A GUIDE TO RUSSIAN
LITERATURE
(1820— 1917)
BY
MOISSAYE J. OLGIN, Ph.D.
AUTHOR OF "THE SOUL OF THE RUSSIAN REVOLUTION'
1
» "a • '
NEW YORK
HARCOURT, BRACE AND HOWE
1920
'RESERVATION
;OPY ADDED
)RIG«NALTOBE
DETAINED
SEP 19 1994
COPYRIGHT, I920, BY
HARCOURT, BRACE AND HOWE, INC.
THE OUINN AND BODEN COMPANY
RAHWAY. N. J.
P£30/.
>\
PREFACE
A national literature may be viewed as a manifestation
of a purely creative genius, or as a reflection of the
spiritual life of a people, or as a picture of its national
character and socio-political conditions. It is evident
that descriptions of social groups and classes or reproduc-
tions of spiritual gropings must form an element of every
literature, the writers being children of their times, mem-
bers of their nations, and drawing their experience from
immediate surroundings. Yet hardly any literature equals
the Russian in reproducing the spiritual struggles of men,
and few western writers have been as willing as their
Russian colleagues to go down to the very bottom of
everyday existence and to scrutinize the economic, the
social, and the political life of their country. This makes
Russian literature a valuable object of study not only as
art, but also as the surest road to the understanding of
the Russian people and Russian conditions.
The task of the present volume is to be of assistance
in such studies. From the literary productions of the
nineteenth and twentieth centuries it selects only those
which have a value for the present, either on account of
their artistic qualities, or as representing some aspect of
Russian life. This marks a point of departure from the
traditional histories of literature. The Guide omits many
poets who were of importance in their time, yet have been
overshadowed by greater contemporaries or successors
working in the same field. This is the case with Nikitin
v
ill li. 0A2
VI
PREFACE
in the presence of Koltzov and Nekrasov, with Maikov
and Polonsky in the presence of Pushkin, Lermontov and
Foeth, with Minsky in the presence of Balmont and
Bryusov. The Guide omits a number of older writers
describing economic and social conditions when the same
conditions have been presented more adequately and with
more talent by others. Such is the case with Grigoro-
vitch, Pisemsky, Potapenko, Stanyukovitch. All these
and many other writers must take their place in a history
of Russian literature, yet there is no room for them in a
practical guide. On the other hand, the Guide includes
many an author of the present generation who may not
prove great sub specie aeternitatis, yet who is indispen-
sable as a truthful narrator and interpreter of events in
recent times. To this class belong Chirikov, Yushkevitch,
Gusev-Orenburgsky, Mujzhel. The Guide intends to
answer the persistent question coming from many quar-
ters, " What shall I read to understand Russian character
and Russian life? " Yet it passes by no book that marks
a step forward in the progress of purely artistic creation.
The fact that a book has not been translated into Eng-
lish could not serve as a reason for excluding it from the
Guide, as the list of translations is steadily growing and
as the volume is intended to be of service not only to the
general reader but also to publishers and translators.
Moreover, in most cases it would be profitable to read
a chapter devoted even to an untranslated author, as this
may help in understanding the general tendencies in Rus-
sian literature and the drift of Russian thought.
A selection not only among writers but also among the
works of each writer is inherent in a practical guide.
Works have been specified which characterize the creative
personality of the author, or possess a special literary
PREFACE vii
value, or throw light on some particular facet in Russian
life. This criterion made it necessary to select, on the
whole, fewer works from authors of a uniform character
and more from versatile writers. Thus, the fact that the
Guide mentions less of Bunin's and more of Andreyev's
works does not in any way put Bunin below Andreyev;
it only indicates that Andreyev's interests were wider
and so more of his works are required to give his portrait
as a writer. On the other hand, the Guide is not over-
burdened with works that make tedious reading for even
the Russian of our time because they are too local or
too detailed or somewhat antiquated. For this reason,
only a few of Uspensky's and Shchedrin's works are men-
tioned.
The space given each author naturally varies in accord-
ance with his place in Russian literature. Yet departures
from this general rule are unavoidable. Writers of the
older generations receive a less detailed treatment than
authors of our time. Writers well known in English-
speaking countries are comparatively less dwelt upon
than writers totally unknown. This procedure may be
open to criticism from the standpoint of historic perspec-
tive; in a practical guide, however, it is natural that
Ostrovsky, a writer of fifty years ago, should occupy less
space than our contemporary, Veresayev. It is also ex-
cusable that Turgenev, so well known and so generously
commented upon, should not be reviewed with more de-
tail than Sergeyev-Tzensky, whose name has hardly ap-
peared in English. The underlying idea is that modern
literature in its best manifestations gives a better insight
into the soul of modern Russia than the works of long
passed generations.
It would have been gratifying to the author had it been^
viii PREFACE
possible to make the Guide a mere compilation of Rus-
sian critical essays. This would present a study in Rus-
sian literature written by the keenest Russian scholars
for Russian consumption. This, however, could not be
realized, at least not within the scope set. It remained,
therefore, to use quotations from Russian critics only
as supplements, or as appreciations of individual books.
The quotations were taken from the collected works of
recognized students of Russian literature, from individual
treatises, and from essays appearing in the most respected
monthlies.
The Guide makes no attempt at criticizing the individ-
ual authors, i.e., at pointing out not only their merits
but also their shortcomings and limitations. It is as-
sumed that the qualities that make an author desirable
as an object of study are his originality, his artistic per-
sonality, his closeness to Russian realities, not his fail-
ures or weaknesses which may be detected by one critic
or another according to their conceptions. Therefore,
no mention is made of the various and frequent attacks
launched at Gorky after the first period of his glory.
Similarly, the fierce controversy over the merits of the
symbolists or Leonid Andreyev could hardly be given
sufficient consideration. For detailed information, the
student will, of course, have to turn to the work of the
respective writers and to more elaborate critical surveys.
Only where some negative quality gnaws at the root of
an author's talent, it had to be pointed out in the Guide.
A word must be said about the terms story, novelette,
and novel as used in the Guide. These terms are indica-
tive only of the approximate size of a work. A short
work, whatever its contents or character, if not exceeding
in size some fifty pages of an ordinary book, is termed
PREFACE ix
story. A longer work of between fifty and one hundred
and fifty pages is called novelette. A longer production
is marked as novel. Those names are a mere expedient
for the orientation of the reader. In Russian the re-
spective names are romdn, povyest, razskdz.
CONTENTS
i
THE GROWTH OF A NATIONAL LITERATURE
PAGE
General Survey 3
C2rsTPii5ii3 14
~ A. S. Griboyedoj^ 22
f M. J. I^ermontqS 25
A. V. Koltzov 33
V. G. Byelinsky 35
P032S3-.. 41
CSTT. Aksakov_j 49
t-A^.-73s^viS^ 52
^Xg- M- Reshetnikov 56
L RG. Chernyshevsky^ 57
D. I. PlSAREV 62
N. A. Nekrasov 67
. I. A. Gontcharov 71
LJ. S. Turgenev) 76
~V. L. Garshi^ 82
S. J. Nadson 85
Th. I. Tyutchev 87
Alexey Tolstoi 93
. A. A. Foeth-Shenshin 96
F? *M.'T)OSTOYEVSKY ^ IOI
Vlawmir3°Pvyov II0
i L. N. TolstoT] 114
N. §. Lyeskov 120
M. E. Saltykov (Shchedrin) 126
G. I. USPENSKY 129
N. K. MlKHAYLOVSKY 131
P. Yakubovttch 134
D. N. Mamin-Sibiryak 136
P. D. BOBORYKIN 140
A. P. Chekhov : 143
N. G. Garin-Mikhaylovsky 147
V. G. Korolenko 152
xi
xii CONTENTS
II
THE "MODERNISTS"
PAGE
General Survey 157
K. D. Balmont 171
V. Bryusov 177
K. D. Merezhkovsky 180
F. SOLOGUB . l86
A. VOLYNSKY 192
A. Block 195
V. IVANOV 197
Andrey Byely 199
III
THE RECENT TIDE
General Survey . 209
Maxim Gorky 222
Leonid Andreyev 230
V. Veresayev 240
A. Kuprin 245
•I. BUNIN 251
O. G. Sergeyev-Tzensky 257
M. P. Artzybashev 265
EVGENY CHIRIKOV 270
V. Ropshin ' 277
Alexey Remizov 281
v. v. mujzhel 287
Semyon Yushkevitch 292
S. I. Gusev-Orenburgsky . 298
Boris Zaitzev 303
APPENDIX
Juvenile Literature in Russia 309
LIST OF PRONUNCIATIONS
a is pronounced like the
English a in garden.
g " " " "
«
g in good.
e " " " "
M
e in yes.
zh « " " "
it
s in pleasure.
: u (( ii «
M
i in liberty.
kh" " " "
Scots
ch in loch.
l " " soft like the English 1 in flute.
Name of Author
Pronunciation
Aksakov
Aksakawv
-Andreyev
Andryeyev
Artzybashev
Artzybashev
' Balmont
Baunawnt
Block
Blavfck
Boborykin
Bawbawrykeen
Bryusov
Bryussawv
Bunin
Booneen
Byelinsky
Byeleenskee
Byely
Byeli?
Chekhov
Chyekhawv
Chernyshevsky
Chyernishevskee
Chirikov
Cheereekawv
• Dostoyevsky
Dawstawyevskee
Foeth
Fet
Garin-Mikhaylovsky
Gareen-Meekhaylawvskee
Garshin
Garsheen
Gogol
G£v^gawL
Gontcharov
Gawntchara^v
Gorky
Gawrkee
Griboyedov
Greebawyedawv
Gusev-Orenburgsky
Goossyev-Orenboorgskee
Ivanov
Eevanawv
Koltzov
KawLtzawv
Korolenko
Kawrawlyenkaw
Kuprin
Koopreen
Lermontov
Lyermawntawv
Lyeskov
Lyeskawv
Mamin-Sibiryak
Mameen-Seebeeryak
XIV
LIST OF PRONUNCIATIONS
Name of Author
Pronunciation
Merezhkovsky
Myeryezhkawvskee
Mikhaylovsky
Meekhaylawskee
Mujzhel
MooyzheL
Nadson
Nadsawn
Nekrasov
Nyekrassawv
Ostrovsky
Awstrawvskee
Pisarev
Peessaryev
Pushkin
Pooshkeen
Remizov
Remeezawv
Reshetnikov
Ryesh6tneekawv
Ropshin
Rawpsheen
Saltykov-Shchedrin
S<ikawv-Shchedreen
Sergeyev-Tzensky
Syergyeyev-Tzyenskee
Sologub
SawlawgOob
Solovyov
Sawlawvyawv
Tolstoi
Tawlstawy
*Turgenev
Toorgyenyev
Tyutchev
Tyootchev
Uspensky
Oospyenskee
Veresayev
Vyeryessayev
Volynsky
Vawlinskee
Yakubovitch
Yakoobawveetch
Yushkevitch
Yooshkyeveetch
Zaitzev
Zaitzev
;
THE GROWTH OF A NATIONAL LITERATURE
)
GENERAL SURVEY
The historians of Russian literature follow its progress
from decade to decade. They speak of the literature
and men of the forties, the sixties, the seventies. They
find clear lines of demarcation between one such period
and another. For the purpose of a more comprehensive
survey, however, Russian literature from the twenties to
the beginning of the nineties of the past century may be
viewed as one great entity. The points of resemblance
between the literary productions of this entire period
are numerous.
i. Russian literature is still a product of the land-own-
ing nobility. Pushkin and Lermontov, Gontcharov and
Aksakov, Turgenev and the Tolstois, and many another
great light, were born in the mansions of the landlords,
breathed the air of family traditions, led a carefree life
in their youth, received a good education at the hands
of private tutors, often foreigners, or in secluded aristo-
cratic schools. This gave a certain unconscious refine-
ment to their writings, and influenced their conception
of life. Ordinarily they knew the village and the provin-
cial town well, but the large city was quite outside their
range of vision. They were intimately connected with the
land-holding class, and consequently had an understand-
ing of the peasantry which was grouped, geographically
and economically, around the landlords' mansions, but
they were little interested in the problems of the city folk.
Russia for them was the village. The Russian people
coincided with the Russian peasants.
3
4 SGBfcPffiaa OF A NATIONAL LITERATURE
In the last third of the century, the raznotchinetz, the
man from the ranks, makes his appearance in Russian
literature. Up to that time, only very few sons of the
people succeeded in treading upon the sacred literary
ground. The poets Koltzov and Nikitin, and the story-
writer Reshetnikov, were the best known. Now, with the
general progress of life and the development of educa-
tion, more and more writers of the non-privileged classes
step to the front. The new men have a new boldness in
their manner; they are crude; they are in many cases
more vigorous than their noble brothers, as raw life
often appears to have greater vigor than its more refined
manifestations. Yet the new writers cannot compete with
the others in charm, in ease, in masterful handling of their
subjects, in artistic poise. Notwithstanding all the
changes in Russian life gradually developing after the
abolition of serfdom in 1861, the dominant figure in
literature is still the son of the nobleman's nest.
2. Russian literature of this period is, to a large
extent, a substitution for social and political activities.
Russian intelligentzia, well acquainted with the ideas and
movements of the western world, was prevented by
autocracy from putting its ideas into practice. The
prngrPQgjyft plpinpntg wprp prartirally harrpH irom_.any
pronomir. or political WOrfc r\nt iaAZArp.fL_hy the. ruling
.group. Many of those elements hit their heads against
the black wall of Russian absolutism, in a vain attempt
to break it. Those were the revolutionists of the seven-
ties and early eighties who stained their martyr-path with
tears and blood and were finally crushed by the old
regime. But they were few. The vast majority pre-
ferred to dream. The intelligentzia lived an imaginary
life in its books and writings. Literature in Russia was
GENERAL SURVEY 5
more than a pastime, more than an artistic reflection of
life. It was life itself. It was the only realm where
the creative power of the nation's best men could find
a semblance of constructive work.
It is for this reason that our political factions almost
always coincided with literary schools. The Slavophils
and the Westerners of the forties and fifties were funda-
mentally divided in their political conceptions. Had
they been allowed to carry their controversy into the
political field, the Slavophils might have conducted a
campaign for a patriarchal system based on confidence
between the Czar as father and the people as his chil-
dren, with a Parliament discussing but not voting bills,
while the Westerners might have striven to introduce
a parliamentary system on a European scale. Much of
the intellectual energies of both factions would have
been absorbed by purely political activities, and litera-
ture would have only reflected these processes of life.
Under autocratic rule, however, both factions turned to
the field halfway open for them, and literature became
the ground where they fought their battles.
A score of years later, the same was true about the
Narodniki and Marxists. What divided these factions
was their conception of Russia's economic future. The
Narodniki thought industrialism a foreign growthjncom-
patible with the foundations of Russian economic life.
In the communal ownership of land as it existed in the
peasant communities, the Narodniki saw the nucleus of
a better social order. The peasants were in their eyes
the half-conscious bearers of a socialist ideal, which only
the pressure of bureaucracy prevented from reorganizing
society on the basis of equality and freedom. Hence
the great reverence of the Narodniki for the peasant life
6 GROWTH OF A NATIONAL LITERATURE
and habits, for peasant ideology. The Marxists, on the
contrary, thought industrialization of Russia unavoidable,
and the villages were in their eyes so many nests of an-
cient prejudices and social reaction. The center of
gravity was put by the Marxists in the industrial workers
as a coming revolutionary force. All this had little to
do with literature, yet for a quarter of a century the
ideal of the Narodniki, their hopes and queries could
find only literary expression. The few enthusiasts who
early in the seventies tried to approach the peasants with
social propaganda, were soon imprisoned, and nothing
remained for the Narodnik but to study peasant life and
to put his dream of a bright future in literary images.
Literature was the only refuge of the Russian mind,
the only safety isle to avoid stagnation. All that was
deepest in the soul of our spiritual leaders rushed to
literature and literary criticism to find realization.
We resembled a strange order in the midst of the
atrocities of Russian life. We gratified our social in-
stinct by reading descriptions of the people's life. We
satisfied our desire for political action by discussing the
various types of Narodniki, Socialists, bureaucrats,
capitalists, workingmen, which were presented in our
literature. It was almost a civic duty for any member
of the intelligentzia to have read the latest sketch of
Uspensky or VeresayevJ the stories of Korolenko, the
poems of Yakubovitch. This is why our writers were so
eager to describe all the most novel occurrences in our
social life. This is why they always had their ears close
to the ground to perceive the faintest sound the very
moment it was born.
3. Literature of this period is a very serious occupa-
tion, almost a civic service. A writer is not supposed to
GENERAL SURVEY 7
tell a story for the story's sake. The aim of literature
is not to be pleasing, but to touch the most important
moments in the life of the individual as well as in the
life of society or humanity. ; A writer is a friend, a
teacher and a leader. It is, of course, taken for granted
that a writer must have talent, else he would not be
able to impress his readers. Talent alone, however, is
not sufficient. \[ Generally speaking, the author is sup-
posed to do one of three things: toJLuoaden the social
vision of _the public by picturing social injustices and by
hglding. _out the ideal of a_.hetter social j^rder^though
this ideal may not always be clear — (pictures of family
life, of relations between the sexes, between fathers and
children, all treated from a social viewpoint, would also
come under this head ){l to deepen the spiritual lifejjf
the readers by giying^descriptions of psychological prob-
lems, of mental strife, of philosophical, metaphysical,
ethical, or esthetic gropings fbto makeiJie Russians better
acquainted with thejr_ i B.^T\m^J^^escribmg ^social
phenomena ..little known to. iiie^iblicJi such as-the. .life,
of„the Siberian miners, the life of the marines, the life
of fishermen, the life of the half-civilized inhabitants of
the border-provinces, the life of religious sects repudiat-
ing the official church,; etc. Such descriptions may not
be animated by an ideal, yet they are taken as something
useful in Russian cultural life. Writings that do not
serve one of these purposes are hardly considered worth
while reading. Literature is a means of keeping the
mind and the soul awake to the important problems of
existence. Accordingly, the author occupies a high posi-
tion, perhaps the highest and most respected, in the
esteem of his contemporaries. The attitude towards
literature is a serious one, almost excluding the aspect
8 GROWTH OF A NATIONAL LITERATURE
of amusement. Literature may give joy, suffering or
rapture, but it certainly is not the aim of literature to
give pleasure.
4. Throughout the literature of this period sounds the
voice of a sick conscience. Russian writers think them-
selves partly responsible for the miserable conditions of
the people. This was a direct outcome of the isolated
position into which the intelligentzia was forced by auto-
cratic rule. The sons of the noblemen were, certainly,
uncomfortable in their cultural solitude. The intellectual
raznotchinetz could not be happy with his modern educa-
tion which elevated him above the masses. The writers
of aristocratic origin indulged in gloomy moods deploring
their great unredeemed debt to the people. The writers
of the raznotchinetz type were, perhaps, gloomier because
they felt more keenly the chaos and humiliating baseness
of Russian life. All of them were fully aware of the fact
that no changes could be undertaken before they found
a way to the minds of the masses. This way, however,
was hidden in the mists of the future. There was no
bridge over the gulf dividing the intelligentzia and the
people.
Only a few writers, notably Foeth and Alexey Tolstoi,
were free from this typical Russian gloom, and this is
one of the reasons why they never succeeded in becom-
ing leaders of intellectual Russia. They were too much
out of tone with the prevailing motives.
5. Russian literature is moved by a keen desire to
understand the character of the nation. Up to Pushkin,
hardly any writer tried to describe the Russian people
and Russian conditions as they were. The task confront-
ing our literature in the nineteenth century is enormous.
For the first time in history, the jKriters have to sketch
GENERAL SURVEY 9
the fundamentals of the Russian character, the essential
feaXure^s^J^heJ^sdan ...soul. True it is that literatures
of all periods and all nations depict the characters of
the respective nations. Yet one thing it is to record new
types in a country where life had been mirrored by litera-
ture for generations, and another to outline the features
of a great nation for the first time, with hardly any liter-
ary traditions in the past. The latter is the situation in
Russia, especially in the first three quarters of the nine-
teenth century. Many Russian writers are practically
discoverers of new realms: Aksakov discovers patriarchal
Russia under serfdom, Gogol discovers the discrepancies
of a decaying feudal system, Ostrovsky introduces the
Russian middle-class, Turgenev discovers a human being
in the peasant, Lyeskov sketches for the first time the
Russian clergy and the simple faith of the masses, Kol-
tzov is himself a revelation of the people's spirit, Gon-
tcharov depicts the national traits of inertia in Oblomov;
all of them are discovering the beauty of the Russian
landscape, the inherent intelligence of the plain people,
the mysticism at the bottom of the Russian soul. Every-
thing is novel in Russia; everything is eagerly read and
commented upon. It is only natural that the writers de-
velop a keen interest for all such observations. Litera-
ture is scrutinizing the Russian nation from every angle.
Literature makes Russia aware of herself as a nation, at
least in the mind of her thinking elements.
6. Particular attention is given the peasantry. Scru-
tiny of the village and contemplation over the fate of
the agricultural worker are common to the writers of all
camps and factions, Slavophil or Westerner, nobleman or
raznotchinetz. Gogol writes tales of the Ukrainian pea-
pie with an amazing gaiety of color and humorous fond-
io GROWTH OF A NATIONAL LITERATURE
ness. Turgenev portrays a number of peasant types in
a tone of lofty artistic composure. Nekrasov writes of
the peasants' sufferings with tears and seething compas-
sion. Uspensky tries to be a calm inquisitive observer
interested primarily in facts though his brain is con-
stantly aflame. Reshetnikov made the reader shiver
with fear at the sight of the dreadful savagery of the
people. All these writers, varying in talent and in social
conceptions, are united by their profound interest in the
life of the peasants, by their insatiable desire to solve
the mystery of the great sphinx, — the Russian masses.
This is not mere artistic curiosity. Neither is it a feel-
ing of charitable pity for the poor. Back of it all is
the consciousness of the fact that the peasant is the
cornerstone of Russian Hie., that all ..work of reconstruct-
ing Rus^iajnjiisJLbegiriJrom below- The object of all this
interest, the ja^i^^wasjiaj^dlyi^^ar^jofjhe intellectual
attempts at in terpre.ting_his very. essence, ... He continued
to lead his obscure routine life. He seldom stirred. He
never protested. He was like a drop in a black sea under
a heavy sky. He was not conscious of his power. Yet
all those gentlemen who stretched at him their artistic
feelers, had a distinct premonition that some day the
black sea would begin to heave and rage and storm and
break its chains. Hence the feeling of awe that the Rus-
sian sphinx inspired in all the writers.
7. Life in Russia through all this. period is in a state
ofj}rjgmic jleyelopment. No violent changes are taking
place. No great social catastrophes shake the body of
the nation, — up to the famine of 1891. What is annoy-
ingJn.RusMa.is the slowness of all processes. Misery and
poverty are increasing in the rural districts, to be sure,
but even these threatening symptoms are accumulating
GENERAL SURVEY n
gradually, with the steady and slow progress of a glacier.
Accordingly, Russian literature is slow in manner and
style. Compared with the modern way of writing, many
of the older authors such as Grigorovitch, Zlatovratsky,
Pisemsky, Uspensky, seem very tedious. They are pains-
takingly recording every detail. They go into lengthy
descriptions of nature, often occupying several pages.
They stop to reason over life in general, over the fate of
their heroes, over the destinies of their native land. They
proceed in their narrative with utter deliberation.
This, of course, is not applicable to such brilliant writ-
ers as Gogol or Turgenev or Nekrasov. Yet even in the
best works of this period we notice a preponderance of
matter over form, of contents over construction. As a
rule, Russian writersjdo. not construct their^works care-,
fully. They are hardly con£prnpH nvpr a pint They are
not very fastidious as to the choice of expressions. What
is their real interest and what gives their work a peculiar
value is the palpitation of actual lifer the soaring -oi-the
spirit, the sincerity._oX, a Jmjn^_£Qul_speakin.g -directly
and freely. Literary productions called by their authors
a story or a novel are quite often neither one nor_fche
other. They are just a morsel qfjreal life, an illuminat-
ing episode, a study in human character, or a string
of such episodes and studies loosely connected. The Rus-
sian reader and the Russian critic were looking for the
truthfulness and spiritual depth of a work rather than
for its external perfection.
8. In a country where literature takes the place of
life, the critic takes the place of a leader. From the
forties to the nineties, Byelinsky, Chernyshevsky, Dobro-
lyubov, Pisarev, Mikhaylovsky follow one another in a
splendid succession, exerting an amazing influence over
12 GROWTH OF A NATIONAL LITERATURE '
the minds of their generation. What they do cannot be
called pure criticism. Even the most artistic of the group,
Byelinsky, considered literary criticism a means to raise
the nation to a higher level of social and cultural life.
The others use the works of art as a basis for discourses
over philosophical, sociological, or political topics. From
a character or an incident given by an author they pro-
ceed to the social background and to the causes of the
existing evils. This procedure brings within their scope
all the important problems of their time. They are not
mere critics, they are teachers, propagandists, prophets
of a new order. Their work is ordinarily connected with
the editing of progressive monthlies.
9. The literary language remains almost uniform
throughout the entire period. Aside from individual
deviations, nearly all writers use the same literary ap-
paratus. Pushkin's language is dominant in poetry, and
the subsequent works of Nekrasov, Alexey Tolstoi, or
Nadson are, perhaps, even a step backward. Foeth and
Tyutchev are using a very refined and subtle language,
but they are outside of the general run and seem to
have little influence on their colleagues. Turgenev's
manner is dominant in prose writing, but there seems to
be no worship of the language, no effort at stretching it
or making it more colorful. Here as in many other re-
spects, the writers are more interested in what they have
to say than in the way they say it. The language is
taken for granted. Rhythm and music and a certain
beauty are almost common property. This accounted for
lucidity, simplicity, chastity and honesty of expression,
yet reform work in this realm became imminent.
All this changes towards the beginning of the nineties.
Social and cultural progress initiated by the abolition of
GENERAL SURVEY 13
serfdom and facilitated by subsequent industrial develop-
ment, brought about new literary schools. The modernist
with his gospel of beauty, his lack of interest for social
problems, and his strong inclination towards a mystical
conception of life, makes his appearance, and within a
short time becomes one of the dominant factors. On the
other hand, new waves of social energy, hardly percep-
tible at the outset, make the ground vibrate. Unrest
spreads. Social forces are growing. The country is in
the grip of a revolution. Russian literature responds. It
is saturated with new color. It breathes unrest. It ex-
pands. It becomes infinitely more abundant in motives,
forms, observations, ideas. Thus the great trunk of Rus-
sian literature of the nineteenth century branches off
into two main boughs. These will form the subject of
the second and the third divisions of the present work.
A. S. PUSHKIN (i 799-1837)
Poet. One of the great national classic writers.
Pushkin created the modern Russian poetic language.
He freed it from dead hyperbolism and false solemnity;
he brought it closer to the living language of the people,
and gave it sincerity, dignity, flexibility, and jagon,
Pushkin is the first Russian poeMxTexpress in simple
and truthful words the soul of a Russian. " The sub-
stance and qualities of his poetry," said Turgenev, " coin-
cided with the substance and qualities of the Russian
nation." Pushkin gave utterance to such emotions and
moods as constituted the best traits of the Russian char-
acter. He thus fulfilled a great desire for self-expression
dormant in a great people. Russia instantly recognized
in Pushkin her own and loved him as people love their
soil, their nature, the house of their parents. Pushkin's
influence on the following generations is incalculable.
Not one Russian possessing the knowledge of reading has
failed to learn from Pushkin beautiful and inspiring
things.
Pushkin is firm and tender. The joy of living per-
meates his musical lines, and their reading is a strange
solace even when they touch the dark aspects of exist-
ence. There is clarity, serenity, balance in his poems;
they give the impression of a clear autumn sky over
a country rich with fruit and seeds. Life is sparkling
in his songs, ballads, and verbal paintings; there is often
pain and sadness and a longing for unmitigated freedom
in his melodies; at times he is bitter, full of indignation
14
A. S. PUSHKIN 15
and stinging mockery; yet his faith in man is never
diminished, and the undertone of all his poetry is a
restrained gladness of the soul in intimate contact with
the destinies of human beings, the life of humanity, and
nature.
Pushkin is not only a lyrical poet, though the lyrical
element permeates most of his poetic creations. He wrote
a series of epic works unmatched in Russian literature.
His numerous fantastic poems use the material of fairy-
tales current among the plain people. His poetic tales
exceed in simplicity and national color even the original
productions of folklore. In a number of dramatic pro-
ductions and fragments he manifested a dramatist's talent
equal to the best. His prose stories are marked by a
simplicity, lucidity, and charm undreamed of before,
and they open a new era in the history of Russian
prose.
All of Pushkin's writings bear the stamp of a rich
personality. Pushkin is unusually clever, sharp, and
witty. At the same time he is deeply earnest. Under-
neath his frivolity which is only the play of overabundant
creative power, there is a foundation of thought. And
whatever Pushkin writes is brilliant.
Not one of the Russian classic writers has been studied
so lovingly and with so much care as Pushkin. Push-
kinism has become an important science occupying an
honorable place side by side with other branches of his-
tory. The literature on Pushkin is enormous.
" When you pronounce the name of Pushkin you invariably
think of a Russian national poet. He possesses all the rich-
ness, the power, and the flexibility of our language. He, more
than anybody, widened the boundaries of the language and
showed its entire scope. Pushkin is an extraordinary phenome-
16 GROWTH OF A NATIONAL LITERATURE
non, perhaps the most unique phenomenon in the history
of the Russian spirit: he is the Russian man in the process
of development, as he will be, say, two hundred years from
now. Russian nature, Russian soul, Russian character, Rus-
sian language have been reflected through him with such pur-
ity, in such purified beauty, as a landscape is reflected on the
convexed surface of an optic glass."
N. V. Gogol.
" Pushkin's main contribution to Russian literature con-
sisted in putting poetry on a high level of independence. He
freed poetry from its former subsidiary role as a means of
propaganda or a pretty pastime. He made poetry the highest
activity of the human spirit. This activity, in his opinion,
ought to be unrestricted. He, therefore, proclaimed the right
of human personality to be free. From the very first words of
his poetic creations, he unequivocally declared himself a cham-
pion of freedom.
" His creative activities were not a result of reason and logic,
however, but of a poetic imagination. He brought into poetry
a wealth of live impressions. This is why his pictures and
moods are so infinitely varied. Still, hand in hand with imagi-
nation, works his conscious thought.
