * * * *
VALERIÁN MÁYKOFF (1823-1847), who promised to become a critic of great
power on the same lines as Byelínskiy, died unfortunately too young,
and it was Tchernyshévskiy, soon followed by Dobrolúboff, who continued
and further developed the work of Byelínskiy and his predecessors.
The leading idea of TCHERNYSHÉVSKIY was that art cannot be its own
aim; that life is superior to art; and that the aim of art is _to
explain life_, _to comment upon it_, and _to express an opinion about
it_. He developed these ideas in a thoughtful and stimulating work,
_The Æsthetic Relations of Art to Reality_, in which he demolished the
current theories of æsthetics, and gave a realistic definition of the
Beautiful. The sensation--he wrote--which the Beautiful awakens in us
is a feeling of bright happiness, similar to that which is awakened by
the presence of a beloved being. It must therefore contain something
dear to us, and that dear something is _life_. “To say that that which
we name ‘Beauty’ is life; that that being is beautiful in which we see
life--life as it ought to be according to our conception--and that
object is beautiful which speaks to us of life--this definition, we
should think, satisfactorily explains all cases which awaken in us
the feeling of the beautiful.” The conclusion to be drawn from such
a definition was that the beautiful in art, far from being superior
to the beautiful in life, can only represent that conception of the
beautiful which the artist has borrowed from life. As to the aim of
art it is much the same as that of science, although its means of
action are different. The true aim of art is to remind us of what
is interesting in human life, and to teach us how men live and how
they ought to live. This last part of Tchernyshévskiy teachings was
especially developed by Dobrolúboff.
DOBROLÚBOFF (1836-1861) was born in Nízhniy Nóvgorod, where his
father was a parish priest, and he received his education first in
a clerical school, and after that in a seminarium. In 1853 he went
to St. Petersburg and entered the Pedagogical Institute. His mother
and father died the next year, and he had then to maintain all his
brothers and sisters. Lessons, for which he was paid ridiculously
low prices, and translations, almost equally badly paid--all that
in addition to his student’s duties--meant working terribly hard,
and this broke down his health at an early age. In 1855 he made the
acquaintance of Tchernyshévskiy and, having finished in 1857 his
studies at the Institute, he took in hand the critical department of
_The Contemporary_, and again worked passionately. Four years later, in
November, 1861, he died, at the age of twenty-five, having literally
killed himself by overwork, leaving four volumes of critical essays,
each of which is a serious original work. Such essays as _The Kingdom
of Darkness_, _A Ray of Light_, _What is Oblómoffdom?_ _When comes the
Real Day?_ had especially a profound effect on the development of the
youth of those times.
Not that Dobrolúboff had a very definite criterion of literary
criticism, or that he had a very distinct programme as to what
was to be done. But he was one of the purest and the most solid
representatives of that type of new men--the realist-idealist, whom
Turguéneff saw coming by the end of the fifties. Therefore, in whatever
he wrote one felt the thoroughly moral and thoroughly reliable,
slightly ascetic “rigourist” who judged all facts of life from the
standard of--“What good will they bring to the toiling masses?” or,
“How will they favour the creation of men whose eyes are directed
that way?” His attitude towards professional æsthetics was most
contemptuous, but he felt deeply himself and enjoyed the great works
of art. He did not condemn Púshkin for his levity, or Gógol for his
absence of ideals. He did not advise anyone to write novels or poems
with a set purpose: he knew the results would be poor. He admitted that
the great geniuses were right in creating unconsciously, because he
understood that the real artist creates only when he has been struck
by this or that aspect of reality. He asked only from a work of art,
whether it truly and correctly reproduced life, or not? If not, he
passed it by; but if it did truly represent life, then he wrote essays
_about this life_; and his articles were essays on moral, political or
economical matters--the work of art yielding only the facts for such
a discussion. This explains the influence Dobrolúboff exercised upon
his contemporaries. Such essays written by such a personality were
precisely what was wanted in the turmoil of those years for preparing
better men for the coming struggles. They were a school of political
and moral education.
PÍSAREFF (1841-1868), the critic who succeeded, so to speak,
Dobrolúboff, was a quite different man. He was born in a rich family
of landlords and had received an education during which he had
never known what it meant to want anything; but he soon realised
the drawbacks of such a life, and when he was at the St. Petersburg
university he abandoned the rich house of his uncle and settled with
a poor student comrade, or lived in an apartment with a number of
other students--writing amidst their noisy discussions or songs. Like
Dobrolúboff, he worked excessively hard, and astonished everyone by his
varied knowledge and the facility with which he acquired it. In 1862,
when reaction was beginning to reappear, he permitted a comrade to
print in a secret printing office an article of his--the criticism of
some reactionary political pamphlet--which article had not received the
authorisation of the censorship. The secret printing office was seized,
and Písareff was locked for four years in the fortress of St. Peter and
St. Paul. There he wrote all that made him widely known in Russia. When
he came out of prison his health was already broken, and in the summer
of 1868 he was drowned while bathing in one of the Baltic sea-side
resorts.
Upon the Russian youth of his own time, and consequently on whatever
share, as men and women later on, they brought to the general progress
of the country, Písareff exercised an influence which was as great
as that of Byelínskiy, Tchernyshévskiy, and Dobrolúboff. Here again
it is impossible to determine the character and the cause of this
influence by merely referring to Písareff’s canons in art criticism.
His leading ideas on this subject can be explained in a few words;
his ideal was “the thoughtful realist”--the type which Turguéneff had
just represented in Bazároff, and which Písareff further developed in
his critical essays. He shared Bazároff’s low opinion of art, but,
as a concession, demanded that Russian art should, at least, reach
the heights which art had reached with Goethe, Heine and Börne in
elevating mankind--or else that those who are always talking of art,
but can produce nothing approaching it, should rather give their
forces to something more within their reach. This is why he devoted
most elaborate articles to depreciating the futile poetry of Púshkin.
In ethics he was entirely at one with the “Nihilist” Bazároff, who
bowed before no authority but that of his own reason. And he thought
(like Bazároff in a conversation with Pável Petróvitch) that the
main point, _at that given moment_, was to develop the _thorough,
scientifically-educated realist_, who would break with all the
traditions and mistakes of the olden time, and would work, looking
upon human life with the sound common-sense of a realist. He even did
something himself to spread the sound natural science knowledge that
had suddenly developed in those years, and wrote a most remarkable
exposition of Darwinism in a series of articles entitled _Progress in
the World of Plants and Animals_.
But--to quote the perfectly correct estimate of Skabitchévskiy--“all
this does not, however, determine Písareff’s position in Russian
literature. In all this he only embodied a certain moment of the
development of Russian youth, with all its exaggerations.” The real
cause of Písareff’s influence was elsewhere, and may be best explained
by the following example. There appeared a novel in which the author
had told how a girl, good-hearted, honest, but quite uneducated, quite
commonplace as to her conceptions of happiness and life, and full of
the current society-prejudices, fell in love, and was brought to all
sorts of misfortunes. This girl--Písareff at once understood--was not
invented. Thousands upon thousands of like girls exist, and their lives
have the same run. They are--he said--“Muslin Girls.” Their conception
of the universe does not go much beyond their muslin dresses. And he
reasoned, how with their “muslin education” and their “muslin-girl
conceptions,” they must unavoidably come to grief. And by this article,
which every girl in every educated family in Russia read, and reads
still, he induced thousands upon thousands of Russian girls to say to
themselves: “No, never will I be like that poor muslin girl. I will
conquer knowledge; I will think; and I will make for myself a better
future.” Each of his articles had a similar effect. It gave to the
young mind the first shock. It opened the young man’s and the young
woman’s eyes to those thousands of details of life which habit makes us
cease to perceive, but the sum of which makes precisely that stifling
atmosphere under which the heroines of “Krestóvskiy-pseudonym” used to
wither. From that life, which could promise only deception, dulness
and vegetative existence, he called the youth of both sexes to a life
full of the light of knowledge, a life of work, of broad views and
sympathies, which was now opened for the “thoughtful realist.”
The time has not yet come to fully appreciate the work of MIHAILÓVSKIY
(1842-1904), who in the seventies became the leading critic, and
remained so till his death. Moreover, his proper position could not
be understood without my entering into many details concerning the
character of the intellectual movement in Russia for the last thirty
years, and this movement has been extremely complex. Suffice it to say
that with Mihailóvskiy literary criticism took a philosophical turn.
Within this period Spencer’s philosophy had produced a deep sensation
in Russia, and Mihailóvskiy submitted it to a severe analysis from the
anthropological standpoint, showing its weak points and working out
his own _Theory of Progress_, which will certainly be spoken of with
respect in Western Europe when it becomes known outside Russia. His
very remarkable articles on _Individualism_, on _Heroes and the Crowd_,
on _Happiness_, have the same philosophical value; while even from the
few quotations from his _Left and Right Hand of Count Tolstóy_, which
were given in a preceding chapter, it is easy to see which way his
sympathies go.
Of the other critics of the same tendencies I shall only name
SKABITCHÉVSKIY (born 1838), the author of a very well written history
of modern Russian literature, already mentioned in these pages; K.
ARSÉNIEFF (born 1837), whose _Critical Studies_ (1888) are the more
interesting as they deal at some length with some of the less known
poets and the younger contemporary writers; and P. POLEVÓY (1839-1903),
the author of many historical novels and of a popular and quite
valuable _History of the Russian Literature_; but I am compelled to
pass over in silence the valuable critical work done by DRUZHÍNIN
(1824-1864) after the death of Byelínskiy, as also A. GRIGÓRIEFF
(1822-1864), a brilliant and original critic from the Slavophile
camp. They both took the “æsthetical” point of view and combated the
utilitarian views upon Art, but had no great success.
TOLSTÓY’S “WHAT IS ART?”
It is thus seen that for the last eighty years, beginning with
Venevítinoff and Nadézhdin, Russian art-critics have worked to
establish the idea that art has a _raison d’être_ only when it is “in
the service of society” and contributes towards raising society to
higher humanitarian conceptions--by those means which are proper to
art, and distinguish it from science. This idea which so much shocked
Western readers when Proudhon developed it has been advocated in Russia
by all those who have exercised a real influence upon critical judgment
in art matters. And they were supported _de facto_ by some of our
greatest poets, such as Lérmontoff and Turguéneff. As to the critics of
the other camp, like Druzhínin, Annenkoff and A. Grigórieff, who took
either the opposite view of “art for art’s sake,” or some intermediate
view--who preached that the criterium of art is “The Beautiful” and
clung to the theories of the German æsthetical writers--they have had
no hold upon Russian thought.
The metaphysics of the German æsthetical writers was more than
once demolished in the opinion of Russian readers--especially
by Byelínskiy, in his _Review of Literature for 1847_, and by
Tchernyshévskiy in his _Æsthetic Relations of Art to Reality_. In
this _Review_ Byelínskiy fully developed his ideas concerning Art in
the service of mankind, and proved that although Art is not identical
with Science, and differs from it by the way it treats the facts of
life, it nevertheless has with it a common _aim_. The man of science
_demonstrates_--the poet _shows_; but both _convince_; the one by his
arguments, the other--by his scenes from life. The same was done by
Tchernyshévskiy when he maintained that the aim of Art is not unlike
that of History: that it _explains to us life_, and that consequently
Art which should merely reproduce facts of life without adding to our
compensation of it would not be Art at all.
These few remarks will explain why Tolstóy’s _What is Art?_ produced
much less impression in Russia than abroad. What struck us in it was
not its leading idea, which was quite familiar to us, but the fact that
the great artist also made it his own, and was supporting it by all the
weight of his artistic experience; and then, of course, the literary
form he gave the idea. Moreover, we read with the greatest interest
his witty criticisms of both the “decadent” would-be poets and the
librettos of Wagner’s operas; to which latter, let me add by the way,
Wagner wrote, in places, wonderfully beautiful music, as soon as he
came to deal with the universal _human passions_,--love, compassion,
envy, the joy of life, and so on, and forgot all about his fairy-tale
background.
_What is Art?_ offered the more interest in Russia because the
defenders of pure Art and the haters of the “nihilists in Art” had
been accustomed to quote Tolstóy as of their camp. In his youth indeed
he seems not to have had very definite ideas about Art. At any rate,
when, in 1859, he was received as a member of the Society of Friends
of Russian Literature, he pronounced a speech on the necessity of
_not_ dragging Art into the smaller disputes of the day, to which the
Slavophile Homyakóff replied in a fiery speech, contesting his ideas
with great energy.
“There are moments--great historic moments”--Homyakóff said--“when
self-denunciation (he meant on the part of Society) has especial,
incontestable rights.... The ‘accidental’ and the ‘temporary’ in the
historical development of a nation’s life acquire then the meaning of
the universal and the broadly human, because all generations and all
nations can understand, and do understand, the painful moans and the
painful confessions of a given generation or a given nation.” ... “An
artist”--he continued--“is not a theory; he is not a mere domain of
thought and cerebral activity. He is a man--always a man of his own
time--usually one of its best representatives.... Owing to the very
impressionability of his organism, without which he would not have
been an artist, he, more than the others, receives both the painful
and the pleasant impressions of the Society in the midst of which he
was born.”