"... Pushkin's poetry is the history of a lofty ideal which
seeks for light, for sincere feeling, and for freedom/ f 1 1 wish /-
to live that I may think and suffer,*))the poet saioV^
" The unusual wealth of his poetic pictures was a revelation.
He widened the horizon of Russian poetry beyond national
boundaries. He made it universal."
A. N. Pypin.
" Pushkin is the echo of the world, an obedient and melodious
echo which moves from realm to realm, passionately respond-
ing to everything so that no one significant tone in the life of
the universe may vanish without leaving a trace. There is
something fundamentally human in this ability to respond, in
this gift of musical answers to all living voices, as nobody
ought to limit himself to a definite set of impressions, and
the universe ought to exist as a whole for every one of us.
A. S. PUSHKIN 17
Yet there is something inherently poetic in these qualities of
Pushkin's. . . . There was such a limitless amount of beauty
in his own soul that it could find relief, consonance, and
inner rhyme only in the variety of nature and in the bound-
lessness of human existence. His all-responding soul was like
a many-stringed instrument, and the universe playing on this
Aeolian harp extracted from it the most marvelous songs.
Pushkin, the great Pan of poetry, listened eagerly to the call
of the sky, the earth, the throbbing of the heart. ... A giant
of the spirit, full of burning curiosity, full of restlessness and
sounds, Pushkin embraces all, sees and hears everything. The
soul is indivisible and eternal, he said, and he proved it by his
own example. Without boundaries or limits, knowing no dis-
tance or past, always in the present, everywhere alive, a con-
temporary of everything, he moves, above space and above
time, from land to land, from age to age, and nothing is alien or
foreign to him." J. Eichenwald.
I. Lyrical Poems. (From approximately 1820 to
1837.)
" In his charming anthology of short poems, Pushkin is still
more versatile and broader in scope than in his epics. Some of
his smaller productions are of a dazzling brilliance. Here is
everything: enjoyment, simplicity, an instant elevation of
thought which gives the reader a thrill of inspiration. There
is no eloquence here, only pure poetry; there is no outward
luster, no elaboration, no perplexing form, but there is inner
light which reveals itself gradually. The poems are laconic as
pure poetry ought to be, but they are full of meaning, they
signify everything. There is a world of space in every word;
every word is boundless as the poet himself."
N. V. Gogol.
It is needless to say that almost every poem of Push-
kin's has been studied in the schools and is known to
every educated Russian. No classic poet has been,
through many generations, so close as Pushkin to the
heart of his nation. We have all learned to love Russian
18 GROWTH OF A NATIONAL LITERATURE
nature and the best elements in the past and present of
Russia through Pushkin's poems.
2. Evgeny One gin. A novel in verse. (182 5- 183 2.)
Being the sad love-story of Onegin and Tatyana, the
novel is a broad picture of Russian life early in the nine-
teenth century. It contains a number of Russian char-
acters drawn with a master hand. Its pictures of Russian
nature are, perhaps, the most mature in Pushkin's work.
What gives it particular value, however, is a reflection of
the spiritual life of Russian educated groups which, at
that time, were entirely of the landed nobility. Evgeny
Onegin is fundamentally a novel of the intelligentzia, the
first of its kind. The tragedy of Onegin, the main hero,
is far more than personal.
" Onegin heads the long row of Russian intellectual wan-
derers. A stranger to his surroundings, free from the ties of
public service or family relations, wandering gloomily over his
country without aim and without work, he has preserved a
living soul. He is not a hero, the author did not idealize him;
he is only a clever and good-hearted Russian, a representative
of the intelligentzia of his time, who found no place and no
work under conditions as they then existed.
" In Tatyana Pushkin showed with marvelous skill what
treasures of the human heart and intelligence, what untouched
spiritual powers could lie hidden in darkness and cold, under
the suffocating atmosphere of philistine life, waiting for a bet-
ter time when the first ray of light and the first breath of
fresh air would call them to life and allow them to unfold."
D. N. OVSYANIKO-KULIKOVSKY.
3. Poltava. An epic poem. (1829.)
Events are centered around the Battle of Poltava
1709). The main figures are Peter the Great; Mazeppa,
the Ukrainian Hetman; Maria, the beautiful Ukrainian
A. S. PUSHKIN 19
maiden. The pictures of Ukrainian nature and of the
Battle of Poltava belong to the best of Pushkin's crea-
tions. Poltava is, perhaps, the ripest and most perfect
of all his works.
" The pathos [of Poltava] is turned towards a colossal
subject. We see Peter and the Battle of Poltava. The picture
of the battle is drawn with a broad and daring brush; it is
full of life and motion: a painter could copy it as he copies
nature. The appearance of Peter in the midst of this picture,
an appearance represented in flaming colors which make your
hair stand upright on your head, gives you an impression of
being present at a great religious mystery; as if some unknown
God, in rays of glory unbearable to mortal eyes, were passing
before us surrounded by lightning and thunder."
V. G. Byelinsky.
Russians learned to appreciate Peter the Great through
Pushkin's Poltava more than through all the textbooks
of history.
4. Boris Godounov. A historical drama in verse.
(1830.)
The first historical drama of a realistic nature in Rus-
sian literature. The main figure is the Tzar Boris Godou-
nov (1605) ascending the throne over the dead body of
the legitimate heir whom he caused to be murdered.
Godounov's tragedy is the discrepancy between outward
happiness and inner consciousness of guilt. The hand of
a Nemesis is suspended over all his deeds. Worse is the
Nemesis intrenched in his own soul.
A group of other historic figures very well drawn fill
the drama with life and action.
"Boris Godounov is all permeated with Russian history.
The poet condensed it; he extracted it lovingly from old
20 GROWTH OF A NATIONAL LITERATURE
documents and chronicles and transformed it into living
figures. On the very words, grave and earnest, on their choice
and arrangement, our national past and its spirit are stamped;
they are hidden in the very folds of the play notwithstanding
its Shakespearean manner. When you read Boris Godounov
you see history in action, you feel its vibration.
" Yet, the individual, the historic, became under Pushkin's
hand universal ; a human crime retained in the annals of Rus-
sian history, the poet represented not only as an event in Rus-
sian life, but as a universal phenomenon of conscience."
J. ElCHENWALD.
5. The Copper Rider. (1837.)
A series of poetic pictures and contemplations con-
nected with the city of Petersburg and its founder, Peter
the Great, whose copper statue, a powerful rider on a
wild prancing horse, seemed to Pushkin to symbolize
an entire epoch in Russian history.
The city of Petersburg, rising in melancholy beauty
from the marshes of a dreary country on the faraway
Gulf of Finland; its imposing structures combining bar-
barous taste with western refinement; its river and canals
half hidden in fog; its " white " summer nights when
dawn almost instantly follows sunset, — all the glory and
mystic charm and hopes for the future are living in this
series of poetic sketches centered around the inundation
of Petersburg in 1824. The subject, however, is wider.
The subject is Russia of modern times assimilating west-
ern civilization.
6. The Avaricious Knight. Dramatic fragment. (1836.)
Here Pushkin leaves his time and nation and carries us
back to mediaeval times. His subject is a lonely knight
devoured by the passion of avarice. The character is
represented with marvelous vigor. The Knight's mono-
A. S. PUSHKIN 21
logues are equal in psychological truth, color, and expres-
sion to those of the best classic tragedies.
[Other works of importance: Ruslan and Ludmila, fan-
tastic poem ; Mozart and Salieri, dramatic fragment ; The
Stone Guest, dramatic sketch; The Feast in Pest Time; The
Water Fairy; Tales; Songs of Eastern Slavs; The Captain's
Daughter, novelette in prose ; Byelkins Stories in prose ; Dame
Pique, story in prose; and many more. In fact, all of Push-
kin's works available in English, including his brilliant let-
ters, deserve to be studied.]
A. S. GRIBOYEDOV (1795-182 9)
Greboyedov is known as the author of one comedy,
The Misfortune of Reason. Though he wrote many other
works, they were all of slight value and would not have
made his name known. The Misfortune of Reason put
him instantly into the foremost ranks of Russian writers.
The Misfortune of Reason, a comedy in five acts, in
verse, was written between 181 8 and 1823. It subse-
quently underwent many revisions, and numerous hand-
written copies were circulating for years among the pub-
lic, arousing merriment and admiration; many monologues
of the comedy became famous before the work finally
appeared in print in 1833.
Few works equal The Misfortune of Reason in its
influence on the public mind. The comedy is a presenta-
tion of the Russian nobility and higher bureaucracy
looked at from the angle of modern progress. The scene
of action is Moscow, and the characters are a noble Rus-
sian bureaucrat, his daughter, his subordinate, a colonel
of the army, and many other representatives of society
each with his own peculiar traits. The element of pro-
test and criticism is embodied in young Tchatzky who re-
turns to Moscow after a few years of absence.
As Pushkin showed his people the better elements of
the national character, so Griboyedov showed in a realistic
manner the dark side of their life. He came, however,
not as a preacher in solemn garb; he came as a friend
who mocks at the infirmities and emptiness of the upper
class. He touched a very sensitive spot, and the response
was vast. We all know Griboyedov's characters as we
22
A. S. GRIBOYEDOV 23
know our best friends. Their ideas, the object of their
interest, their past and present are an open book to us.
Their sayings have become an integral part of every in-
tellectual's vocabulary. The various features of their
characters we can and do trace in other types created by
Russian writers and, more important; in actual life. It
is the peculiarity of The Misfortune of Reason that its
characters are undying. Lven in the twentieth century
we still find in our public life men and women who can be
identified easily with Griboyedov's heroes. We experi-
ence a melancholy satisfaction in comparing their words
and deeds with those of their prototypes in a comedy
written a hundred years ago.
The Misfortune of Reason formed all through the
nineteenth and twentieth century an integral part of the
Russian stage repertoire. Generation after generation
looked at its production with the same mirth. Its influ-
ence on dramatic literature, on the stage, on generations
of actors was immense.
"He [Griboyedov] loved the truth; he was her champion
from his very youth; he spoke the truth fearlessly, without
mercy to himself or to others. Contemporaries and witnesses
admired the power of his mind and his devotion to the truth.
Representatives of the most divergent views agree in appre-
ciating his personality. One is almost astonished that men
of this kind could really exist.
" The opinions expressed by the hero of the comedy are
quite unusual for his time. They combine admiration for
ancient Russian customs with a love for European institutions,
sympathy for the sound fundamentals of national life and
appreciation of modern progress. Tchatzky advocates higher
education, freedom of opinions ; he is proud of the new century
when ' a man can breathe freely.' This is good Russian pa-
triotism on a European basis.'7 A. Veselovsky.
24 GROWTH OF A NATIONAL LITERATURE
" Every word of Griboyedov's comedy showed life in a
comical aspect. It impressed one with the quickness of under-
standing, the originality of expression, the poetical realism of
the characters. . . . Griboyedov is one of the most powerful
manifestations of the Russian spirit."
V. G. Byelinsky.
" The comedy The Misfortune of Reason is both a picture
of social customs, a gallery of living types, and a scathing,
deeply penetrating satire. As a picture it is undoubtedly stu-
pendous. Its canvas includes a long period of Russian life,
from Catherine to Emperor Nicholas [the First]. In a group
of twenty persons is reflected, as a ray of the sun in a drop
of water, all of old Moscow, its pattern, its spirit, its man-
ners at a certain historic moment. All is done with an artistic
skill, an objectivity and perfection equaled only by Pushkin
and Gogol. In a picture which contains not one blurred spot,
not one superfluous stroke, the reader even now feels himself
at home, among living persons.
" Both the general subject and the details are taken from
the Moscow drawing-rooms and transferred into the book and
to the stage, all the time retaining their freshness and peculiar
Moscow atmosphere.
" The salt, the epigrams, the satire, the conversational verse,
it seems to me, will never die, nor will that sharp and caustic
Russian mind die which lives in Griboyedov's lines. It is im-
possible to imagine a better language, more natural, more
simple, more close to life. Prose and verse have here amalga-
mated into an indivisible entity as if with conscious intention
that they might be easier retained in memory and circulated
with all the wit, humor, fun, and malice which the author has
put into them."
A. I. GONTCHAROV.
M. J. LERMONTOV (1814-1841)
When we think of Lermontov, we see in our minds a
huge mountain-peak somewhere in the heart of the Cau-
casus. Eternal silence reigns in its clefts and gorges. Its
mass of ice and stone looks a picture of gloomy solitude.
It seems to be indifferent to the turmoil of life. Still,
there is boiling lava deep in its heart. Time and again
it shakes from the fury of compressed inner forces. On
its bare stony body little trees with lacy foliage climb
higher and higher; and when the world is in bloom,
winds laden with fragrance blow on its ragged brow,
bringing the lure of distant lands.
Such is the poet Lermontov. This is, perhaps, why
he loved the Caucasus all his life.
He is the most tragic of the Russian poets. From his
very boyhood he was full of disdain for humanity, whose
life he thought shallow, empty, and ugly; at the same
time, he was irresistibly attracted by this very meaning-
less life. He cherished the ideal of a demon, a proud,
lonely, and powerful superhuman creature challenging
peaceful virtues and conventional happiness; at the same
time he was fiercely craving for mortal love and sun-
lit human happiness, the absence of which filled his heart
with pain. He had a cool and strong intellect, a power
of analysis and criticism which revealed the futility of
endeavor in this world and dictated an attitude of bored
aloofness; at the same time he was torn by mad pas-
sions prompting him to the most unreasonable actions.
He was inclined to protest, to repudiate, to curse, and
almost without noticing he drifted into a prayer or saw
25
26 GROWTH OF A NATIONAL LITERATURE
the vision of an angel singing his quiet song over "a
world of grief and tears." Altogether he is a profoundly
unhappy nature, just the reverse of his older brother
Pushkin.
If Pushkin is primarily the poet of the Russian soul
and Russian nature, Lermontov is the first of the great
Russian poets of the spirit. And if Pushkin is funda-
mentally national, acquiring international significance
through his closeness to his native land, Lermontov is of
universal value in himself as expressing those doubts and
moods and gropings which are common to all cultured
men. This did not prevent him from being a genuine
Russian poet. One is even justified in looking for a
connection between his dark rebellious moods and the
dark conditions of the society in which he lived.
Lermontov is a self-centered poet. " The most char-
acteristic feature of Lermontov's genius," Vladimir Solov-
yov says, " is a terrific intensity of thought concentrated
on himself, on his ego, a terrific power of personal feel-
ing." This, however, is no self-centeredness. Lermontov
seeks refuge within himself because he finds no values in
the ephemeral existence of the world. He sinks into
brooding moods not because he finds in them satisfaction,
but because life does not quell his thirst for harmony and
truth. He is at war with society, with humanity, with the
universe. He is at war even with God in the name of
some great unearthly beauty which only at rare moments
gives to his soul her luminous forebodings.
If Pushkin is the poet of all the people, Lermontov is
the poet of the thinking elements in it. As such he played
a colossal role in the spiritual history of his country.
Generation after generation learned from him to hate
the sluggishness of Russian life and the convention of
M. J. LERMONTOV 27
every life, to repudiate compromises, to understand the
longing of the soul for things non-existent, and to cherish
freedom in the broad sense of the word.
Lermontov's form is in full accord with his moods,
varying from the most exquisite tenderness to " verses
coined of iron, dipped in poignancy and gall," from slow,
thoughtful, and melancholy lines to volcanic outbursts of
fury. In expressing delicate shades of emotions and in
dignified refinement Lermontov is, perhaps, even superior
to Pushkin. There is more of the elusive quality in his
poems, that which cannot be expressed in definite words.
" Horrified by the triviality of life, by its corruption and
helplessness, Lermontov sounded the motive of indignation.
This indignation, so rare in Russia, utterly alien to Pushkin,
timidly sounding in the work of Tchatzky,1 unknown to Gogol,
was something new and unheard of. Through Lermontov's
indignation, the Russian citizen for the first time became
aware of himself as a real human being. The feeling of human
dignity was stronger in Lermontov than all other feelings.
It sometimes assumed unhealthy proportions, it led him to
satanical pride, to contempt for all his surroundings. And in
the name of this human dignity, unrecognized and down-
trodden, he raised the voice of indignation.
" It appeared to him that not only society, those hangmen
of freedom and genius, but also the Deity that gave him life,
are making attempts on his inalienable rights as a man and
are preventing him from living a full, eternal life which alone
was of value to him. He saw no prospect of eternal life, no
fullness of existence, no love without betrayal, no passion with-
out satiety, and he did not wish to agree to less, as a deposed
ruler does not wish to receive donations from the hand of
the victor. . . .
" Lermontov is a religious nature, but his religion is pri-
marily a groping, an indefinite, hazy admittance of life's tragic
mystery." Evg. Solovyov (Andreyevitch.).
1 See Griboyedov.
28 GROWTH OF A NATIONAL LITERATURE
" Lermontov introduced into literature the struggle against
Philistinism. Not, perhaps, till the end of the nineteenth cen-
tury did philistinism meet a more ruthless, merciless foe. His
aversion to philistinism is the key to his entire conception of
life. His hatred for everything ordinary led him to his out-
spoken individualism and brought him near to that real ro-
manticism which was unknown in Russia before him. It also
imbued him with that contempt for the surrounding world
which it is customary to view as Lermontov's characteristic
pessimism. Lermontov, however, is not only a pessimist. Ler-
montov believed that life in itself could be beautiful, even at
present. It could be beautiful, and it was all soiled under
philistine rule, — this was for him the tragic contradiction.
Hence his pessimism, his misanthropy, his hatred for life. He
sees ethical philistinism in all social groups, in all society, in
humanity at large. From this standpoint he is perhaps the most
outspoken individualist in all Russian literature."
Ivanov-Razumnik.
" The leading motives of Lermontov's charming and spar-
kling poetry were a protest against the restrictions of individual
freedom, a detached attitude towards an oppressing world,
and the lure of another world which though not shaped clearly,
not based on a definite foundation, is possessed of an irresistible
power. This luring world is ordinarily somewhere in the past;
it is a reminiscence, not a hope ; at times it is heaven, at times,
nature, at times, an idea, unclear yet so wonderful that the
very sounds which give an inkling of its dark meaning cannot
be listened to * without emotion/ It is this better world which
gives real meaning to a soul reminiscent of it, and the idea of
this world lives in many of Lermontov's heroes.
" The idea of something which does not allow us to accept
our world as the best of all worlds, an idea appearing to men
in the best moments of their life and stirring them to action
and changes, was very strong in Lermontov's mind. The cir-
cumstances of his personal life and the conditions of his time
might have strengthened his longing for another world; funda-
mentally, however, this longing is an inherent quality of man-
kind, and through it, Lermontov is close not only to his own
M. J. LERMONTOV 29
contemporaries, but also to readers of the present and the
future."
I. Ignatov.
" What an abundance of power, what a variety of ideas and
images, emotions and pictures ! What a strong fusion of energy
and grace, depth and ease, elevation and simplicity!
" Not a superfluous word; everything in its place; every-
thing as required, because everything had been felt before it
was said, everything had been seen before it was put on the
canvas. His song is free, without strain. It flows forth, here
as a roaring waterfall, there as a lucid stream.
" The quickness and variety of emotions are controlled by
the unity of thought; agitation and struggle of opposing ele-
ments readily flow into one harmony, as the musical instru-
ments in an orchestra join in one harmonious entity under
the conductor's baton. And all sparkles with original colors,
all is imbued with genuine creative thought and forms a new
world similar to none."
V. G. Byelinsky.
1. Lyrical poems. (182 8-1 841.)
"Invincible spiritual power; subdued complaints; the fra-
grant incense of prayer; flaming, stormy inspiration; silent
sadness; gentle pensiveness; cries of proud suffering, moans
of despair; mysterious tenderness of feeling; indomitable out-
bursts of daring desires; chaste purity; infirmities of modern
society; pictures from the life of the universe; intoxicating
lures of existence; pangs of conscience; sweet remorse; sobs
of passion; quiet tears flowing in the fullness of a heart that
has been tamed in the storms of life; joy of love; trembling of
separation; gladness of meeting; emotions of a mother; con-
tempt for the prose of life; mad thirst for ecstasies; complete-
ness of spirit that rejoices over the luxuries of existence; burn-
ing faith; pains of soul's emptiness; outcry of a life that shuns
itself; poison of negation; chill of doubt; struggle between
fullness of experience and destructive reflection; angel fallen
from heaven; proud demon and innocent child; impetuous
3o GROWTH OF A NATIONAL LITERATURE
bacchante and pure maiden, — all, all is contained in Lermon-
tov's poetry: heaven and earth, paradise and hell. ..."
V. G. Byelinsky.
2. The Demon. A fantastic poem. (182 9-1 841.)
The Demon, the Spirit of Evil, craves to free himself
from his cold loneliness and to rise to heights of harmony
through love for a mortal, the nun Tamar. The scene is
set in the Caucasus, and the story is full of the mystic
glow of the Orient.
The figure of the Demon was the creation Lermontov
loved most. He worked on it practically all his life.
"Lermontov's Demon is not a symbol of the eternal Evil;
he is not the Satan, he is a proud spirit, embittered and there-
fore sowing evil. He lived a lonely, monotonous life. He
spread evil without satisfaction to himself. The Demon is an
idealist suffering from disappointment. His hatred for mortals
is too human. His love for Tamar suddenly transforms him.
Her appearance makes him comprehend the sanctity of ' love,
the good, and the beautiful ' which had never been foreign
to his soul, but lay hidden in its remotest corners. A Demon,
however, is not destined for joy. Victory does not satisfy
his heart, and torn by despair, he goes to tear the one he loves."
K. I. Arabazhin.
3. Mtzyri. (1840.)
The poem of freedom. A Circassian boy brought up in
a monastery and ready to become a monk, is lured by the
wild freedom of nature. On a stormy night he runs away
from his half-voluntary prison. For three days he is
absent. On the fourth, he is found in the fields near the
monastery. He is exhausted and dying. The poem
consists mainly of the boy's story. He tells what he ex-
perienced in his dash for freedom.
In Mtzyri, Lermontov expressed one of his strongest
M. J. LERMONTOV 31
emotions: his desire to be free like the wind, like the
eagle on top of a mountain, like a powerful horse running
through the boundless steppe. It is the fullness of life
that lured both Lermontov and his Caucasian hero.
4. Ismael Bey. An epic poem. (1832.)
The scene of action is the Caucasus, the fight of the
native mountain tribes against Russian aggression. At-
tention is centered on IsmaePs drama.
" Ismael is endowed by nature with a powerful mind, a
strong will, and stormy passions; in a word, he possesses the
qualities of a demon whom nobody can oppose unpunished.
He is a son of the mountains, a free child of wild nature who
was early torn away from his homeland and made to taste
the fruit of civilization. This devastated his soul. When he
finally comes back to his native mountains, he believes regen-
eration is still possible for his withered soul. But he is mis-
taken, a civilized man cannot return to the happiness of the
primitive. Ismael remains alone with his hatred for the Rus-
sians who swept the mountain ranges of his country with iron
and fire. He is alone with his gloom and regret."
Nestor Kotlyarevsky.
Much has been spoken about the influence of Byron
on Lermontov's poetry. Lermontov himself was aware
of a certain kinship of souls between himself and Byron.
Careful investigators agree, however, that there was only
a certain affinity of moods between both poets, but that
Lermontov never imitated Byron.
5. Song of Tzar Ivan Vassilyevitch. Epic poem.
(1838.)
Lermontov was a singer of heroism. Heroic moods and
heroic deeds were at the very heart of his poetry. He
32 GROWTH OF A NATIONAL LITERATURE
found the heroic in his demon, in the wild inhabitants of
the Caucasus, but he also looked for heroes in the past
of Russia. The Song of Tzar Ivan Vassilyevitch presents
a hero coming from the rank of the people and challeng-
ing the authority of the Tzar even under the threat of
death. The poem is written in the tone and in the spirit
of the heroic folk-tales and as such was considered a
remarkable contribution to Russian literature.
[Other works of importance: Boyar Orsha; Maskarade; The
Hero of Our Times^]
A. V. KOLTZOV ( 1 808-1 842)
A poet. He came from the very bottom of society, from
the house of a poor merchant, a dealer in cattle, wool, and
lard. He received no school education, and spent all his
boyhood and even years of maturity helping his father in
business. He took a fancy early for reading, and became
interested in poetry. At fifteen he still used to sing the
poems he happened to find in books. Later he began to
write poetry himself. Soon he attracted the attention of
Byelinsky and his friends, who published some of his
poems, but he never succeeded in freeing himself from
ugly surroundings so as to devote himself entirely to
literature.
Koltzov is a strange phenomenon of the Russian spirit.
Without education, almost unlettered, he manifests a
talent for poetry and a sense of beauty which make his
poems a valuable and unique contribution to Russian
literature. His poems are mostly an artistic improvisa-
tion on the themes of folk-songs. No folk-songs, how-
ever, have been as perfect and as musical as those simple,
unsophisticated, yet entirely charming imitations. There
is the freshness of primitive life in his lines, as if a whole
country, forlorn and yearning under a pale sky, began
suddenly to sing in sweet rhymes the chant of its hopes
and sorrows. There is the fragrance of genuine Russia in
Koltzov's poems, the Russia of vast steppes, melancholy
songs, dark forests, untamed souls, and fundamental un-
happiness. Koltzov's songs are as subdued, unassuming,
33
34 GROWTH OF A NATIONAL LITERATURE
and chaste as the little birch-tree in the midst of a Russian
meadow.
Poems. (182 7-1842.)
" Koltzov's poems are unique in our literature. When you
read him you have a feeling that the ancient popular bards
had awakened to life in all their power. More marvelous is it
that this poet of the golden cornfields and vast steppes came
from an environment where petty greed for money and comfort
deadens the feeling of beauty."
V. V. Kallash.
" Koltzov is a real artist. He saw the universe with a
human eye, he saturated the universe with humanity, he
blended human life with nature. Everything is alive for Kol-
tzov, life is everywhere, joy is intertwined with sorrow, light
and shadow flow into a higher harmony. His poetry is the
expression of the pantheist's feelings; he is always aware
of harmony diffused in nature; he bows before Divine Power."
N. Brodsky.
Koltzov's poems are not many. He died young.
V. G. BYELINSKY (1811-1848)
Critic, publicist, and philosopher. Founder of Russian
literary criticism.
The name of Byelinsky stands out as a bright light in
the history of Russian thought. The whole decade of the
forties is named after Byelinsky. He was a real teacher
of men in the best sense of the word. He stood at the
very center of the spiritual movement of his generation,
and his influence was colossal. He possessed broad
knowledge, great talent as a writer, an arduous tempera-
ment, and an extraordinary charm of personality.
Byelinsky was the first of a series of critics who blended
literary appreciation with the exposition of a philosophical
theory and at the same time shaped social views. A man
with a burning love for pure literature and pure art, Bye-
linsky never satisfied himself with pure criticism, but
strove always to put a broader foundation under his
literary opinions. Starting out with the philosophy of
Schelling and Fichte, he soon became an adherent of
Hegel, and in his essays attempted to interpret the teach-
ings of his master. Nature and history were to him only
manifestations of the Absolute. The spirit, in his opinion,
was supreme, and real happiness could be found only in
the depths of a man's spirit. Hegel's axiom, " All that is
real, is reasonable," he propounded in a very eloquent
manner. In nature he found wonderful harmony, in its
infinite variety he saw great unity. History to him was
" a real and reasonable development of the Divine Idea."
He, therefore, found no cause for criticizing history or
striving to improve its present course.
35
36 GROWTH OF A NATIONAL LITERATURE
Soon, however, he abandoned this doctrine, descending
from quiescent, idealistic heights to the burning realities
of life. Contact with surrounding conditions and more
mature thinking convinced him that not all " existing "
was " reasonable," at least not in his native land. Con-
sequently, he abandons metaphysics for positive knowl-
edge; admiration for the world's harmony is superseded
in his works by scathing criticism of existing evils; in-
difference to political problems gives way to an acute
interest in the political destinies of his country. From
a pure idealist he becomes a realist, and this second
period of his life (approximately nine years, 1 839-1 847)
is the most active and fruitful.
In accordance with his philosophic and social concep-
tions, his views on literature and art also underwent a
radical change. In his first period, he preaches pure art
as an incarnation of beauty, as an expression of the idea
of " nature's universal life " and as a representation of
" not the problems of the day, but the problems of ages,
not the interests of a country, but the interests of the
world, not the destiny of parties, but the destinies of
mankind "; in his second period, he becomes more in-
clined to appreciate literature that depicts actual life,
actual persons, actual conditions even in a naturalistic
way. Now, as formerly, he is a champion of the sov-
ereignty of art. He would not like to make art and
literature a means of social or political propaganda. He
believes in the freedom of the writer and demands truth-
fulness above all. Still he maintains that art, true and
independent, may have a great social function. " No-
body, save the stupid and the immature," he wrote,
" would demand that a poet sing hymns to virtue and
punish vice with satire; yet every man of reason has a
V. G. BYELINSKY 37
right to demand that the poet's poetry give answers to
the problems of the day, or at least that it be saturated
with grief over those grave insoluble problems."
Throughout all his changes Byelinsky carried his high
enthusiasm and his sincerity. " Furious Vissarion "
[Vissarion was his first name] his contemporaries rightly
called him. He accepted every idea, every thought, every
impression with great animation. His style was a white-
hot metal spreading sparks and an almost oppressive
radiance. Byelinsky was possessed of real intellectual
passion, and carried away his readers in whatever direc-
tion his genius was striving. In the second period of his
life, he exerted a greater influence on Russia, as he came
closer to those problems which nobody could escape. In
a letter to Gogol, he thus voiced the demands of Russia:
" Russia sees her salvation, not in mysticism, not in
asceticism, not in ossified piety, but in the progress of
civilization, in enlightenment, in humanitarianism. She
needs, not preachings (she has had enough of them! ), not
prayers (she has prayed them long enough!), but the
awakening in the people of a feeling of human dignity
lost for centuries in mire and dirt; she needs right and
law in accordance with common sense and justice, and
a rigid execution of the law. Instead of this, she repre-
sents the terrible picture of a country where men sell and
buy men,1 a country where people do not call themselves
by full name but by derogatory nicknames, a country
lacking guarantees of personal dignity and property, and
governed by a huge corporation of various robbers and
thieves."
This high pressure of civic indignation, together with
1 Under serfdom, families of peasants could be sold by their mas-
ters and transferred to new owners.
38 GROWTH OF A NATIONAL LITERATURE
an unequaled love for art and beauty, endeared Byelinsky
to Russian society and made him a teacher not only of
his contemporaries, but of many following generations.