Showing that Tolstóy had already taken just this standpoint in some of
his works; for example, in describing the death of the horse-driver in
_Three Deaths_, Homyakóff concluded by saying: “Yes, you have been, and
you will be one of those who denounce the evils of Society. Continue to
follow the excellent way you have chosen.”[25]
At any rate, in _What is Art?_ Tolstóy entirely breaks with the
theories of “Art for Art’s sake,” and makes an open stand by the side
of those whose ideas have been expounded in the preceding pages. He
only defines still more correctly the domain of Art when he says that
the artist always aims at communicating to others the same feelings
which he experiences at the sight of nature or of human life. Not to
_convince_, as Tchernyshévskiy said, but to _infect_ the others with
his own _feelings_, which is certainly more correct. However, “feeling”
and “thought” are inseparable. A feeling seeks words to express itself,
and a feeling expressed in words is a thought. And when Tolstóy says
that the aim of artistic activity is to transmit “the highest feelings
which humanity has attained” and that Art must be “religious”--that
is, wake up the highest and the best aspirations--he only expresses in
other words what all our best critics since Venevítinoff, Nadézhdin
and Polevóy have said. In fact, when he complains that nobody teaches
men _how to live_, he overlooks that that is precisely what good Art
is doing, and what our art-critics have always done. Byelínskiy,
Dobrolúboff and Písareff, and their continuators have done nothing but
_to teach men how to live_. They studied and analysed life, as it had
been understood by the greatest artists of each century, and they drew
from their works conclusions as to “how to live.”
More than this. When Tolstóy, armed with his powerful criticism,
chastises what he so well describes as “counterfeits of Art,” he
continues the work that Tchernyshévskiy, Dobrolúboff and especially
Písareff had done. He sides with Bazároff. Only, this intervention of
the great artist gives a more deadly blow to the “Art for Art’s sake”
theory still in vogue in Western Europe than anything that Proudhon or
our Russian critics, unknown in the West, could possibly have done.
As to Tolstóy’s idea concerning the value of a work of Art being
measured by its accessibility to the great number, which has been so
fiercely attacked on all sides, and even ridiculed--this assertion,
although it has perhaps not yet been very well expressed, contains, I
believe, the germs of a great idea which sooner or later is certain
to make its way. It is evident that every form of art has a certain
conventional way of expressing itself--its own way of “infecting others
with the artist’s feelings,” and therefore requires a certain training
to understand it. Tolstóy is hardly right in overlooking the fact that
some training is required for rightly comprehending even the simplest
forms of art, and his criterion of “universal understanding” seems
therefore far-fetched.
However, there lies in what he says a deep idea. Tolstóy is certainly
right in asking why the Bible has not yet been superseded, as a work of
Art accessible to everyone. Michelet had already made a similar remark,
and had said that what was wanted by our century was _Le Livre, The
Book_, which shall contain in a great, poetical form accessible to
all, the embodiment of nature with all her glories and of the history
of all mankind in its deepest human features. Humboldt had aimed at
this in his _Cosmos_; but grand though his work is, it is accessible to
only the very few. It was not he who should transfigure science into
poetry. And we have no work of Art which even approaches this need of
modern mankind.
The reason is self-evident: _Because Art has become too artificial_;
because, being chiefly for the rich, it has too much specialised its
ways of expression, so as to be understood by the few only. In this
respect Tolstóy is absolutely right. Take the mass of excellent works
that have been mentioned in this book. How very few of them will ever
become accessible to a large public! The fact is, that a new Art is
indeed required. And it will come when the artist, having understood
this idea of Tolstóy’s, shall say to himself: “I may write highly
philosophical works of art in which I depict the inner drama of the
highly educated and refined man of our own times; I may write works
which contain the highest poetry of nature, involving a deep knowledge
and comprehension of the life of nature; but, if I can write such
things, I must also be able, if I am a true artist, to speak to all:
to write other things which will be as deep in conception as these,
but which everyone, including the humblest miner or peasant, will be
able to understand and enjoy!” To say that a folk-song is _greater_ Art
than a Beethoven sonata is not correct: we cannot compare a storm in
the Alps, and the struggle against it, with a fine, quiet mid-summer
day and hay-making. But truly great Art, which, notwithstanding its
depth and its lofty flight, will penetrate into every peasant’s hut and
inspire everyone with higher conceptions of thought and life--such an
Art is really wanted.
SOME CONTEMPORARY NOVELISTS
It does not enter into the plan of this book to analyse contemporary
Russian writers. Another volume would be required to do them justice,
not only on account of the literary importance of some of them, and
the interest of the various directions in Art which they represent,
but especially because in order to properly explain the character of
the present literature, and the different currents in Russian Art, it
would be necessary to enter into many details concerning the unsettled
conditions under which the country has been living during the last
thirty years. Moreover, most of the contemporary writers have not yet
said their last word, and we can expect from them works of even greater
value than any they have hitherto produced. I am compelled, therefore,
to limit myself to brief remarks concerning the most prominent living
novelists of the present day.
OERTEL (born 1855) has unfortunately abandoned literature during the
last few years, just at a time when his last novel, _Smyéna_ (_Changing
Guards_), had given proofs of a further development of his sympathetic
talent. He was born in the borderland of the Russian Steppes, and was
brought up on one of the large estates of this region. Later on he
went to the university of St. Petersburg and, as a matter of fact,
was compelled to leave it after some “students’ disorders,” and was
interned in the town of Tver. He soon returned, however, to his native
Steppe region, which he cherishes with the same love as Nikítin and
Koltsóff.
Oertel began his literary career by short sketches which are now
collected in two volumes under the name of _Notebook of a Prairie-Man_,
and whose manner suggests Turguéneff’s _Sportsman’s Notebook_. The
nature of the prairies is admirably described in these little stories,
with great warmth and poetry, and the types of peasants who appear
in the stories are perfectly true to nature, without any attempts at
idealisation, although one feels that the author is no great admirer
of the “intellectuals” and fully appreciates the general ethics of
rural life. Some of these sketches, especially those which deal with
the growing _bourgeoisie du village_, are highly artistic. _Two
Couples_ (1887), in which the parallel stories of two young couples in
love--one of educated people and the other of peasants--are given, is
a story evidently written under the influence of the ideas of Tolstóy,
and bearing traces of a preconceived idea, which spoils in places the
artistic value of the novel. There are nevertheless admirable scenes,
testifying to very fine powers of observation.
However, the real force of Oertel is not in discussing psychological
problems. His true domain is the description of whole regions, with
all the variety of types of men which one finds amidst the mixed
populations of South Russia, and this force appears at its best in _The
Gardénins, their Retainers, their Followers, and their Enemies_, and
in _Changing Guards_. Russian critics have, of course, very seriously
and very minutely discussed the young heroes, Efrem and Nicholas,
who appear in _The Gardénins_, and they have made a rigorous inquiry
into the ways of thinking of these young men. But this is of a quite
secondary importance, and one almost regrets that the author, paying a
tribute to his times, has given the two young men more attention than
they deserve, being only two more individuals in the great picture
of country life which he has drawn for us. The fact is, that just as
we have in Gógol’s tales quite a world opening before us--a Little
Russian village, or provincial life--so also here we see, as the very
title of the novel suggests, the whole life of a large estate at the
times of serfdom, with its mass of retainers, followers and foes, all
grouped round the horse-breeding establishment which makes the fame of
the estate and the pride of all connected with it. It is the life of
that crowd of people, the life at the horse-fairs and the races, not
the discussions or the loves of a couple of young men, which makes the
main interest of the picture; and that life is really reproduced in as
masterly a manner as it is in a good Dutch picture representing some
village fair. No writer in Russia since Serghéi Aksákoff and Gógol has
so well succeeded in painting a whole corner of Russia with its scores
of figures, all living and all placed in those positions of relative
importance which they occupy in real life.
The same power is felt in _Changing Guards_. The subject of this novel
is very interesting. It shows how the old noble families disintegrate,
like their estates, and how another class of men--merchants and
unscrupulous adventurers--get possession of these estates, while
a new class made up of the younger merchants and clerks, who are
beginning to be inspired with some ideas of freedom and higher culture,
constitutes already the germ of a new stratum of the educated classes.
In this novel, too, some critics fastened their attention chiefly
on the undoubtedly interesting types of the aristocratic girl, the
Non-conformist peasant whom she begins to love, the practical Radical
young merchant--all painted quite true to life; but they overlooked
what makes the real importance of the novel. Here again we have quite
a region of South Russia (as typical as the Far West is in the United
States), throbbing with life and full of living men and women, as it
was some twenty years after the liberation of the serfs, when a new
life, not devoid of some American features, was beginning to appear.
The contrast between this young life and the decaying mansion is very
well reproduced, too. In the romances of the young people--the whole
bearing the stamp of the most sympathetic individuality of the author.
* * * * *
KOROLÉNKO was born (in 1853) in a small town of Western Russia,
and there he received his first education. In 1872 he was at the
Agricultural Academy of Moscow, but was compelled to leave after having
taken part in some students’ movement. Later on he was arrested as a
“political,” and exiled, first to a small town of the Uráls, and then
to Western Siberia, and from there, after his refusal to take the
oath of allegiance to Alexander III., he was transported to a Yakút
encampment several hundred miles beyond Yakútsk. There he spent several
years, and when he returned to Russia in 1886, not being allowed to
stay in University towns, he settled at Nízhniy Nóvgorod.
Life in the far north, in the deserts of Yakútsk, in a small encampment
buried for half the year in the snow, produced upon Korolénko an
extremely deep impression, and the little stories which he wrote about
Siberian subjects (_The Dream of Makár_, _The Man from Sakhalín_,
etc.), were so beautiful that he was unanimously recognised as a true
heir to Turguéneff. There is in the little stories of Korolénko a
force, a sense of proportion, a mastery in depicting the characters,
and an artistic finish, which not only distinguish him from most of his
young contemporaries, but reveal in him a true artist. _What the Forest
Says_, in which he related a dramatic episode from serfdom times in
Lithuania, only further confirmed the high reputation which Korolénko
had already won. It is not an imitation of Turguéneff, and yet it
at once recalled, by its comprehension of the life of the forest,
the great novelist’s beautiful sketch, _The Woodlands_ (_Polyesie_).
_In Bad Society_ is evidently taken from the author’s childhood, and
this idyll among tramps and thieves who concealed themselves in the
ruins of some tower is of such beauty, especially in the scenes with
children, that everyone found in it a truly “Turguéneff charm.” But
then Korolénko came to a halt. His _Blind Musician_ was read in all
languages, and admired--again for its charm; but it was felt that the
over-refined psychology of this novel is hardly correct; and no greater
production worthy of the extremely sympathetic and rich talent of
Korolénko has appeared since, while his attempts at producing a larger
and more elaborate romance were not crowned with success.
This is somewhat striking, but the same would have to be said of all
the contemporaries of Korolénko, among whom there are men and women
of great talent. To analyse the causes of this fact, especially with
reference to so great an artist as Korolénko, would certainly be a
tempting task. But this would require speaking at some length of the
change which took place in the Russian novel during the last twenty
years or so, in connection with the political life of the country.
A few hints will perhaps explain what is meant. In the seventies
quite a special sort of novel had been created by a number of young
novelists--mostly contributors of the review, _Rússkoye Slóvo_. The
“thoughtful realist”--such as he was understood by Písareff--was
their hero, and however imperfect the technique of these novels
might have been in some cases, their leading idea was most honest,
and the influence they exercised upon Russian youth was in the right
direction. This was the time when Russian women were making their first
steps towards higher education, and trying to conquer some sort of
economical and intellectual independence. To attain this, they had
to sustain a bitter struggle against their elders. “Madame Kabanóva”
and “Dikóy” (see Ch. VI.) were alive then in a thousand guises, in
all classes of society, and our women had to struggle hard against
their parents and relatives, who did not understand their children;
against “Society” as a whole, which hated the “emancipated woman”; and
against the Government, which only too well foresaw the dangers that
a new generation of educated women would represent for an autocratic
bureaucracy. It was of the first necessity, then, that at least in the
men of the same generation the young fighters for women’s rights should
find helpers, and not that sort of men about whom Turguéneff’s heroine
in _Correspondence_ wrote (see Ch. IV.). In this direction--especially
after the splendid beginning that was made by two women writers,
SOPHIE SMIRNÓVA (_The Little Fire_, _The Salt of the Earth_) and OLGA
SHAPÍR--our men-novelists have done good service, both in maintaining
the energy of women in their hard struggle and in inspiring men with
respect towards that struggle and those who fought in it.
Later on a new element became prominent in the Russian novel. It was
the “populist” element--love to the masses of toilers, work among
them in order to introduce, be it the slightest spark of light and
hope, into their sad existence. Again the novel contributed immensely
to maintain that movement and to inspire men and women in that sort
of work, an instance of which has been given on a preceding page, in
speaking of _The Great Bear_. The workers in both these fields were
numerous, and I can only name in passing MORDÓVTSEFF (in _Signs of
the Times_), SCHELLER, who wrote under the name of A. MIKHÁILOFF,
STANUKÓVITCH, NOVODVÓRSKIY, BARANTSÉVITCH, MATCHTÉTT, MÁMIN, and the
poet, NÁDSON, who all, either directly or indirectly, worked through
the novel and poetry in the same direction.
However, the struggle for liberty which was begun about 1857, after
having reached its culminating point in 1881, came to a temporary end,
and for the next ten years a complete prostration spread amidst the
Russian “intellectuals.” Faith in the old ideals and the old inspiring
watchwords--even faith in men--was passing away, and new tendencies
began to make their way in Art--partly under the influence of this
phase of the Russian movement, and partly also under the influence of
Western Europe. A sense of fatigue became evident. Faith in knowledge
was shaken. Social ideals were relegated to the background. “Rigourism”
was condemned, and “popularism” began to be represented as ludicrous,
or, when it reappeared, it was in some religious form, as Tolstóyism.
Instead of the former enthusiasm for “mankind,” the “rights of the
individual” were proclaimed, which “rights” did not mean equal rights
for all, but the rights of the few over all the others.
In these unsettled conditions of social ideas our younger
novelists--always anxious to reflect in their art the questions of the
day--have had to develop; and this confusion necessarily stands in the
way of their producing anything as definite and as complete as did
their predecessors of the previous generation. There have been no such
complete individualities in society; and a true artist is incapable of
inventing what does not exist.
* * * * *
DMITRIY MEREZHKÓVSKIY (born 1866) may be taken to illustrate the
difficulties which a writer, even when endowed with a by no means
ordinary talent, found in reaching his full development under the
social and political conditions which prevailed in Russia during the
period just mentioned. Leaving aside his poetry--although it is also
very characteristic--and taking only his novels and critical articles,
we see how, after having started with a certain sympathy, or at least
with a certain respect, for those Russian writers of the previous
generation who wrote under the inspiration of higher social ideals,
Merezhkóvskiy gradually began to suspect these ideals, and finally
ended by treating them with contempt. He found that they were of no
avail, and he began to speak more and more of “the sovereign rights of
the individual,” but not in the sense in which they were understood
by Godwin and other eighteenth century philosophers, nor in the sense
which Písareff attributed to them when he spoke of the “thoughtful
realist”; Merezkhóvskiy took them in the sense--desperately vague, and
narrow when not vague--attributed to them by Nietzsche. At the same
time he began to speak more and more of “Beauty” and “the worship of
the Beautiful,” but again not in the sense which idealists attributed
to such words, but in the limited, erotic sense in which “Beauty” was
understood by the “Æsthetics” of the leisured class in the forties.
The main work which Merezhkóvskiy undertook offered great interest.
He began a trilogy of novels in which he intended to represent the
struggle of the antique pagan world against Christianity: on the one
hand, the Hellenic love and poetic comprehension of nature, and its
worship of sound, exuberant life; and on the other, the life-depressing
influences of Judaic Christianity, with its condemnation of the
study of nature, of poetry, art, pleasure, and sound, healthy life
altogether. The first novel of the trilogy was _Julian the Apostate_,
and the second, _Leonardo da Vinci_ (both have been translated into
English). They were the result of a careful study of the antique Greek
world and the Renaissance, and notwithstanding some defects (absence
of real feeling, even in the glorification of the worship of Beauty,
and a certain abuse of archæological details), both contained really
beautiful and impressive scenes; while the fundamental idea--the
necessity of a synthesis between the poetry of nature of the antique
world and the higher humanising ideals of Christianity--was forcibly
impressed upon the reader.
Unfortunately, Merezhkóvskiy’s admiration of antique “Naturism” did
not last. He had not yet written the third novel of his trilogy when
modern “Symbolism” began to penetrate into his works, with the result
that notwithstanding all his abilities the young author seems now to be
drifting straight towards a hopeless mysticism, like that into which
Gógol fell towards the end of his life.
* * * * *
It may seem strange to the West Europeans, and especially to English
readers, to hear of such a rapid succession of different moods of
thought in Russian society, sufficiently deep to exercise such an
influence upon the novels as has just been mentioned. And yet so it is,
in consequence of the historical phase which Russia is living through.
There is even a very gifted novelist, BOBORÝKIN (born 1836), who has
made it his peculiar work to describe in novels the prevailing moods of
Russian educated society in their rapid succession for the last thirty
years. The technique of his novels is always excellent (he is also the
author of a good critical work, just published, on the influences of
Western romance upon the Russian novel). His observations are always
correct; his personal point of view is that of an honest advanced
progressive; and his novels can always be taken as true and good
pictures of the tendencies which prevailed at a given moment amongst
the Russian “intellectuals.” For the history of thought in Russia they
are simply invaluable; and they must have helped many a young reader to
find his or her way amidst the various facts of life; but the variety
of currents which have been chronicled by Boborýkin would appear simply
puzzling to a Western reader.
Boborýkin has been reproached by some critics with not having
sufficiently distinguished between what was important in the facts of
life which he described and what was irrelevant or only ephemeral,
but this is hardly correct. The main defect of his work lies perhaps
elsewhere; namely, in that the individuality of the author is hardly
felt in it at all. He seems to record the kaleidoscope of life without
living with his heroes, and without suffering or rejoicing with them.
He has noticed and perfectly well observed those persons whom he
describes; his judgment of them is that of an intelligent, experienced
man; but none of them has impressed him enough to become part of
himself. Therefore they do not strike the reader with any sufficient
depth of impression.
One of our contemporary authors, also endowed with great talent, who
is publishing a simply stupefying quantity of novels, is POTÁPENKO. He
was born in 1856, in South Russia, and after having studied music, he
began writing in 1881, and although his later novels bear traces of
too hasty work, he still remains a favourite writer. Amidst the dark
colours which prevail now amongst the Russian novelists, Potápenko is
a happy exception. Some of his novels are full of highly comic scenes,
and compel the reader to laugh heartily with the author. But even when
there are no such scenes, and the facts are, on the contrary, sad,
or even tragical, the effect of the novel is not depressing--perhaps
because the author never departs from his own point of view of a
satisfied optimist. In this respect Potápenko is absolutely the
opposite of most of his contemporaries, and especially of Tchéhoff.
A. P. TCHÉHOFF
Of all the contemporary Russian novelists A. P. Tchéhoff (1860-1904)
was undoubtedly the most deeply original. It was not a mere originality
of style. His style, like that of every great artist, bears of course
the stamp of his personality; but he never tried to strike his readers
with some style-effects of his own: he probably despised them, and
he wrote with the same simplicity as Púshkin, Turguéneff and Tolstóy
have written. Nor did he choose some special contents for his tales
and novels, or appropriate to himself some special class of men. Few
authors, on the contrary, have dealt with so wide a range of men
and women, taken from all the layers, divisions and subdivisions of
Russian society as Tchéhoff did. And with all that, as Tolstóy has
remarked, Tchéhoff represents something of his own in art; he has
struck a new vein, not only for Russian literature, but for literature
altogether, and thus belongs to all nations. His nearest relative is
Guy de Maupassant, but a certain family resemblance between the two
writers exists only in a few of their short stories. The manner of
Tchéhoff, and especially the mood in which all the sketches, the short
novels, and the dramas of Tchéhoff are written, are entirely his own.
And then, there is all the difference between the two writers which
exists between contemporary France and Russia at that special period of
development through which our country has been passing lately.
The biography of Tchéhoff can be told in a few words. He was born in
1860, in South Russia, at Taganróg. His father was originally a serf,
but he had apparently exceptional business capacities, and freed
himself early in his life. To his son he gave a good education--first
in the local gymnasium (college), and later on at the university of
Moscow. “I did not know much about faculties at that time,” Tchéhoff
wrote once in a short biographical note, “and I don’t well remember why
I chose the medical faculty; but I never regretted that choice later
on.” He did not become a medical practitioner; but a year’s work in a
small village hospital near Moscow, and similar work later on, when
he volunteered to stand at the head of a medical district during the
cholera epidemics of 1892, brought him into close contact with a wide
world of men and women of all sorts and characters; and, as he himself
has noticed, his acquaintance with natural sciences and with the
scientific method of thought helped him a great deal in his subsequent
literary work.
Tchéhoff began his literary career very early. Already during the first
years of his university studies--that is, in 1879, he began to write
short humorous sketches (under the pseudonym of Tcheónte) for some
weeklies. His talent developed rapidly; and the sympathy with which his
first little volumes of short sketches was met in the Press, and the
interest which the best Russian critics (especially Mikhailóvskiy) took
in the young novelist, must have helped him to give a more serious turn
to his creative genius. With every year the problems of life which he
treated were deeper and more complicated, while the form he attained
bore traces of an increasingly fine artistic finish. When Tchéhoff
died last year, at the age of only forty-four, his talent had already
reached its full maturity. His last production--a drama--contained such
fine poetical touches, and such a mixture of poetical melancholy with
strivings towards the joy of a well-filled life, that it would have
seemed to open a new page in his creation if it were not known that
consumption was rapidly undermining his life.
No one has ever succeeded, as Tchéhoff has, in representing the
failures of human nature in our present civilisation, and especially
the failure, the bankruptcy of the educated man in the face of
the all-invading meanness of everyday life. This defeat of the
“intellectual” he has rendered with a wonderful force, variety, and
impressiveness. And there lies the distinctive feature of his talent.
When you read the sketches and the stories of Tchéhoff in chronological
succession, you see first an author full of the most exuberant
vitality and youthful fun. The stories are, as a rule, very short;
many of them cover only three or four pages; but they are full of the
most infecting merriment. Some of them are mere farces; but you cannot
help laughing in the heartiest way, because even the most ludicrous
and impossible ones are written with an inimitable charm. And then,
gradually, amidst that same fun, comes a touch of heartless vulgarity
on the part of some of the actors in the story, and you feel how
the author’s heart throbs with pain. Slowly, gradually, this note
becomes more frequent; it claims more and more attention; it ceases
to be accidental, it becomes organic--till at last, in every story,
in every novel, it stifles everything else. It may be the reckless
heartlessness of a young man who, “for fun,” will make a girl believe
that she is loved, or the heartlessness and absence of the most
ordinary humanitarian feeling in the family of an old professor--it is
always the same note of heartlessness and meanness which resounds, the
same absence of the more refined human feelings, or, still worse--the
complete intellectual and moral bankruptcy of “the intellectual.”
Tchéhoff’s heroes are not people who have never heard better words, or
never conceived better ideas than those which circulate in the lowest
circles of the Philistines. No, they have heard such words, and their
hearts have beaten once upon a time at the sound of such words. But the
common-place everyday life has stifled all such aspirations, apathy
has taken its place, and now there remains only a haphazard existence
amidst a hopeless meanness. The meanness which Tchéhoff represents is
the one which begins with the loss of faith in one’s forces and the
gradual loss of all those brighter hopes and illusions which make the
charm of all activity, and, then, step by step, this meanness destroys
the very springs of life: broken hopes, broken hearts, broken energies.
Man reaches a stage when he can only mechanically repeat certain
actions from day to day, and goes to bed, happy if he has “killed” his
time in any way, gradually falling into a complete intellectual apathy,
and a moral indifference. The worst is that the very multiplicity of
samples which Tchéhoff gives, without repeating himself, from so many
different layers of society, seems to tell the reader that it is the
rottenness of a whole civilisation, of an epoch, which the author
divulges to us.
Speaking of Tchéhoff, Tolstóy made the deep remark that he was one
of those few whose novels are willingly re-read more than once.
This is quite true. Every one of Tchéhoff’s stories--it may be the
smallest bagatelle or a small novel, or it may be a drama--produces
an impression which cannot easily be forgotten. At the same time they
contain such a profusion of minute detail, admirably chosen so as to
increase the impression, that in re-reading them one always finds a new
pleasure. Tchéhoff was certainly a great artist. Besides, the variety
of the men and women of all classes which appear in his stories,
and the variety of psychological subjects dealt in them, is simply
astounding. And yet every story bears so much the stamp of the author
that in the most insignificant of them you recognise Tchéhoff, with his
proper individuality and manner, with his conception of men and things.
Tchéhoff has never tried to write long novels or romances. His domain
is the short story, in which he excels. He certainly never tries to
give in it the whole history of his heroes from their birth to the
grave: this would not be the proper way in a short story. He takes
one moment only from that life, only one episode. And he tells it
in such a way that the reader forever retains in memory the type of
men or women represented; so that, when later on he meets a living
specimen of that type, he exclaims: “But this is Tchéhoff’s Ivánoff,
or Tchéhoff’s Darling!” In the space of some twenty pages and within
the limitations of a single episode there is revealed a complicated
psychological drama--a world of mutual relations. Take, for instance,
the very short and impressive sketch, _From a Doctor’s Practice_. It
is a story in which there is no story after all. A doctor is invited
to see a girl, whose mother is the owner of a large cotton mill. They
live there, in a mansion close to, and within the enclosure of, the
immense buildings. The girl is the only child, and is worshipped by her
mother. But she is not happy. Indefinite thoughts worry her: she is
stifled in that atmosphere. Her mother is also unhappy on account of
her darling’s unhappiness, and the only happy creature in the household
is the ex-governess of the girl, now a sort of lady-companion, who
really enjoys the luxurious surroundings of the mansion and its rich
table. The doctor is asked to stay over the night, and tells to his
sleepless patient that she is not bound to stay there: that a really
well-intentioned person can find many places in the world where she
would find an activity to suit her. And when the doctor leaves next
morning the girl has put on a white dress and has a flower in her
hair. She looks very earnest, and you guess that she meditates already
about a new start in her life. Within the limits of these few traits
quite a world of aimless philistine life has thus been unveiled before
your eyes, a world of factory life, and a world of new longings making
an irruption into it, and finding support from the outside. You read
all this in the little episode. You see with a striking distinctness
the four main personages upon whom light has been focused for a short
moment. And in the hazy outlines which you rather guess than see on the
picture round the brightly lighted spot, you discover quite a world
of complicated human relations, at the present moment and in times to
come. Take away anything of the distinctness of the figures in the
lighted spot, or anything of the haziness of the remainder--and the
picture will be spoiled.
Such are nearly all the stories of Tchéhoff. Even when they cover some
fifty pages they have the same character.
Tchéhoff wrote a couple of stories from peasant life. But peasants and
village life are not his proper sphere. His true domain is the world
of the “intellectuals”--the educated and the half-educated portion
of Russian society--and these he knows in perfection. He shows their
bankruptcy, their inaptitude to solve the great historical problem of
renovation which fell upon them, and the meanness and vulgarity of
everyday life under which an immense number of them succumb. Since the
times of Gógol no writer in Russia has so wonderfully represented human
meanness under its varied aspects. And yet, what a difference between
the two! Gógol took mainly the outer meanness, which strikes the eye
and often degenerates into farce, and therefore in most cases brings a
smile on your lips or makes you laugh. But laughter is always a step
towards reconciliation. Tchéhoff also makes you laugh in his earlier
productions, but in proportion as he advances in age, and looks more
seriously upon life, the laughter disappears, and although a fine
humour remains, you feel that he now deals with a kind of meanness and
philistinism which provokes, not smiles but suffering in the author.