Time has shown many of Byelinsky's errors and shed a
clearer light on many of his views. Yet his great heart,
his deep love, his passion for the truth, his hatred for
oppression, and his adoration of harmony of life and of
spirit are undying and still exert their influence on mil-
lions of Russians.
" Byelinsky represents the progress of Russian thought from
the abstract realms of literature, estheticism, and philosophy
towards social problems. Byelinsky cherished the ideal of a
moral human personality, an ideal which grew in our midst
after European examples in the course of an entire historic
epoch; at the same time, he passionately repudiated the
social ugliness of his time. His point of view, his tempera-
ment, and the trend of the best contemporary minds made it
impossible for him to enjoy truth, beauty, and a moral ideal in
a theoretical way only; he wished to see the realization in life
of what was his deep conviction and the object of his heart's
devotion. This is why he was indignant at the sight of rotten-
ness and meanness which he encountered everywhere. He cer-
tainly was a negator, and nobody ought to overlook or mini-
mize this side of his activities. Yet he was all his life in the
power of ideals which gave tone and meaning to his negation.
His ideals changed, to be sure, but never in his life was he
devoid of ideals. Only in the name of an ideal did Byelinsky
repudiate first the Russian literature of the preceding period
and then contemporary conditions. To him can justly be
applied the maxim that hatred is the other side of love. Both
were combined in his work, both appeared hand in hand.
And it is due to Byelinsky's ideals and their application that
his influence was so great. Byelinsky educated entire genera-
tions not only by his repudiation of the archaic, the back-
ward, and the useless, but also by elevating our minds and
souls to the heights of a moral ideal which could be formu-
lated by every one in accordance with his conception and serve
V. G. BYELINSKY 39
as a basis for practical work. Byelinsky exerted a direct in-
fluence on the life-giving soil and the root of every ideal, —
on the human, moral, and spiritual personality."
K. D. Kavyelin.
" If at present Byelinsky's words touch us more by their
tone of conviction and by their animation than by making us
feel that we have heard undying vital truths; if at the
mention of his name we are now stirred by emotion rather
than by restless thought, one ought not to forget that there
was a time when Byelinsky's words were an answer both to
the queries of Russian hearts and Russian minds. Byelinsky's
criticisms were for his time a quite complete encyclopedia of
knowledge. Byelinksy was not only a witness but a judge of
an entire epoch in our development; he lived it as hardly
any of his contemporaries, because nobody equaled him in the
ability to respond to all the problems of spiritual and material
life which at that time had not only to be discussed, but some-
times guessed, conceived, and formulated for the first time.
Byelinsky's generation found in his critical essays the most
complete and many-sided expression. His essays are the most
important document of an entire decade in the history of our
progress. They are a historic monument which sums up the
flow of our philosophical, esthetic, historical, and social
thought for many years; they tell the history of our self-
consciousness in one of the most remarkable moments in our
development; they tell it, perhaps, not always with full ob-
jectivity, but sincerely, completely, with a rare broadness and
depth of critical outlook." N. Kotlyarevsky.
" Byelinsky was not only a man of the highest nobility of
character, a great critic of artistic works and a publicist highly
responsive to the problems of his time, but he also manifested
a marvelous foresight in formulating the deepest and most
important problems of our later social development."
G. V. Plekhanov.
1. On Gogol's Stories. Essay. (1835.)
2. A. V. Koltzov. Essay. (1835.)
40 GROWTH OF A NATIONAL LITERATURE
3. Two Essays on Lermontov. (1840.)
4. The W or ks oj Alexander Pushkin. Treatise. (1846.)
Byelinsky's manner of treatment is both broad and de-
tailed. He usually outlines a theoretical foundation for
his views and then proceeds to analyze the author from
this angle. His analysis is never detached. Byelinsky
is either full of admiration which he expresses in enthusi-
astic words, or he is indignant and then his speech is
still more heated. On whatever he writes, he impresses
his personality, and you feel that for him criticizing was
not only literary work, but a humanitarian service of the
highest rank.
[The student of Byelinsky's works will be very much inter-
ested in his yearly Reviews of Russian Literature for 1840-
1847, and in his treatise on Russian Folklore Poetry.]
N. V. GOGOL (1809-1852)
Foremost Russian humorist. A man who wrote of him-
self that he described life " through visible laughter and
invisible tears, hidden from the world." The discrep-
ancies, crudeness, emptiness, and meanness of provincial
life under the bureaucratic regime is the object of his
unrivaled mockery which for seventy-five years has made
Russia tremble with delight, notwithstanding the accom-
panying moral indignation.
Gogol's types are undying. GogoPs mots are a part of
the Russian vocabulary. GogoPs lyrical descriptions of
Russian nature, strangely intertwined with most cutting
comical scenes and situations, are learned by heart in
Russian schools. In the midst of life gloomy under a
load of misery, made painful by unfulfilled desires, down-
trodden under the boot of a reckless ruling caste, Gogol
was the mocking bird whose gay laughter, flowing from a
loving heart, brought relief and comfort.
Yet, in GogoPs own heart there was no gaiety and no
feeling of comfort. Gogol was a dreamer first, a humorist
second. He loved to dwell in a romantic world where
everything is beautiful, harmonious, perfect; and he was
compelled by his humorous talent to lead people into a
world where everything is petty, trivial, ugly. He longed
to picture men and women of moral strength, virtue and
purity, and he saw about himself people with crooked
souls and crooked morals. Moreover, he thought him-
self the prototype of all his humorous persons, and this
weighed heavily on his exalted religious spirit. Torn by
41
42 GROWTH OF A NATIONAL LITERATURE
mental agonies, he gave up his realistic writings, destroyed
the second part of his Dead Souls in a vain hope to find
more sublime channels for his creative work. In fight-
ing against himself, he destroyed his marvelous talent
and practically died for Russian literature long before his
physical death.
Marks of these intense struggles are on all, even the
most famous of his works. Gogol is not an accuser. He
hardly aimed at radical social reforms. He did not blame
the political system, though others used his writings as
a splendid illustration of the viciousness of the old
regime. Gogol himself was horror-stricken at the sight
of human infirmities. His laughter was not the result
of feeling morally superior, but a kind of sympathy
for the afflicted. He suffered himself as he laughed. He
often interrupted his laughter with long lyrical outpour-
ings in which he spoke of Russia's destinies, of a poet's
task, or contemplated people in general. He alternated
between excruciating pain and wild enthusiasm, between
the most minute scrutiny of the most trifling phenomena
and a sweeping vision devoid of definite contours but
full of mysterious light. He loved his country with an
intensity and adoration bordering on delirium, and he
saw everywhere only devils making mischief in his native
land. He was intolerably proud and intolerably humble;
he made people roar with mirth, and he was mortally
wounded in the grip of the typical Russian toska (melan-
choly).
His style is, of course, an expression of his soul. He is
considered the first Russian realist (though Pushkin de-
serves this title with more right), yet he constantly over-
steps the boundaries of realism. He is supposed to
picture Russia as it actually is, yet he is always exaggerat-
N. V. GOGOL 43
ing in the direction of the grotesque, or of the romantic,
or of the symbolic. Such is the intensity of his talent
that he carries the reader completely in the direction he
chooses. The brightness of colors in his pictures is over-
whelming. The teeming life in even his romantic stories
is amazing. The clearness of lines, the variety of pattern
is unmatched in Russian literature. There is almost too
much movement and too many voices in his works. All
is drenched with an emotion which breathes into the
gayest pages the chill of unfathomable depths.
As time passed, Gogol was appreciated more and more
in Russia. In the twentieth century, he is even more
valued, because more understood, than he had ever been
before.
" From his early years Gogol, more than any other Russian
and even non-Russian writer, conceived the delusive joy, the
limitless power, the deadening poison, and the suicidal bitter-
ness of laughter. In his Author's Confession he tells us that
even in his childhood and boyhood he experienced ' fits of
mockery ' deriding all his surroundings. This is why even in
his earliest creations, in those ' carefree scenes ' as he calls
them, we find the intrusion of something terrible, something
elementally funny, something demoniacal into the midst of
the most picturesque and even idyllic places. Later, as the
naive creations of his first ' carefree scenes , were followed
by others more numerous and marked with depth and perfec-
tion, they turned into an entire world, an inimitable museum
full of little monsters. In this collection of crippled, deformed,
and dwarfed beings, in this amusing zoological garden which
speaks all languages of the world, in this hospital in which
only hopelessly incurable cases are accepted, in this remark-
able world, you would seek in vain for even one figure that is
not funny. And no wonder; is it not laughter that called
them all into being? "
Ellis (pseud.).
44 GROWTH OF A NATIONAL LITERATURE
" Everybody sees evil in great violations of the moral law,
in rare, unusual crimes, in tragic catastrophes of a shocking
nature. Gogol was the first to notice the most dreadful, eter-
nal evil not in a tragedy but in the absence of anything tragic,
not in power but in the lack of power, not in senseless ex-
tremes but in too sensible mediocrity, not in sharpness and
depth but in dullness and flatness, in triviality of all human
feelings and thoughts, not in the greatest but in the smallest.
Gogol was the first to understand that the devil is in reality
something infinitely small, and seems large only because we
ourselves are so very small; that he is the most feeble thing,
appearing strong only because we ourselves are so feeble. ' I
call things by their real name/ he said ; ' I call the devil, devil,
I do not give him a splendid costume a la Byron, and I know
that he wears a frock-coat/ . . . ' The devil appeared in the
world without a mask: he looks what he actually is.' . . .
Gogol was the first to see the devil without a mask, to see
his real face, which is dreadful not by virtue of unusual quali-
ties but because it is ordinary and trivial; he was the first
to understand that the face of the devil is not anything dis-
tant, uncommon, strange, or fantastic, but that it is a very
close and well known, real ' human all too human * face, the
face of the crowd, a face ' like everybody's,' almost our own
face at moments when we dare not be ourselves and agree
to be ' like everybody.' "
D. S. Merezhkovsky.
" If we have a right to demand of an author that he repro-
duce before our eyes the pulse not of one individual person,
but of an entire diversified society, then Gogol's works ought
to take the first place among the novels that preceded them or
appeared at one time with them, and may be considered the
first realistic productions. They helped their reader to under-
stand the meaning of the historic moment in which he lived.
Gogol's comedies and Dead Souls thus filled one of the greatest
gaps in Russian literature. Gogol's characters were not indi-
vidual phenomena, they were Russia itself with its current
social habits, tendencies, thoughts, and programs of life. Gogol
has a right to be called a realistic writer, not only because he
N. V. GOGOL 45
described the Russian people in a realistic manner, but be-
cause he grasped the real substance of Russian life, because
fte knew how to incarnate in a single type a wealth of mental
states and a number of lives."
Nestor Kotlarevsky.
" Gogol understands the secret of being hail-fellow with his
readers; with enviable ease he practises a language of fa-
miliarity which puts us straight into the atmosphere of patri-
archal life, making us feel its specific odor even by the very
construction of the phrases. He speaks with his readers in the
tone of an old acquaintance, as if he had lived with them in the
same town, perhaps on the same street, had seen them nearly
every day and is sure they know him as well as his friends
and everything he tells about them. Gogol indulges in all
sorts of intimacies with his readers, and his talk is sometimes
peculiarly simple-hearted and gentle."
V. Th. Pereverzev.
i. Evenings on a Farm Near Dikanka. Ukrainian
Tales. (183 1.)
In these charming stories the fantastic and the realis-
tic, the heroic and the humorous are strangely inter-
twined. The beliefs of the plain folk in Ukrainia, Gogol's
native land, the various types of the Ukrainian village,
the beauty of the Ukrainian landscape, and the legends
and myths of the Ukrainian past, form the unique texture
of these stories. What is, perhaps, most precious in them
is Ukrainian nature. Russia has not many such artistic
descriptions of a rich and colorful country.
The conflict between the two elements in GogoPs soul,
the romantic and the realistic, is strikingly manifest in
these stories.
2. The Controller General. Comedy. (1836.)
One of the most famous of GogoPs works. The scene
of action is the provincial bureaucracy. The Controller
46 GROWTH OF A NATIONAL LITERATURE
is an integral part of the Russian repertoire, an ever-
lasting source of merriment. When it was first set in a
printing shop, the typesetters could not work for laughter;
the proof readers shook in convulsions of laughter. Audi-
ences, then and now, all over the country burst into
uproars.
The source of humor in The Controller General is in
the situation and characters, not in exaggerations. In
his Instructions to the actors, Gogol warns them to play
most naturally, to be modest, to appear even a little more
noble than the persons represented would be in life.
The actor ought not to think of being funny. " The
comical," Gogol writes, " will appear in the very serious-
ness with which every person of the comedy pursues his
own task."
The main hero is Khlestakov, an impostor, a byword
in the mouth of every educated Russian, as are all the
characters of the comedy.
" Khlestakov's lies have something in common with the
creative inventions of an artist. He is intoxicated by his
fantasy to full abandon. Least of all does he think of gain,
of material advantage. His is a disinterested lying, lying for
lying's sake, art for art's sake. He requires nothing of his
hearers but that they believe him. He lies innocently, in an
unsophisticated manner, he is the first to believe what he tells,
he deceives himself; herein is the secret of his influence. . . .
He has the ability to turn everything into one dimension, the
flatness of triviality."
S. D. Merezhkovsky.
" Gogol's humor is quiet, quiet in its very indignation, good-
natured in its very shrewdness. He has, however, still another
humor, frank and menacing in its frankness. This humor
bites till blood runs, it sinks its teeth into the flesh to the very
bone, it hits with all its might, it lashes right and left with
N. V. GOGOL 47
its whip which is woven of hissing serpents. This humor is
full of gall, of venom; it knows no mercy."
V. G. Byelinsky.
3. The Dead Souls. Novel. (1842.)
This is Gogol's main work. It is a broad panorama
of Russian provincial life under the system of serfdom.
The peasants are not yet considered human beings, but
" souls " who can be bought and sold. The landlords are
ignorant, idle, and addicted to primitive physical pleas-
ures. The bureaucracy is part and parcel of this system,
thriving on it in a parasitic way. When Pushkin heard
the reading of the manuscript of this work he exclaimed:
" God, what a sad country our Russia is! " Yet he could
not help laughing.
" The salient characteristic of GogoPs writing, the extraordi-
nary plasticity and vividness of his figures, reaches its climax
here. Russian literature knows of no other figures that would
surpass the figures of The Dead Souls in vividness and striking
power. The contents of the book is, however, too national, it
is too Russian. The Dead Souls is a picture of Russia. Gogol
saw the process of disintegration of the primitive, patriarchal
system of serfdom, and the dreadful vulgarity of this primitive
life. The picture is actually appalling."
N. I. Korobka.
" What is common to all Gogol's figures, is the emptiness of
their existence. This emptiness shows itself either in complete
idleness or in paltry and senseless activities of no use to any-
body and is accompanied by the failure to understand that it
is emptiness or even by a proud conviction of being the salt
of the earth. This is the source of merriment those types
provoke. The more satisfied they are with themselves, the
more they are convinced that they are the center of the uni-
verse, the more comical and strange do they appear and the
less pity you feel for them. . . . This feature of Gogol's
48 GROWTH OF A NATIONAL LITERATURE
characters is a subjective psychological reflection of their posi-
tion in society. They belong to a class that has become
economically and socially useless while it still maintains its
legal status as the first and foremost class."
M. Th. Pereverzev.
The Dead Souls are really undying. Even as late as
the twentieth century we still found in Russia types and
characters which we easily identified with the persons
of this great, though unfinished, work.
4. The Cloak. Novelette. (1836.)
If ever Gogol strove to make us feel the misery of life
and at the same time to open our souls for a real under-
standing of our fellow human beings, for moral indigna-
tion over the wrongs of the world and for the highest
altruistic emotions, he succeeded in this small sketch,
which is the history of one humble ordinary creature
crushed under the weight of a cruel and senseless order.
" What are you doing? Am I not your brother? " this
poor, funny man seems to cry out for generations over
the entire length and breadth of Russia.
[Other important works : Taras Bulba; Mirgorod; Arabesques,
and Marriage.]
S. T. AKSAKOV (1791-1859)
Aksakov is first of all and above all a Russian gentle-
man, a member of the land-holding nobility. His works
have the odor of the eastern steppe, the freshness of a
field-brook, the peacefulness of clear summer evenings in
a blessed country place. The things that _ live, Jn— his-
.books are those beautiful country places in eastern Rus-
siajnot yet invaded by modern civilization, placid and
contented in their patriarchal simplicity. Aksakov takes
us into the homes of the landed nobility and into their
jamily-lifeT showsus their ideas, their cultural strivings.
\ Contrary to Gogoljand many another writer, |he accentu-
ates the good quali&iea of the old-fashioned Russian
pomieshchik ^landlord).) Qis^wo^ks^are^in a manner, a
record of intellectual life among the Russian nobility at_
the end of the eighteenth century^
However, being a sincere narrator, Aksakov could not
pass over the dark basis of the pomieshchik life, — serf-
dom. (His good-natured and powerful old types manifest
sometimes a cruelty towards Jh^ir^easants_wl^hjejeins
ghastly" now. \besbo^smUs^n_j^standing feature of
those quiet little nests amid a primitive and blossoming
country, — despotism in the relation between tiiejathej:
andjhe rest of the family T and despotism in the relation
to the unpaid laborers. If these qualities provoke in us
a smile rather than indignation, it is due primarily to the
good humor, the epic tone and the devotion to the old
life with which this old gentleman, Aksakov, proceeds
in his narratives.
49
50 GROWTH OF A NATIONAL LITERATURE
" He is more than a thinker, he is a sage. . . . Lack of
pretense, simplicity, candor, combined with an ardent and
tender heart, soundness of judgment and clearness of vision,
not excluding passionate outbursts, honesty, integrity, indif-
ference to material advantages, a fine artistic perception, a
sound judgment, all these qualities endeared Sergey Timofeye-
vitch to every one who knew him."
Iv. S. Aksakov. (Son of S. T. Aksakov.)
i. Family Chronicles. (1856.)
A history of the family Bagrov for a number of gen-
erations. It was no secret in Russia thatjunder the guise
of Bagrov,[ [Aksakov portrayed his own grandfather,
father and mother land other members of his family.
Notwithstanding this biographical" character of tEe
Chronicles, the book possesses a general interest as a
picture of the local gentry at the end of the eighteenth
century.
Excerpts from this book have become an integral part
of every school-reader, still it has great value also for
adults. The simplicity of a life close to nature lends this
work a lasting charm.
" Side by side with landscapes, fresh hues and intimacy of
tone, the Family Chronicles possesses another valuable ele-
ment; namely, \yivid and graphic characterization.] Aksakov's
memory has retained for decades hundreds and thousands of
characteristic details. This wealth of details lends the work
a marvelous richness and makes it all alive. . . . Hardly
any other book in Russian literature contains\a fuller picture
of gentry ljfejn the good old times, ]a strange mixture of
the most sympathetic good-naturedness with a wild and at
times even beastly despotism."
S. A. Vengerov.
I^Vc^vJqI^ tha tHT+h about *hp old timesjjt is not the
full truth, to be sure, but what he tells is authentic, uncolored,
S. T. AKSAKOV 51
and this is his artistic contribution and his social merit.
Being averse to cruelty, he retained a warm feeling, a rela-
tive's love for the cruel, and if this is somewhat of an offense
to our moral sense, if at times we would expect of Aksakov
less lyricism and more indignation, still this circumstance does
not take away from the truthfulness of the story as to facts
and artistic presentation, and this is the main thing we may
expect of memoirs. Aksakov's tranquil narrative did not lull
the reader into sleep; on the contrary, it stirred his feeling of
responsibility and aroused hopes for a better future."
M. A. Protopopov.
2. Notes of a Hunter in the Province of Orenburg.
Sketches. (1852.)
Lovers of primitive nature and descriptions of wild life
found a peculiar joy in reading these. One might call
them poems in prose, dealing with the woods, rivers, and
various sorts of animals in eastern Russia at a time when
that region was almost untouched by civilization. Aksa-
kov's language, style and manner in this book are superb.
" Let the reader not think that Notes of a Hunter has value
only for sportsmen. Every one who loves nature in all its
variety, in all its beauty and power, every one who is touched
by the manifestation of universal life wherein man himself
stands as a living link, superior to the others but closely con-
nected with them, will not be able to forget Mr. Aksakov's
work: it will become his favorite; he will read and reread it.
The specialist in natural science will be enchanted.' '
I. S. Turgenev.
[Another important work of Aksakov's is The Childhood of
Bagrov-Grandson, being a sequel to Family Chronicles.]
A. N. OSTROVSKY (182 3-1 886)
First professional Russian playwright. Creator of an
original Russian repertoire and a realistic Russian theater.
Though not considered among the greatest classic authors,
Ostrovsky occupies an honorable place in Russian litera-
ture. He belongs to the few chosen whose work it was to
mirror in literature, for the first time, a certain social
group and thus to make Russia see herself as she was.
The realm of Ostrovsky's observations is primarily
the Russian middle-class, merchants and manufacturers,
as they could be seen in Moscow and in provincial towns
about the middle of the century. As Ostrovsky repre-
sents it, this class is in the powerful grip of tradition.
It had hardly changed in its family relations since the
seventeenth century. The order is strictly patriarchal.
The power of the father is practically unlimited. Wives,
sons and daughters, especially the latter, lead a life of
fear and subordination. Still, there are many splendid
characters among those people, and underneath the
deadening crust of centuries-old habits runs a stream
of fresh life. The best of the class are protesting in
various ways, longing, as they are, for a more human
existence, for light and independence.
Ostrovsky is a strong realist. The characters of his
plays are taken from the very midst of life and are
typical. Many of his characters have become a byword
in Russia. His dialogues are a treasure of the Russian
language. As a playwright, he was very skilful, and for
decades his productions were a feature of the Russian
stage.
52
A. N. OSTROVSKY 53
Though Ostrovsky's plays are primarily centered
around the family relations of their heroes, they give also
a picture of the middle-class as an economic and social
group. Many other groups appear in his productions,
but his fame is based on his presentations of the middle-
class.
" Reviewing in memory the long series of Ostrovsky's
heroes and heroines, you invariably see them equipped either
with the mouth of a wolf or with the tail of a fox, or with
both. The psychology of violence and fraud as they appear
in Russia is the subject of nearly all Ostrovsky's plays. It
forms the contents at least of those works which will live
as Ostrovsky's most characteristic productions and which are
a valuable contribution to Russian literature and Russian
scenic art. Ostrovsky's historic dramas and historic chronicles
may possess good qualities, but they are not original and are
not characteristic of him as an author. His power is in his
depicting of typical Russian violence and fraud with inex-
haustible force and the most penetrating analysis."
N. K. MlKHAYLOVSKY.
"At the basis of Ostrovsky's plays lie democratic ideals,
not in the political sense of adherence to a social order based
on democratic principles, but in the broader sense as applied
to everyday life and individual morality. Simplicity, mildness,
honesty, truthfulness, courage in the fight against evil, hard
assiduous work, are everywhere contrasted with laziness, loose-
ness of manner, lewdness, meekness, outward luster, false ap-
pearances, unrestricted despotism, and stubborn wilfulness.
We see representatives of the various social groups. They
are far from perfection, sometimes they are very funny and
awkward. Others are strong of spirit and will, and are
actuated by a desire even to sacrifice their lives for their
neighbors. . . . As to the scope of Ostrovsky's works, we
are amazed to find in them an unusually broad panorama of
Russian life, present and past."
A. M. Skabitchevsky.
54 GROWTH OF A NATIONAL LITERATURE
" There is a profound reason why Ostrovsky chose the mer-
chant class as his subject, outside of the fact that he was
intimately acquainted with it. The merchant class, as the
most numerous and active, was by its very occupation com-
pelled to come into contact with all the other social groups
and classes; it thus acquired all the habits and customs pre-
vailing in Russia; it crystallized, as it were, the fundamental
traits of the national character; it manifested both the influ-
ences of a many-sided civilization and those primitive features
which retained their original simplicity."
P. Weinberg.
i. The Storm. Drama, (i860.)
This is Ostrovsky's most famous play. The conflict
between the deadening grip of a crude patriarchal family
life and the craving of a young beautiful woman's soul
towards emotional freedom, is given a most vivid pres-
entation. It is one of the most genuine Russian crea-
tions.
" The dramatic conflicts and catastrophes in Ostrovsky's
works are the result of conflicts between old and young, rich
and poor, despotic and defenseless. We see the melancholy
faces of our younger brothers, sad, full of resignation. This
is a world of subdued, silently moaning grief, a world of
dull, nagging pain, a world of prisonlike, gravelike silence.
There is no light, no warmth, no space to move in. Yet man
is alive; you never can destroy his craving for life. In utter
darkness, a spark is sometimes rekindled, that sacred fire
which burns in the heart of every man before it is drowned
in the muddy swamp of life. By the passing light of those
sparks we see the sufferings of our brothers. Such a ' spark
of light in the world of darkness * is Katharine, the heroine
of The Storm" N. A. Dobrolyubov.
2. Poverty Is No Crime. Comedy. (1854.)
We see another protest here, the protest of a man who
prefers poverty and freedom to the restrictions imposed
A. N. OSTROVSKY 55
on the human soul by wealth. There are two brothers
in the comedy, one is prosperous and proud, the other
has squandered his property, he is almost a beggar, and
he has no family and no shelter. Yet he has retained
independence of spirit; his judgment is broad and hu-
mane, and the reader is irresistibly attracted to him.
[Other works of interest : The Snow-Maiden, Bad Days. Os-
trovsky's plays number several dozen.]
TH. M. RESHETNIKOV (1841-1871)
A simple son of the people who, through infinite pain
and struggle, acquired an education and began to write,
describing the life of the poor in a very realistic manner.
His sketches, particularly those depicting the peasants in
eastern Russia, made a profound impression. They
were like the call of the earth itself, the cry of a life
caught in the clutches of poverty, suffering, ignorance,
cruelty. . . . Nobody equaled Reshetnikov in power,
though his talent is quite inferior to that of the great
masters.
Those of Podlipovka. Novelette. (1864.)
A history of two peasants of the Perm province who
left their native village to seek happiness in town. They
are supposed to be free men, these serfs of yesterday,
yet Russia was shocked by the savage appearance and
primitive minds of these new citizens.
" Even now, after having gone through many experiences
and having seen not a few horrifying pictures, now that we
make such great demands on the language of a writer of fiction
and our literary style has made such rapid progress, Those of
Podlipovka, with their primitive language, with their descrip-
tion of small details of peasant life, make the impression of a
prolonged, terrifying, importunate nightmare. Poverty and
ignorance, impotence and impossibility are strangely inter-
twined in this implacable nightmare; you never find a way out,
you do not know how to break its spell.
" It gives the dumbfounding impression of a big clod of
life, split off from ordinary human existence, a shapeless, un-
canny, unendurable clod." I. N. Ignatov.
56
N. G. CHERNYSHEVSKY (1828-1889)
Economist, sociologist, philosopher, publicist, critic.
One of the most influential intellectual leaders of the
fifties and sixties.
Chernyshevsky appeared on the scene of Russian life
when the end of serfdom was near, when new economic
forces were rapidly developing, when a new intelligentzia
was coming up from the ranks of the plain people push-
ing the intelligentzia of the noble mansions to the back-
ground, when all Russian life was ready, at least in the
opinion of the progressive elements, to be reconstructed
on a modern basis. Chernyshevsky gave utterance to
those strivings of the new times. A profound scholar in
many realms, a disciple of Fourier and Feuerbach, he
evolved a theory of radical reconstruction in Russia
which, he thought, would culminate in a socialist order.
He was more than a mere philosopher and economist,
however; he influenced his generation as a teacher of life.
His numerous essays and articles had the aim of showing
young Russia how to live, how to free itself from the
superstitions of the passing epoch, how to organize its
family life, how to build up relations within the com-
munity, how to establish a healthy, prosperous, rational
social life. What was most precious in his writings was
faith in life, faith in man, a vigorous tone, confidence in
the future. The impending and later actually realized
reforms were for Chernyshevsky the beginning of a
new joyous era shot through with the fire of ideals. The
response in Russia was enormous. Chernyshevsky be-
57
58 GROWTH OF A NATIONAL LITERATURE
came the idol of his time, enjoying even more recogni-
tion than did Byelinsky in the forties.
It was natural for a man of Chernyshevsky's kind to
write also on literature, as the characters presented in
literary works gave him an occasion to criticize society
and to make his followers realize the need for a higher
culture in a better social order. Between 1853 and 1858
Chernyshevsky is the leading critic. Later he resorted
to fiction in order to make his ideas more accessible to
the public. Czarism, of course, could not tolerate a
worker of Chernyshevsky's scope; it imprisoned him and
sent him to eastern Siberia, where he spent some twenty
years under rigid vigilance. Thus his fruitful career was
cut almost at its beginning. Still, the trace left by Cher-
nyshevsky in Russian economic and political life and in
social thinking is deep and indelible.
1. What Is To Be Done? Novel. (1863.)
Written in the fortress of Peter and Paul, this work is
a repetition in fiction of what the author was preaching
in serious essays and treatises. It is the history of a few
intellectuals from the ranks who organized their life on
a new sound basis. There is nothing unusual about most
of them. They have just acquired education, they have
done away with the apathy of archaic Russia, they are
doing practical work of a useful character, they are free
from senseless conventional restrictions, they recognize
full equality between men and women in the pursuit of
life, and they are ready to help their neighbors actively.
They are far from sacrificing themselves (with very few
exceptions); their idea is rather sound egoism which
necessarily involves cooperation with others. What is
valuable about them is their courage, confidence, respect
N. G. CHERNYSHEVSKY 59
for sound work, ability to live a full life with no vestige
of the traditional Russian gloom.
The novel was a revelation to Russia. " It was like a
bomb exploding with a terrible, crushing force," to use
the expression of a Russian critic. It became the Bible
of the young generations for many a decade. Life, that
terrible tangle, looked so plain and rational in What Is
To Be Done? It was such a joy to know that man, by
force of will and rational thinking, can make himself
like one of the heroes of that startling novel. What Is
To Be Done? was soon suppressed by the censor, but sub
rosa editions circulated everywhere, and there was
hardly an intellectual Russian who did not read the
novel.
Chernyshevsky's novels are long-winded, they are check-
ered with digressions, they present a somewhat uncouth ap-
pearance, and remind one of productions a these, yet What
Is To Be Done? is being read with unabating interest even at
present, and it stirs our soul. One may explain this phenom-
enon by the contents of the book, its type of characters, and
the qualities of the idea propounded. Such an explanation,
however, would not be sufficient. The very fact that the novel
has stood the greatest of all tests, the test of time, shows that
it is not devoid of certain artistic qualities; it shows that
the psychology of the time was reflected in it correctly, and
this alone is an important feature. Aside from this, however,
it must be said that some of Chernyshevsky's types are drawn
with great artistic power. . . . Still, the dominant element
in his fiction is not the artistic, but the instructive."