A “Tchéhoff sorrow” is as much characteristic of his writings as the
deep furrow between the brows of his lively eyes is characteristic of
his good-natured face. Moreover, the meanness which Tchéhoff depicts
is much deeper than the one which Gógol knew. Deeper conflicts are now
going on in the depths of the modern educated men, of which Gógol knew
nothing seventy years ago. The “sorrow” of Tchéhoff is also that of a
much more sensitive and a more refined nature than the “unseen tears”
of Gógol’s satire.
Better than any Russian novelist, Tchéhoff understands the fundamental
vice of that mass of Russian “intellectuals,” who very well _see_
the dark sides of Russian life but have no force to join that small
minority of younger people who dare to rebel against the evil. In this
respect, only one more writer--and this one was a woman, Hvóschinskaya
(“Krestóvskiy-pseudonyme”), who can be placed by the side of Tchéhoff.
He knew, and more than knew--he felt with every nerve of his poetical
mind--that, apart from a handful of stronger men and women, the true
curse of the Russian “intellectual” is the weakness of his will, the
insufficient strength of his desires. Perhaps he felt it in himself.
And when he was asked once (in 1894) in a letter--“What should a
Russian desire at the present time?” he wrote in return: “Here is my
reply: desire! He needs most of all desire--force of character. We have
enough of that whining shapelessness.”
This absence of strong desire and weakness of will he continually,
over and over again, represented in his heroes. But this predilection
was not a mere accident of temperament and character. It was a direct
product of the times he lived in.
Tchéhoff, we saw, was nineteen years old when he began to write in
1879. He thus belongs to the generation which had to live through,
during their best years, the worst years which Russia has passed
through in the second half of the nineteenth century. With the tragic
death of Alexander II. and the advent to the throne of his son,
Alexander III., a whole epoch--the epoch of progressive work and
bright hopes had come to a final close. All the sublime efforts of
that younger generation which had entered the political arena in the
seventies, and had taken for its watchword the symbol: “Be with the
people!” had ended in a crushing defeat--the victims moaning now in
fortresses and in the snows of Siberia. More than that, all the great
reforms, including the abolition of serfdom, which had been realised in
the sixties by the Hérzen, Turguéneff, and Tchernyshévskiy generation,
began now to be treated as so many mistakes, by the reactionary
elements which had now rallied round Alexander III. Never will a
Westerner understand the depth of despair and the hopeless sadness
which took hold of the intellectual portion of Russian society for the
next ten or twelve years after that double defeat, when it came to the
conclusion that it was incapable to break the inertia of the masses, or
to move history so as to fill up the gap between its high ideals and
the heartrending reality. In this respect “the eighties” were perhaps
the gloomiest period that Russia lived through for the last hundred
years. In the fifties the intellectuals had at least full hope in their
forces; now--they had lost even these hopes. It was during those very
years that Tchéhoff began to write; and, being a true poet, who feels
and responds to the moods of the moment, he became the painter of that
breakdown--of that failure of the “intellectuals” which hung as a
nightmare above the civilised portion of Russian society. And again,
being a great poet, he depicted that all-invading philistine meanness
in such features that his picture will live. How superficial, in
comparison, is the philistinism described by Zola. Perhaps, France even
does not know that disease which was gnawing then at the very marrow of
the bones of the Russian “intellectual.”
With all that, Tchéhoff is by no means a pessimist in the proper
sense of the word; if he had come to despair, he would have taken the
bankruptcy of the “intellectuals” as a necessary fatality. A word,
such as, for instance, “_fin de siècle_,” would have been his solace.
But Tchéhoff could not find satisfaction in such words because he
firmly believed that a better existence was possible--and would come.
“From my childhood”--he wrote in an intimate letter--“I have believed
in progress, because the difference between the time when they used
to flog me, and when they stopped to do so [in the sixties] was
tremendous.”
There are three dramas of Tchéhoff--_Ivánoff_, _Uncle Ványa_ (_Uncle
John_), and _The Cherry-Tree Garden_, which fully illustrate how his
faith in a better future grew in him as he advanced in age. Ivánoff,
the hero of the first drama, is the personification of that failure of
the “intellectual” of which I just spoke. Once upon a time he had had
his high ideals and he still speaks of them, and this is why Sásha, a
girl, full of the better inspirations--one of those fine intellectual
types in the representation of which Tchéhoff appears as a true heir
of Turguéneff--falls in love with him. But Ivánoff knows himself that
he is played out; that the girl loves in him what he is no more; that
the sacred fire is with him a mere reminiscence of the better years,
irretrievably past; and while the drama attains its culminating point,
just when his marriage with Sásha is going to be celebrated, Ivánoff
shoots himself. Pessimism is triumphant.
_Uncle Ványa_ ends also in the most depressing way; but there is
some faint hope in it. The drama reveals an even still more complete
breakdown of the educated “intellectual,” and especially of the main
representative of that class--the professor, the little god of the
family, for whom all others have been sacrificing themselves, but
who all his life has only written beautiful words about the sacred
problems of art, while all his life he remained the most perfect
egotist. But the end of this drama is different. The girl, Sónya, who
is the counterpart of Sásha, and has been one of those who sacrificed
themselves for the professor, remains more or less in the background
of the drama, until, at its very end she comes forward in a halo of
endless love. She is neglected by the man whom she loves. This man--an
enthusiast--prefers, however, a beautiful woman (the second wife of the
professor) to Sónya, who is only one of those workers who bring life
into the darkness of Russian village life, by helping the dark mass to
pull through the hardships of their lives.
The drama ends in a heart-rending musical accord of devotion and
self-sacrifice on behalf of Sónya and her uncle. “It cannot be
helped”--Sónya says--“we must live! Uncle John, we shall live. We shall
live through a long succession of days, and of long nights; we shall
patiently bear the sufferings which fate will send upon us; we shall
work for the others--now, and later on, in old age, knowing no rest;
and when our hour shall have come, we shall die without murmur, and
there, beyond the grave * * * we shall rest!”
There is, after all, a redeeming feature in that despair. There remains
the faith of Sónya in her capacity to work, her readiness to face the
work, even without personal happiness.
But in proportion as Russian life becomes less gloomy; in proportion
as hopes of a better future for our country begin to bud once more
in the youthful beginnings of a movement amongst the working classes
in the industrial centres, to the call of which the educated youth
answer immediately; in proportion as the “intellectuals” revive again,
ready to sacrifice themselves in order to conquer freedom for the
grand whole--the Russian people--Tchéhoff also begins to look into the
future with hope and optimism. _The Cherry-Tree Garden_ was his last
swan-song, and the last words of this drama sound a note full of hope
in a better future. The cherry-tree garden of a noble landlord, which
used to be a true fairy garden when the trees were in full bloom, and
nightingales sang in their thickets, has been pitilessly cut down by
the money-making middle class man. No blossom, no nightingales--only
dollars instead. But Tchéhoff looks further into the future: he sees
the place again in new hands, and a new garden is going to grow instead
of the old one--a garden where all will find a new happiness in new
surroundings. Those whose whole life was for themselves alone could
never grow such a garden; but some day soon this will be done by beings
like Anya, the heroine, and her friend, “the perpetual student”....
The influence of Tchéhoff, as Tolstóy has remarked, will last, and will
not be limited to Russia only. He has given such a prominence to the
short story and its ways of dealing with human life that he has thus
become a reformer of our literary forms. In Russia he has already a
number of imitators who look upon him as upon the head of a school;
but--will they have also the same inimitable poetical feeling, the same
charming intimacy in the way of telling the stories, that special form
of love of nature, and above all, the beauty of Tchéhoff’s smile amidst
his tears?--all qualities inseparable from his personality.
As to his dramas, they are favourites on the Russian stage, both in the
capitals and in the provinces. They are admirable for the stage and
produce a deep effect; and when they are played by such a superior cast
as that of the Artistic Theatre at Moscow--as the _Cherry-Tree Garden_
was played lately--they become dramatic events.
In Russia Tchéhoff is now perhaps the most popular of the younger
writers. Speaking of the living novelists only, he is placed
immediately after Tolstóy, and his works are read immensely. Separate
volumes of his stories, published under different titles--_In
Twilight_, _Sad People_ and so on--ran each through ten to fourteen
editions, while full editions of Tchéhoff’s _Works_ in ten and fourteen
volumes, sold in fabulous numbers: of the latter, which was given as a
supplement to a weekly, more than 200,000 copies were circulated in one
single year.
In Germany Tchéhoff has produced a deep impression; his best stories
have been translated more than once, so that one of the leading Berlin
critics exclaimed lately: “Tschéchoff, Tschéchoff, und kein Ende!”
(Tchéhoff, Tchéhoff, and no end.) In Italy he begins to be widely
read. And yet it is only his stories which are known beyond Russia.
His dramas seem to be too “Russian,” and they hardly can deeply move
audiences outside the borders of Russia, where such dramas of inner
contradiction are not a characteristic feature of the moment.
If there is any logic in the evolution of societies, such a writer as
Tchéhoff had to appear before literature could take a new direction
and produce the new types which already are budding in life. At any
rate, an impressive parting word had to be pronounced, and this is what
Tchéhoff has done.
BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTES
While this book was being prepared for print a work of great value
for all the English-speaking lovers of Russian literature appeared in
America. I mean the _Anthology of Russian Literature from the earliest
Period to the present Time_, by Leo Wiener, assistant professor of
Slavic languages at Harvard University, published in two stately
volumes by Messrs. Putnam’s Sons at New York. The first volume (400
pages) contains a rich selection from the earliest documents of Russian
literature--the annals, the epic songs, the lyric folk-songs, etc., as
also from the writers of the seventeenth and the eighteenth centuries.
It contains, moreover, a general short sketch of the literature of
the period and a mention is made of all the English translations from
the early Russian literature. The second volume (500 pages) contains
abstracts, with short introductory notes and a full bibliography,
from all the chief authors of the nineteenth century, beginning with
Karamzín and ending with Tchéhoff, Górkiy, and Merezhkóvskiy. All this
has been done with full knowledge of Russian literature and of every
author; the choice of characteristic abstracts hardly could be better,
and the many translations which Mr. Wiener himself has made are very
good. In this volume, too, all the English translations of Russian
authors are mentioned, and we must hope that their number will now
rapidly increase. Very many of the Russian authors have hardly been
translated at all, and in such cases there is nothing else left but
to advise the reader to peruse French or German translations. Both
are much more numerous than the English, a considerable number of the
German translations being embodied in the cheap editions of Reklam.
A work concerning Malo-Russian (Little-Russian) literature, on lines
similar to those followed by Mr. Wiener, has appeared lately under the
title, _Vik; the Century, a Collection of Malo-Russian Poetry and Prose
published from 1708 to 1898_, 3 vols. (Kiev, Peter Barski); (analysed
in _Athenæum_, January 10, 1903.)
Of general works which may be helpful to the student of Russian
literature I shall name Ralston’s _Early Russian History_, _Songs
of the Russian People_, and _Russian Folk Tales_ (1872-1874), as
also his translation of Afanásieff’s _Legends_; Rambaud’s _La Russie
épique_ (1876) and his excellent _History of Russia_ (Engl. trans.);
_Le roman russe_, by Voguë; _Impressions of Russia_, by George Brandes
(translated by Eastman; Boston, 1889), and his _Moderne Geister_, which
contains an admirable chapter on Turguéneff.
Of general works in Russian, the following may be named: _History of
Russian Literature in Biographies and Sketches_, by P. Polevóy, 2
vols., illustrated (1883; new edition, enlarged, in 1903); and _History
of the New Russian Literature from 1848 to 1898_, by A. Skabitchévskiy,
4th ed., 1900, with 52 portraits. Both are reliable, well written, and
not bulky works--the former being rather popular in character, while
the second is a critical work which goes into the analysis of every
writer. The recently published _Gallery of Russian Writers_, edited by
I. Ignátoff (Moscow, 1901), contains over 250 good portraits of Russian
authors, accompanied by one page notices, quite well written, of their
work. A very exhaustive work is _History of the Russian Literature_
by A. Pýpin, in 4 vols., (1889), beginning with the earliest times
and ending with Púshkin, Lérmontoff, Gógol, and Koltsóff. The same
author has written a _History of Russian Ethnography_, also in 4 vols.
Among works dealing with portions only of the Russian literature the
following may be mentioned: Tchernyshévskiy’s _Critical Articles_,
St. Petersburg, 1893; Annenkoff’s _Púshkin and His Time_; O. Miller’s
_Russian Writers after Gógol_; Merezhkóvskiy’s books on Púshkin and
another on Tolstóy; and Arsénieff’s _Critical Studies of Russian
Literature_, 2 vols., 1888 (mentioned in the text); and above all,
of course, the collections of _Works_ of our critics: Byelínskiy (12
vols.); Dobrolúboff (4 vols.), Písareff (6 vols.), and Mihailóvskiy (6
vols.), completed by his _Literary Reminiscences_.
A work of very great value, which is still in progress, is the
_Biographic Dictionary of Russian Writers_, published and nearly
entirely written by S. Venguéroff, who is also the editor of new,
scientifically prepared editions of the complete works of several
authors (Byelínskiy is now published). Excellent biographies and
critical sketches of all Russian writers will be found in the _Russian
Encyclopædia Dictionary_ of Brockhaus-Efron. The first two volumes of
this Dictionary (they will be completed in an Appendix) were brought
out as a translation of the _Lexikon_ of Brockhaus; but the direction
was taken over in good time by a group of Russian men of science,
including Mendeléeff, Woiéikoff, V. Solovióff, etc., who have made of
the 82 volumes of this _Dictionary_, completed in 1904 (at 6 sh. the
volume)--one of the best encyclopædias in Europe. Suffice it to say
that all articles on chemistry and chemical technics have been either
written or carefully revised by Mendeléeff.