J. M. Styeklov.
"What Is To Be Done? was a vast success. It does not
sparkle with artistic subtleties, though it is full of keen ob-
servations and humor. Its main value lies in a passionate,
thoroughly sincere enthusiasm. The novel ought to be com-
pared not with the artistic works of a Turgenev, Tolstoi, or
60 GROWTH OF A NATIONAL LITERATURE
Dostoyevsky, but with such productions as, for instance, the
philosophical novels of Voltaire."
G. V. Plekhanov.
" If the value of a writer is measured by the degree of his
influence on society; if the value of a book is determined by
the force of its reaction on the mind of the reader, then
Chernyshevsky and his What Is To Be Done? occupy an ex-
ceptional place in the history of Russian culture. Not only
contemporaries, but also later generations attributed to this
novel some of their best moments, their humanitarian emotions,
their striving for life, light, and happiness. It gave them faith
in life, and courage to construct it on the basis of equality
and freedom."
N. Brodsky.
2. Gogol's Epoch in Russian Literature. Critical Es-
says. (1856.)
3. Critical Essays. (1 854-1 861.)
In his critical essays, Chernyshevsky accentuates the
social element almost more than the artistic, the useful
more than the beautiful. True it is that he requires
talent of an author. He also takes it for granted that a
work of no artistic value cannot serve a social purpose.
He says occasionally that " the poet ought to be free,
first of all, his lips ought to utter only things that fill
his heart." He says that " autonomy is the supreme law
of art." Still, for him as a social propagandist and re-
former, the contents of a literary work is of supreme im-
portance. " For a real critic," he writes, " the work
under consideration is often a mere pretext to develop
his own views on a subject which was touched by the
author only in passing and in a one-sided manner." In
accordance with this conception, Chernyshevsky's criti-
cism is quite often only a discourse over certain aspects of
N. G. CHERNYSHEVSKY 61
life which he finds mentioned in a work, though he does
not altogether refrain from discussing the purely artistic
merits of an author. Thus Chernyshevsky's criticisms
are, in a way, a connecting link between Byelinsky's
estheticism and Pisarev's artistic nihilism.1
1 See respective chapters.
D. I. PISAREV ( 1 841-1868)
Critic, publicist, and author of popular works on history
and science. Pisarev is the leading spirit of the sixties.
He most fully expresses the trend of thought arid the
social movement of his time.
This was a stirring time. The serfs had just been
liberated. A number of important civic reforms (the
great reforms of the sixties) had been introduced. New
possibilities for economic development had been opened.
Industrialism was making its first conquests in hitherto
archaic Russia. The thinking elements saw the coming
of a new era. Their attention, previously concentrated
on one paramount issue, abolition of slavery, turned now
to the broad problem of making Russia more prosperous
and more healthy. Two things were most pressing:
work instead of former indolence, and technical knowl-
edge instead of former dreams.
These two points formed the foundation of Pisarev's
program. " Two facts," he wrote, " loom up before our
eyes; two immense facts which are the source of all
our other miseries and evils. First, we are poor; second,
we are ignorant. We are poor, that is to say, in relation
to our population we have not enough bread, meat, linen,
cloth, clothing, shoes, underwear, dwellings, comfortable
furniture, good agricultural machinery; in short, not
enough products of work. We are ignorant, that is to
say, an overwhelming majority of our minds do not work;
only one out of ten thousand brains is active in one way
or another, still that one produces twenty times less of
62
D. I. PISAREV 63
useful thoughts than it could produce under normal con-
ditions without any strain."
In accordance with this program, Pisarev hailed the
realist and condemned art.
A realist in his conception is a man who does useful
practical work in any realm of life. A realist is not
a dreamer. He pursues his own interest. He works for
himself. He is an egoist. Yet in his pursuit of happi-
ness he inevitably takes account of his neighbors, as he
can never be happy where others suffer. His very egoism
prompts him to direct his work so as to secure the hap-
piness of all. " When the individual realizes the import-
ance and the high significance of his personal work, when
he sees in it a connecting link between himself and mil-
lions of other thinking human beings, then he becomes
still more attached to his work, he develops his abilities
more fully, he feels more keenly the justice of his en-
deavor, and his happiness grows."
A realist is a man equipped with skill, with knowledge,
with natural science, a worker free of prejudices and un-
hampered by archaic conventions. He is the builder of
a new, healthy, and prosperous mankind.
Yet a realist has no place for art in the scheme of his
life. Under art Pisarev understands every luxury of a re-
fined, inactive life, every indulgence in esthetic pursuits
that have no bearing upon the practical improvement of
economic or social conditions. Pure poetry, pure litera-
ture, accordingly, falls under Pisarev's ban. A son of the
nobility with all its refinement and estheticism, Pisarev
launches the heaviest attacks on the idle landlords whose
sole occupation is music, poetry in various languages,
romanticism, and the idealistic philosophy of the West.
All his writings are an attempt to shake the Russian in-
64 GROWTH OF A NATIONAL LITERATURE
telligentzia out of its inertia and traditional detachment,
to make it see life as it is, partake of life's work, and
be useful citizens of a progressive country.
Consequently, Pisarev demands that literature spread
new and sound ideas. Literature does not exist for him as
a value in itself. Literature must do public service.
The writers, he says, ought to be teachers in practical
life. What the philosopher or sociologist do through
their investigations, the writer ought to do through his
pictures, both differing only in method: the former pro-
pound general ideas; the latter shows practical instances
illustrating the same ideas. According to Pisarev, it
would be better to do away with literature altogether.
" Yet/' he writes, " if there are human organisms who
can express their thoughts easier in images, if a novel
or a poem is a better means for them to propound a new
idea which they would be unable to develop with sufficient
completeness and clearness in a theoretical essay, then let
them do as it is convenient for them. The critic will
notice and society will appreciate a fruitful idea in
whatever form it may appear."
It is evident that from this standpoint most of Russian
literature and Russian criticism, including Pushkin and
Byelinsky, was of no value to Pisarev. His critical es-
says, accordingly, are hardly to be classed with literary
criticism. They are splendid sociological analyses where
the critic sits in judgment over the characters represented
by the author, revealing the defects of their conceptions,
criticising their " unreasonable " behavior, pointing out
the vices of their class, tracing their shortcomings back
to social environment, enumerating the faults of the social
order, and making a vigorous plea for better, healthier,
more advanced lives. A writer whose characters do not
D. I. PISAREV 65
conform with the idea of realism is, in Pisarev's judgment,
useless.
It was an untenable doctrine, yet such was the urgency
for practical work, for education, for knowledge, for
eliminating the remnants of a shattered feudal system,
that Pisarev soon became the leading writer of his genera-
tion, and his influence was enormous. His articles and
essays were a veritable school of life for the youth of
his time and of many decades to come, and his name was
often mentioned with Byelinsky's.
Pisarev possesses a splendid style, an ease, fluency,
and boldness of expression which make his writings very
attractive reading even now.
Pisarev created no school, yet there are a number of
well-known Russian critics of the nineteenth and twen-
tieth centuries who, though not proclaiming the useless-
ness of art, discuss literary work from the sociological
standpoint, and approve or disapprove of a writer in the
degree his work manifests a progressive conception.
Those critics cannot be called Pisarev's disciples, as they
differ from him radically in their starting points, yet in
methods they hark back to the great critic of the sixties.
1. Realists. Essay. (1864.)
Taking as an example the hero of Turgenev's Fathers
and Children, Bazarov, the author gives a clear exposi-
tion of what a realist ought to be. The Realists aroused
a stormy discussion.
2. Pushkin and By elinsky. Essay. (1865.)
Pisarev applies his method here in the most brilliant
manner. It is hardly an essay on Pushkin or Byelinsky
as writers. It is a work intended to show that Pushkin's
66 GROWTH OF A NATIONAL LITERATURE
heroes, notably Onegin and Tatyana, are typical repre-
sentatives of a parasitic class; that Pushkin who de-
scribes them lovingly is no better than his heroes; and that
Byelinsky who praises Pushkin is a useless writer. Pi-
sarev regrets that Byelinsky did not receive a mathemat-
ical education which would have enabled him to write
essays on history or science.
[Other characteristic essays: Pisemsky; Turgenev and Gon-
tcharov; Women's Types; Flowers of Innocent Humor; The
Romance of a Muslin Girl]
N. A. NEKRASOV (i 821-1877)
Poet. One of the most typical representatives of the
Russian intelligentzia whose heart was constantly aching
with the sufferings of the people. He was the son of a
landlord and a member of the nobility, but he despised
slavery and condemned the humiliation of the peasants.
Being unable to identify himself completely with the ex-
ploited and downtrodden classes, he despised himself
and condemned his own, often imaginary vices. Being a
poet of great lyrical vehemence, he often wrote journal-
istic stuff in verse, or political satires, or scourging f euille-
tons. All his works, personal as well as political, lyrical
as well as narrative, are marked with a deep sincerity
of pain, realism of description, clarity of expression, and
power of emphasis. Apollon Grigoryev speaks of "the
sledge-hammer of Nekrasov's emotions which strikes out-
right with might and main," and I. S. Turgenev says that
" Nekrasov's poems, focused on one point, are scorching."
Nekrasov himself calls his Muse " the Muse of revenge
and of grief," and it was through his works that genera-
tions of young Russians learned to hate oppression, to
abominate autocracy, to understand the common people,
and to sympathize with the toiler. While Pushkin was
a source of beauty and serene fancy, Nekrasov gave his
readers the stinging touch of excruciating reality; while
Pushkin resembled a colorful flower-bed in a frame of
marble statuary, Nekrasov was a strong salty breeze from
a heaving sea. And there were times when Nekrasov
67
68 GROWTH OF A NATIONAL LITERATURE
was more cherished by the progressive Russian intelli-
gentzia than even Pushkin or Lermontov.
" Nekrasov was a strong analyst. His thought always pro-
ceeded from facts to their causes. In his lyrics he castigates
himself with merciless passion. In his other poems he exposes
the contradictions of social life, protesting against their evils
in one way or another. He treats of the most fundamental
issues of the Russian social order, and his poems reflect the
broodings and moods of his progressive contemporaries in the
most sensitive manner. Being a satirist, striking evil not
with a lash, but with a hammer, Nekrasov directed his blows
to those points where contradictions were the sharpest, where
sufferings were the keenest. Children, women, and the mass
of the peasantry, the " people," were the closest objects of his
attention. To illuminate the life of the people with rays of
consciousness he thought his direct vocation. In his larger
works, however, he approached those sides of the people's
life which required not the passionate grief of a satirist, but
the lofty tenderness of an epic poet."
V. P. Kranichfeld.
i. Lyrical Poems. (1840-18 7 7.)
It was only in the last decade that particular attention
was called to the short lyrical poems of Nekrasov, which
up to that time were overshadowed by his more bulky
and more readable socio-political poems. Lovers of
poetry were charmed by the penetrative sincerity of
those personal confessions, by the music of their lan-
guage, by the grip of their pain. In poetical value those
poems often surpass the more known objective works.
2. Who Lives Well in Russia. (1 869-1 874.)
Seven peasants assembled, the poet says, and began to
argue as to who lives well in Russia. Opinions differed.
One said, the landlords; another, the fat merchant; a
N. A. NEKRASOV 69
third, the* priest; a fourth, the government's official; a
fifth, the Tsar. The peasants made a bet. They decided
to go over Russia from end to end and to find out who
is the happiest one. Thus the poet created a framework
for a broad and vivid description of Russia just a year
or two after the abolition of serfdom. The work is writ-
ten in the tone of folklore. Miracles happen in it as in
any of the popular fairy tales. Yet Who Lives Well in
Russia is full of striking realism, of keen observation.
Interwoven as it is with lyrical digressions, with narra-
tives of human lives, with contemplations of the fate of
the Fatherland, it is unique in Russian literature. .
" Thou art beggarly,
Thou art plentiful,
Thou art infirm,
Thou art powerful,
O mother Russia! "
These lines could be used as a refrain to the entire
work which is borne on waves of deep compassion for
the native land.
" It was Nekrasov's intention to write a tremendous poem
which would reflect the entire life of Russia, from the potentate
down to the sailor on the Volga, all against the background
of Russian nature. A picture, colorful as Russia herself, un-
rolls before us; melancholy and pity breathe from all its
corners." P. Weinberg.
3. Red Nose Frost. (1864.)
A powerful description of the peasant's family life in
a poor village, and a study in peasant character. The
figure of the peasant woman whom the poet observes in
a moment of crushing distress, is full of unusual beauty,
almost greatness. Yet Nekrasov did not idealize. He
70 GROWTH OF A NATIONAL LITERATURE
only wanted to reveal before the eyes of the world some
of the hidden treasures of the human heart and intelli-
gence which lie buried under the debris of poverty and
misfortune. The poem is unsurpassed in vigor of style
and in sublimity of feeling.
4. Russian Women. (1872-1873.)
If the heroine of Red Nose Frost comes from the low-
est class, the Princess Volkonskaya and the Princess Tru-
betzkaya in the Russian Women come from the top. Es-
sentially, however, all three women are the same. They
are strong and tender, sensitive and unbending in their
self-sacrifice for what is dearest to them. Princess Vol-
konskaya and Princess Trubetzkaya leave their comfort-
able homes and their social positions to share the bitter
lot of their husbands, who had participated in the revolu-
tionary uprising of 1825 and were sentenced to hard labor
in the mines of eastern Siberia. The characters of the
two women are drawn with a firm and loving hand. The
hardships they have to face and the crudeness of the sur-
roundings they have to adapt themselves to, only make
the beauty of their souls appear in a brighter light. Prin-
cess Volkonskaya and Princess Trubetzkaya belong to
the most charming feminine portraits in Russian poetry.
[For further reading, Nekrasov's Railroad, Contemplations
at the Mansion Door, Children, may be recommended.]
I. A. GONTCHAROV (1812-1891)
On the border-line between the old and the new, be-
tween the well-defined characters of a patriarchal regime
and the unclear shapes of approaching modern times,
stands the novelist Gontcharov, one of the classical Rus-
sian artists. Temperamentally and emotionally he is
with the old, with the placid noble mansions, with the
quiet lakes hardly disturbed by a ripple, with the robust,
red-faced and well-fed old gentlemen of the landed
estates, with the unsophisticated beautiful and good-
natured women, with that vegetarian life where even the
sky seems closer to the earth and the chariot of life is
rolling with the swiftness of a peasant wagon drawn by
oxen in the midst of a sun-tired landscape on a July mid-
day. Mentally, however, Gontcharov sees the coming of
new men, new ideas, new wishes, new struggles, the ris-
ing of new tones which combine in dissonances and often
fill the air with an uncomfortable uproar. Gontcharov
sees the inevitability of impending changes; he deems
it even his duty to sympathize with some of the reforms
which, of course, he thinks should be introduced ever
so slowly, cautiously, peacefully, with no shocks at all.
Innately he is a bdrin, a gentleman of the pomieshchik
type, and his writings inevitably reflect this duality of
his make-up.
He is a beautiful artist. He has an ease and charm of
style hardly surpassed by Turgenev. He has a penetrat-
ing eye which sees a wealth of detail and color. He
has a manner, quiet, composed, serene, which makes all
71
72 GROWTH OF A NATIONAL LITERATURE
his pictures emanate a refreshing warmth. He has a
humor, soft and friendly, which gives a peculiar human
touch to most of his observations. He creates characters
with a master hand confident of its strength. With all
that, he never became a " leading " writer. He is a
member of the classic Pantheon, to be sure, he is studied
in schools, he is recognized as the creator of at least one
national type, yet he never was a priest in the temple of
the Russian spirit. This is because he lacks that spirit-
uality which Russians were (and are) wont to seek for
in the works of their artists. He is, as it were, too close
to the ground, though he manages to transform his ground
into sheer beauty. Lacking the exhilaration of spiritual-
ity and, besides, lacking in heartfelt sympathy for the
new social characters who then appeared in Russian life
equipped with a luring ideal, Gontcharov naturally could
not find the response which was due to his great artistic
talent. It is only now that we are in a position to over-
look his defects and to enjoy thoroughly the permanent
beauty of his writings.
Among his defects, one deserves particular mention, —
his inability to draw a new character. Thus, whenever
Gontcharov tried to picture a strong, self-assured, prac-
tical man of affairs, a type which attracted his attention
in a high degree, he inevitably failed. The explanation
lies in the fact that new phenomena were not as close
to his soul as the well-known old.
" Gontcharov is, above all, a master of the genre, here is his
strength, here belong his best pages. He loves a man in his
domestic environment, among the various trifles of a peaceful
everyday existence, in his cosy native corner. He is a poet
of the room, a singer of the house ... He pictures with
pleasure nature morte and all that approaches it in simplicity
I. A. GONTCHAROV 73
of mind . . . He is interested in a bright open life where
houses and souls are transparent ... A poet of the ordi-
nary, he knows how to extract warmth and beauty from house-
hold prose ... On the other hand, the further he moves
from the uncultured, primitive, elementary man, the paler
and more tiresome becomes his brush."
J. ElCHENWALD.
" In his wonderfully sober attitude towards the world, Gon-
tcharov approaches Pushkin. Turgenev is intoxicated with
beauty, Dostoyevsky, with the sufferings of men, Leo Tolstoi,
with a thirst for truth; all of them look at life from a certain
angle. Reality in their work becomes slightly distorted, like
the outlines of things on a disturbed surface of water.
" Gontcharov knows of no intoxication. Life projects it-
self into his soul with imperturbable clarity, as the tiniest grass-
blades or the distant stars are reflected in a deep forest spring
shielded from the wind. The sobriety, simplicity, and health
of this powerful talent have something refreshing. However
beautiful may be the works of other modern writers, all of
them have some dark corner breathing cold and horror. Gon-
tcharov has no such corners. All the monumental structure
of his epics is lit by an even light of intelligent love for human
life." D. Merezhkovsky.
1. Oblomov. Novel. (1859.)
This is Gontcharov's principal work. It is a novel of
will, or rather a novel studying the lack of will. Oblomov
has a beautiful soul. He is capable of the most noble
emotions. His intentions are always good. The storms
aroused in his soul are genuine. They shake him deeply.
He is honest, good-hearted, idealistically inclined. But
— he is Oblomov. He is lazy. He is inertia incarnated.
From his thoughts and emotions there are no wires to
the mechanism of action. Oblomov's life is followed up
by Gontcharov from his childhood until the time when
he definitely " settled down " (if this term can properly
74 GROWTH OF A NATIONAL LITERATURE
be applied to a man who spent all his life " lying on one
side," as the Russian says). The dramatic moment of
Oblomov's life arrives when he falls in love with the
charming young Olga. It is only natural that this love
should end in nothing. Olga marries Stoltz, a Russian
of German descent, who is just the opposite of Oblomov
and who conducts business on a large scale.
Oblomov represented a trait of character so well known
and so common in Russia that nearly every Russian
recognized himself or his friends in the hero of the novel.
Oblomov possesses inertia in an excessive measure, he is
pure inertia. It may be questioned whether there ever
existed a real human being personifying inertia to such
an extent; this, however, does not diminish the realistic
value of Oblomov. Russians speak of Oblomov as of a
man they know personally, much in the same way as
Englishmen speak of Micawber.
"Apathy, peaceful, placid, smiling, feeling no urge to get
out of inertia, this is Oblomovism, as Gontcharov called it,
this is a disease facilitated by Slav nature and the conditions
of our society. The development of this disease was traced by
Gontcharov in his novel. The author's tremendous idea, in
all its bigness and beauty, was put in a perfectly adequate
framework." D. I. Pisarev.
" The introduction of the Oblomov type into Russian litera-
ture was of tremendous importance. It recorded a funda-
mental Russian quality, a national attribute which hampered
the progress of Russian life. A formula was given, character-
izing a large group of people who had reached a stage where
the desire for progressive work, not enmeshed in routine, be-
came imperative, where, however, the ability to act was still
lacking." E. A. Lyatzky.
I. A. GONTCHAROV 75
2. The Precipice. Novel. (1869.)
A world of types; among them the old and attractive
grandmother who incarnates the best traits of the patriar-
chal world; a nihilist of the brand quite common in the
sixties, with an uncouth appearance and a harmonious
program for social reform; two young sisters, of whom
one is imbued with the spirit of restlessness, striving to
unknown horizons, while the other is all domesticity and
has the charm of sedate virtue; an artist, a Russian genius
lacking the will to make the best of his great abilities, etc.
The novel bears the clear marks of a transitional period.
[Another well-known novel by Gontcharov, An Ordinary
Story.]
I. S. TURGENEV (i 818-1883)
One of the few central figures in Russian literature.
Creator of a great school. An inexhaustible source of
beauty and inspiration. Turgenev's language is like
music. His pictures are tender pastels. His characters
are drawn with a firm and loving hand. His range of ob-
servation is wide, reaching from the first dawn of love
in a budding maiden heart to the agony of a fighter for
freedom who has lost his path in the maze of life; from
the dream-like haze of spring over tender flower-heads
to the trumpet-call of life under glaring sunlight. Tur-
genev is the poet of youth and love, a guide through the
sweet mysteries of women's souls, an interpreter of the
most gentle, delicate emotions, a garden full of quaint
beauty. Yet Turgenev is at the same time in the very
midst of social life, recording the political and social
movements of his time, giving voice and artistic interpre-
tation to the foremost ideas of the society he lived in.
This society is mainly composed of well-educated, pro-
gressive noblemen, who are much concerned with the
fate of the " people," yet never lose the essential qualities
of noble gentlemen. The other classes of the Russian
people are given only a secondary place in Turgenev's
works.
" Several generations owe him a part of their intellectual
substance, as their growth was and is still going on under the
unchanging powerful influence of the psychic impulses which
are diffused in his works. People received their education at
the hands of Turgenev, from him they learned how to love
76
I. S. TURGENEV 77
and feel, and there are perceptions of which Turgenev will
never cease to be the great master. These are the beauty and
poetry of life, the charm of intimate human feelings, and the
value of a free personality rising to a feeling of broad humani-
tarian solidarity." A. E. Gruzinsky.
1. Short Stories. (1843-1883.)
" Turgenev created a whole world of the most diversified
figures, full of life and color; he sketched several important
moments of our cultural progress, and gave splendid descrip-
tions of the old life. Yet, his main subjects are intimate psy-
chological experiences. The broad outline of an entire epoch
which we find in his works, is composed of little studies and
miniatures selected and executed with the most unusual sensi-
tiveness and skill. A note is incessantly sounding through all
his writings, a peculiar note of tender lyrical sadness."
A. E. Gruzinsky.
2. Diary of a Sportsman. Stories and sketches. (1852.)
It has been said that Turgenev's Diary added more
to the campaign for the liberation of the serfs than all
the political activities of the progressive factions com-
bined. Turgenev performed a true human service. He
gave a series of sketches of rural life thrown against a
background of Russian nature which showed that the
peasants, " our younger brethren," were possessed of the
same human qualities as the " better " classes. It seems
an obvious truth in our days. It was a great revelation
in 1852. Turgenev did not idealize. He shed no cheap
tears. His aim was not to arouse pity. He was funda-
mentally an artist. He touched peasant life with his
artistic wand, and the world stood aghast at the sight of
those simple men and women whose hearts were moved
by the same emotions, whose souls were craving for the
same truth, beauty and good, as the upper classes. It
must be borne in mind, however, that The Diary of a
78 GROWTH OF A NATIONAL LITERATURE
Sportsman is not a book written with a conscious social
purpose. In no sentence has Turgenev betrayed his
political tendency. He was an artist above all things.
His love was his best argument. His artistic sympathy
with the objects of his descriptions was his best political
weapon.
" In the one volume of The Diary of a Sportsman you have
a complete representation of all peasant life with all its numer-
ous miseries and few joys. You can observe how popular
beliefs are being formed, how popular conceptions are being
crystallized. You can see the deep patience of the Russian
people, their passive heroism, their gloomy good-nature, and
the tenderness of their hearts. Looking more attentively you
will easily notice their intelligence, their common sense and
capability of education. . . . You will gain a very clear idea
of the moral countenance of the genuine ' black earth ? powers."
S. Vengerov.
" The entire work is dominated by the broad view and
peaceful tone of an artist who has been enchanted by Rus-
sian rural life and whose aim is to enchant the heart of the
reader by its simplicity, its humble poetical truthfulness. The
sketches are diversified, and they still give an idea of the
people's life which has since undergone a great reform."
V. Burenin.
" The Diary of a Sportsman contains descriptions of Rus-
sian landscapes unsurpassed in Russian literature. No lyrical
poet has ever found words more tender, colors more refined,
than Turgenev in those prose sketches of Russian nature.
"We find here a live sympathy with nature, a complete
understanding of its beauty, a freshness of genuine sentiment.
In his manner we hear a voice of sympathy so gentle, so fine,
that sometimes it grows akin to pain, passion, submission.
Poetry of this kind is characterized not by striking power, but
by refinement and lucidity of colors."
A. Grigoryev.
I. S. TURGENEV 79
3. A Nobleman's Nest. Novel. (1859.)
"No other work of Turgenev's is full of so much ardent
faith, none is so permeated with a lyric sympathy, as is A
Nobleman's Nest. Here we have the purest figure of a
woman after Pushkin's Tatyana, the figure of Liza; here we
have Lavretzky, the hero in whom Turgenev trusted most,
of whom he expected most in the future. In drawing him, the
poet gave a beautiful historic and genre picture of all the ele-
ments that composed Russian society, as if to show that he is
the outcome of a great historic process.
" A bright tone is sounding throughout the entire work from
the beginning to the very end where the aging Lavretzky
greets the budding life of the new generation.
"A Nobleman's Nest is a novel in the best sense of the
word; Russian life is reflected in it from various angles; here
we see Westerners and Slavophils, the Petersburg bureaucracy
with its detached haughtiness, the life of the village and town,
and all those elements of the present and the past which make
up our actual environment."
A. Nezelyonov.
4. Fathers and Children. Novel. (1862.)
The years immediately following the abolition of serf-
dom in Russia (in 1861) were years of great intellectual
unrest. The bonds of an ancient patriarchal regime were
broken. The beginnings of a transition to modern
economic and social conditions were felt as an urge to
something vast, though indefinite. A new man appeared
on the scene: an " intellectual," though not a son of the
manor; a member of the lower classes, though claiming
equality with the nobles, nay, asserting his superiority
over the " idle rich." The new man had education, but
cared little for good manners; he loved culture, but had
no respect for traditions. His intellectual guides were
the materialistic philosophers Buechner and Moleschott
with their crude naturalism/ whereas the idols of the
80 GROWTH OF A NATIONAL LITERATURE
former generation had been Hegel, Schelling, Pushkin.
The new man claimed to believe in the results of experi-
ence only, to deny the- refinements of an idealistic spirit.
This is why this brand of intellectuals soon became known
as Nihilists. Fathers and Children introduces the new
type of Nihilist as contrasted to the old "beautiful
souls " of the patriarchal manor. Bazarov, the hero, is a
student of natural science, a man who declares that the
world is a vast workshop and the man is born to be a
master there.
No type in Russian literature has aroused so much
heated comment as Bazarov.
" The succession of generations — this is the main subject
of the novel. Yet the reader feels that he has to do with
human life in its broadest and fullest meaning. Behind the
mirage of external actions there is a stream of life so deep, so
inexhaustible, that compared with it all those characters and
happenings shrink into insignificance."
N. Strakhov.
" ' I am an adherent of the negating tendencies/ says Baza-
rov. ' It gives me pleasure to reject, it suits best the construc-
tion of my brain. That's all! * As an empiric, Bazarov
recognizes only those things whose existence can be proved
by his senses. Bazarov needs nobody, he is afraid of no
one, he has no love for anybody, and therefore knows no
mercy. His ironical attitude towards all sorts of emotions,
towards sentimental dreams, lyrical strivings, confessions, is
a manifestation of his inner cynicism. The crude expression
of this irony, the unwarranted and aimless roughness of his
manners, mark his outward cynicism."
D. Pisarev.
5. New Earth. Novel. (1877.)
The intellectual unrest of the sixties ripened into revo-
lutionary activities at the beginning of the seventies. A
I. S. TURGENEV 81
number of young men and women of the educated class
went into the Russian villages to conduct revolutionary
propaganda among the peasants. The revolutionists,
known as Narodniki, idealized the qualities of the people
(narod). They believed that the Russian village com-
munity contained the nucleus of a better social order
based on equality and cooperation. They saw in the
village an ideal life of truthfulness and peace. It was,
therefore, natural for them to try and adopt the same
mode of living as the peasants. They called it, " to be-
come simple." Altogether it was a naive movement, full
of the beauty and daring of inspired youth, though the
consequences — imprisonment and death for many — were
by no means simple.
New Earth depicts a few intellectuals of this Narodniki
movement. It seems that Turgenev has minimized the
extent and the seriousness of the revolutionary activities,
partly, perhaps, because he had to reckon with the re-
quirements of the censor. At any rate, the novel reflects
truly the atmosphere of the time and the psychology of
the revolutionary heroes, as well as the bureaucrats. The
figure of Marianna, the girl revolutionist who " becomes
simple " for the sake of the cause, is one of the loveliest
portraits in Turgenev's gallery.
" The facts of the movement, the methods and the practice
of the propaganda and conspiracies as described in the New
Earth, coincide in all particulars with the materials revealed
in the case of Netchayev. The types of the revolutionaries
are well represented. Turgenev gives a true reflection of the
psychology of the movement."
A. E. Gruzinsky.
[Nearly every work of Turgenev's is of great and lasting
value, and should be read. We call special attention to his
delightful novels, Rudin, On the Eve, and to his Poems in
Prose.]
V. L. GARSHIN (1855-1888)
There is a story by Garshin, The Red Flower. A man
in an insane asylum has seen a red flower down in the
garden. To him the flower has a deep significance. It
is evil incarnate. " It has gathered all the blood of in-
nocent victims (that is why it is so red), all the tears,
all the misery of mankind. It is a mysterious dreadful
being, the antithesis of God, Ahriman in an innocent
shape." The man decides to pluck the flower, to kill
it and thus kill evil. It is a hard task. The window-
bars are strong. The guards are cunning. Moreover, he
knows that after plucking the flower he will have to hide
it on his breast lest it shed its poison into the world with
its last breath. He knows he must die. But this gives
him superhuman courage and strength. " The evil will
permeate his very heart, his soul. It will be conquered
there or else he will die as the foremost fighter of man-
kind who first dared to challenge all the evil of the
world at once."
The man undertakes the heroic deed. He has to do it
alone because nobody sees the meaning of the flower, no-
body cares. In anguish he exclaims, " Why do they not
see it? I do. Can I go on living? "
Such a cry, " Why do they not see it? " were the
stories of the tragic writer, Garshin, who died as a young
man in an insane asylum. He was a typical son of the
eighties: sad, subdued, with no vigor, with no hope but
full of great yearning for beauty and humaneness that
cannotbe. Garshin's stories are delicately carved. Their
82 !
V. L. GARSHIN 83
lines are simple, almost naive, and each is vibrating with
intense emotion. Garshin was one of the few writers
dearly joved by intellectual Russia. This young man
with the head of a saint and deep marks of suffering
on his face, appears as in a halo of devotion and admira-
tion. He died too young for his talent to blossom out
in full power. Yet his influence on Russia was unmistak-
able.
" Garshin lived in a strange spiritual tension. He never
wrote calmly, he was never balanced. Even his short stories
were accompanied by a great mental strain. He was upset
by the creations of his own fantasy. This is why his stories
are so deeply lyrical, why they are full of unusual trepidation.
His tone quite often approaches the boundary line between
lyrical emotionalism and unhealthy excitement. However, he
is endowed with a wonderful sense of subtle distinctions and
he never oversteps this line."
Vl. G. Korolenko.
" He was a man of extraordinary sensitiveness and alert-
ness, one of those souls which are woven of the ' best ether ^
a natural advocate of humanity. The sufferings of others
evoked in him an unusually keen response. It was his nature
to respond most readily to human suffering, he could not help
it. He did not need the aid of cool reflection, the reminder
of ' duty * to sacrifice himself for others, to be heroic. It
was his own, his deepest characteristic. Garshin's face is said
to have borne from his very childhood the stamp of unusual
1 unearthly ' beauty. The same stamp marked his inner self,
and is manifest in his work."
E. KOLTONOVSKAYA.
Stories, Vol. 1, 1883; Vol. II, 1885; Vol. Ill, 1888.
Pain, honesty, chastity, lucidity, and youthful enthusi-
asm characterize these stories.
84 GROWTH OF A NATIONAL LITERATURE
" One feature impresses itself constantly upon the reader
of Garshin's stories, whether it is accentuated or not, and that
is grief over that particular and ultimate humiliation which
human dignity is made to suffer when a man becomes a tool,
a subservient part of an organism. We loved Garshin just
for this reminding us of human dignity, for this original,
deeply personal grief."
N. K. MlKHAYLOVSKY.
[Particular attention is called to the stories, Four Days, A
Coward, Artists, The Red Flower, Attalea Princeps, Nadezhda
Nikolayevna, and The Signal.]
S. J. NADSON (1862-1887)
Poet. A son of the gloomy eighties, — the nightmare-like
period in recent Russian history; a singer of the intelli-
gentzia's melancholy and broken hopes. In Nadson's
poetry everything is somber, subdued, shrouded in the
atmosphere of graves. When he speaks even of " sacred
hope " it sounds more like weak resignation. When he
says " Brother, friend, believe in a beautiful future," he
himself lacks this faith or, perhaps, he thinks of it as of
some remote hazy dream that has no substance. When
he speaks of love, it is " love for the broken, the suffering
brothers." Tiredness marks Nadson's young Muse. It
is a wounded Muse, craving for happiness yet ever afraid
even of a ray of sunshine; afraid to betray the eternal
life-companion, grief.
" The flowers have faded, the lights have burnt out,
The limitless night is black like a grave, — "
this is the leading motive in the sick poetry of Nadson,
the poet of a sick generation.
Lyrical Poems. (1878-1886.)
Nadson's poems do not sparkle with vivid colors. It
is the vehemence of his lamentations, his animated de-
clamation that is their greatest value. Nadson is more
than sincere. He is almost too personal. He speaks as
if a brother were telling a brother of his secret pain in
the silence of the night. Yet his language is much poorer
85
86 GROWTH OF A NATIONAL LITERATURE
than that of the classics who drew their words and pic-
tures from the treasuries of folklore. Notwithstanding
artistic defects, Nadson has grown to be one of the most
beloved poets read by young and old.
TH. I. TYUTCHEV (1803-1873)
u O prophetic soul of mine, O heart full of alarm, thou
flutterest as on the threshold of a double existence! Yes,
thou art the dwelling place of two worlds; thy day is
pained and passionate, thy dream is prophetic and un-
clear as the revelation of the spirits . . . " *
Thus Tyutchev, in one of his famous poems, formulated
his state of mind. He is " on the threshold of a double
existence." His " day," the surrounding world, the life
of men, is entangled and meaningless; society is the
" eternal human triviality"; the judgment of the world
" pulls at the root of the best plants " of life. Man in
himself, aside from human aggregations, isi only the
shadow of a passing cloud. His very existence is hardly
more than an illusion. His thought resembles the ray of
a fountain: it rises, sparkles, reaches a certain height
and then falls down only to begin the process again.
Human thought strives towards heaven, yet " an invisible
and fatal hand persistently breaks its ray and glitters
from above in its sparks." Human love is only a dream
bound to end in bitter awakening. Man is a discordant
note in the order of things.
The poet's " day," the things most men call real, are
no comfort to him. Here he is lonely and detached. His
real life is in his " night," in his " sleep," in his " dream,"
in those regions which cannot be reached by logic or per-
ception and are accessible only to intuition. Here the
poet touches the very heart of existence, the life of the
1 Literal translation.
87
88 GROWTH OF A NATIONAL LITERATURE
universe. Contrary to man, the universe is eternal. The
universe is endowed with a soul. Nature is all-powerful.
The individual phenomena of nature are manifestations
of universal and eternal life. Man has only one solace —
to fuse with nature, to melt into it, to abandon himself
in its incessant flow. Then he may hear the roar of the
original chaos, our "native chaos," the beginning and
the end of the world, the dark foundation of all.
Yet while, the poet thus approaches the boundaries of
forgetfulness, of the great "abyss, all-devouring and
consoling," he is stirred by a great desire for happiness,
for joy, for love, for day-by-day existence. And so he is
torn between his two motherlands, and, steeped in
thought, he writes at intervals his short and quiet poems
which fall like drops of moon-lit water into a deep and
silent basin.
Tyutchev is a musing poet. He knows no loud notes.
Poetic expressions are foreign to him. " A thought when
uttered is a lie," he says in one of his poems. He wrote
seldom, and he wrote for himself, as if trying to formulate
in solitude what was happening in his innermost soul.
His poems are always contemplations of a succinct
nature. They deal with the fate of man and life.
They try to express in their very cadence and rhythm the
mood of their author. They are clear, like prisms of a
strange lucid gem, and through their clearness an un-
known world is visible to the soul.
It is only recently that intellectual Russia began to
value this great and original philosophical poet. Of his
contemporaries, only a few appreciated the depth and
beauty of his creations. This was partly due to the
unusual qualities in his poetry, which appeals only to a
refined taste; partly to the small volume of his work
TH. I. TYUTCHEV 89
(some three hundred short poems in the course of half
a century) ; and partly to the fact that, politically, Tyut-
chev, as a diplomat and official, belonged to the reaction-
ary camp. Only with the growth of symbolism in Rus-
sia, the new school l began to study Tyutchev with love
and admiration and to interpret his contribution to Rus-
sian spirit. The new school considers itself the successor
of Tyutchev. It can hardly be said that Tyutchev was
a symbolist in the modern sense of the word, yet careful
study discloses in his work many elements of what is
now called impressionism.
Tyutchev is " a teacher of poetry for poets," to use
the expression of the critic Gornfeld. " In Tyutchev's
poetry," says one of the leaders of the new school, Valery
Bryusov, " Russian verse reached a refinement, an ? ethe-
real height ' [Foeth's words] which was hitherto un-
known. Side by side with Pushkin, the creator of our
real classic poetry, stands Tyutchev as the great master
and originator of a poetry of allusions."
Tyutchev is a universal poet. What moves him is
common to all the world. Still his language, his manner
of expression, the very music of his soul are unmistakably
Russian.
" Amazing is Tyutchev's ability to abandon himself in the
most abstract ideas which would seem foreign to life. The
finest dialectic constructions of the mind burn in him with
a magic brilliance. He was in a high degree possessed of that
quality which Dostoyevsky called ' the wit of a deep feeling/
1 To feel a thought ' is in Dostoyevsky's opinion the modern
form of passion. Tyutchev is in the power of these intellec-
tual passions, and what a chill they sometimes breathe in his
works! There was, however, no discord in him between the
1 See Chapter II.
9o GROWTH OF A NATIONAL LITERATURE
inspiration of an artist and the sober penetration of a wizard.
Both faculties harmonized in deepest unity and most intimate
accord." D. S. Darsky.
" Tyutchev was deeply convinced that nature is animated;
this was to him not a mere fancy, but a conscious belief, and
so he was spared that duality of thought and feeling which
was the curse of artists and poets from the end of the last
[eighteenth] century up to recent times. Tyutchev's mind
was in complete accord with his inspiration: his poetry was
full of conscious thought, and his thought found only a poetic,
i.e., an inspired and perfect expression. Probably nobody has
reached so deeply as our poet to the dark root of the world's
existence; nobody has felt so strongly or conceived so distinctly
that mysterious foundation of all life, of nature as well as
of humanity, on which is based the meaning of the cosmic
process, the fate of the human soul, and the entire history of
mankind. Here is the key to all his poetry, the source of
its significance and enchanting originality.
" Chaos, i.e., negative infinity, the yawning abyss containing
every madness and ugliness, demoniacal impulses which re-
volt against everything positive and dutiful, this is the deep-
est essence of the world's soul and the basis of all creation.
The cosmic process leads this chaotic elemental power into
a general scheme, subjecting it to the laws of reason, gradually
embodying in it the ideal contents of existence, giving this wild
life meaning and beauty. Yet even then the chaos makes it-
self felt in impulses and movements of revolt. This presence
of the chaotic, irrational elements in the depth of existence,
lends the various natural phenomena that freedom and power
the absence of which would mean the absence of life and
beauty. In depicting such phenomena of nature where the
dark foundation is felt most distinctly, Tyutchev knows no
equal." V. Solovyov.
" One idea is at the bottom of all his philosophic thoughts
and moods, the idea of the limitations of human personality
... A man can find real happiness only in going away from
life. Where? First of all, into solitude. The poet finds a
TH. I. TYUTCHEV 91
number of refuges: nature, night, silence; all this can detach
us from life and give us an independent and satisfying exist-
ence.
" The thing Tyutchev calls silence has nothing to do with
gloom or lack of sociability. The limitations of human per-
sonality are most clearly manifest in the impossibility of ex-
pressing our thought. A man can think only with himself and
for himself: the soul conceals an entire world of ' mysteriously
magic thoughts ' which ' ripen in the soul's depth ' ; they are
1 drowned by external noise, disturbed by the light of day.'
When these thoughts have ripened, they cannot be shared with
others, because others would not understand, because a heart
cannot tell itself . . .
" To detach oneself from the world, to ' live alone within
himself ' — and to say nothing, this is what ' silence ' means
to Tyutchev. This is why he longs for the quiet of the night
when he can return to his native world, the world of penetra-
tion into the hidden problems of existence. Nobody has gone
deeper into the mood of this dark and pensive ' hour of won-
ders and visions ' when ' the living chariot of the cosmos rolls
openly in the sanctum of heaven. ' The world becomes silent;
consciousness has left it. ' Only gods stir the Muse's maiden
soul with prophetic dreams.' "
A. G. Gornfeld.
Lyrical Poems. (1820-1873.)
No words can describe the subtle charm of Tyutchev's
poems. They are strong and delicate, emotional and re-
strained, almost cool yet saturated with life. They give
a strange spiritual intoxication similar to the sensation
of awakening in new realms. They are not always perfect
in form, yet this very imperfection makes them closer
to our soul. They are so human and yet they transfer
us instantly into vast and serene eternity.
" Two years ago, on a quiet autumn night, I stood in the
dark passage of the Colosseum looking through one of the
apertures into the starry sky. Big stars, intent and luminous,
92 GROWTH OF A NATIONAL LITERATURE
looked into my eyes. As I was examining the delicate azure,
new stars appeared looking at me as mysterioulsy and elo-
quently as the first. Beyond them, in the depth, more and
more stars were twinkling, gradually swimming forward in
their turn, encased in the black mass of the walls. My eyes
saw only a small part of the sky, yet I felt it was boundless
and there was no end to its beauty. With a similar feeling
I open Tyutchev's poems. How is it possible to put within
narrow limits (I am speaking of the small size of the book)
so much beauty, depth, power! "
A. A. Foeth.
" Tyutchev's poems on nature are almost always a passion-
ate confession of love. The greatest happiness a man can reach
is, in his opinion, to enjoy the various manifestations of na-
ture's life. His most sacred wish is ' to drink all day the
warm air of spring ' in ' perfect idleness/ to ' follow the clouds
in the sky above.' He is convinced that joys of paradise are
nil compared with ' the blossoming joy of May ' ... He
sees in nature not only ' happiness,' ' charm,' ' enchantment,'
but something higher than human life, something divine, holy.
The spring he expressly calls ' divinity.' The mountain sum-
mits he calls ' divinely native '; Mont Blanc seems to him an
1 unearthly revelation'; in the flashes of heat-lightning he
guesses the solution of some * mysterious affair ', even the
autumnal slumber of the forest falling asleep before winter
seems to him ' prophetic' "
V. Bryusov.
The most beautiful and profound of Tyutchev's poems
on nature, however, are those where he melts into it, los-
ing consciousness and the sense of his own personality,
feeling himself one particle in the great mystery of Life.
COUNT ALEXEY TOLSTOI (1817-1875)
Poet and dramatist. Contrary to the main current of
Russian literature, Alexey Tolstoi was less concerned with
social problems or with the actual life of the people than
with beauty for beauty's sake. He called himself a
bard who carried beauty's banner high. His slogan was
" row fearlessly in the name of the beautiful, against the
current." As to the two warring camps, the Westerners
and Slavophils, he declared he was " no fighter in either
camp, only a casual guest." The same thing may be said
of his relation to the two camps of progressivism and
conservatism in Russia. Neither was his realm. What
attracted him most was a beautiful word-picture, a re-
fined emotion expressed in a harmonious rhythm, an
attractive story well told. Yet, he was thoroughly na-
tional. He was imbued with the spirit of folk-lyricism.
He draws upon the rich resources of ancient folk-poetry.
He looked upon Russia through the prism of old folk-
songs and heroic legends. His legends and ballads of
old Russian life are national gems.
" As a poet, Tolstoi showed that a man can serve pure art
and yet not disconnect it from the moral meaning of life; that
art must be free from things base and false, but not from
ideal contents and relation to life. As a thinker, he expressed
in a remarkably clear and harmonious poetical form the old
but forever true Platonico-Christian conception of the world.
As a patriot, he stood for the very thing our country needs
most, — and moreover, he himself represented the ideal he
stood for, — the live power of a free personality ."
Vl. Solovyov.
93
94 GROWTH OF A NATIONAL LITERATURE
i. Lyrical Poems. (1850-1875.)
" In his lyrical poems A. Tolstoi charms with the ear-caress-
ing musical quality of his form as well as with the crystal-
clear, chaste quality of his inspirations. The oscillations of
feeling, th6 capricious curves of emotion, are reproduced with
the graceful simplicity of the genuine artist."
Th. D. Batyushkcv.
Imitations of folk-songs occupy a prominent place
among Tolstoi's lyrical poems.
2. John of Damascus. Epic poem. (1859.)
. The fight between inspiration and dogma, between the
free creative human personality which is divine in itself,
and the rigid canons of a church. John of Damascus
is a singer by the grace of God; he has the power to move
human hearts by his images and harmonies. But he is a
monk. The Father Superior ordered him to refrain from
making songs. Inspiration comes to him " like a black
cloud " which he cannot resist, yet the rules of the mon-
astery are implacable. Only the intervention of the Holy
Virgin removes finally the seal from his lips. " God
wishes no restriction and oppression of free thought;
born free in the soul, it should not die in fetters."
This is one of the most impressive works of Tolstoi.
3. Dramatic Trilogy.
The Death of Ivan the Terrible. (1866.)
Tsar Theodore. (1868.)
Tsar Boris. (1870.)
Each of those tragedies has become an integral part
of the Russian repertoire. The old Russian life, the
language, the costumes, are reproduced in an artistic
way. The interest, however, centers around the figures
COUNT ALEXEY TOLSTOI 95
of the Tsars who ruled Russia in the most dramatic times
of her history.
" The trilogy has been denoted as national drama because
it lets us feel the ' national traits of character and national
conception of the world ' and because it puts forward one of
the main problems of our history, the problem of autocracy,
which it represented in three different manifestations: in the
person of a despot, cruel and obsessed; in the person of a
Tsar possessed of high moral qualities, but lacking will-power
and enlightened views; and in the person of a Tsar who had
a strong will and enlightened views, but lacked ' moral
stamina.' "
Th. D. Batyushkov.
It must be remarked, however, that all three parts of
the trilogy represent, first of all, tragedies of human
souls. Autocracy is not the main object of interest, but
the conflicts in the souls of the characters. A. Tolstoi
was a poet " who derived his inspirations principally
from the data of personal experience."
[Other works of interest: Prince Serebryany,a. historic novel;
Don Juan, a dramatic poem.]
A. A. FOETH-SHENSHIN (182 0-1892)
Poet. The most talented of the few Russian poets who,
about the middle of the nineteenth century, proclaimed
their adherence to "pure art." In Foeth's opinion,
poetry could have nothing to do with political or social
problems; poetry is a way to forget the burdens of prac-
tical life. " It was our wish," he wrote, " to turn away
from those burdens, to break the ice of everyday monot-
ony, so that we may breathe for a moment the pure and
free air of poetry."
The poet is, in Foeth's conception, a singer of winged
sounds which grasp, in their flight, " the dark delirium
of the soul, the unclear fragrance of the grasses." The
poet's attention is concentrated on his inner world, as he
bears in his breast, "like a certain Seraph," "a fire
stronger and more brilliant than the world."
Foeth adheres faithfully to this program. In his poems
he tries to seize the most delicate moods of the human
soul, the cravings of an instant, the frailest shades of
emotion. He would like to fathom the " eternal depths
of existence," where words are numb, where " not a song
do we hear, but the soul of the singer," where " the spirit
throws off the superflous body."
Two ways lead him into those ethereal regions which
to him are the heights of reality: nature and love. Foeth
is the sweet-voiced Russian nightingale whose songs
caress our soul as miracles of nature and love inseparably
blended. Foeth almost dissolves, melts away, in the soft
embraces of nature. And Foeth rises to hazy, luminous
96
A. A. FOETH-SHENSHIN 97
worlds on the wings of love. Over all these wonders, a
great sun is shining, its rays almost maddening the poet
with joy. And beauty reigns. The world is full of
beauty; love is beauty, death is beauty. The gladness
of harmony is without end.
Foeth is the most ecstatic of Russian poets. Inspira-
tion is no metaphor to him. He is overcharged with
emotion. He is all in the grip of his visions, however
evanescent. He hears voices " from other shores." His
eyes are always turned skyward. His lips are whisper-
ing a half-prayer, half-song. He would be glad to do
away with words altogether. Words are too definite
and- heavy. Music, perhaps, is the better means. Music
is the language of the soul. Foeth resembles a priest
in the temple of the Universe. He kneels before the
altar, his heart is aching with gladness, he is ready " to
die with every sound" of his song, his breast is "too
narrow for his heart."
Foeth's are not poems of action. They are revelations.
They are the flashes of mysterious light which allow the
human soul to reach in one moment the deepest elusive
truths. They are outbursts of sudden self-realization
when a man feels himself an instrument in the great
mysterious harmony of life.
Foeth's poems are unusually fresh. They remind one
of a flower bathed in dew. They are immaculate in
purity, sincerity, perfection. They seem to be not a
creation of human effort, but natural organisms born as
an entity. Yet, the language is not always faultless.
Foeth wrote in his youth and he wrote in his old age,
and the older he became, the deeper and more spiritual
were his poems, and the more harmonious strength vi-
brated through their tender fabric. Not till the very
g8 GROWTH OF A NATIONAL LITERATURE
year of his death did his emotions become less acute
or less noble. He saw death approaching, yet to him it
was rest, winter-sleep, a return to the sources of life.
His latest poems are, perhaps, the best.
It is hardly conceivable that a poet of such genuine
spirituality and talent should not have gained wide rec-
ognition in Russian intellectual circles. Yet such was
the strength of the other, the " civic protest " trend of
poetry, as represented by Nekrasov, that for many years
intellectual Russia only scoffed at this poet. This at-
titude was partly due to the notorious reactionary views
of Foeth, who, for example, was against the abolition of
serfdom. Only towards the end of his life did his fame
begin to grow. Even in the twentieth century he is hardly
valued according to his merits.
i. Lyrical Poems. (1840-1892.)
" Foeth's power lies in his ability to penetrate into the
deepest recesses of our soul. Inspiration and faith in the
power of inspiration, a deep understanding of natural beauty,
and the consciousness of the fact that the prose of life seems
prose only to those unillumined by poetry, these qualities
reveal Foeth as a pure poet of high standing. He possesses
a keen eye that discovers poetry in ordinary objects, and he
is animated by an unflinching artistic endurance which knows
no rest till a given poetic moment is expressed with unusual
accuracy. In his poems, the elusive is snatched; poetry is
embodied in a harmonious word; the most nebulous moments
of our life are made clear. He appears to represent what every
poet of powerful gifts ought to be: a seer more than anything
else, an interpreter of poetry in our everyday life."
A. V. Druzhinin.
" He does not present to us a feeling in its various phases,
he does not picture a passion in its definite forms, in the
fullness of its development; he gets hold of only one moment
A. A. FOETH-SHENSHIN 99
in the totality of a feeling or a passion, he is all in the present,
in that swift instant which overwhelmed him, compelling him
to pour forth in charming tones. Each of Foeth's poems has
reference to only one point of existence, one throb of the
heart; it is therefore indivisible, it cannot be dissolved in its
component parts; it is a harmony in which all strings respond
to the sound of one string slightly touched in passing. It is
here, therefore, that the beauty, naturalness, sincerity, and
sweetness of poetry grow to perfection. ... He does not
choose subjects; he does not draw complicated pictures and
does not unroll a sequence of thoughts, but he dwells on one
figure, on one side of a feeling. Looked at from this stand-
point, he does not appear monotonous; on the contrary, we
marvel at the breadth of his stroke, the variety and number
of his subjects. Like the magician who turns into gold what-
ever he touches, so our poet transforms into poetry all pos-
sible elements of our life."
N. N. Strakhov.
"Infatuated, intoxicated, averse to definite words, Foeth
does not speak, he is delirious; he wants no consciousness, he
is afraid of its crude exactness; he prefers to remain on the
elusive line between the light of the soul and its darkness.
He feels well in the unconscious, in the unmotivated, he
seeks no explanation . . . therefore a delicate veil is wrapt
over his poems and they are all like A a message that reached
not distinctly'; they appear from under the covering mist
of the past as if animated by Platonic remembrance. . . .
The poet tells us his wonderful dream of which only the most
delicate fragments have survived, — those silvery, silver-gray,
lucid poems or those separate words which caress our souls
with the touch of some tender silken fabric. . . .
" The angels hovering around the Sistine Madonna melt
together into a cloud; so all that is tender and ephemeral in
the world melts in his poems into something aerial, indissolu-
ble. This indivisible unity of unutterable experiences, this
world which has become so refined as to enter in its totality
into one single human heart, — this is what the poet speaks
to us about in the mode of something immaterialized, — as if
ioo GROWTH OF A NATIONAL LITERATURE
he were kissing his words and they were opening to him their
lips, — or are those not words but petals of flowers? Or are
those not flowers but stars? Or are those not stars but
maidens' eyes? Whatever it may be, it surely is happiness."
J. ElCHENWALD.
"This poet-philosopher is so much a poet of philosophers
that his works will inevitably become a favorite book of every
thinker, every scientist, every man of a philosophical turn
of mind if he is not entirely deprived of artistic sense.
" Of all the lyrical poets that have hitherto lived, none
has succeeded to such a degree in acquiring a purely philo-
sophical spirit, at the same time remaining a poet and only a
poet. This great artist is like a golden link between beauty
and truth, he is a golden bridge between philosophy and
poetry. Penetration into the substance of things is in his
opinion the limit of creative intensity:
c Wings has my spirit acquired in your palaces,
Truth does it bring from the heights of creation/
he says to the poets. This insight, however, remains for him
only the result of poetic soaring: the truth is revealed to him
on the summits of esthetic ecstasy which he seeks or leaves for
purposes other than truth. He approaches it in his own way
inaccessible to the exact thinker yet in close relation to him.
The poet and the thinker agree in results differing only in the
ways of approach."
B. V. Nikolsky.
[Foeth is known as the translator of numerous classical poets
such as Horatius, Catullus, Tibullus, Ovid, Vergil, etc. He
translated Goethe's Faust and Hermann und Dorothea, also
Schopenhauer's Die Welt als Wille und Vorstellung, etc.]
F. M. DOSTOYEVSKY (1821-1881)
Picture a country, vast, powerful, endowed with limit-
less natural riches, yet lacking ease and comfort; a coun-
try torn by the most picturesque and painful contrasts,
yet passionately dreaming of harmony and beauty; a
country struggling against the leaden floods of gloom
that threaten to choke every living thing, yet seeing
visions of pure white light and rapturous joy. Picture a
life where the dominant factor is cruelty: cruelty of an
autocratic government using the whip and the lash and
the fist and the bayonet and the saber and the dungeon
to crush its peaceful innocent citizens; cruelty of land-
lords using the rod as a means of ruling their serfs, and
of factory employers " crushing the skulls " of their
workers; cruelty of rural communities inflicting corporal
punishment on their respectable members, and of military
units where the practice of physical tortures developed
into an art and the most refined methods of painful
humiliation were devised; cruelty of parents, of schools,
of husbands, of farm managers, of judges, of priests;
cruelty of poverty, of bad roads, of primitive nature, of
disorganization, of dirt, mud, filth. Picture a people of a
hundred millions inflicted with a profound religious spirit
and craving for their God; thousands of convents scat-
tered over the plains of two continents where, among lazy
and good-for-nothing impostors, there live individual
monks of the purest and most sublime moral and spirit-
ual attainments, ascending to the highest sun-lit peaks of
faith and devotion and eternal peace; hosts of plain
101
io2 OROWTH OF A/NATIONAL LITERATURE
folks, men, women and children, strong and infirm, rich
and poor, leaving their homes every spring for a long
pilgrimage by foot to the holy places, walking from
village to village in colorful clusters, sleeping nights in
the open air and wandering for months and months
through rain and hail and dust and mud in the hope
of falling prostrate before the holy ikon and of unload-
ing the burden of sin that weighs so heavily on their con-
sciences. Picture a class of intellectual, well-educated
people who have absorbed all the cultural and spiritual
ideas of their time and who are woefully aware of the
discrepancies between their ideal conception and the
brutal reality that stares mockingly into their faces from
near and far. Picture one of those intellectuals who has
received a very careful and thorough European educa-
tion; a thinker who is irresistibly drawn to philosophical,
primarily metaphysical reasoning, living the problems of
conscience, of good and evil, of God and man, of time and
eternity and things " beyond " in a more acute and suf-
fering way than do ordinary mortals live the problems of
their personal happiness; an artist with the most piercing
eye, with the deepest understanding of human psychology
and with an ability to fathom the abysses of the human
mind beyond the surface of common sense; a responsive
soul who can hear the cry of a child in the night when it
is cruelly beaten by an ignorant mother, the sigh of agony
of a man whose daughter is selling her body to earn a
meager living for him and his family, the chatter of the
teeth of the insane when he is tormented by his infernal
visions, and who drinks the cup of suffering of humanity
so deeply that the entire world appears to him in a white
heat of pain; a constructive genius who has the power to
put all his visions, queries, doubts, anguish, rebellions,
F. M. DOSTOYEVSKY 103
analyses, curses, blessings into broad, gripping, scourging
pictures saturated with elements of reality, of human life,
human nature. Let this genius be sentenced to death for
no fault of his, let him be put on the scaffold and made
to listen to his death sentence only to be later "par-
doned " to serve a number of years in chains in the mines
of Siberia together with highwaymen and murderers; let
him, besides, develop epilepsy and be ever tormented by
the expectation of an attack and by all the terror that
accompanies the fits of his disease. Let this man loose
upon a country pictured above, let him create great monu-
mental works giving expression to his own soul as influ-
enced by the surrounding world, — and you will, perhaps,
have an idea of Fyodor Dostoyevsky.
People outside of Russia do not like to read Dostoyev-
sky. " He is too morbid," they say, " he may be very
talented, but he is too dark and gruesome." True it is
that Dostoyevsky is no amusing reading. Moreover,
some of his scenes may appear incredible to those who
judge Russia by the standards of the comfortable western
civilization. Dostoyevsky does not try to make his writ-
ings palatable. He heaps one shocking picture on the
other, he tops one excruciating scene by another as if
some formidable God were piling black sharp-edged
boulders to form a mountain which would penetrate the
sky. He is relentless. He knows no pity. He makes the
reader gasp for breath and feel as if the entire world were
turning insane. Yet the man when has gone through the^
purgatory of Dostoyevsky^ novels emerges with a greater
soul, with a wiser mind, with a wealth of unmatched ex- 1
periences that give new meaning to the world. It is for J
this reason that Dostoyevsky has grown to be ever more
valued and read and commented upon by thinking Rus-
104 GROWTH OF A NATIONAL LITERATURE
sians. Now Dostoyevsky looms up on the spiritual ho-
rizon of Russia larger than, perhaps, any of the great.
" One finds in Dostoyevsky everywhere the human person-
ality extended to the last limits,- growing, developing from
the very dark, elemental, animal-like roots to the uppermost
illuminated heights of spirituality; everywhere one finds the
struggle of a heroic will: against the elemental power of moral
duty and conscience; against the elemental power of the people,
the state, the political influences; finally, against the elemental
power of metaphysical and religious mysteries. Passing
through the crucible of this struggle, through the fire of red-
hot passions and still more red-hot consciousness, the kernel
of the human personality remains undestroyed, it reveals it-
self,— and all Dostoyevsky's heroes are contrasted with the ele-
mental powers that absorb them.