Complete editions of the works of most of the Russian writers have
lately been published, some of them by the editor Marks, in connection
with his weekly illustrated paper, at astoundingly low prices, which
can only be explained by a circulation which exceeds 200,000 copies
every year. The work of Gógol, Turguéneff, Gontcharóff, Ostróvskiy,
Boborýkin, Tchéhoff, and some minor writers, like Danilévskiy and
Lyeskóff, are in this case.
FOOTNOTES:
[24] I borrow these remarks about the predecessors of Byelínskiy from
an article on Literary Criticism in Russia, by Professor Ivánoff, in
the _Russian Encyclopædic Dictionary_, Vol. 32, 771.
[25] The speech of Homyakóff is reproduced in Skabitchévskiy’s
_History_ (l. c.). I was very anxious to get Tolstóy’s speech, because
I think that the ideas he expressed about “the permanent in Art, the
universal” hardly did exclude the denunciation of the ills from which a
society suffers at a given moment. Perhaps he meant what Nekrásoff also
meant when he described the literature to which Schédrin’s _Provincial
Sketches_ had given origin as “a flagellation of the petty thieves
for the pleasure of the big ones.” Unfortunately, this speech was not
printed, and the manuscript of it could not be found.
INDEX
Abolition of serfdom committees, 119
Absolutism, historical necessity of, 272
Æsthetics, philosophical, 287
theories of, 290
of the leisured class, 306
Agricultural Academy of Moscow, 302
Agricultural labourers in Western Europe, hardships of, 267
Agricultural population of Russia, immense, 244
Agricultural village, life in an, 245
“Akib, the Assyrian King,” 8
Aksákoff, Iván, 176
Konstantín, 176
Serghéi Timoféevitch, prose writer, 176;
a Slavophile, 268, 269, 301
Alexander the Great, legends of, 8
Alexander I., educated by La Harpe, 34;
attempts to give Russia a constitution, 34;
grants one to Poland and Finland, 34;
influence of German mystics on, 34;
surrenders to the reactionists, 34;
influence of Madame Krüdener on, 34
Alexéi the priest’s son, 8
American features of a new life, 302
American squatters, 119, 227
Anarchism, no-government principles of, 146
modern, founded by Mikhail Bakúnin, 276
Annals, rich Russian collection of, 14
Antonovitch, Grand Duke Ivan, imprisoned in fortress of Schüsselberg,
29
Antique Greek world, study of the, 306
Anti-Semitic comedy, reception of, in St. Petersburg, 264
Apocryphal gospels, wide circulation of, in Russia, 17
Archæological details, abuse of, 306
Arakchéeff, General, rules Russia during last ten years of reign of
Alexander I., 34
Arctic exploration, Lomonósoff’s memoir on, 25
Aristocratic girl, interesting types of the, 302
Armenian language, 4
Arsenal of punishments, 264
Arsénieff, K., critic, 172, 295
K. K., writer of satires, 282
Art and its impulses, 160
Art, counterfeits of, 298
Art criticism, canons in, 293
foundations of new, 287
in Russia, 287
“Art for Art’s sake,” 295, 297, 298
poets of, 183-185
Art in the service of mankind, 296
Art, latest works of, 145-148
the main principles of, 289
utilitarian views upon, 295
Artels (coöperative organisations), 230
Asceticism preached in Russia, 17
Audubon, John James, mentioned, 177
Auerbach, Berthold, mentioned, 91
Autocracy, evils of, 63
Avvakúm, Nonconformist priest, memoirs of, 19-21;
quotation from, 20;
exiled to Siberia, 20;
taken to the Amúr, 20;
burned at the stake, 20
Bakúnin, Mikhail, Russian revolutionist, 276
Balakláva disaster, Tolstóy’s poems on, 113
Balkan peninsula, invasion of, by Turks, 15
Balzac, Honoré de, mentioned, 58, 86, 91
Barantsévitch, novelist, 304
Baratýnskiy, romantic Russian poet, 62
Barbier, Henri Auguste, mentioned, 40, 173, 186
Bards of Northern and Little Russia, 7
Bards, special, 8
Baskáks, visits of, to Russia, 16
Bayán, Russian bard, 13
Beautiful, realistic definition of the, 290
the worship of the, 306
Beauty and Truth, idealistic point of view of, 289
Belles-lettres, Academy of, founded by Catherine II., 26
Béranger, Pierre Jean de, mentioned, 3, 186
chansonnettes of, 4
Bestúzheff, Alexander, prose writer, 63
Bible, Russian translation of, 5
the first Russian, 19
why it has not yet been superseded, 298
Biblical Old Slavonian, little use of, 22
Bibliographical notes, 318-320
Bismarck, Otto Eduard Leopold, mentioned, 124
“Black people” and “white people,” 14
Black Sea, Russia takes firm hold of, 27
Blood-vengeance of Scandinavian heroes, 10
Boborýkin, novelist, sketch of, 307
Bodenstedt, friend and German translator of Lérmontoff’s poems, 52,
53, 56
Bogdanóvitch, poet, 27, 28
Books, censorship on, in Russia, 264
Borodín, music of, 14
Brandes, George, his study of Turguéneff, 91, 94
Brontë, Charlotte, mentioned, 179
Browning, Robert, mentioned, 40, 186
Buckle, Henry Thomas, mentioned, 265
Bulgaria falls under the rule of the Osmanlis, 15
Bulgarian language, 4
Bureaucratic centralisation, 267
Burial songs of peasant women, 7
Byeláeff, historian, 269
Byelínskiy, the greatest critic of histime, 163, 288;
ancestry and sketch of his writings, 288-290;
mentioned, 178, 224, 267, 269, 272, 276, 287 _n._, 288, 289, 293,
296, 298
Bylíny, early Russian explorers of, 9
epic songs of, 8
Byron, Lord George Gordon, mentioned, 33, 40, 42, 44, 45, 46, 47, 51,
61, 63, 186, 187, 288
Byronism, mantle of, 48
Púshkin’s, 45
Byronists, Don Juanesque features of the, 162
Byzantine Church, teachings of, 17
Byzantine gnosticism, 5
Byzantine habits of Moscow, 68
Byzantine historians, 15
Byzantine ideals of the Russian Church, 16
Capitalism, powers of, 268
Cat-o’-nine-tails, punishment of the, 164
Catherine II., literature in the early part of her reign, 26;
full of progressive ideas, 26;
her intercourse with French philosophers, 26;
composes her remarkable _Instruction_ to the deputies, 26;
writes several comedies, 26;
edits a monthly review, 26;
writes two satirical comediesand a comic opera, 194
Caucasians, the most beautiful people of Europe, 52
Caucasus “society,” descriptions of, 59
Caucasus, the, one of the most beautiful regions on earth, 52
Censorship of literature under Nicholas I., 36
Censorship, rigorous Russian, 94, 263
Central Russia, invaded by Cossacks, 18
spoken language of, 6
Cervantes, Miguel de, good-natured laughter of, 4
Chansonnettes, playful, 4
Charles XII., of Sweden, ruler of Little Russia, defeated at Poltáva,
36
Christ, the teachings of, 140
Christian brotherhoods, early, 17
Christian ethics, main points of the, 142-145
Christian humility, 143
mask of, 83
Christian literature in Russia, 17
Christian mysticism, 28
Christian nationality of Russian Church, 16
Christian teaching, interpretation of, 138
moral aspects of, 140
Christianity, development of, 17
rationalistic interpretation of, 139;
dogmatic elements of, 140
reformed, antagonism to, 17
spread of, in Russia, 29
Christmas Eve, Russian village life on, 69
Church and State, attitude of negation towards, 145
Church Christianity, 140 _n._
Church, lower clergy of the, impositions on, 19
Church, Russian, throws off the Mongol yoke, 16
Churches, hatred of, towards each other, 138
Cicero, powerful oratory of, 24
Circassians, struggle of, against the Russians, 56, 57
Circles, the, important part played by the, in the intellectual
development of Russia, 266
Citizen, the duties of a, 174
Civilisation based on Capitalism and State, 131
Classicism in Russia, 43
Classics, Russian, circulation of, 6
Codes of the Empire and the Common Law, 269
Colonisation, inner, of Russia, 230
Commercialism, modern, the prey of, 245
Common Law Courts, peasants’, 222
Communal land-ownership, 267
Communal principles in Russian life, 32
Communal spirit of Russian popular life, 10
Communism, teachings of free, 144
Constantine, Grand Duke, exploration of Russia, 225, 230
Constantine, proclaimed emperor, 35;
abdicates, 35
Constantinople annalists and historians, 15
Contemporary novelists, 300-317
_Contemporary, The_, a monthly review, Tolstóy contributes to,
110, 112;
its fight for peasant freedom, 114;
Nekrasoff edits and contributes to, 171;
Ivan Panaeff, co-editor, 178;
Tchernyshévskiy contributes to, 279;
suppressed, 283
Coolidge, Professor, of Cambridge, Mass., his review articles
on Russian writers, 39
Co-operative organisations, 230
Copernicus, mentioned, 25
Cornwall, Barry, mentioned, 187
Corps of Pages, 30
Cossacks, invade Central Russia, 10;
their ways of conducting war, 72
County councils, 231
Criticism, literary, 285, 286
Critics, works of, early read, 287
Czech language, 4
Czechs, old literature of, 4
Dal, V., ethnographer and prose writer, birth and ancestry, 177;
his main work a dictionary of the Russian language, 178
Danilévskiy, historical novelist, 227
Dante, Alighieri, mentioned, 61, 187
Dargomýzhsky, operas of, 13
Darwin, Charles Robert, mentioned, 265
Darwinism, exposition of, 293
new ideas of, 110
“Decadent” would-be poets, 296
Decembrists, the, 33-36;
Nicholas I. hangs five and exiles others to Siberia, 35
Degeneracy not the sole feature of modern society, 86
Délwig, Russian poet, personal friend of Púshkin, 62
Demetrius, the pretender, takes possession of throne at Moscow, 18
Demon of habitual drunkenness, 238
Derzhávin, poet laureate to Catherine II., 26;
his poetry of Nature, 27;
_Ode to God_, 27;
_The Waterfall_, 27
Dickens, Charles, references to, 91, 187;
rollicking humour of, 4
Discussions, unnatural theoretical, 169
“Dissent,” varieties of, 268
“Disturbed Years,” traces of, in popular songs, 18
Dobrolúboff, literary critic, ancestry and sketch of, 291
Dobrolúboff, ultra-democratic writer, 114;
mentioned, 290, 293, 297
Dobrýnia, the dragon-killer, 9
Dolgorúkiy, Prince, political writer, 278
Dolgúshin groups, trial of, 135
Don, blue waters of the, 11
Dover, England, cliffs of, 52
Dostoyévskiy, Russian author, sketch of his life and works, 163-170;
writes _Poor People_ when twenty-four, 163;
congratulated by Nekrásoff and Grigoróvitch, 163;
introduced to Byelínskiy, the critic, 163;
his sad life, 163;
condemned to death, 163;
pardoned, 164;
death of, 164;
description of his novels, 164-170
Drama in Russia, its origin, 191;
Peter I. opened a theatre in Moscow, 192;
theatres become a permanent institution, 192
Dramatic art in Russia, development of, 77
Drunkenness, Russian habits of, 238;
the terrible disease of, 242
Druzhínin, critic, 295
Eastern heroes, exploits of, 9
Eastern legends, Russian versions of, 8
Eastern Russia, spoken language of, 6
Eastern traditions, spread of, in Russia, 10
Educated man in Russia, despair of the, 96
Educated women, new generation of, 304
Eighteenth century philosophers, 4
Eliot, George, mentioned, 179
Elpátievskiy, S., folk-novelist, 249
Elsler, Fanny, ballet dancer, appears at the Imperial Theatre, Moscow,
200
Emancipated woman, the, 304
Emancipation committees, 280
Epic narrative, quiet recitative of, 8
Epic poetry, freshness and vigorous youthfulness of the early, 16
Epic songs, collecting of, 8;
heroes of, 8
of wandering bards, 16
proscribed by the Russian Church, 13
Epicureanism, exclusive conditions of, 134
Equality and Liberty, appeals to, 93
Equality of all men, recognition of, 145
Ergólskaya, T. A., a woman relative of Tolstóy’s, 111
Ethnographical research in Russia, 230-232
Euler, Leonhard, mathematician, 24
European society, conventional life of, 45
Everyday talk, forms of familiar, introduced into Russian literature,
31
Everyday life, 259
Evil, physical force in resisting, 143
Exact sciences, interest of Peter I. in, 22
Factory girls, life of, 135
Faust, Dr., 5
Federal principles in Russia, 32, 268
Finland, constitution granted to, by Alexander I., 34
Folk-literature, of European nations, 7
of Russia, early, 7
Folk-lore, leading features of Russian, 16
Folk-novelists, 221-260
realistic school of, 232
their position in Russian literature, 221
Fonvizin. See Wízin, Von
Fourier, François, mentioned, 224, 272
Fourierism, 281
Fourierists, 163
Franklin, Benjamin, mentioned, 30
Freemasons in Russia, their effort for spreading moral education among
the people, 28;
their deep influence on Russia, 29;
Alexander I. grants them more freedom, 29
Free thought stifled in Russia under Nicholas I., 35
French philosophers, Catherine II.’s intercourse with, 26
French Revolution of 1830, 271;
of 1848, 272
French school of acting popular in Moscow, 201
French Socialists, 272
Froebel, reforms of, 121
_From Whence and How Came to be the Land of Russia_, early attempt at
writing history, 15
Gárshin, war novelist, 124
Georgia, smiling valleys of, 53
Georgian language, 4
Gerbel, N., poetical translator, 186