"His main works are in reality neither novels, nor epics;
they are tragedies. He has no rivals in the art of gradually
intensifying, accumulating, deepening and fearfully concentrat-
ing the tragic action. There comes a moment for all Dosto-
yevsky's heroes when they cease ' feeling their own body/
These creatures are by no means bodiless or bloodless, they
are not ephemeral. Yet the highest elation, the utmost tension
of their spiritual life, the most heated passions not of heart and
emotions, but of mind, intellect, conscience, give them this free-
dom from their bodies; they produce, as it were, the super-
natural lightness, the spirituality of the flesh. Because of
their high spirituality, all Dostoyevsky's heroes live an incred-
ibly accelerated life; they do not walk like ordinary mortals,
they are flying; and in their very destruction they experience
the rapture of this terrible flight, since it carries them into the
abyss.
"Dostoyevsky's heroes are, first of all, clever people.
Through them we can see how even abstract thoughts can be
passionate, how metaphysical premises and conclusions can be
rooted not only in our intellect, but also in our hearts, emo-
tions, will. Their crimes are irresistible conclusions from
dialectics. They feel deeply because they think deeply; they
suffer enormously because they cogitate enormously; they
F. M. DOSTOYEVSKY 105
dare to will because they dare to think. The most abstract
thought is at the same time the most passionate: this is the
thought of God. All Dostoyevsky's heroes are ' tormented by
God.'
" To make the hidden sides, the powers latent in the depths
of human souls reveal themselves, Dostoyevsky needs a cer-
tain degree of pressure of moral atmospheres which under
conditions of present ' real ' life never, or almost never, are
to be found: — he needs either the rarefied, icy air of abstract
dialectics, or the fire of elemental, animal-like passion. These
experiments sometimes yield totally novel states of the human
soul, which seem to be impossible, unnatural, like the liquid
state of the air. Dostoyevsky's so-called psychology reminds
one of a vast laboratory equipped with the finest, most exact
instruments and mechanisms to measure, investigate, analyze
human souls."
D. S. Merezhkovsky.
" A romanticist by emotion and purpose, Dostoyevsky,
nevertheless, was a realist in the means of execution. His
penetration into the depths of human consciousness we can-
not fail to recognize as a truthful and realistic reproduction
of the psychic processes of his heroes. Even in this reproduc-
tion, however, he remains a subjective romantic author inas-
much as he does not copy his characters from the observa-
tions of others, but objectivizes in them his own mental strug-
gles and his own experiences in their extraordinary scope and
intensity. He thus represents a type of artistic work which
consists in judgment of an author over himself. To this type
belonged also Gogol's work."
Ch. Vyetrinsky.
1. Crime and Punishment. Novel. (1866.)
Through the processes of pure reasoning, a man comes
to the murder of a fellow human being. The man is hon-
est. He is an idealist. He is a thinker. He despises
conventional morals. He challenges society by challeng-
ing his own deeply rooted moral conceptions. There are,
106 GROWTH OF A NATIONAL LITERATURE
he says, human lives that are worth nothing, less than
nothing. They are injurious to society. They are para-
sites pure and simple. Why should I not be permitted
to go and kill one of these persons, even if it is an old
helpless decrepit woman, and take away her money
which I can use for some progressive purpose?
The man dares. He kills the woman. What will be-
come of him? What mental processes will he go through?
This is the main problem Dostoyevsky sets out to solve
in this novel. " People call me a psychologist," Dosto-
yevsky once wrote about himself. " This is not true. I
am only a realist of a higher order; that is to say, I am
depicting all the depths of human soul." Raskolnikov,
the hero of Crime and Punishment, offers a vast oppor-
tunity for this realism of a higher order. Sonja Marmela-
dov, the prostitute who is destined to play the most im-
portant part in Raskolnikov's regeneration, offers to this
realism another rich field for experimenting. Thrown
against the background of the " mad " city of Petersburg,
a nightmare of stone and dust in the hot summer months,
the story becomes one of the very significant events in
the lives of those who have read it.
" Raskolnikov belongs to the men whose thinking is very in-
tense. He led a solitary, secluded life, all absorbed in thought
and contemplation, in logical combinations, examining with
his intellect the riddles of life. He tasted of the poison of un-
fulfilled desires which turned inward, he experienced the fever
of indecision. But he wishes not only to think, he wishes to
act."
Th. D. Batyushkov.
2. The Idiot. Novel. (1868.)
The man thus labeled is not an idiot at all. He is
wiser than many a wise man. He has been ill up to a
F. M. DOSTOYEVSKY 107
mature age, suffering from a kind of mental disease. Now
he is well. He returns to society, rich and independent.
But he returns with a soul so sensitive that it seems nude.
His impressions have a freshness and a spontaneity un-
known to civilized men. His ideas of right and wrong,
proper and improper, are dictated by a moral sense that
is as responsive and tremulous as would be a living being
stripped of its skin. He is a child, he is a sage, he is a
saint. How would he react if he were put in a company
not of dull commonplace people, but of men and women
of the hottest passions and the darkest gropings? Dos-
toyevsky introduces a gallery of such men and women.
The savage Rogozhin with his primitive impulses; the
cultured unhappy Nastasya Philippovna whose soul has
been forever downtrodden and who revenges herself by
disregarding human laws, and a number of others. The
novel is a string of tragic scenes unsurpassed in dramatic
power. It leads up to a climax that is haunting.
" A tragic struggle between demoniacal powers of beauty on
one hand and distant truths, quiet and salutary, shining from
far off, on the other, is represented in The Idiot. The novel
has no construction whatever. The author cared little about
what is commonly called plausibility in descriptions of human
life. When fundamental powers are in conflict, such as God
and atheism, the universal and the individual, transcendental
truth and sensual beauty, it is inevitable that a great con-
fusion, a storm, a hurricane should follow. Caught by this
hurricane, the persons of the novel live in a constant rush.
They are all running up-hill or down-hill, they fall and rise
again, and even when they reach heights above the clouds,
they still shake in mad convulsions. This is a true repro-
duction of the historic process, yet it is done in the feverish
tempo of a pathetic and disease-stricken genius."
A. L. Volynsky.
108 GROWTH OF A NATIONAL LITERATURE
" The Idiot is fundamentally a love story. The entire action
is centered around a love affair, and the catastrophe is brought
about by unsatisfied love. In Dostoyevsky's work, however,
love almost entirely loses its specific character of an instinc-
tive, sentimental or sensual attraction, of a desire of two hu-
man beings to merge in one undivided life. The eternal theme
of love is here afforded not an individual, but a broad uni-
versal treatment. In a sort of hurricane, phantoms pass be-
fore our eyes: Rogozhin obsessed by a mad passion, the tragic
figure of Nastasya Philippovna, the proud Aglaya, and a whole
series of other figures, strange personalities, crippled by disease
or circumstances." m
Th. D. Batyushkov.
3. The Brothers Karamazov. Novel. (1 879-1 880.)
The ripest and most monumental of Dostoyevsky's
works. Here all the trends and currents of his creative
searchings are concentrated and deepened. The volumi-
nous novel represents a momentous tragedy constructed
with unusual technical skill. The n.umerous figures are
located around the main event so as to make a complete
whole. The psychological vivisection, the cruel dipping
into the most obscure corners of human souls, the un-
canny joy at pursuing the victim of the artist's acrid
stare, coupled with a human sympathy and compassion
for suffering human beings as profound and tender and
all-embracing as only suffering can produce, are more
evident in this work than, perhaps, in all the works of
Dostoyevsky.
" Somewhere, in an unknown and insignificant provincial
town, a grave family drama took place culminating in a sen-
sational scandalous trial. The acting figures in the novel are
almost, personified complexes of various qualities and attri-
butes of the human soul: the sensual element is primarily in-
carnated in Fyodor Pavlovitch Karamazov; as to his sons,
F. M. DOSTOYEVSKY 109
Ivan represents intellect, pride, and 'greediness for life/
Domitri, unbridled passions and goodness of heart, Alyosha,
tenderness and sympathy, while the illegitimate son Smerdya-
kov is an example of servility and bitterness. As a contrast to
all those sinister, nightmare-like, destructive and mortifying
experiences in a whirlwind of passion and strife which, besides
the main figures, embraces a number of secondary personages,
women, adolescents, and almost children, the solemn magnifi-
cent figure of Saint Zosima looms up, — the figure of a man
once in the turmoil of worldly strife, now calm and composed
in possession of the higher truth, living outside the world,
though never losing interest in the fate of his fellow human
beings.',
Th. D. Batyushkov.
" The most harrowing of all philosophico-religious problems
is here treated: how can we reconcile the faith in an all-power-
ful and all-benevolent God with the existence of evil, cruelties,
bestiality in the world, particularly with the greatest injustice
— children's torture? Ivan is revolting against the idea of uni-
versal harmony achieved at the price of endless suffering,
primarily of innocent victims. He rejects the ' truth ' thus
attained, he declares beforehand that the truth is not worth
such a price. It is not a theoretical, theologico-philosophical
discussion as to the proofs of God's existence, it is a burning
question of life and moral consciousness. The question is put
so sharply and in such a daring manner that no superficial
answer is possible."
D. N. OVSYANIKO-KULIKOVSKY.
[Other works of Dostoyevsky indispensable to the student of
his talent: Memories from the Dead House; Notes from the
Underground; Poor People; Netotchka Nezvanova; The Ob-
sessed.]
VLADIMIR SOLOVYOV (1853-1900)
Philosopher, publicist, poet, and critic. The student of
Russian literature cannot pass by the figure of Vladimir
Solovyov though his main work lies outside the realm
of literature proper. Solovyov occupies an honorable
place among the Russian idealistic philosophers. His
most important philosophic treatises are The Spiritual
Foundation of Life, The Justification of the Good, and
Russia and the Universal Church. Here Solovyov ap-
pears as an adherent of the Neo-Platonic school and as a
thinker whose main concern is religion. His aim was,
to use his own words, " to justify the faith of our fathers
by raising it to a new level of intelligent consciousness;
to show how this ancient faith, freed from the fetters of
local separatism and national egotism, coincides with
the eternal universal truth."
In the field of social problems, Solovyov's famous work
is The National Problem in Russia, in which he stands
against narrow nationalism and false patriotism. His
ideal in social questions is "love, truth, and universal
solidarity." Patriotism he understands " not as hatred to
members of other races or adherents of other religions,
but as active love for the entire suffering people." In
his political works Solovyov embraces a wide range of
national and international problems; through these works
he was known to the public more than through his purely
philosophic researches.
Fundamentally, however, Solovyov was a poet, and a
poetic feeling colored all his philosophic thinking and
writing. E. Radlov, author of many essays on Solovyov,
110
VLADIMIR SOLOVYOV in
says: " The stamp of poetry, of something far away
which has no connection whatever with the interests of
our time, is seen in Solovyov's philosophy and expresses
the mystical element which is a salient feature of the
Russian soul." Solovyov was a poet and a mystic, a
mystic poet, and in a number of talented poems he gave
utterance to his moods. In several splendid essays he
gave appreciations of other Russian poets and writers
who, in his opinion, approached most closely the ideal of
real art. Altogether, Solovyov is a many-sided, highly
talented spiritual personality; he stands out as a bright
figure on the gloomy horizon of Russian intellectual life.
He deserves respect even on the part of those who do not
agree with his philosophico-theological conceptions.
" What is most unusual in Solovyov and most fundamental,
is his world-wide interest, his universalism. Sectarianism or
apostasy was foreign to him. Russian life and thought of the
second half of the nineteenth century shows no other instance
of a universal personality concerned with Russia, humanity,
the world's soul, the Church, God, and not with circles or
factions. Solovyov is neither a Slavophil nor a Westerner,
neither Greek-Catholic nor Roman-Catholic, because he dwelt
all his life in the Church of the Universe. He dwelt all his
life in unity with the soul of the world which, as a faithful
knight, he wished to free from captivity. Dostoyevsky's as-
sertion that the Russian is primarily a universal man, is most
applicable to Solovyov. This Russian longing for a universal
humanity led him to raise the question of ' Orient and Oc-
cident.' The problem of Orient and Occident, of uniting both
worlds in a Christian universal humanity, was Solovyov's main
problem which pursued him all his life."
Nikolas Berdyayev.
i. Lyrical Poems. (1875-1900.)
Solovyov's poems are poems of thought rather than
intuition. They supplement his philosophic and religious
ii2 GROWTH OF A NATIONAL LITERATURE
gropings. Their main theme may be expressed in the
following passage from his famous poem Three Meet-
ings: " Disbelieving in the deceptive world, I felt the im-
perishable mantle of purple, and recognized the radiance
of God under the rough crust of matter." 1 In their style
and language they represent hardly any new features, as
compared with the works of the great masters. Their
value is in their spirituality and mystic moods.
" Solovyov possessed a gift of artistic expression which ob-
literated the line of demarcation between poetry and prose;
this gift was combined in him with an actual song-making
ability. His poems are valuable not only as material for
the history of his inner life; the best of them are full of a
peculiar charm; at times they call forth from the depth of the
soul something half-forgotten, veiled in a mist of unaccount-
able sadness; at times they offer flashlike glimpses into the
infinite distances of the future. ... Of the few poems on
current questions, the strongest is Ex oriente lux with its
question put to Russia: ' What Orient wouldst thou prefer to
be, that of Xerxes or of Christ? ' Solovyov understood the
fundamental qualities of the Russian soul."
K. Arsenyev.
2. Three Speeches on Dostoyevsky. (i 881-1883.)
The Poetry of Th. I. Tyutchev. Essay. (1895.)
The Poetry of Count A. K. Tolstoi. Essay. (1895.)
Lermontov. Essay. (1899.)
Significance of Poetry in Pushkin's Poems, Essay.
(1899.)
Lermontov. Essay. (Published in 1901.)
Poetry. Essay. (Published in 1901.)
In his penetrating and beautiful critical essays, Solo-
vyov appears a man of refined literary taste, of real love
for poetry and a keen understanding of a poet's task. He
1 Literal translation.
VLADIMIR SOLOVYOV 113
does not confine himself to external things, he goes into
the very essence of a poet's creative individuality. What
he demands of poetry is " the bloom and radiance of
spiritual forces." Poetry incarnates in images the high
meaning of life. The source of poetry is eternal ideas.
Poetry is no play of fancy, it is an expression of the unity
and animation of nature. Poetry should tell the truth
about the nature of the universe. Poetic creations that
do not conform with this ideal, are inferior in Solovyov's
opinion. Still, he says, even writers who are not aware
of serving a high ideal, are nevertheless endowed with a
divine spirit and serve the cause of truth. For Solovyov,
poetry is a service, a sacred performance.
[Other important essays: Beauty in Nature; The Poetry of
Ya. P. Polonsky.]
L. N. TOLSTOI (1828-1910)
"With a feeling of awe you approach Tolstoi, — he is so
tremendous and masterful; with a feeling of timid admiration
you stand at the foot of this human mountain. The Cyclopean
structure of his spirit overpowers the student.
" It is the naturalness, the almost primeval character and
elemental power of his works that strike one most. He is the
eternal pupil of life, forever learning something new; his soul
is full to the brim, it is a vessel of beauty, artistically carved,
precious in its simplicity. He can identify himself with every
soul; he remembers and understands everything; he includes
all objects, big and small, in the vast sphere of his observa-
tions; he transforms himself into everybody and everything,
and all sensations, however fleeting, experienced by him or by
others, he puts into an artistic form that stays forever. . . .
The all-embracing scope of his creative power gives him access
to human beings, to animals, and even to the soul of a dying
tree; you cannot resist the authenticity with which he pictures
all the experiences of all the living creatures in God^s world.
Being no litterateur, he has no literary specialty. / He ap^
proaches every subject with equal ease, and the diameter 01
his creative area is astounding. From Napoleon to Kholstomer
(the Horse) — all this tremendous psychological distance he
passes with equal strength, never fatigued, never strained,
never artificial. The dreams of a child falling asleep, and the
last visions of a dying person, the debut of a little girl who is in
love for the first time, and the nights of the old Prince turn-
ing on the hard bed of senility, — all this Tolstoi understood
and lived through and incorporated into pieces of art, and bet-
ter than any artist in the world has he shown that nothing is
lost in the soul; he showed how endlessly rich life is, how
every drop of dew glistens and sparkles with a fullness of color.
" And yet, slowly completing his inspiring progress through
the world, fondly absorbing every detail of existence, Tol-
"4
L. N. TOLSTOI
"5
stoi does not forget its general meaning; the concrete manifes-
tations of life never screen for him life as a whole; he sees the
latter in every trifle. Generous, knowing no fear of exhaus-
tion, never menaced by the ghost of poverty, he gives much
time and attention to details, he cherishes them, he transforms
them into gems of creation, he is in no hurry to let them pass
by. He can be exuberant. He likes luxury. He devotes en-
tire pages — pages of unrivaled beauty — to hunting, races,
birthday-dinners, weddings.
" From amid all this, from amid the trivial, ordinary, the
trifling,, rises the sublime, the beautiful, the great, stirring the
soul with the purest emotions. Without an obvious purpose,
without aiming at effects, he attains the most sublime results;
amid every-day life, out of the material of every-day occur-
rences, he gives us a holiday of spirit; out of prose he creates
fragrant poetry, and you are thankful to him, and you send
him your blessings."
J. ElCHENWALD.
1, Anna Karenina. Novel, (i 875-1 877.)
The Song of Songs of love stories. Tolstoi personally
disapproves of Anna's love for Vronsky. Anna is a
married woman, and, according to Tolstoi's moral con-
ception, she should not have left her husband and child
for the sake of her love. Yet Tolstoi the artist is in-
finitely stronger than Tolstoi the moralist. His narrative
of emotional developments is their justification; his
sketches of Anna's, her husband's, Vronsky's and the
others' characters, make events appear inevitable. Tol-
stoi tells the story of human weaknesses and human in-
consequence with so much fondness that it seems almost
impossible to identify the author of Anna Karenina with
the old, stern-looking, implacable man we know so well
from his portraits. Here, as elsewhere, Tolstoi the artist
is utterly humane; his own ideas do not cloud his vision;
his philosophic conceptions remain in the background so
n6 GROWTH OF A NATIONAL LITERATURE
long as he anatomizes actual life. " Tolstoi was more of
a pagan than any other of our writers," said a famous
Russian critic. His greediness for life in its concrete
manifestations made him dread the reverse, — death. In
Anna Karenina we have a streak of this dread which
pursued Tolstoi all through his works.
Still, Anna Karenina is infinitely more than a story
of love, life, and death. It is one of the few works where
the thinking elements of the Russian nobility were pic-
tured with broad, frank strokes, it is a colorful panorama
of the upper class of Russia in the second half of the
nineteenth century. Tolstoi was not partial, though his
sympathy with his own class was most natural. He
pictures both the virtues and weaknesses of high society,
and the student of Russian social conditions will have
to acquaint himself with the characters of the novel
just as well as with historic or sociological data. It is
conceivable that he will see more through Anna Karenina
than through piles of dry material.
The novel, however, is even more than a social study.
It touches the broader principles of existence. It is satu-
rated with pure thought. It gropes for a solution of the
meaning of life. The individual, the social, and the uni-
versal, are subtly combined into an organic whole.
2. War and Peace. Novel. (1865-1869.)
" The author faced a tremendous task. The scene of action
in the novel is the whole of Europe, from the Volga to Auster-
litz; equal participants in the action are great armies of hun-
dreds of thousands, and a little girl Natasha; the "great
Napoleon," and the captive soldier Platon Karatayev. The
battle of Borodino, and a hunting party; the movements of
huge masses of armed men, and the hardly perceptible move-
ments of a human soul; the slaughter of innumerable thou-
L. N. TOLSTOI n7
sands, and the fleeting grief of an individual; the meeting be-
tween Alexander and Napoleon, and the meeting between
Pierre and Natasha, — all those historical and romantic occur-
rences are combined into one great tangle of life. To be able
to untangle this wealth of events, to draw out the novel into
one straight line, it was necessary to find the meaning of all,
to see clearly how everything happened, what were the mov-
ing forces, the psychological grounds, why things shaped them-
selves one way and not another. Once faced with all these
questions, Tolstoi was naturally compelled to inquire into the
philosophical foundations both of the historical and psycholog-
ical parts of the novel. War and Peace thus became an artistic,
historic, and philosophic epic whose elements are inseparably
intertwined."
R. V. Ivanov-Razumnik.
" The conflict between two peoples, or, strictly speaking,
between Napoleon and Russia, served the author as a back-
ground for depicting a conflict of two moral powers, a strug-
gle between a proud personality who dares to mold the fate of
peoples, and a spirit of humble submission to the aims of an
unknown higher force. Russia's victory over Napoleon is the
triumph of the moral idea which, in Tolstoi's opinion, is rep-
resented by the Russian people. All parts of the picture are
placed so as to form one harmonious entity, and it often seems
"as if all the heroes of the novel, and all the masses that
move against each other, were only manifestations of the higher
force which thus reveals itself."
P. KOGAN.
War and Peace is, first of all, an artistic biography of
several men and women at the beginning of the nineteenth
century. A number of very young Russians, almost chil-
dren, members of the upper class, are introduced in the
first chapters of the novel, and the author proceeds to
follow their lives, through all the hazards and vicissitudes
of a turbulent historic epoch, up to the time of their full
maturity when their mental powers reached a climax.
n8 GROWTH OF A NATIONAL LITERATURE
The lives of those people often cross and clash, forming
the romantic and dramatic part of the novel. War and
Peace is, thus, one of the rare works that picture the
growth and development of an entire generation. The
subtlety of the psychological analysis is not hampered
by the great number of persons and the overwhelming
amount of material to be handled.
A second element is the national life of Russia. Hardly
any representative of any class in Russia, from the serfs
and the village reeve to the Emperor and his advisers, is
omitted in this work. In fact, it was the clear purpose of
Tolstoi to review the whole of Russia in her moment of
hardest trial. The picture drawn is both broad and vivid,
true to life and shot through with spirit.
A third element is the historical event: battles, dip-
lomatic relations, military drives, the invasion of Rus-
sia by Napoleon, the burning of Moscow, the retreat and
annihiliation of ithe French army. The latter events are
represented with so much vigor and clarity that one is
almost inclined to think this narrative one of the best
sources of the history of 1812 in Russia.
3. Resurrection. Novel. (1900.)
In this novel Tolstoi aimed at picturing the moral re-
generation of a person steeped in wrong. Prince Nekh-
ludov, the rich man, the bon vivant, realizes the evils of
his life. The seduction of young Katya, the peasant girl,
which led her down-hill to vice and misery and finally
to a trial for participation in murder, is Nekhludov's
heaviest sin. Nekhludov repents and is ready to change
his life. The actual center of the novel and its greatest
artistic achievement, however, is not the figure of Nekh-
ludov, but prison-life in Russia, Katya's long and dreary
L. N. TOLSTOI 119
journey to Siberia together with a band of political pris-
oners, her gradual change under the influence of more
intelligent and human companions, her timid love for
one of the revolutionaries, and the first rays of hope that
illuminate this sorely tried young heart still capable of
the best human emotions.
[The student of Tolstoi will read every literary work of his
with equal joy and profit. Particular attention should be
called to Childhood, Adolescence, Youth, which is a kind of
artistic autobiography; to The Cossacks, an early story where
many of Tolstoi's later philosophical doubts and queries are
foreshadowed; Sebastopol Stories, forming almost personal
memoirs in which the author, then a young man, set down his
experiences as an officer in the Crimean campaign; the
Kreuzer Sonata, in which sexual love and pleasure for pleas-
ure's sake are strongly condemned ; The Death of Ivan Hitch
and Man and Master, both dealing with the problem of death ;
a number of short stories written for the masses in plain
language; all the posthumous works, of which the Living
Corpse is, perhaps, the most remarkable. Brilliant descrip-
tions, conversations, characteristics are scattered in Tolstoi's
"prose" discourses, such as Confessions, What Is Art?
What, Then, Shall We Do? and others. No complete under-
standing of Tolstoi's artistic manner is possible without re-
course to these prose works.]
N. S. LYESKOV (1831-1895)
Duality marks the character and the literary career of
this great and original Russian writer. He has a vast
knowledge of Russian life acquired in the course of his
extensive travels through the country, and he often pic-
tures characters not as they are but as he sees them in
his prejudiced mind. He undoubtedly cherishes the ideas
of a sound progressive order on the basis of justice and
law, and he often plays into the hands of reactionary
forces defying law and justice. He is a staunch defender
of the truth and nothing but the truth, and it so happens
that both camps, the reactionary and the progressive,
refuse to accept his truth. He is a splendid narrator
with a rich language, with a carefully constructed and
always amusing plot, with a wealth of details and a
strong sense of humor, yet the reader does not grasp
eagerly at his books and does not become a friend of
the author.
The reason lies, perhaps, in Lyeskov's inherent pessi-
mism. When he appeared in the literary world early in
the sixties, he found no elements in Russian society which,
in his opinion, were capable of building up a new life.
He distrusted the radical intelligentzia (" nihilists " they
were called in those times), whom he conceived as a
group of idle talkers with no practical sense; and he
had little faith in programs of social reconstruction, be-
cause he thought the people not ripe for progressive
reforms. Yet, without the conscious efforts of en-
lightened masses, he said, no program or constitution
120
N. S. LYESKOV 121
could be materialized. Thus he fundamentally differed
from the current liberal opinion of his time according
to which a change in institutions was the prime necessity
for Russia. Hence his lack of sympathy for either the
peasant or the radical movement. Hence his lack of a
clear program in a world divided according to programs
and social conceptions. Hence that lack of burning en-
thusiasm for a lofty, though distant, aim which the Rus-
sian public was wont to find in its leading writers. Hence,
consequently, a certain degree of sympathy for the con-
servative Russian bureaucrat, although Lyeskov was
never tired of pointing out his shortcomings. If we add
a restless mind easily prejudiced and seeing things not in
their proper light, we may understand why Lyeskov was
never popular in Russia. Only after the lapse of decades,
critics like Vengerov, Lerner, Sementkovsky began to see
what was actually great in Lyeskov, and that is a tre-
mendous capacity for picturing life (such parts of it as did
not arouse his prejudice), an individual style of unusual
vigor, an abundance of color laid on almost to superfluity,
and an ardent, somewhat voluptuous love for life in all
its manifestations.
Not till lately have the critics acquired a calm attitude
towards Lyeskov, as may be seen from the following two
quotations divided by a distance of some fifteen years.
" A writer endowed with talent and observing power yet
without a God in his soul. A cynic by constitution and a
libertine by temperament, he is a hypocrite screening himself
with lofty words in the sanctity of which he does not believe.
He saw much, observed much, but he did not digest what he
heard and saw, and therefore he gave a series of distorted and
elaborated arabesques and nothing truthful. He is not a cari-
caturist, and he is not a satirist. For a caricaturist he has
not enough gaiety and wit, for a satirist he has not enough
122 GROWTH OF A NATIONAL LITERATURE
brains and civic courage. He is simply a joker and a jester.
The twelve volumes of his works are a heap of ruins. In
their ugly aggregation, among loads of debris, among piles of
useless rubbish you find wonderful things, but nothing com-
plete, nothing stamped with the stamp of a higher gift, nothing
animated by a higher truth or warmed by goodness and faith."
A. I. BOGDANOVITCH.
"In Lyeskov's soul lived a great desire for truth, but,
twisted by an overabundant richness of a live and sensitive
nature and by a number of purely external events which
altered the course destined for his talent, his seeking for the
truth did not manifest itself in a clear, pure and bright form.
As far as purely artistic significance and genuine individuality
of talent is concerned, he is hardly inferior to Tolstoi, Tur-
genev, Saltykov, Dostoyevsky, the foremost writers of his
time. As to interior consistency, as to the degree of satura-
tion with the ideals that formed the life of those writers, Lye-
skov was much less than the others. . . . Lyeskov loved life
in all its variety, with all its contradictions. ... He was,
however, too much attracted by the bright colors and dark
depths of life. Overwhelmed by the struggle of varying and
sometimes conflicting sympathies, he never succeeded in ' plac-
ing himself,' to use his own expression. And so he remains
* unplaced ' in the history of Russian thought and Russian
literature. The one thing that is definite and tangible about
him is a bright and refined artistic feeling for life, and a pity
for man. The title of one of his stories, Vexation oj Mind,
may be used as a motto for all his creative work. All Lyeskov
is in these words. His mind was vexed by a longing for truth
and he knew how to stir souls, to arouse in them good feel-
ings and to lead them on the road of self-analysis and self-
contemplation at the end of which all problems are solved."
N. O. Lerner.
It seems that Mr. Lerner's opinion is nearer to a true
appreciation of Lyeskov's value.
Lyeskov wrote a large number of novels and stories
of which the following are the most characteristic:
N. S. LYESKOV 123
1. The Bullsheep. Novelette. (1863.)
" The man here grew up in sheer want. He is seeking for
evangelical people, he is indignant over l senseless injustice,
boundless injury/ His heart is full of pain at the sight of
human suffering. He reads nothing but the Bible. He thinks
himself a preacher of God's word. He goes to the people to
preach and help, but fails lamentably, grows disappointed,
becomes a laughing-stock in the eyes of the people, and finally
commits suicide. Everybody thinks he is a clown, and only
a few realize his great moral powers and his great tragedy."
R. Sementkovsky.
2. Nowhere. Novel. (1864.)
" The very name of the novel indicates that contemporary
social movements are nothing but bubbles, mirages, smoke.
The best people can move ' nowhere ': the old is rotten, the
new is not trustworthy. Two ideal types occupy the fore-
ground, an ideal Socialist, Reiner, and an ideal nihilist, Liza.
Reiner is animated by the death of his father, a Swiss revolu-
tionary, who was shot. Reiner is disappointed in European
life and comes to Russia, where he hopes to find genuine Social-
ism rooted in the plain masses of the people. What he finds
is a crowd of corrupt nihilists. In desperation he throws him-
self into the Polish revolt, where he hopes to find true Social-
ism, but he finds nothing of the kind, falls into captivity and
dies on the scaffold. Liza is oppressed in family life, she seeks
a way out in the revolutionary movement, but she meets the
same nihilists. Disappointed, she knows not where to betake
herself, she finds that she can go nowhere, and finally dies."
A. M. Skabitchevsky.
The novel aroused the indignation of progressive Rus-
sia, which thought the pictures of the nihilists a malicious
attack on radical Russia. The following novel, however,
overshadowed Nowhere by its mistreatment of the ni-
hilists.
124 GROWTH OF A NATIONAL LITERATURE
3. At Knives' Points. Novel. (1870-1871.)
Describes the nihilists as a group of criminals and
bloodthirsty monsters. Two large volumes.
" It is inconceivable that the most radical part of society
at that time, especially the youth, could have contained only
crooks, clowns, and madmen. The hero of the novel commits
the following crimes: he manages to have his friend searched
and arrested; he sells his friend, literally, for 9,500 rubles,
to a lady who is in need of a husband; he keeps a sub-rosa
pawnshop; he steals letters and forges a number of notes;
he seduces three girls; finally he crowns his career by killing
his lover's husband. The other heroes rival with him, and in
general the author pictures a black hole teeming with outcasts
against whom struggle the ideal heroes of a conservative type,
courageously but vainly."
A. I. BOGDANOVITCH.
After the appearance of this novel, Lyeskov was liter-
ally ostracized by progressive Russia.
4. The Churchmen. Novel. (1872.)
5. Odds and Ends from an Archbishop's Life. Sketches.
(1878.)
Lyeskov was truly religious, and in his writings often
described the life of the clergy.
" The two main heroes of The Churchmen, the priest of the
Cathedral and his deacon, are drawn with a master hand. The
good-naturedness of the latter, the quiet, cordial warmth of
the former, make them almost proverbial. The priest's diary
leads us into the most intimate corners of Russian church life,
revealing many causes of the shortcomings in our clergy. Lye-
skov manifests here an admirable knowledge of the class he
describes, and the priest makes such a sympathetic impression
that the reader grows to love him. The priest's attitude to-
wards the clerical and civil authorities is reproduced very
N. S. LYESKOV 125
truthfully. On the contrary, his struggle against the dark
forces of faithlessness and revolution, contains much artificial
fun and obviously impossible situations."
K. Golovin.
Odds and Ends from an Archbishop's Life bore the
character of almost scandalous revelations and put Lye-
skov into disfavor with the authorities. He had to quit
a governmental position in consequence.
6. The Enchanted Wanderer (1873) and other legends
composed in the spirit of the people's beliefs.
" After Tolstoi and Dostoyevsky, Lyeskov is decidedly the
most outspoken religious writer in the entire Russian litera-
ture of the nineteenth century. His religious feeling through-
out the major part of his life was perfectly satisfied with the
Greek Orthodox Church, in which he saw a worthy expression
of the Christian spirit. He loved also the outward forms of
Church service. Christianity, to him, was inseparable from
nationalism. He conceived Christianity not as an abstract
dogma, but he took it in the way it is understood and ex-
pressed by the plain people."
N. O. Lerner.
M. E. SALTYKOV (SHCHEDRIN) (1826-1889)
Satirist. Was a high governmental official prior to de-
voting himself to literature. Knew bureaucracy from
the inside. Possessed an enormous talent of reducing to
absurdity the objects of his satire. There is something
venomous, implacable, almost cruel, almost uncanny in
the way he follows every crevice in the soul of his victim,
exposing meanness, vulgarity, inefficiency, hypocrisy,
ridiculing, castigating, branding with mockery, and laugh-
ing, laughing. . . . Compared with Shchedrin, Gogol
appears almost tame. Shchedrin is grim. He is serious.
He is masterful. Only after a while the reader realizes
the grotesqueness of this serious face, and a gruesome
gaiety takes hold of him. Shchedrin is a realist. Hardly
ever has a Russian writer descended as deeply as
Shchedrin into the mire of human minds and into the filth
in social conditions. He shared with Gogol his con-
tempt for the bureaucrat and the noble landlord, but he
discovered in Russia a new type that was only an embryo
in GogoPs times: the modern, "real Russian," bour-
geois.
Shchedrin's manner was a result of the press censor-
ship in Russia. It was the necessity of preserving an in-
nocent appearance, of talking in a detached way about
things that hurt most, of hinting and alluding to topics
which could not be discussed, at the same time keeping
the tone of loyalty and devotion to the existing powers,
that shaped Shchedrin's form. His most satirical and
126
M. E. SALTYKOV 127
most effective volumes are those where he speaks the
language of a bureaucrat.
" Pity and sympathy for the masses of the people who suffer
under hard labor, ignorance, and darkness; a contempt for
the same masses who bore on their shoulders the ugly order
of things which oppressed it, — this is the leading tendency of
Shchedrin's works, the foundation of his formidable and scorn-
ful satire.
" Shchedrin's creative work is surprisingly versatile. There
is not a subject that escaped his penetrating eyes and thus
failed to arouse his scornful indignation. He attacked all
the reactionary elements both in the ranks of the government
and in society ; he attacked the class privileges of the nobility,
the liking for serfdom among the landlords, the exploitation
of the village capitalists, the new bourgeoisie, the stock-ex-
change people and the man of affairs, the idle talk and the
superficial liberalism of the Zemstvos, the hypocrites, impos-
tors, seekers for easy money."
D. N. OVSYANIKO-KULIKOVSKY.
1. The Family Golovlev. Novel. (1880.)
The story of the decadence of a noble family, perhaps
the strongest arraignment of the nobility ever written in
Russian. Porfiri Golovlev, the main figure, combines
voracious greed with oily piety, demoniacal sensuality
with a righteous appearance, vicious cruelty with suavity
of manner, frightful hollowness of soul with constant
moral-preaching. The choking grave-like odors of de-
caying flesh are rising from this monstrous book which,
in spite of its exaggerations, bears a sinister resemblance
to real life. " Judas " Golovlev, as the name of the hero
is known in Russia, became a black symbol. It has been
applied to many a known leader in Russia, and fitted
well. Shchedrin's analytical power and overwhelming
realism reach a climax in this book. It is a book of social
i28 GROWTH OF A NATIONAL LITERATURE
criticism, and also represents one of the most valuable
studies in human nature.
2. Monrepos the Refuge. Novel, (i 878-1 879.)
This is the history of the advent of modern capitalism
in Russia over the debris of the feudal order, which re-
ceived its mortal blow with the abolition of serfdom in
1 86 1. The merchant Razuvayev, the capitalist hero, the
unscrupulous manipulator who feels the entire district
as his personal domain, the " strong man " who disdains
both the noble gentleman of the mansion and the " free "
agricultural laborer, viewing them as so many flies who
are doomed finally to land in his spider's net of money
power, — this new type makes in Monrepos his first ap-
pearance in Russian literature. Needless to say, Shche-
drin hates his crudeness, his ignorance, his worship of
wealth, and his assurance. Contrasted with him is the
old " noblemen's nest " Monrepos, full of old traditions
and ambitions, but falling to ruins under the pressure of
new economic conditions.
11 Monrepos the Refuge is one of the masterpieces of the
satirist. In this unusually striking epic of the ruin of the
nobility, you are particularly impressed by the skill with which
the artist noticed and represented the inevitableness of the
process. The fateful end is felt from the very beginning of
the story. ' Finis Monrepos 9- approaches as by itself, as the
logical consequence of causes nobody is able to control."
V. P. Kranichfeld.
[Other valuable works of Shchedrin are : History of a City;
Sketches of a Province Town; Male and Female Pompadours;
Letters to My Aunt.]
G. I. USPENSKY ( 1 843-1902)
An observer of Russian life who used his literary talent
to depict the lower strata of the people, primarily the
peasants, in a form that was a blending of fiction and
journalism, story and social study. As a Narodnik, Us-
pensky saw in the Russian village the possibilities of a
complete, harmonious life based on a just social order;
as an observer with an uncommonly penetrating eye,
Uspensky never failed to notice the disintegration of the
patriarchal social order in the village community and the
changes that ensued; as a writer with a compelling facil-
ity and sincerity of expression, he gave utterance to all
his notions, doubts, beliefs and moods, drawing an end-
less number of sketches of individuals, localities, types,
scenes, conversations, happenings, always aware of the
ugliness and cruelty of the life he depicted, and always
longing for beauty. Uspensky's works are not pleasant
reading. They are sometimes uncouth as the moujiks he
presents. And they are as passionately unhappy as
was their author, who ended his life in an insane asylum.
Yet Uspensky possessed an artistic talent, and his grip
over the reader is strong. The works of Uspensky com-
pelled Russia to think and to loathe the misery of her
conditions.
" An artist of tremendous gifts, with tremendous possibilities
of thoroughly artistic accomplishments, yet torn partly by cir-
cumstances, partly by his own sensitiveness and passionate
interest in current events, Uspensky greedily seeks for some-
129
130 GROWTH OF A NATIONAL LITERATURE
thing that is not torn, that is not worm-eaten by morbid con-
tradictions, that is whole and wholesome."
N. K. MlKHAYLOVSKI.
" Uspensky was always on his way, always wandering the
road of life, listening to its voices, its unceasing talks, repeat-
ing them in all the reality of their tragic-comical contents, and
evten with all the subtleties of their intonation. On the deck
of a steamer, in a railroad car, mostly in the third class which
* chatters its unending chatter in all the trains that run over
the Russian land/ he keeps on journeying over his native coun-
try, lending a sensitive ear, bending a sensitive eye to all the
' discrepancies, the unhappiness, the burdens, the unsatisfied
desires and unfulfilled dreams of Great and Little and White
Russia.' Everywhere he is a seeker of men, and everywhere
men hasten to meet him halfway. The result is something like
a psychological ethnography, a series of journeys into strange
souls affecting you as if they were journeys into strange,
though not far-off lands."
J. ElCHENWALD.
i. In the Grip of the Earth. (1882.)
2. The Village Diary.
" In the Grip of the Earth (and also The Village Diary) is
a sort of treatise written in a half-literary, half-journalistic
way. The facts are taken from real life, from immediate ob-
servation, and underwent only a slight literary modeling. The
conclusions from this material are drawn in the prosaic form
of a discussion. The aim of these discussions is to show that
the psychology of the peasantry, particularly their morals, is
a world in itself, a world foreign to us, which we can never
understand unless we trace its connection with the peasant's
labor, with the conditions of his agricultural life, with the re-
quirements of the peasant economy, in a word, with the ' grip
of the earth' which is being cultivated by the peasant and
feeds him."
D. N. OVSYANIKO-KULIKOVSKY.
N. K. MIKHAYLOVSKY (1842-1904)
Sociologist, publicist, and critic. One of the leading
minds of Russia for three decades. As early as the sev-
enties he worked out his famous " formula of progress "
which became the topic of heated discussions among Rus-
sian thinkers. " Progress," he wrote, " is a gradual ap-
proach to the fullest and most many-sided division of
labor among the parts of an organism and the least pos-
sible division of labor among human beings. Immoral,
unjust, injurious, unreasonable is all that hampers this
movement. Moral, just, reasonable, and useful is only
that which makes society less complex, thus increasing
the many-sidedness of its individual members." The
last two sentences of the formula indicate that Mikhay-
lovsky considered the subjective attitude of reasoning
human beings one of the important factors in the prog-
ress of society, as counteracting the blind mechanical
processes. This " subjective sociology," of which Mik-
haylovsky was the strongest adherent, made him the
target of numerous attacks of another sociological school,
the Marxists.
Being in the foremost ranks of social thought, Mik-
haylovsky necessarily devoted part of his attention to
literature as one of the expressions of Russian life. In
this respect he differed little from other leaders.
" Mikhaylovsky was extremely responsive to the problems
of the day; he possessed an extraordinary ability of philosophic
generalization, yet he never became a political fighter or an
academic thinker. He was a typical writer, a writer par
131
132 GROWTH OF A NATIONAL LITERATURE
excellence. Both his desire to influence society and his in-
clination towards theoretical thinking found their expression
in literary work. His powerful pen gave explanation to the
main currents of Russian social life and thinking, sometimes
even running ahead of the times."
N. S. Russanov.
It was only natural that Mikhaylovsky should become
a critic, yet he was a critic of a peculiar brand. It was
not the How but the What that interested him in a literary
work. He took the writer to account for his conception
of life, for his sociological or philosophic views, even for
his characters. He tried to point out to the readers the
fundamental idea of a literary work, giving special atten-
tion to social conditions. When modernism made its ap-
pearance in Russia towards the close of the century,
Mikhaylovsky fought against it with might and venom.
This was primarily due to his lack of interest in problems
of form, in subtleties of expression, in unusual twists of
emotion.
i. A Cruel Talent. Essay. (1882.)
This is, perhaps, the strongest of Mikhaylovsky's
critical essays. A scathing accusation of Dostoyevsky for
the excesses of cruelty one finds in his works. Mikhay-
lovsky blames the horrors of prison-life for having made
Dostoyevsky a fiend of cruelty. The critic fails to see
that behind the pictures of cruelty there is a heart ago-
nizing with love for the sufferers and with a cry for justice.
The essay is one-sided, yet it adds to the understanding
of the great writer.
2. G.I. Uspensky. Essay. (1888.)
A critical survey of Uspensky's literary character and
N. K. MIKHAYLOVSKY 133
sociological tendencies with which Mikhaylovsky is in
full accord. The essay is written with deep sympathy for
the unfortunate " seeker of the truth."
[Other critical essays : On Turgenev; On Shchedrin; The
Right and Left of Count L. Tolstoi.]
P. YA. (P. YAKUBOVITCH, known also as MEL-
SHIN and GRINEVITCH) (1860-1911)
Under the name of P. Ya., a revolutionary prisoner, a
victim of the fight for freedom, was sending his messages
to the Russian intelligentzia. Yakubovitch spent more
than ten years of his life in the katorga (hard labor
prisons) of Siberia. He wrote poems and, in later years,
a number of sketches describing prison-life. He had no
exceptional artistic talent, but his very life and his ideals
made his influence strong. He expressed the attitude
towards life of the more radical elements of Russian
society in the eighties.
1. Poems. Vol. I, 1897; Vol. II, 1902.
Yakubovitch's poems are full of pain for the suffering
of the people, full of dreams of the brotherhood of men.
They are born of faith in the inherent goodness of the
human soul and in the ultimate victory of justice and
right. At the same time, they give expression to the sad-
ness and the longings of a man cruelly downtrodden by an
autocratic power. Yakubovitch's muse is melancholy, and
yet animated with admiration for the fighters who chal-
lenge evil.
As to expression, Yakubovitch is lucid, sincere, and sim-
ple. His resemble the poems of Nekrasov, yet they do
not mark a step forward.
2. In the World of Castaways. Novel. (1895-1898.)
A narrative of prison-life in Siberia, the first to reach
134
P. YAKUBOVITCH 135
the Russian thinking world after Dostoyevsky's Memories
from a Dead House. The descriptions of this strange
corner of Russian life, the character-sketches of various
prisoners, are vivid and full of color. In their time, they
created a profound impression. They still remain one
of the indispensable documents for the study of the late
katorga. In the World of Castaways was published
under the pseudonym of Melshin.
" Yakubovitch's splendid sketches are full of the truth of
real life, cruel truth; at the same time the author manifestly
wishes to defend those with whom he had to live. This, how-
ever, does not impair the objective character of the pictures
in which he represents his sleeping-board and balanda (prison
soup) comrades. His narrative is truthful and calm though
it contains such an episode as the attempt of the criminal
prisoners to poison their ' political ' fellow-sufferers, — one of
the eternal misunderstandings looming up between the moujik
and the people who received as a historical inheritance the
name of 'barm' (master).
" Together with truthfulness, Yakubovitch has some other
instinct which helps him to analyze the dregs of humanity
found in prisons and even there to detect valuable elements.
He tells of things it was a joy for himself to discover, he
shows that even those professional murderers, ravishers, and
thieves have moments — brief and seldom though they be —
in which their souls are illuminated by real humanness and
human dignity."
A. E. Ryedko.
D. N. MAMIN-SIBIRYAK (1852-1912)
There was a marked difference between Siberia and the
rest of Russia. Starting from the Ural mountains, where
nature is primitive and people far less cultured than in
European Russia, there stretches an immense land with
broad rivers, primeval forests, high unexplored moun-
tains, deep lakes, and a virgin soil. The land contains tre-
mendous riches in iron, copper, and gold. The popula-
tion, besides aboriginal barbaric tribes, consisted of either
religious rebels, " adherents of the old faith," whose an-
cestors centuries ago had fled from Russia proper to wor-
ship God in their own way, or descendants of criminals
whose fathers had been deported to Siberia to serve their
term at hard labor. The rest were adventurers attracted
by the hope of easy money or hungry laborers in search
of work. They were all a sturdy lot, those Siberian Rus-
sians, hardened by rough nature, emboldened by the fight
against elemental forces, made self-reliant in the school
of cruel treatment. They had more personality, more of
an enterprising spirit, more stubbornness in pursuing their
aims, and more physical vigor.
The centers of life in Siberia were the iron and gold
mines and the iron works where up to 1861 work was con-
ducted by slave labor, the slaves (serfs) belonging either
to private owners or to the State; only after the abolition
of serfdom was the wage system introduced. Still, even
after the reform, the works retained many archaic fea-
tures, presenting, as they did, strong modern industrial
enterprises in the midst of primitive conditions. In one
such industrial settlement was born and reared Mamin,
136
D. N. MAMIN-SIBIRYAK 137
who later devoted his talent to descriptions of Siberian
life and characters and added to his name the word
Sibiryak (the Siberian). Mamin practically discovered
Siberia for Russian fiction.
There is a strange affinity between Siberia and Mamin's
character as an artist. He is vigorous, keen-eyed, stirred
by primitive instincts. He loves wild nature, he loves
motion, danger, exertion. He enjoys a fierce fight be-
tween man and an impetuous torrent, between man and
his passions, or between two clans of a Siberian village.
He follows his hunters, his gold-seekers, his outlaws with
unabating sympathy. At the same time he is aware of the
recklessness, lawlessness, cruelty, and exploitation pre-
vailing in the Siberian settlements. He knows thoroughly
the business of the plants, the intrigues, greed, and cow-
ardly meanness accompanying the lust for gold. He
paints all this with bold, fresh strokes. Yet, to apply his
own expression, he is an " unorganized character " as a
writer. The artistic and the indifferent follow in his
works in rapid succession. His works lack structure.
Events are heaped for their own sake with only a slight
organic connection. With all this he is refreshing. He
sounds his own clear note.
" From a purely artistic standpoint, Mamin's assets are his
ability to compose broad pictures of mass-movements, an un-
usually rich vocabulary of the plain people's language, full of
striking sayings and similes, shot through with a wealth of
embellishments and by-words, and a marvelously fluent natu-
ral dialogue. In the latter he sometimes reaches perfection.
" Mamin's shortcomings are, besides the ' chaotic ' character
of his writings, a good deal of carelessness, an inclination to
repetition and long-windedness, and a naive artificiality of
plot, especially in his big novels."
M. Nevedomsky.
138 GROWTH OF A NATIONAL LITERATURE
" Hardly any Russian writer exceeds Mamin in the artistic
presentation of mass-movements. Not that Mamin makes it
his task to depict movements of crowds, conflicts of masses.
On the contrary, his attention is concentrated on the experi-
ences and actions of individual persons. Yet those persons
enter as parts into the scheme of general mass-life. Out of
descriptions of individuals arises the life of a great collective
entity. This gift of presenting mass-movements makes Mamin
one of our strongest and most original artists."
I. Ignatov.
Mamin is known and loved also as a writer of stories
for children. He is tender, simple, good-humored, full of
amusing and touching observations. His books of tales
became a part of all libraries for children.
i. Ural Stories. Four volumes, (i 888-1900.)
" That the Ural Stories arose in Mamin's imagination as
1 the witchcraft of beautiful fancy/ as intense joy at recollect-
ing the land of his birth, as a bright dream of its luring charm,
is their main artistic value. It may be said that this is their
substance, not only for the writer himself, but also for the
reader. Together with Mamin, the reader is seized by a long-
ing for Mamin's native land; he is drawn into that enchanted
world of virgin forests, swift mountain brooks, clear lakes,
adroit and feverish mining work, and the vast and complicated
activities of the ancient iron plants. In Mamin's presentation,
all this is attractive, fairy-like, unusual; all is astir with an
energetic, unique life. Interesting people and interesting oc-
currences are to be met at every step. Unusually strong emo-
tions, unusual characters are very frequent. Everything shines
with special brilliance; altogether it gives you the feeling of
some particular, purely Russian beauty. ... In reading
Mamin's sketches, you experience a desire to wander, with a
rifle on your shoulder, somewhere on the Shikhan or near the
Miass or along the Tchusovaya river, you wish to plunge into
that Russia, even ancient Russia which has survived there,
both in nature and in the people."
E. Anitchkov.
D. N. MAMIN-SIBIRYAK 139
2. A Nest in the Mountains. Novel. (1884.)
Mamin finds the Siberian iron and gold mines in a
period of transition. The old system of production gives
way to new capitalistic methods. The mines are rapidly
changing hands. Corporations are succeeding individual
or state ownership and management. Yet modern effi-
cient industrialism is not easily established in a country
like Siberia. The first attempts are a failure. The old
is destroyed, the new has not yet grown to full life.
Abuses, frauds, exploitation under such conditions are in-
evitable. The worst instincts of man are let loose.
This is particularly manifest in the novel A Nest in the
Mountains. The narrative centers around the arrival of
the owner of the plant from abroad for inspection. The
owner is immensely wealthy and bored and has no interest
in the plant. He is practically a plaything in the hands
of his satellites who have nothing but their selfish inter-
ests in mind. The characters of the Siberian " sharks "
are drawn in the novel very clearly.
3. Three Ends. Novel. (1890.)
Three Ends is a study of the life, habits and customs of
three distinct groups of Russian workers engaged in a
cast-iron foundry and inhabiting three districts of a Si-
berian village. The narrative finds the population still
in the chains of serfdom. The author follows the life of
the village through the great reform and the subsequent
ruin of the enterprise. The novel is valuable as a first-
hand study in the character of Russian masses.
4. Stories and Tales (for children).
[The number of books by Mkmin reaches fifty. The student
may be interested in his Siberian Stories (3 volumes); Gold,
a novel; Impetuous Torrent, a novel; Privalot/s Millions, a
novel.]
P. D. BOBORYKIN (1836-)
Probably the most prolific Russian novelist who for more
than half a century was ably and truthfully describing
social developments and social conditions in a country
just entering the era of industrialism. Boborykin's works
may be compared to a succession of photographic pictures
taken from actual life. Lacking the depth and high
artistic qualities of the outstanding figures of Russian
literature, he is none the less indispensable in the study
of Russian social life. His novels are always attractive,
full of interesting conversations, populated by types
snatched from the very centers of public attention at
certain moments, and made vivid by plot and action.
His attention was particularly turned to the rise of a
middle-class in Russia, a subject which few novelists con-
sidered.
"None of our modern writers equals Boborykin in the
ability to grasp the present moment of life, just that live
nerve which is pulsating to-day. Each of his novels depicts
that which our society lives on to-day, and a series of his
works may serve as an artistic chronicle of the currents pass-
ing in our society."
A. M. Skabitchevsky.
1. Men of Affairs. Novel. (1872-1873.)
" Men of Affairs introduces us into that part of our society of
the sixties in the capital which in one way or another, directly
or indirectly, was drawn into the turmoil of feverish under-
takings, speculation, concessions. This is, in our literature,
140
P. D. BOBORYKIN 141
perhaps the most striking document depicting that transition
from a patriarchal system and a i natural economy ' to a
bourgeois order and money economy which came with the
force of a historic necessity after the abolition of serfdom
(in 1 861) and was accelerated by the reforms of the sixties
and the construction of railways. The novel is full of unusual
vividness and color."
D. N. OVSYANIKO-KULIKOVSKY.
2. Kitay-Gorod. Novel. (1882.)
3. Mountain Summit. Novel. (1894.)
Both novels lead us into the intimate circle of middle-
class life in Moscow (Kitay-Gorod is one of the business
sections of Moscow). The author selected Moscow be-
cause, of all Russia, that city retained most of the origi-
nal national color, and the transition of its middle-class
from patriarchal modes of living to modern culture and
European ideas was more slow and more picturesque here
than elsewhere. In these two novels Boborykin makes
interesting studies of the psychology of the middle-class,
both men and women. We witness the growth of con-
sciousness of power on the part of a new social factor
and its rising to new standards.
4. Vassili Tyorkin. Novel. (1892.)
The hero of this novel is a peasant who, through per-
sonal energy and pluck, has risen to the position of a rich
man of affairs and is a great power in the community.
Tyorkin is clever, far-sighted, efficient. He is very suc-
cessful in business, yet he is alive to the needs of the poor
peasants and is giving much consideration to the problem
of relieving their misery. Tyorkin is an entirely new type
in Russia. He is no dreamer. He does not believe in the
inherent ideal element the intellectuals claimed to discover
i42 GROWTH OF A NATIONAL LITERATURE
in the "people." He has no use for social Utopia.
What he wished was a healthy, normal development on
the basis of the existing economic and social order.
Boborykin wrote also a number of very successful
plays.
A. P. CHEKHOV (1860-1004)
Fundamentally, Chekhov is of a happy disposition.
He loves life. He loves fun, merriment, laughter. He is
fond of every creature that lives and thrives on the earth.
He would like to feel that the world is all sun-lit, full of
wonders, and that great masses of people are celebrating
in it some festive holiday.
Fundamentally, Chekov is a good friend. He would
like to have a witty, animated and serious talk with clever
persons who have a keen eye for the events of life. He
could tell so many curious, funny, sad and pointed things
about human relations, provided the listeners would be
as sympathetic and alive as he is. At the same time
he would smile a wise smile and think that life is worth
living.
Yes, fundamentally Chekhov has a desire and an apti-
tude for a beautiful, a thoughtful, peaceful and spiritual
life akin, perhaps, to the carefree existence of ancient Greek
wizards. Yet he resembles a tropical plant that opened
its blossoms in the dreary air of a northern country. He
was a son of the eighties in Russia. Surrounding life was
more than sad. It was horror-stricken. The intelligentzia
was afraid not only to revolt, but even to be dissatisfied.
People made attempts to adapt even their psychology and
their ideology to brutal political and social environments.
That was the time when the dominating theory was, " No
broad aspects; no universal aspirations; do your little bit
of work in your tiny corner, and don't stir." That was
the time of broken wills, of well-meaning creatures with-
143
144 GROWTH OF A NATIONAL LITERATURE
out backbones, of shedding tears over one's own weakness
and still finding in this very weakness a justification for
one's unseemly existence. That was the time of no hope,
no prospect, no way out of misery.
Chekhov, the sun-loving and fun-loving young artist,
opened his eyes to find himself in the midst of this
horror-smitten ugliness. It did not break him, because
his sense of life was too strong. It did not make him
even gloomy, because his sense of humor and witticism
was inexhaustible. It only made him subdued. He did
not become a hater of life, yet a strain of melancholy
sounds all through his work. He did not lose his longing
for a perfect existence, yet he transferred the possibility
of human perfection into the remote future, " perhaps
some tens of thousands of years from our time." The
present had no prospect for him. Life is just a strange
conglomeration of strange occurrences, some sad, some
humorous, some ugly or pitiful, with no general tendency
and no possibility of betterment. People are a great host
of prisoners shut in a huge building where each has an
opportunity to manifest his individual traits and to do
something, small or great, only to pass away and vanish
forever. There is thought, and there is aspiration, and
there is love, and there is greatness, but all this is sub-
merged in the original sadness and meanness of things,
and leads nowhere. This is why there is, perhaps, no
great difference between good and evil.
Thus Chekhov became a wise observer with a wistful
smile and an aching heart. He resembled a jovial strong
fellow bed-ridden by an incurable disease, who sees every
detail of life more clearly and with a sounder judgment
than the healthy ones, but cannot suppress the everlast-
ing nagging pain in his own body. Chekhov's soul is full
A. P. CHEKHOV 145
of forgiveness. He is never irritated. He does not curse,
nor bless. He is like a father who sees the follies of his
children and cannot help being amused over the trifles
they are concerned with. He has a better insight into the
reality of things than those little children — humanity at
large — he can tell about them so many interesting details,
but he certainly would not weep or suffer on their account.
He may even think how happy children are; a sigh
may silently escape his heart; his head would bend a
little lower; his story would then become one shade more
melancholy. " People passed before me with their loves,"
Chekhov wrote, " clear days followed dark nights, nightin-
gales sang, the hay was fragrant, and all these things,
dear, wonderful in memory, passed away, disappeared,
leaving no trace, vanished like mist. . . . Where is it
all? "
Chekhov is delicate and truthful, elegiac and humorous,
soft and penetrating, musical and crisp. The range of his
observations is vast. The people he describes belong
more to the present time, as he is more of a city in-
habitant than were the classic writers. His art of descrip-
tion is both subtle and striking. There is almost magic
in the way he contrives to draw a picture in a few seem-
ingly simple lines. He is never tiresome. Russians who
have read his stories many a time, find a peculiar delight
in opening a volume of his at random and reading away
for hours. He is the writer who is a friend, and whom
the reader grows to love with a tender, admiring, and
bashful love. At the same time, none is as modest in his
writing as Chekhov.
A strange fate pursued this man. It was on the eve of
the revolution in Russia, when waves of energy were roll-
ing through the formerly sad country, and life acquired
146 GROWTH OF A NATIONAL LITERATURE
a new luminous meaning. Chekhov, the bright-eyed,
pure-hearted, sad friend, unwillingly responded. A note
of faint hope crept into his song. His stories began to
breathe fresh, invigorating air. But those were his last
stories. Chekhov died in the summer of 1904, one year
before the revolution.
It is very difficult to make a selection of his stories or
plays, and it is difficult to characterize any of them in a
few words. " It is impossible, and it were sinful to ana-
lyze, thread after thread, the precious fabric of Chekhov's
works," wrote a distinguished Russian critic, J. Eichen-
wald. " Such an operation would destroy the very fabric,
as if you were to blow away the gold dust from the wings
of a butterfly. The contents of Chekhov's works cannot
be told at all; one has to read them. Reading Chekhov
means to drink his lines, to be afraid of omitting a word,
because notwithstanding its simplicity — dear, noble sim-
plicity— every word contains an artistic point of observa-
tion, some unusually striking personification of nature, a
wonderful detail of human character."
[One has to read two or three collections of Chekhov's
stories to gain an insight into his talent. His " humorous "
stories are, perhaps, of a lesser value as they belong to the
earliest period of his work. Special attention is called to A
Tiresome Story (1891), Ward Number Six (1892), Peasants
(1887), In the Hallow (1900), Three Sisters, play (1900),
Cherry Orchard, play (1903), The Archbishop (1902).]