German æsthetical writers, metaphysics of, 295
German metaphysics, 4
German philosophy, idealistic, 289
Glínka, music of, 13
God of the Thunders, 9
God, the essence of life, 141
Goethe, Johann Wolfgang, references to, 4, 5, 40, 41, 45, 62, 172,
185, 187, 288, 293
Gógol, Nicolai Vasilievitch, sketch of his life and works, 67-86;
birth and ancestry of, 67;
humour and wit of, 68;
his tales of the upper classes, 69;
the plot of his novel, _Tárás Búlba_, 70-72;
his prose-comedy _The Inspector-General_ described, 73-76;
extracts from, 76-81;
hostile criticism on _The Inspector-General_, 78;
_Dead Souls_ his main work, 79;
extracts from, 79-81;
he suffers from a nervous disease, 83;
falls under the influence of the “pietists,” 83;
death of, 84;
his great influence on the minds of Russians, 84;
forerunner of the literary movement against serfdom, 84;
literary influence of, 85;
a great artist, 85;
first to introduce the social element into Russian literature, 85;
references to, 6, 27, 58, 89, 96, 163, 176, 177, 201, 282, 283, 288,
301, 319
Goncharóff, talented Russian writer, sketch of his life and works,
151-162;
his attitude of impartiality to his heroes, 152;
profusion of details in his novels, 152;
description of his novel _Oblómoff_, 152-161;
his youth and character, 154;
extracts from _Oblómoff_, 154-159;
description of _The Precipice_, 161, 162;
mentioned, 6, 120, 169, 223, 224, 228
Górkiy, Maxim, author and dramatic writer, 217, 249;
his childhood, 250;
his reputation in America and Western Europe, 250;
sketch of the characters in his novels, 250-260;
extracts from _The Reader_, 257-259
Gospels, interpretation of, heresy, 17
Grammar of the Russian language, foundation of, 24
Great Russia, description of, 68
Great-Russian language, 6
Greco-Latin Academy of Kieff, 19
Greco-Slavonian Academy founded, 22
Greek Church, wide-spread separation of the people from the, 19
Greek models, inspiration of, 15
Greek Orthodox Church, 137, 138, 267
Gregory, an adapter of English plays, 191
Griboyédoff, comedy writer, born in Moscow, 196;
enters the diplomatic service, 196;
sent to Teheran, 196;
arrested at Tiflís, 197;
set free, 197;
in the Persian war, 197;
killed in Teheran, 198
Grigórieff, A., critic, 295
Grigoróvitch, peasant novels of, 85, 229
Grimm’s collection of fairy tales, 7
Hamlet and Don Quixote, 105
Hamletism in Russian life, 97, 108
Hannibal oath, the, 271
Happiness, personal, where found, 137 _n._
Harte, Bret, mentioned, 250
Hatzfeld, Countess of, her relations to Lassalle, 93
Heat, mechanical theory of, 25
Heine, Heinrich, references to, 3, 4, 44, 186, 187, 293
Hellenic love and poetic comprehension of Nature, 306
Hemnitzer, a writer of fables, 28
Herder, Johann Gottfried, mentioned, 33
Heredity, physiological, 222
Hérzen, Alexander, birth and ancestry, 271;
enters Moscow University, 271;
exiled to the Urals, 272;
returns to Moscow, 272;
exiled to Novgorod, 272;
expelled from France, 273;
naturalised in Switzerland, 273;
starts his _Polar Star_ in London, 273;
starts _The Bell_, and becomes a real power in Russia, 274;
supports the Poles, 274;
his death, 275;
mentioned, 267, 269, 289, 314
High-life in St. Petersburg, 48
Highly educated, inner drama of the, 299
Hilferding, A., 8
Historians, General Staff, 124
Historical dramas, 214, 215
Historical novels, difficulties in writing, 123
Holberg, Danish comedy writer, _Jean de France_, 27
Holiday cycle of songs, 7
Holy Alliance between Germany, Austria, and Russia, 34
Holy Books, printing of the, 19
scholastic discussions on, 68
Homer, epics of, 11
Homyákoff (Slavophile), extract from speech on Art, 296, 297
Hood, Thomas, mentioned, 186
Hugo, Victor, mentioned, 40, 173, 186, 215, 288
Human drama, development of the inner, 92
Human nature, failures of, in our present civilisation, 309
Humanitarian feeling in a family, 310
Husband and wife, separation between, debated in Russia, 127
Huxley, Thomas Henry, mentioned, 24
Huyghens, Constantijn, mentioned, 25
Hvoschinskaya, N. D., woman prose writer, 179;
sketch of her writings, 179-181
Ibsen, Henrik, mentioned, 259
Icelandic sagas, 8
Idea and form in poetry, correspondence between, 173
Idealism, 116
mask of, 128
the neglect of, 257
Idealistic realism, forms of, 249
Ideas, means of exchanging, by the circles, 266
Ilyiá of Múrom, 8
Imperial Theatre, St. Petersburg, established, 193
Individual, rights of the, 305
Indo-European languages, 4
Industrialism, era of, 267
Intellectual life in Russia, from 1848 to 1876, 97
Intellectual unity of the Russian nation, 6
Intellectuals, Russian, 253
educated, 263
type of, 231
International Working Men’s Association, 276
Ivánoff, Professor, 287 _n._
Jacobinism, Governmental, 114
James, Richard, his songs relating to dark period of serfdom, 18
Jersey, Norman law in, 269
John the Terrible, letters of, to Prince Kúrbskiy, 18;
rule of, in Russia, 18
Journalism, serious, the founder of, in Russia, 287
Judaic Christianity, life-depressing influences of, 306
“Kalevála” of the Finns, 11
Kalíki, wandering singers, 7
Kantemir, writer of satires, 22;
ambassador to London, 22 _n._
Kapníst, writer of satires, 28
Karamzín, historian, poet, and novelist, _The History of the Russian
State_, 32;
a poet of the virtues of monarchy, 32;
his history a work of art, 32;
_Letters of a Russian Traveller Abroad_, 33;
his sentimental romanticism, 33;
his _Poor Liza_, 33;
spirited protest against serfdom, 33
Kavélin, philosopher and writer on law, 50
Kíeff, Annals of, 14, 15
disappears from history for two centuries, 15
Knights of industry and plutocracy, modern, 284
Knyazhnín, translator of tragedies, 193
Kókoreff, I. T., folk-novelist, 228
Koltsóff, a poet from the people, 182
Korolenko, novelist, sketch of, 302
Kórsakoff, Rímsky, music of, 14
Kostomároff, historian, 268
Kotoshíkhin, historian, runs away from Moscow to Sweden, 21;
writes a history of Russia, 21;
advocates wide reforms, 21;
his manuscripts discovered at Upsala, 21
Kozlóff, Russian poet, 61
Krestovskiy, Vsevolod, a woman writer of detective stories, 179
Krüdener, Madame, influence of, on Alexander I., 34
Krylóff, V. A., playwright and fable writer, 60;
his translations from Lafontaine, 60;
his unique position in Russian literature, 61;
mentioned, 177, 194, 217
Kryzhánitch, South Slavonian writer, called to Moscow, 21;
revises the Holy Books, 21;
preaches reform, 21;
exiled to Siberia and dies, 21
Kürbskiy, Prince, letters to, from John the Terrible, 18
Labour movement in Russia, 265
Lábzin, a Christian mystic, writes against corruption and is exiled,
29
La Harpe, French republican, educates Alexander I., 34
Lake Onéga, folk-literature at, 7
Land, municipalisation of, 146 the communal ownership of, 246
Languages of Western Europe, 3
Lassalle, Ferdinand, mentioned, 93
Latin Church prevented from extending its influence over Russia, 16
“Latinism,” 19
Lavróff, Peter, political writer, 276;
a preacher of activity among the people, 277
Law of the Russian State and people, 268
_Lay of Igor’s Raid, The_, a twelfth century poem, 11
Lazhéchnikoff, historical novelist, 64
Laziness, the poetry of, 155
Legends of the saints widely read, 17
Leroux, Pierre, mentioned, 224, 272
Lérmontoff, Mikhail Yurievitch, sketch of his life and works, 50-59;
writes verses and poems when a boy, 50;
enters Moscow University, 51;
goes to a military school in St. Petersburg, 51;
writes a popular poem on Liberty and is exiled to Siberia, 52;
transferred to the Caucasus, 52;
plot of _The Demon_, 54;
description of Mtsýri, 54;
his demonism or pessimism, 55;
a “humanist,” 56;
his love for Russia, 56;
his dislike of war, 57;
death of, 57;
_The Captain’s Daughter_ described, 57, 58;
plot of his novel, _The Hero of Our Own Time_, 58, 59;
references to, 4, 61, 63, 68, 84, 89, 112, 172, 173, 176, 295, 319
Levítoff, folk-novelist, 240;
his sad life, 240-242
Liberty, culminating point in struggle for, 304
Life superior to Art, 290
Life, the kaleidoscope of, 307
the organisation of, 140
the simplification of, 144
Literary criticism, 285-299
Literary language of Russia, 6
Literary technique, 227
Literature, a new vein in, 308;
of the Czechs, 4;
of the Poles, 4;
of the great Slavonian family, 4;
of the Great-Russians, 4;
of the Little-Russians, 6;
of the White-Russians, 6;
treasures of thirteenth century Russian, 15;
a new era for, 26;
modern Russian created, 43;
Púshkin frees it from enslaving ties, 44;
realism of Russian, 46;
introduction of the social element into, 85;
true founders of Russian literature, 176;
position of folk-novelists in Russian literature, 221;
a new school of, 233;
the duty of, 257
Lithuanian language, 4
Little-Russia, description of, 67, 68
Lomonósoff, historian, studies in Moscow, 23;
and at Kieff, 23;
sent to Germany and studied under Wolff, 23;
returns to Russia, 23;
writes a work on Arctic exploration, 25
Longfellow, William Wadsworth, references to, 3, 4, 186;
his _Hiawatha_ mentioned, 4
Love, discussion on, 127
Mal-administration in Russia, 274
Malo-Russian (Little-Russian) literature, 318
Mámin, novelist, 304
Mankind, repulsive types of, 168
Márkovitch, Mme. Marie, folk-novelist, 226
Marriage and separation, questions of, 281
Marriage, accusation against, 147
opinions upon, 127
Marriages, complicated ceremony of, 7
Matchtétt, novelist, 304
Maupassant, Guy de, mentioned, 250, 308
Máykoff, Apollon, poet of pure art for art’s sake, 184
Máykoff, Valerián, critic, 224, 290
Mazépa, hétman, joins Charles XII. against Peter I., 36;
flees to Turkey, 36
Mazzini, Joseph, mentioned, 93
Mediæval literature of Russia, the, 15-19
Mediæval Russia, 32
Melshin, L., folk-novelist, 249
Mérimée, Prosper, mentioned, 39
Merezhkóvskiy, Dmitriy, poet and novelist, sketch of, 305
Metaphysics, fogs of German, 268
Mey, L., poet and dramatist, 186
Mihailóskiy, leading Russian critic, 294
Mihailóvskiy, gifted Russian critic, 131;
extracts from his writings, 132
Mikhail (the first Romanoff) introduces serfdom, 18
Mikháiloff, Mikhail, translator of poems, 186
Mináyeff, poet, 174
Mináyeff, D., writer of satirical verses, 187
Ministerial circulars, system of, 264
Ministry of the Interior, Russian, censorship of books and newspapers
by the, 263, 264
Mir-eaters, 248
Misgovernment, evils of, 144
Modern civilised life, analysis of, 284
Moltke, Hellmuth Karl Bernhard, mentioned, 124
Monarchy, the virtues of, 32
Monasteries, learning concentrated in, 17
Money-making middle class men, 316
Mongol invasion of Russia, 15
Mongol Khans help to build up Moscow, 16
Mongols, tales from the, 7
Montesquieu, Baron de la Brède, mentioned, 26
Moore, Thomas, mentioned, 33, 187
Moral foundations of life, 129
Moral philosophy, construction of a, 145
Moral teachings of the prophets of mankind, 140
Morality, current rules of, 167
Moravian language, 4, 5
Morbid literature, 168
Mordóvtseff, novelist, 304
Moscow, built up by aid of Mongol Khans, 16
conflagration of, in 1812, 11
first capital of Russia, 14 _n._
serfdom introduced into, 16
becomes a centre for Church and State, 16
the heir to Constantinople, 16
Poles capture, 18
first printing office established in, 19
revision of the Holy Books undertaken at, 19
the slums of, 135
Western habits of life introduced into, 191
Moscow Church, criticism of dignitaries of, 17
obtains a formidable power in Russia, 19
“Moscow Fifty,” trial of, 135, 136
Moscow Institute of the Friends founded by Nóvikoff, 30
Moscow monarchy, consolidating the, 16
Moscow princes, unlimited authority of the, 16
Moscow stage, the, 200-211
Moscow Theological Academy, 23
Moscow tsars, authority of the, 268
Murillo, Bartolomé, mentioned, 90
“Muse of Vengeance and of Sadness, A,” 174, 175
Muslin education, 294
“Muslin Girls,” 294
Mystery plays, 191
Nadézhdin, poet, 287
Nádson, poet, 304
Napoleon I. in Russia, 126
horrors of the retreat of, from Moscow, 122
Napoleon III., _coup d’état_ of, 96
Napoleonic wars, effect of the, on Russian soldiers, 34
Naryézhnyi, historical novelist, 64
Nation’s life, the accidental and temporary in the historical
development of, 297
_Natural History of Selbourne_ (White), 177
Naturalism and realism in France, 222
Naturalism and realism, sound, 288
Nature, forces of, personified in heroes, 9
Humboldt’s poetical conception of, 25
knowledge of “unholy,” 17;
severely condemned by the Church, 17
mythological representations of forces of, 10
return to, 119
the highest poetry of, 299
the law of, 144
Naúmoff, folk-novelist, 248
Nefédoff, folk-novelist, 249
Nekrásoff, Nicholas, poet, sketch of his life and works, 170-177;
editor of _The Contemporary_, 112;
birth and ancestry of, 170;
his black misery, 171;
makes acquaintance with the lowest classes of St. Petersburg, 171;
death of, 171;
his love of the peasant masses, 172;
his inner force, 174;
his pessimism, 174;
his struggle against serfdom, 174;
his best poem, 175;
his poems to the exiles in Siberia and the Russian women, 175;
mentioned, 224, 226, 235, 298
Neptune, the Sea-God, 9
_Nestor’s Annals_, 14
Netcháeff groups, the trial of, 135
“Neutral tint” types of real life, 233
Newspaper publishing, difficulties of, in Russia, 263, 264
Newton, Sir Isaac, mentioned, 25
Nicholas I., becomes emperor, 35;
hangs some and exiles others of the Decembrists, 35
Nicholas the Villager, 8
Nihilism and Terrorism compared, 102
Nihilist movement of 1858-64, 228
Nihilist, the, in Russian society, 102
Nihilists, in art, 296
true, 281
Nikítich, Dobrýnia, Knight, 8
Nikitin, Russian poet, 182
Níkon, Patriarch, ambition of, 19
Nineteenth century, first years of, in Russia, 31-34
Nobles, servility of the, 28
Nókikoff, first Russian philosopher, 26
Nonconformist writings, 19
Nonconformists, cruel persecution of, 18, 19
Northern Caucasia, spoken language of, 6
Northern Russia, spoken language of, 6
Nóvgorod, annals of, 14
Nóvgorod republic, victories of the, 14
Nóvikoff, an apostle of renovation, 28;
his capacities for business and organizing, 28;
starts a successful printing office in Moscow, 28;
his influence upon educated society, 29;
organises relief for starving peasants, 29;
accused of political conspiracy, 29;
condemned to death, 29;
imprisoned in fortress of Schüsselberg, 29;
released by Paul I., 29;
founds the Moscow Institute of Friends, 30
Novodvórskiy, novelist, 304
Obloffdom, laziness of mind and heart, 159;
not a racial disease, 161
Odóevskiy, Prince Alexander, poet, 62
_Odyssey_, the, mentioned, 33
Oertel, prominent novelist, 300;
sketch of, 300-302
Ogaryóff, poet, 275
Old Testament, books of, wide circulation of, in Russia, 17
Olónets, province of, bards of, 8
Orenbúrg, Southern Uráls, 176
Organ-grinders, miserable life of, in St. Petersburg, 224
Osmanlis, rule of the, over Servia and Bulgaria, 15
Ostróvskiy, Russian playwright and actor, sketch of, 202;
description of his plays, 203;
extracts from his drama of _The Thunderstorm_, 205-210;
his prolific work, 211;
mentioned, 223, 224, 229
Overtaxation of peasants, 284
Ovid, mentioned, 24
Ozeroff, translator of plays, 193
Paganism, return to, 17
Painters, Russian Society of, 223
Palm, A. I., dramatic writer, 217
Panaeff, Ivan, Russian novelist, 178
Paris, occupation of, by Russian armies, 34
Parliamentary commissions in England, 267
Patriarchal family, principles of the, 267
Peasant character and life, 225
Peasant choir, music of the, 14
Peasant proprietorship of land, 246
Peasant woman, the, apotheosis of the Russian, 175
Peasants, revolt of, 18
Peasantry, Russian, 225
Permians of the Uráls, 235, 236
Persian language, 4
Pesaríff, Russian critic, 104
Pestalozzi, reforms of, 121
Péstel, mentioned, 35
Peter I., violent reforms of, 21;
historical significance of his reforms, 21;
realizes importance of literature, 21;
introduces European learning to his countrymen, 21;
establishes a new alphabet, 22;
little interest in literature, 22;
his love of the drama, 192
Peter III., _coup d’état_ of Catherine II. against, 26
Petropávlovskiy, a poet of village life, 248
Philistine family happiness, 133
Philosophical Nihilist, a, 129
Philosophical thought, main currents of, 266
Philosophy of war, 123
Písareff, literary critic, sketch of, 118, 292, 298, 303
Písemskiy, A. Th., folk-novelist, 216, 228
Pleschéeff, A., Russian poet, 174;
arrested with the “Petrashévskiy circles,” 183;
imprisoned, 183
Poetical beauty of Russian sagas, 11
Poetical love, higher enthusiasms of, 160
Poet, Russian, intellectual horizon of, 45
Poets, the minor, of Russia, 62-64
Poland, Alexander I. grants constitution to, 34
uprising of, in 1863, 274
_Polar Star, The_, Hérzen’s review, 273
Poles invade Russia and capture Moscow, 18
Poles, old literature of, 4
Polevóy, P., historical writer, 295
Polevóy, poet, 287
Polezháeff, poet, 62, 63
Polish landlords, exactions of, 72
Polish language, 4
Political literature, 263-281
abroad, 270-278
in Russia, restrictions imposed on, 282
with art, mixture of, 243
Political and moral education, school of, 292
Political parties, development of, 266
Political thought, channels for, 265
first manifestation of, in Russia, 28
Pólonskiy, Russian poet, 184
Pólotskiy, Simeon, a mystery play-writer, 191
Pólovtsi, raid on the, 11
Poltáva, Charles XII., of Sweden, defeated at, 36
Pomyalóvskiy, folk-novelist, 233;
his sketches from the life of clerical schools, 233
Pope, an Eastern, 19
Popular song, development of the Russian, 23
Popularism, ludicrousness of, 305
“Populist” element in the Russian novel, 304
Populists, the, 275
Potápenko, novelist, 307
Potyekhin, A. A., comedy writer and folk-novelist, 216, 228, 229
Prairies, village life in the, 241;
charm of the South Russian, 241
Press of Russia, muzzling of, 265
Priest’s house in Central Russia, a, 232
Printing office established in Moscow, 19
Privileged classes, educational theories in the interest of, 130
Procopóvitch, priest and writer, 22;
founds the Greco-Slavonian Academy, 22
Proletarians, massacre of the Paris, 272
Protestant rationalism in Nóvgorod and Pskov, 17
Provincial life in a Little-Russian village, 301
Pseudo-classicism, revolt against, 287
Pskov, republic of, annals of, 14;
struggles between the poor and rich of, 14
Psychical disease, specimens of incipient, 169
Pugatchóff, leads peasant revolt against Catherine II., 47;
history of, by Lérmontoff, 57
Punishments, Russian system of, 148
Púshkin, Alexander, Russian poet, sketch of his life and works, 39-50;
his lyrics familiar in England, 39;
neglected in Russia, 39;
appreciated in France and Germany, 39;
his beauty of form, 40;
his individuality and vital intensity, 40;
his birth and ancestry, 41;
his perfect mastership of the Russian language, 41;
his knowledge of folklore, 41;
describes his shallow life in _Evghéniy Onyéghin_, 41;
exiled to Kishmyóff, 42;
joins the gypsies, 42;
journeys to the Crimea and the Caucasus, 42;
ordered to return to Central Russia, 42;
returns to St. Petersburg and becomes chamberlain to Nicholas I.,
42;
marries, 42;
fights a duel and is killed, 42;
his early productions, 42, 43;
his simplicity in verse, 43;
frees literature from enslavement, 44;
his lyric love poems, 45;
called the Russian Byron, 45;
his Epicureanism, 46;
his stupendous powers of poetical creation, 46;
his dramas, 47;
his comprehension of human affairs, 47;
his most popular work, 47;
references to, 4, 6, 13, 24, 27, 31, 36, 51, 53, 54, 58, 61, 63, 67,
68, 69, 79, 84, 85, 89, 103, 112, 172, 173, 176, 195, 265, 287,
288, 289, 293, 308, 319
Pyéshkoff, A. (Maxim Górkiy), 250.
See Górkiy, Maxim.
Pýpin, A. N., ethnographical writer, 231
Racine, Jean Baptiste, mentioned, 61
Radicals, conceptions of advanced Russian, 114
Radíscheff, political writer, 26;
receives his education in the Corps of Pages, 30;
his _Journey from St. Petersburg to Moscow_, 30;
transported to Siberia, 30;
commits suicide, 30
Ralston, English translator of Russian _sagas_, 11
Rambaud, French historian, 11
Rázin, Stepán, terrific uprising of, 18
Reaction, real geniuses of, 284;
triumphant, 285
Realism, how put to service of higher aims, 86
in art, 85
in France, 86
in the Russian novel, 85
of Balzac, 86
of Russian literature, 46, 222
Realism and romanticism, mixture of, 168
Realism, Shakespearian, 146
Realist, the thoughtful, 303, 305
Realistic school introduced into Russia by Púshkin, 58
Religious deception, 140
Religious propagandists, 248
Renaissance, movement of, did not reach Russia, 17
Republican federalism of old Russia, return to, 35
Rich classes, lust of, for wealth and luxury, 144
Rigourism condemned, 305
Romantic school, influence of the, 72
French novelists of the, 64
Romantic sentimentalism, 238
Romanticism, German, 48
unbridled, 86
Romanticism and pseudo-classicalism contend for possession of the
Russian stage, 195;
triumph of romanticism, 195
Rousseau, Jean Jacques, mentioned, 119, 121, 130, 148
Royal power, uninterrupted transmission of, 269
Rúrik, house of, 14
Russia, centres of development in, 14
exploration of, 225, 230-232
her firm hold of the Black Sea, 27
begins to play a serious part in European affairs, 27
independent republics of, 15
invasion of, by Turks, 15
main cities of South and Middle, laid waste by Mongols, 15
unity of the spoken language of, 13
Russian administration, rottenness of, 283
Russian annals, high literary value of, 15
Russian Art, different currents in, 300
Russian Church, split in the, 19-21
Russian diplomatists in Austria, 122
Russian drama, the, 191-217
Russian dramatists, clumsy productions of, 48
Russian epic heroes, Eastern origin of, 9
Russian epics, mythological features of heroes of, 10
Russian folk-lore, 10
Russian functionaries, venal nature of, 283
Russian Geographical Society, 8
Russian Intellectuals, 304, 307;
moral bankruptcy of, 310, 314, 315
Russian language, 3-36;
richness of, 3;
its pliability for translation, 3;
musical character of the, 4;
many foreign words adopted in, 4;
remarkable purity of, 5;
grammatical forms of, 5;
roots of unchanged, 5;
beauty of structure of, 5;
remarkably free from _patois_, 6;
unity of the spoken, 13;
foundation of the grammar of, 24;
dictionary of, compiled by Academy of Sciences, 26;
melodiousness of, 53
Russian literature, a new era in, 283
Russian novel, change in the, 303
Russian philosophical language, 31
Russian _sagas_, 10
Russian society, influence of Tchernyshévskiy’s novels upon, 281
intellectual portion of, 314
Russian theatre in the first years of the nineteenth century, 194,
195
Russian verse, old, 22
Russian versification, rhythmical form of, 13
Russian women, higher education of, 303
Russian youth, development of, 293
Russians, traditions, tales, and folk-songs of, 7
Rustem of Persia, legends of, 8
Ryépin’s picture of Tolstóy behind the plough, 137
Ryeshétnikoff, folk-novelist, 234;
description of his novels, 236-240;
literary defects of his works, 237
Ryléeff, literary representative of the Decembrists, 35, 36;
his ballads circulate in Russia in manuscript, 36;
powerful poetical gift of, 36
Sádko, personification of navigation, 9
St. George, 9
St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences, 23, 24
St. Petersburg winter season, attractions of, 46
Saint-Simonism, 271
Saltykóff (_nom-de-plume_ Schedrin), satirist, 282
Sand, George, mentioned, 229
Satire, a favourite means of expressing political thought, 282
Satire, writers of, 282-285
_Saying about Igor’s Raid_, extracts from, 12
Scandinavo-Saxon language, 4
Scheller (_nom-de-plume_ A. Mikháiloff), novelist, 304
Scherbátoff, Prince, collector of annals and folk-lore, writes a
history of Russia, 28
Scherbina, N., anthological poet, 184
Schiller, Johann Christoph, references to, 4, 33, 40, 51, 56, 103,
185, 276, 288
Schopenhauer, Arthur, mentioned, 54, 134, 135, 255
Scott, Sir Walter, mentioned, 61, 195
Sebastopol, Tolstóy’s sketches of siege of, 112, 113
Secret societies begin to be formed in Russia, 34
Self-love, rational, 142
Serbian language, 4
Serfdom, abolition of, 224
atrocities of, 94
energetic protest against, 288
evils of, 222
growth of, 269
horrors of, 28, 224, 230
introduced into Moscow, 16
introduction of, into Russia, 18
literary movement against, 84
Serfs, general feeling in favour of, 226
Serfs of the Church, 19
Serfs sold like slaves, 79
Servia falls under the rule of the Osmanlis, 15
Shahovskóy, Prince, a writer for the Russian stage, 195
Shakespeare, William, references to, 4, 47, 51, 52, 126, 195,
201 _n._, 215, 288
Shakespearian fatalism, 238
Shapír, Olga, novelist, 304
Shelley, Percy Bysshe, references to, 4, 51, 53, 172, 186
Shenshin, A. (_nom-de-plume_ A. Fet), Russian poet, 185
Shevchénko, poet, 63
Shevtchénko, Little-Russian poet, 224
Short story, the, and its ways of dealing with human life, 316
Siberia, spoken language of, 6
Siberian forests, life in the depths of, 222
Skabitchévskiy, critic and historian, 172, 295
Slavery, abolition of modern, 146
Slavonian family of languages, 4
Slavonian mythology, old, 9
Slavonic archaisms, 25
Slavonic mythology, early, 10
Slavophiles, 266-270;
fanatics of absolute rule, 268, 272
Slum-life, pictures of, 168
Smirnóff, Madame O. A. (_née_ Rossett), pietist, Gogol falls under
her influence, 83
Smirnóva, Sophie, novelist, 304
Smith, Adam, mentioned, 277
Smolénsk, captured by Poles, 18
Social evils, the main cause of, 144
Social ideas, unsettled condition of, 305
Socialism, economic principles of, 146
Socialist revival in France, 224
Socialistic movement in Russia, 163
Society, agitated Russian, 281
Society and Court scandals, 265
“Society” divorce cases in Russia, 127
Society, looseness of habits in Russian, 28
Society of Friends, assist Freemasons in spreading moral education, 28
Society of Friends of Russian literature, 296
Society, Russian educated, 232
Society, the rebel against, 254
Solidarity, germs of a realistic philosophy of, 104
Solovióff, N., playwright, 217
Solovióff, V., philosopher, 270
Song-collectors, 231
_Song of the Nibelungs_, 11
_Song of Roland_, 11
Songs, burial, 7;
antique, 7
South Russian annals, 14
South Slavonian language, high degree of perfection of, 5;
remarkable beauty of, 5
South Slavonians, folk-songs of, 4
mixture of, with Turkish and Polish blood in Little Russia, 68
Southeastern Steppes, Tartar encampments in the, 16
Southern Russia, spoken language of, 6
Spencer, Herbert, mentioned, 265
deep sensation of, in Russia, 294
Stanukóvitch, novelist, 304
Stásoff, V. V., his theory of epic songs of Slavonic mythology, 9
State religions in the interest of the ruling classes, 142
Stepniak, political writer, 278
Sterne, Laurence, mentioned, 30
Stowe, Harriet Beecher, mentioned, 224, 226
Sukhovó-Kobýlin, playwright, 215, 216
Sumarókoff, historian, the Russian Racine, 25;
wrote dramas and contributed to the development of the Russian
theatre, 25;
helps to develop the Russian drama, 193
Súzdal, Land of, 14
Swaggerers, collection of, 178
Tales, Russian, 7
Tartars, raids of, into Russia, 16
Tasso, Torquato, mentioned, 61
Tatíscheff, historian, superintendent of mines in the Uráls, 23;
wrote a number of political works, 23;
collects and systematises the Annals, 23
Tchaykóvsky, musician, music of, 13;
composes an opera from Púshkin’s _Evghéni Onyéghin_, 47;
plot of the opera, 48-50
Tchéhoff, Anton, dramatic writer, 217
Tchéhoff (pseudonym Tcheónte), novelist, sketch of, 308-317
Tchernyshévskiy, Nicolai, political writer, 279;
his birth and ancestry, 279;
contributes to _The Contemporary_, 279;
arrested and confined, 280;
his influence on Russian Society, 281;
exiled to Siberia, 281;
returns to Russia and settles in Astrakhán, 281;
his death, 281;
referred to, 290, 291, 293, 296, 297, 298, 314
Tchernyshófe, I. E., actor and playwright, 217
Tennyson, Sir Alfred, mentioned, 173, 174, 186
Terrorism and Nihilism compared, 102
Thackeray, William Makepeace, mentioned, 178
Thought, advanced European, 267
Tkretiaóvskiy, son of a priest, studies
at Moscow, 22;
travels to Amsterdam and Paris, 22;
studies at the Paris University, 22;
his services to Russian poetry, 22
Tocqueville, Alexis de, _Democracy in America_, censored in Russia,
97
Tolstáya, Countess A. A., 121
Tolstóy, Count Alexei Konstantínovitch, poet, historical novelist, and
playwright, 185, 214, 215;
becomes Head of the Imperial Hunt, 215
Tolstóy, Lyoff Nicolaievich, sketch of his life and works, 110-148;
his contributions to _The Contemporary_, 110;
birth and ancestry of, 111;
loses his father and mother when young, 111;
educated by relatives, 111;
enters military service in the Caucasus, 112;
his life during and after the Crimean War, 112-115;
takes part in the siege of Silistria and the battle of Balakláva,
112;
besieged in Sebastopol, 112;
goes to St. Petersburg, 113;
becomes acquainted with Turguéneff, 113;
co-edits _The Bell_, 113;
in search of an ideal, 115-118;
his artistic power, 117;
his descriptive talent, 117;
his small stories, 118-121;
his educational work, 120-121;
his marriage, 121;
family traditions, 122;
sketch of his _War and Peace_, 125;
of his Anna Karénina, 126, 127;
his honest artistic genius, 128;
his religious crisis, 129-138;
his views on property and labor, 130;
his dislike of the Russian Government, 131;
his thoughts on suicide, 134;
his love of the peasant masses, 134;
his idea of earning his own living, 135;
reforms his life, 137;
his plain food, 137;
philosophical reasons for his conduct, 137;
his interpretation of the Christian teaching, 138-142;
his influence, 148;
references to, 4, 6, 35, 58, 151, 152, 169, 201, 202, 223, 228, 229,
250, 278, 281, 296, 297, 298, 300, 308, 319
Tolstóy, Nicholas, dies of consumption, 120
Tolstóyism, 305
Tramps and thieves, idyll of, 303
Tramps and outcasts of Russian large cities, 242
Tramps, Górkiy’s species of, 255
Tramps of Southern Russia, 252
Transbaikalian folk-lore, 10
Tsar, absolute power of the, 267
Tsar’s authority, divine origin of, 18
Turanian language, 5
Turguéneff, Nicholas, political writer, 277;
member of the Decembrists, 277
Turguéneff, Ivan Sergeyevich, last message of, to Russian writers, 3;
sketch of his life and works, 89-109;
the greatest novel writer of his century, 89;
his high sense of the beautiful, 89;
his novels a succession of scenes, 91;
the qualities of a pessimist and lover of mankind combined in him,
93;
extract from his _Correspondence_, 95, 96;
his pessimism, 96;
threatened with being sent to Siberia, 96;
a sketch of his _Rúdin_, 97, 98;
extracts from, 98, 99;
his most artistic work, _A Nobleman’s Retreat_, 100;
his life-picture of a Russian girl, 100;
extracts from his _Fathers and Sons_, and Hamlet and Don Quixote,
105, 106;
his attitude towards Bazároff, 106, 107;
wreck of his hopes in reform movement, 107;
his death in Paris, 109;
references to, 4, 6, 31, 39, 46, 50, 52, 58, 84, 85, 110, 118, 151,
152, 157, 169, 171, 175, 177, 179, 180, 201, 202, 212, 215, 223,
225, 226, 228, 239, 247, 252, 253, 258, 265, 267, 269, 272, 274,
275, 281, 291, 293, 295, 300, 302, 303, 304, 308, 314, 315
Turkish War of 1877, 124
Turks, tales from the, 7
Tyútcheff, Th., Russian poet, 183
Uhland, Ludwig, mentioned, 33
Ultramontanes, Orthodox, 270
Ultra-realistic school of Russian folk-novelists, 234
Universal religion, elements of a, 144, 145
Universal understanding, criterion of, 298
Universal welfare, a desire for, 141
Upper classes, superstitions of the, 146
Ural-Altayan language, 4
Uspénsky, Gleb, folk-novelist, artistic descriptions of, 222;
his ethnographic sketches, 243;
his views on ownership of land, 246
_Varingiar_, the Scandinavian, 32
Vaudeville on the Russian stage, 195
Venevítinoff, poet, 62, 287
Vengeance, question of, 128
Venguéroff, S., gifted Russian critic, 104, 172;
author of biographical dictionary of Russian authors, 172
Vereschágin, Vasili, Russian painter, 124
Versification, forms of, 173
laws of rhythmical, 23
Verstóvskiy’s _Askóld’s Grave_ (opera), 13
Village-community, future of the, 222
Village communities, idyllic illusions about, 245;
drawbacks of, 247
Village life, foundations of, 244;
dark sides of, 224
Village life and humour, 69
Village people, typical, 222
Virgil, mentioned, 24
Vladímir, the Fair Sun, Kieff Prince, table of, 8
Voinarsóky, Russian patriot, exiled to Siberia, 36
Volhýnian annals, 14
Volkhónskaya, Princess, Tolstóy’s mother, 111
Voltaire, François, sarcasm of, 4;
mentioned, 193
Vorontsova-Dáshkova, Princess, aids Catherine II. in her
_coup-d’état_, 26;
nominated President of the Academy of Sciences, 26;
assists in compiling a Russian dictionary, 26
Vovtchók, Márko, folk-novelist, 226
Vvedénskiy, prose translator, 187
Wagner’s operas, librettos of, 296
War correspondents, 124
Weinberg, P., translator of poems, 186
Welfare of man, the greatest, 141
West Siberian villages, life in, 248
Western civilization, Russia looked to, for inspiration, 119
Western Europe, languages of, 3
mediæval city-republics of, 15
struggles for freedom in, 97, 272
Russia’s great conflict with, 122
influence of, on Russian art, 305
Western influences, struggle against intrusion of, in Russia, 16
Westerners, 266, 269, 270
White-Russian literature, 6
Wiener, Leo, great knowledge of Russian literature, 12 _n._;
_Anthology of Russian Literature from the Earliest Period to the
Present Time_, 12 _n._
Wine and women, an inspiration for producing poetry, 287
Wízin, Von (Fonvizin), writer of comedies, 26;
_The Brigadier_, 27;
_Nédorosl_, 27;
creator of the Russian national drama, 27;
his realistic tendency, 27;
Secretary to Count Pánin, 27, 194
Wolff, Christian, natural philosopher, 23
Women, energy of Russian, 304 slavery of, 290
Women in Russian revolutionary movements, 109
Women, their part in the development of Russia, 33
Women’s rights, fighters for, 304
Wordsworth, William, mentioned, 44, 186
Yaroslavni, lamentations of, 12
Yásnaya Polyána, Tolstóy’s estate, 111, 113, 116, 130
Yazýkoff, poet, 62
Young men, reckless heartlessness of, 310
Young Russia, 136 revival of, 101
Yúshkova, P. I., Tolstóy’s aunt, 111
Zabyélin, historian, 268
Zagóskin, historical novelist, 64
Zasódimskiy, folk-novelist, 248
Zasúlitch, Véra, trial of, 135
Zemstvo Statisticians, 231
Zhúkóvskiy, romantic poet, 32;
translates works of European poets and the classics, 33;
his ultraromanticism, 33;
his appeal to human nature, 33
Zlatovrátskiy, folk-novelist, 246
Zola, Émile, realism in first writings of, 85;
mentioned, 222, 238, 314
Transcriber’s Notes
Punctuation errors have been silently corrected.
Some inconsistencies in the spelling and accentuation of names has been
standardized to reduce confusion.
Page 11: “the expolits” changed to “the exploits”
Page 25: “ideas of Corpernicus” changed to “ideas of Copernicus”
Page 62: “sounthern climate” changed to “southern climate”
Page 68: “for northerner” changed to “for northerners”
Page 72: “during the seige” changed to “during the siege”
Page 84: “formidable indicment” changed to “formidable indictment”
Page 102: “was writen” changed to “was written”
Page 106: “the enthusiam” changed to “the enthusiasm”
Page 108: A section of misprinted text has been corrected by
consultation with the 1916 edition. The original section read
“Consequently, Virgin Soil could only refer to the very earliest phases
of the movement: misconception of the peasantry, the peculiar inca-
did not meet with any of the best representativs of it. Much of the
novel is true, but the general impression it conveys is not precisely
the impression which Turguéneff himself would have received if he had
better known the Russian youth at that time.”
The corrected text reads: “Consequently, _Virgin Soil_ could only
refer to the very beginnings of the movement. Besides, Turguéneff
did not meet with any of the best representatives of it. Much of the
novel is true, but the general impression it conveys is not precisely
the impression which Turguéneff himself would have received if he had
better known the Russian youth at that time.”
Page 109: “children stories” changed to “children’s stories”
Page 121: “probably untilising” changed to “probably utilising”
Page 125: “and Englishman, or a” changed to “an Englishman, or a”
Page 126: “all the Tolstóy’s novels” changed to “all the Tolstóy novels”
Page 131: “in the mind the great writer” changed to “in the mind of the
great writer”
Page 136: “nothwithstanding all” changed to “notwithstanding all”
Page 141: “similiar conclusion” changed to “similar conclusion”
Page 160: “higher enthusiams” changed to “higher enthusiasms”
Page 192: “holy precints” changed to “holy precincts”
Page 199: “the accquaintance” changed to “the acquaintance” “Altogther,
a Russian” changed to “Altogether, a Russian”
Page 203: “a great dramatic write.” changed to “a great dramatic
writer.”
Page 208: “from the opression” changed to “from the oppression”
Page 225: “tremendous successs” changed to “tremendous success”
Page 229: “memtioned in” changed to “mentioned in”
Page 231: “dry satistical reports” changed to “dry statistical reports”
Page 243: “not enthnography” changed to “not ethnography”
Page 245: “human pyschology” changed to “human psychology”
Page 249: “an ethnographr” changed to “an ethnographer”
Page 250: “was pubished” changed to “was published”
Page 255: “another characterstic” changed to “another characteristic”
Page 284: “nevertheles continued” changed to “nevertheless continued”
Page 296: “Sociey of Friends” changed to “Society of Friends”
Page 299: “fine, quite mid-summer” changed to “fine, quiet mid-summer”
Page 301: “bougeoisie du” changed to “bourgeoisie du”
Page 308: “originality of stlye” changed to “originality of style”
Page 312: “been focussed” changed to “been focused”
Page 313: “towards reconcilation” changed to “towards reconciliation”
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