N. G. GARIN-MIKHAYLOVSKY (i 852-1906)
Not before the age of forty did Garin appear in the field
of letters. Up to that time he was a successful engineer,
a railroad constructor in the employ of the central govern-
ment and provincial Zemstvo, and a modern large-scale
farmer. What brought him into the realm of literature
was an overabundance of vitality, a wealth of creative
visions which could not all be embodied in his broad plans
for the economic improvement of Russia. Even after
becoming a writer of high repute, Garin never abandoned
his other activities. Thus he represents a unique combi-
nation of practical work and artistic achievement; he is
right in the midst of the prose of life, and he is in the
grip of a dynamic imagination. This is felt in his literary
works, which are bright, strenuous, graphic, vibrant with
living actualities and permeated with broad humane un-
derstanding. Garin is not a litterateur whose business it
is to observe and create. Garin gives from his plenty, he
lives while he writes, and what he writes bears the stamp
of a rich personality. It is genuine, and it has an exist-
ence of its own.
" Garin was all impulse, all desire to make the world happy.
He was a fearless dreamer with a noble heart and an undying
faith. He was always full of ideas and plans; he lived in the
higher sense of the word. He was always creating new enter-
prises, new projects, producing veritable fireworks of daring
ideas. At the same time he had a happy character, a good,
tender heart; he was friendly to all."
P. V. Bykov.
147
148 GROWTH OF A NATIONAL LITERATURE
"There was something of the Hellene in Garin's nature.
He was brilliant and exquisite, as if he had come from the
splendid times of Athens. He had a passionate love for the
beautiful and the artistic. . . . There was genuine charm in
this sensitive, refined, nervous, artistic nature, which was mar-
velously tender and entirely sincere. . . . Garin was full of
elemental power. He wrote as the bird sings, as the flower
sheds its fragrance. Few writers created images with such
facility and ease, and few are so fortunate as to have every ex-
pression so inevitably assume an artistic form."
S. Ya. Yelpatievsky.
Garin was accepted among the realistic writers of the
first rank. He was one of the most widely read authors.
i. The Trilogy, consisting of the following novels:
Tyoma's Childhood. (1882.)
Gymnasium Pupils. (1893.)
Students. (1895.)
Fundamentally the trilogy is the history of Tyoma
Kartashev's childhood, adolescence, and youth. As such
it shows the growth of a distinct personality groping for
the realization of possibilities inherent in its nature.
Dealing with essentials of human character common to all
civilized mankind and being written with a masterful hand
that throws individualized figures into a clear relief, the
trilogy assumes a more than national significance. Look-
ing back to his own youth, every modern man will find
something in common with Tyoma Kartashev's experi-
ences.
At the same time, the trilogy is distinctly Russian. The
background of a surburban estate in southern Russia,
where the boy's childhood is passed, the gymnasium, the
teachers, the pupils, the University in the capital, the
student's life, all this is described with great accuracy and
N. G. GARIN-MIKHAYLOVSKY 149
skill. The life of Kartashev's family, both material and
moral, the characters of each member of the family, the
characters of friends and acquaintances, are drawn care-
fully and are true to life. Altogether the trilogy gives a
panorama of the world in which the children of well-to-do
Russian families grew up in the second half of the nine-
teenth century (and perhaps even later). Full of vigor
and creative optimism as was Garin, he could not over-
look the dark sides of Russian realities. Light and
shadow alternate in his novels.
Special value is attached to the trilogy as a study of
the regime in Russian gymnasia, — that curse of Russian
youth for many generations. The history of Tyoma Kar-
tashev is the history of a constant fight between a richly
gifted, spontaneous, imaginative, temperamental youth
and the deadening regime of a bureaucratic school con-
ducted in the spirit of military barracks, with the aim of
killing personality and choking the inquisitive mind.
It was due to this side of the trilogy that it became a
favorite among young students in Russia.
2. A Few Years in the Village. (1892.)
When Garin bought a 75,000 ruble estate and settled
down to introduce new methods of agriculture, he was
mindful not only of himself but also of the surrounding
peasantry. It was his desire to help the peasants, by
acting as an example and by teaching them how to do
away with their archaic methods. He gave himself to the
task with all the practical knowledge in his possession and
all the fanatical devotion of his personality. It would
have been a success if the peasants had not failed to see
in Garin a friend and had not followed the injurious
advice of the exploiters in their own midst rather than the
150 GROWTH OF A NATIONAL LITERATURE
useful advice of a " gentleman." Four times the peasants
burned down Garin's estate, and in the end he was com-
pelled to give up.
The history of this experiment is told in a charming
volume, A Few Years in the Village. Notwithstanding its
specific contents, notwithstanding many excursions into
details of agriculture, the work reads like a story. It has
something of the equality of rural epic. Garin's frank-
ness and simplicity make it a document indispensable to
the student of Russian life.
3. A Rural Panorama. Collection of stories.
"The total absence of culture breeds savagery, wretched-
ness and darkness in the Russian village. People do not know
how to make use of their own powers; they are poor, brutal,
beast-like; they have no idea of law, no respect for the human
person. Worst of all, poverty is growing in the rural districts,
year in and year out, like some dreadful disease. All this fills
the series of Garin's stories A Rural Panorama, where we find
many beautifully sketched types of men and women and many
local details. . . . With the great love of a thinker and artist,
Garin puts his panorama in a natural light where crimes, hor-
rors, mysticism, superstition, the tragic and the comic, inter-
twine and leave an irresistible impression."
P. V. Bykov.
It must be noted that in spite of many discouraging
experiences, Garin never gave up the hope of a better fu-
ture in rural Russia. What he wished to emphasize was
the necessity of intelligent and persistent work in this
realm.
4. Short Stories. (1886-1906.)
Garin wrote his stories everywhere: on a sleigh in the
bitter cold, in railroad cars, in a tent after a day of survey-
N. G. GARIN-MIKHAYLOVSKY 151
ing, at a stage-coach station while swallowing hot tea and
waiting for the horses to be changed. It is natural that
his stories are fresh, vivid, lucid. What is unexpected is
their finished form and refinement.
[Other works of interest : In the Turmoil of Provincial Life;
Korean Fairy-Tales; Travels in Korea; Manchuria and the
Liautung Peninsula; Engineers (unfinished).]
V. G. KOROLENKO (1853-)
A story writer. His talent is of a rather narrow scope,
but it is full of that noble idealism which makes the reader
love and trust the author. Charm and simplicity of ex-
pression are combined in his works with a luminous hon-
esty. The caressing hand of a father is felt in all Koro-
lenko's stories.
" Korolenko is dear to the Russian intelligentzia, because in
his works a responding heart is revealed which no injury, no
injustice can escape. The very essence of his nature is to be a
defender, an aid. Wherever assistance is necessary and pos-
sible, he can never remain indifferent. Many a time has he
raised his soft, yet firm voice in defense of the injured. The
arrow of social conscience always tends in the direction indi-
cated by Korolenko, and if you follow him you are sure to fol-
low the truth. Fate has sent him frost and cold in abundance,
yet under a snow-bound life he preserved a warm heart.
" The same indefatigable humanism which marks the activi-
ties of Korolenko in political and social life is also the salient
feature of his writings. His works kindle the fire of love and
good. Korolenko educates, because his works may serve as a
school of pity and love. One of the most striking characteristics
of his moral and literary make-up is a peculiar politeness, this
word being used in its most positive and sublime meaning.
He never forgets human dignity, the sacred rights of human
beings; he grants them even to those who will not admit them
in others."
J. ElCHENWALD.
1. Siberian Stories. (1901.)
An exile in Eastern Siberia for many years, Korolenko
had an opportunity to make first-hand studies of what
152
V. G. KOROLENKO 153
was, perhaps, the hardest experience of progressive Rus-
sian intellectuals. Yet, in these frost-breathing stories
there is no hatred, no bitterness, not even against officials.
They are rather good-natured, clever, and colorful ob-
servations of a God-forsaken corner of the world where
people live in the most primitive conditions.
2. Short Stories, (1885-1917.)
Korolenko's stories are all very readable and attractive.
Attention is called to Yom-Kipur, which is permeated with
sympathy for the oppressed Jew; M altar' s Dream, breath-
ing pity for the ignorant and poor Siberian peasant; The
Old Bellman, an idyl of rural life; The Murmuring Forest,
where, among the mystery of green shadows, a drama of
love and jealousy leads to a cruel end; and In Bad So-
ciety, picturing the types of outcasts in a small town in
southern Russia. The characters and nature depicted in
most of these stories belong to southern Russia (Ukrai-
nia), though Korolenko writes in the great Russian lan-
guage.
3. The Blind Musician. Novelette. (1886.)
The story of a gifted child born blind, and groping
its way to a conception of the world. The entire book
is a psychological study born of the spirit of love for
the afflicted. The scene of the story is rural surround-
ings, and the fragrance of the Ukrainian fields and groves
fills it with tender sadness.
[Another work of significance, History of My Contemporary,
an artistic autobiography.]
II
THE "MODERNISTS"
GENERAL SURVEY
Back of the modernist movement in Russian literature,
two sets of social phenomena are clearly discernible.
One is the growing complexity of life in tb^ fast. Aprafo o£
the nineteenth century; the othexis the grip of an archaic
political system deadening the efforts of sound construc-
tive work. It was only to the outside world that Rus-
sia of that time seemed a sleeping giant, immovable
and unchanging. In reality, great transformations were
taking jVlgre in tV prnnnmir gtrnrtiirp^ in *nrw) relations,
in educational ideas, in the__general tone of life The
center of gravity was constantly --moving irom Ihe Jaz.y^_-
aristocratic coimtryJiouses to modern xities; the class of
nobility was giving way ±o_Jiie_^oJ:ejsj^
and the modern business man; the steam engine and the
locomotive began their triumphal march over __th&. plains
of eastern Europe; the pulse of life quickened; the ex-
periences of individuals increased in number, became
more striking and of a lesser duration; the colors gained
in variety and brightness. Theold subdued harmony _pJL
patriarchal Russia was rapidly waning before jnew pounds,
and new voices. On the other hand, the chains of abso-
lutism allowed no space for the oncoming of modern
forces. Russia was surrounded by a black, solid wall
that threatened to choke all manifestations of progress.
It is this unique socio-political — atmosphere that
breathes in the works of the Russian modernists who
made their appearance early in the nineties. Consciously,
and unconsciously, this group of young writers was try-
ing to remake literature in accordance with the new im-
157
158 THE " MODERNISTS "
pressions offered by a modern world. " The soul of man
has grown," a young writer, Denisov, wrote to the critic
Volynsky in a private letter in 1896, "man's conscious-
ness has become brighter, its rays are longer; we see
now horizons which always existed, which we, however,
failed to notice through darkness and sleep. Nature, life,
the world at large seem different, they speak to us a new
language. All phenomena have become transparent to us,
they have turned into mere symbols, behind which some-
thing important, something mysterious, something vitally
significant is visible. . . . For this new wine, new jugs
are required; new expression is needed for new feelings.
Men treading new paths, men endowed with a growing,
brightening, and widening soul, must also find new words.
Let them grope, then, let them demand. Their voices,
however feeble, are nearer and more welcome to us than
the strongest and most beautiful voices of the past, for
the mere reason that the past is known, that it has been
lived through and completely expressed, whereas at pres-
ent a strange uneasiness is stirring within us; it moves us
towards unknown experiences which we may have but we
are still unable to express, and which we expect and search
for in the creations of others."
It is, perhaps, not so much the contents of this out-
burst as the restlessness of its young author that marks
the tendency of the time. Men had become aware of
something new in the life of the country. The old
standards of good literature and noble art became in-
sufficient. Old, lofty motives seemed stale. Old forms
appeared primitive. Shapes of unknown complexity were
beckoning through the mists of the future.
On the other hand, the well-educated and high-strung
intellectual had to seek shelter from the cold rains and
GENERAL SURVEY 159
hail of nasty political weather. The members of the in-
telligentzia were not all inclined to fight revolutionary
battles. The prospect was gloomy. The black wall
seemed heavy, unshakable, eternal. To exhaust one's
soul in hatred or to cripple it by despair, seemed a useless
expenditure of energy. Ways of self-defense had to be
found. Was it not best to turn one's back to the ugly
wall? Was it not advisable to draw a magic circle from
which all heinous realities should be banished? Some-
times it would seem to be opportune to accept the black
wall, to discover in it a power of good. This would
make life possible, if not easy. As to real great values,
they have to be searched for, not among the stones and
gullies of a barren field of reality, but in the blossoming
jungle of thought and fancy.
The group of intellectuals, writers and thinkers, who
accepted this creed and carried it into literature and art,
became known as the modernist school. They were a
distinct group by themselves. Hardly noticed at the be-
ginning, very powerful and influential in later years, they
always remained a separate group. And although the
elements of modernism soon permeated all trends of Rus-
sian creative work, the modernists as such never sub-
merged in the general stream. The names of Balmont,
Bryusov, Merezhkovsky, Filosofov, Gippius, Volynsky,
Minsky, Block, Vyacheslav, Ivanov, Sologub, Byely, and
their younger followers, stand out as something apart
from the rest of Russian literature. To the outsider they
appear to be almost a secluded masonic order.
It is, of course, difficult to give the general characteris-
tics of a group in which every individual is anxious to
assert his personality to the utmost, with all its oddities
and wayward moods. Lines of resemblance between
160 THE " MODERNISTS "
creative individuals can hardly, as a rule, be drawn with
security. As regards the Russian modernists, however,
this task had been made somewhat easier by the theories
carefully framed, eloquently preached, and copiously illus-
trated by the modernists themselves. In fact, every writer
of the new school thought it his duty not only to create,
but also to explain why his work was the true art.
Reviewing, then, these theories and comparing them
with the accomplishments of the modernists in the fields
of fiction, poetry, drama, and literary criticism, we may
arrive at the following generalizations.
i. The modernists keep aloof from social or political
problems. The economic misery of the masses, the
political chaos, the brutality of Russian realities are
outside their range of vision. They do not want
to teach the people. They do not care to love the
people. They do not make it their task to arouse indigna-
tion against material evils. In this, they radically differ
from Russian literary traditions. They adore Pushkin as
the poet of sublime spiritual harmony, but they do not
sympathize with Pushkin who wrote: "And long shall
I be cherished by the people, because I stirred good feel-
ings with my lyre." l They respect in Lermontov the
many-stringed instrument that caught sounds from be-
yond, but they would not repeat with him: " Chagrined
do I observe the present generation," neither would they
make it the task of the prophet to proclaim " the pure
teachings of love and truth." Gogol the artist, as every
true artist, was close to their soul. But Gogol the casti-
gator, Gogol who traveled over the length and breadth of
Russia to show her miserable conditions, was a stranger
1 This and subsequent quotations are prose translations from lines
of poetry beautiful in their music.
GENERAL SURVEY 161
to them. Similarly strange were Turgenev, Gontcharov,
Shchedrin, Nekrasov, Uspenky, Alexey Tolstoi, and all
the critics of former generations, to the prophets of the
new school. Leo Tolstoi and Dostoyevsky were much
commented upon by the modernists, yet Tolstoi was too
close to the earth in their eyes. All in all, three names
of the past, Tuytchev, Vladimir Solyvyov, the idealistic
philisopher, and Dostoyevsky, were respected and truly
loved by the " new."
It is in keeping with this attitude that the "people,"
the peasants and workingmen, find hardly a place in the
works of the modernists. The new writers have no use
for the unthinking. Their attention is concentrated on
those who labor their way through harrowing spiritual
conflicts. They write for the cultured about the cultured,
giving utterance to their internal life apart from their
surroundings.
Some of the modernists went even so far as to recog-
nize in autocracy a great spiritual force. " When I wrote
my treatise on Leo Tolstoi and Dostoyevsky" Merezh-
kovsky remarks in an introduction to his complete works,
" I saw, or desired to see, a positive religious force in
Russian absolutism, namely its connection with the Rus-
sian Faith; I thought, together with Vladimir Solovyov
and Dostoyevsky, though starting from totally different
premises, that Russian absolutism was a road to theoc-
racy, to the Kingdom of Heaven on earth." Later, when
the storms of the revolution shook the Russian steppe,
and the clamor of battles rang near and far, Merezhkov-
sky and his colleagues abandoned their faith in the con-
structive forces of the autocratic regime. In 1905,
Balmont wrote revolutionary poems, and Minsky pub-
lished— for a very short while — a Social-Democratic
162 THE " MODERNISTS M
paper. Yet this was only a passing tribute to the spirit of
the times. Fundamentally, the modernists were not in-
terested in the struggle for social reforms, especially
before the 1905 revolution. Theirs was an interest of a
different order.
2. The modernists make it their task to embody in
words the most delicate, most unclear and fleeting emo-
tions of the human soul. Their ear seems to be infinitely
more sensitive than that of their predecessors. They hear
the faintest calls from far off, the most subtle harmonies
of a mysterious world, the throbbing of an unknown life
diffused everywhere. " The thoughts and deeds of men
will pass," Minski writes in a poem which may be con-
sidered as programmatic for the entire school. " There
is one thing, however, which will survive. That which
we now consider an idle dream, the unclear yearning after
things unearthly, the hazy striving somewhere, the hatred
for the things that are, the timid light of anticipation,
and the burning thirst for sanctities that are not, — this
alone will never vanish. ... A new unknown world is
faintly visible in the distance, non-existent, yet eternal.' '
This world can be called into existence through the magic
of poetry. " Poetry is internal music externally ex-
pressed in rhythmic words," Balmont declares. " The
world needs the formation of images," he writes in an-
other place. " The world contains magicians who by their
sorcery and by their singing melody make the circle of
existence wider and richer. Nature gives only the nucleus
of existence, it creates unfinished little monsters; the
magician perfects the work of nature and gives life a
beautiful face." This he can accomplish only by care-
fully listening to the teaching of his own imagination, by
following the winding paths of his moods, yearnings,
GENERAL SURVEY 163
visions, presentiments, and impulses. Such an attitude
presupposes the supremacy of human personality over
the material world. Man is not the slave of things ma-
terial, but their master. He is not bound to the clay of
reality; he can soar high up into the realm of another,
more real, reality. His wings are the faculties of his
spirit. This is why the poetry of the modernist is
more spiritual, more refined, and of a more tender fabric
than the works of the older poets. Some of the modernist
poetry is almost transparent.
3. This is in full harmony with the philosophical views
of the school. The modernists are strong adherents and
advocates of an idealistic philosophy. They believe in the
existence of a world beyond the reach of human experi-
ence, in the existence of mysterious powers which no hu-
man knowledge will ever be able to perceive or to explain.
The majority of the modernists are imbued with a reli-
gious spirit, with the belief in a personal God. " Chris-
tianity not only has been, but it is and will be,"
Merezhkovsky proclaims, " Christ is not only a power
that has been perfected, but He is being continually per-
fected. He is an incessantly growing power. The libera-
tion of Russia, the liberation of the entire world, can be
accomplished only in Christ." " Only faith in something
infinite can inflame the human soul," he wrote in 1892.
" Men need faith, need ecstasy, need the sacred madness
of heroes and martyrs. Without faith in the divine origin
of the world, there can be on earth no beauty, no justice,
no poetry, no freedom." " I may say," Zinaida Gippius
confesses in her autobiography, " that there was no period
of irreligion in my life. The childish earthy ' grand-
mother's image-lamp ' was soon overshadowed by life.
Yet life, putting me face to face with the mystery of
164 THE " MODERNISTS w
Death, the mystery of Personality, the mystery of the
Beautiful, could not bring my soul to a level where
image-lamps are not being kindled at all." Other mem-
bers of the modernist school may not have believed in a
personal God as strongly as Merezhkovsky or Gippius.
Yet to all of them, the material world was only a shell of
something higher and more significant. Bryusov, one of
the ablest exponents of the school, puts his philosophy in
simple terms. "There is no line of demarcation," he
writes, " between the real and the imaginary world, be-
tween the ' visible ' and the 'dream/ between 'life'
and ' phantasy.' The things we used to consider imagi-
nary may be the highest reality of the world; the things
accepted by everybody as realities, may be the most
horrid delirium."
In the light of this philosophical and religious creed,
poetry assumes a new meaning. Men are groping towards
the mystic reality of life: poetry is the way to approach
it. Men sometimes hear the voice of God within them-
selves: poetry is the way to express it. The aim of poetry
is to grant the human spirit access to the mysteries that
hover above the visible world. In poetry, eternal reality
reveals itself in unknown ways. Poetry is like a window
opened into the beyond. " Art can reveal its mysteries
only to the inquisitive mind of the philosopher," Volynsky
writes in explanation of the critic's task. " In a con-
templative ecstasy the philosopher unites the finite with
the infinite; he combines the psychic moods poured into
poetry, with the eternal laws of the development of the
universe."
Poetry, in the conception of the modernists, is no more a
slave to life, no more a vehicle of pleasurable sensations,
not even a mere expression of human thoughts and emo-
GENERAL SURVEY 165
tions. Poetry becomes sacred; it is the individuality's
most subtle yet most powerful instrument in its struggle
for liberation. Man's soul is painfully batting against
the clay: poetry is the light that marks the road to
victory.
4. It follows that human personality is supreme in the
works of the modernists. Theirs is also a rebellious spirit,
yet it rebels, not against certain manifest evils of the
existing political or social order, but against all restric-
tions imposed on the human soul from without. In fact,
every code, be it the code of accepted morality or the code
of law, in an autocratic as well as in a democratic society,
is a dead weight on the wings of the human soul. Man
bears his own law within himself; man sees in the light of
the Unknown his right way; man has to be allowed full
freedom to assert himself, which means to come nearer to
his God. Human institutions created for the multitude
are a check on the free soul of free men; positivistic
knowledge pretending to explain the universe completely,
is also a check on human freedom; materialistic concep-
tions in philosophy, ethics, politics, are no less a hindrance
to freedom. It follows that the modernist fights haughtily
against accepted, " philistine," opinions, against the domi-
nation of surroundings, against established authorities in
the spiritual world. He hates slavery, yet to him even
the fighter for freedom is a wretched slave if he pursues
nothing but material improvements.
5. The modernists are inhabitants of modern cities.
Russian village life, Russian rural nature only incidentally
appear in their works. It is the study of an intellectual
in Petersburg or Moscow that sees the birth of modernist
works. Quite often it is the noisy cafe in the Latin Quar-
ter of Paris, or a hotel on the Riviera, or a lodging house
1 66 THE « MODERNISTS "
in Venice. The Russian modernists prefer to spend their
time in conversations with European thinkers and artists
than to listen to the ages-old wisdom of the moujiks.
In the picture galleries or the libraries of Florence, Rome,
Vienna, among the splendors of the Alpine landscapes or
the enchantment of the seashore do they look for inspira-
tion. Their religion breathes the spirit of old dark cathe-
drals rather than the free and primitive faith of over-
grown children as are the simple folks in the great plains
of Russia.
In many modernist works, the clatter and throbbing of
modern city life can be clearly heard. In a number of
strong poems, Bryusov, notably, pictured the industrial
city. Others paid a smaller, yet very distinct tribute to
the scenes of modern urban life. Not only in these direct
descriptions, however, but in the rhythm, in the tone, in
the succession of light and shadows, in the assonances
and dissonances of the modernists' works is felt the change
in the character of society. (Balmont, Gippius.)
6. Most of the modernists are very well acquainted
with philosophy and have an extensive knowledge of
European literature. Some of them know a number of
modern languages. It is hardly just to say that they are
moved by foreign examples. Such spontaneous outbursts
of new ideas in literature and art cannot be ascribed to
external and accidental causes, especially in view of the
lasting character and the valuable contributions of the
new school. Yet it cannot be denied that, at least in the
initial stages of their work, the modernists were greatly
influenced by a number of foreign thinkers and poets.
Edgar Allan Poe dominated the imagination of Balmont
and Bryusov more, perhaps, than any of the dead or
living artists. Nietzsche's influence was not less marked.
GENERAL SURVEY 167
Maeterlinck was more cited and referred to than Ibsen,
both of them exemplifying symbolist forms and methods.
Knut Hamsun was one of the favorites. The French
poets, notably Verlaine, Baudelaire and Villiers de LTsle-
Adam, were in great vogue. All these authors were de-
voutly and lovingly translated into Russian or commented
upon by the adherents of the new school. It must be
emphasized, however, that of all foreign poets, the cult
of Poe was supreme. Men were speaking of the deep
revelations contained in his stories. Men were citing his
poems as masterpieces of musical rhythm expressing an
indomitable spirit.
Along with these influences there is a revival of interest
in classic literatures, Greek and Roman. The tragedies
of Sophocles and Euripides are attracting much atten-
tion. New translations into Russian are being made of
some of them.
7. The modernists completely revolutionized the Rus-
sian language and the Russian poetic forms. Compared
with the language of Balmont or Block, the language of
Nekrasov and Nadson appears almost primitive. Com-
pared with the prose of Sologub, Turgenev's writings
seem antiquated. It gives the impression that the new
school has recast the entire material of the Russian lan-
guage, remodeled every tool of it, reforged every acces-
sory, made it broader in scope, finer in quality, more
vigorous, more flexible, and more saturated with spirit.
Nobody prior to the modernists had suspected that Rus-
sian contained such singing possibilities, that it could be
used to express such subtle intimacies, that it possessed
such nobility, sublimity, sincerity, dignity. The Russian
modernists actually worshiped the language. " I look
with humble love at every letter," Balmont wrote, " and
1 68 THE " MODERNISTS "
every one looks at me caressingly, promising to speak to
me apart from others." The result of all these efforts
which, in the nature of things, could not escape some
clumsy experimentation, was a new era in the history of
the Russian written word.
8. It must be clear from the foregoing that the term
"decadents," often flung at the Russian modernists by
their opponents, could hardly be applied with justice to
this group of writers. If we are to understand under
" decadence " the cult of selfish pleasure, the cherishing
of art for art's sake, as a means of exquisite and delightful
sensations; if we are to attribute to " decadence " the
preaching of a-moralism, the indulgence in sexual extrava-
gances under the cloak of refinement, the disinclination to
face the gravest problems of the human spirit or the nega-
tion of the very existence of such problems, then, in
fairness to the modernists, we cannot name them " deca-
dents." True it is that in the early period of this school,
echoes of pure decadence were sounding here and there.
There were references to " beauty for beauty's sake," to a
Bacchant conception of the world, to sex as a means
of reaching the deepest depths of ecstasy, to the philoso-
phy of carpe diem, but all this was of a passing character
and soon gave way to the more earnest aspects of human
life.
O, Heaven, grant me to be beautiful,
To descend on earth from sublime heights,
Radiant and passionless,
And all-embracing as Thou art.
(Merezhkovsky).
Men able to utter such prayers could hardly be named
decadents, whatever the difference of their conceptions
from the other currents of thought.
GENERAL SURVEY 169
Not without hard struggle did the modernists gain
recognition in Russia. They had to suffer much slander,
much contempt, much misunderstanding. Their manner
was often ridiculed, their idealistic aspirations declared
reactionary, their gropings considered the pastime of
lunatics. The old story of the merciless fight between
the old and the new repeated itself once more. Forms
and methods that are now the common property of the
entire Russian literature were looked upon as risky inno-
vations unintelligible to normal readers. Poems and
stories that are now, after twenty years, accepted as
classics, were uncompromisingly rejected by critics of the
old school. A few sentences from an article by Nikolai
Mikhaylovsky may serve as an example. Mikhaylovsky
was a leading critic and a man of the highest standing in
journalism and public life. " It is all nonsense," he
wrote in 1895, reviewing a book of the new school under
the name Our Symbolists. " The poems are sheer non-
sense, and unoriginal nonsense at that, since all those
' violet hands/ l resounding silences/ 'hospitals where chil-
dren are wrapt in mourning,' are stolen from the French;
and all that our symbolists are able to produce is a meager
pamphlet of imitations which they squeezed out of them-
selves and called it a book." (Mikhaylovsky refers to
a little book by Valeri Bryusov. In 19 13 a collection
of Bryusov's works made twenty-five volumes in quarto.)
Why, then, do the symbolists make all these ridiculous
attempts? Mikhaylovsky asks, and his answer reads as
follows: "They are prompted by a greed for fame, a
desire to be in the public eye, at the same time knowing
that they are powerless to achieve it in an orderly manner.
. . . It is my belief that if the gentlemen under discus-
sion are maniacs and lunatics, they are not genuine ones,
170 THE " MODERNISTS "
but impostors. Our decadents and symbolists mostly
rival Herostrates. The undertaking of their classical
prototype, however, is too risky and dangerous for them;
they would hardly venture even so far as to run out into
the street in Father Adam's costume, however piquant the
lure of it may be, because they know that the result
would be the utterly unsymbolistic police station. Yet
they passionately desire to do some indecency in order to
attract attention. ' Here we are! ' is their sole contention.
For this purpose they write nonsense which is artistically
indecent and the nonsensicalness of which is so loud that
you cannot fail to hear it."
Thus the ages-old misunderstandings between fathers
and sons was displayed once more. Ten years later such
scathing criticism would have seemed entirely unwar-
ranted, if not ridiculous.
K. D. BALMONT (1867-)
The leading poet of the present generation; the recog-
nized king in the realm of lyrics. Twenty years ago Bal-
mont was still labeled as decadent and an insane icono-
clast. To-day he is counted among the classics, and
many of his poems are included in textbooks for children.
The influence of Balmont upon the poetry and poets of
our time can hardly be overestimated. Never since Push-
kin has one great talent so completely revolutionized the
contents, the tone, the language, the spirit of poetry, as
does Balmont.
Balmont is the lyrical encyclopaedia of the modern
intellectual man. " Nothing human is alien to me " could
be put as a motto for all his works. No human mood,
however fleeting, escapes his sympathetic attention. No
phenomenon in the wide universe is too remote for his
alert soul. At times it even seems that he is too diversi-
fied; that there are too many strings in his ever rever-
berating, supersensitive musical instrument. He started
with moonlight motives, with half-tones, with passing
echoes in the midst of mysterious silence, with vistas
resembling a winter- forest where every branch and every
twig is quaintly carved out of ice crystals and reflects a
melancholy sun in numberless cold sparks. He spoke of
existences half awake, half dreamy. He sang of the
belladonna, the magic of poisonous perfumes, the somber
depths issuing a strange radiance, the waves of subdued
emotions in a state of mental intoxication. Soon, how-
ever, he published one volume of poems entitled Let Us
171
i72 THE " MODERNISTS "
Be Like the Sun, and another Burning Buildings, where
the cry of red blood, the lusty hymn of sunshine, the all-
dominating glory of fire is voiced in strong metallic
verses. In these new poems, Balmont appears to be a
heathen, a worshiper of elemental forces, a friend to the
savage tribes who revel in the sight of red blood and in
rushing over the primitive steppe on the backs of their
swift horses. Balmont, however, does not dwell long in
those moods. He soon passes to other experiences: pain,
suffering, beauty, joy of existence, love for the near or
love for the remote, passions, hell, demons, the torture of
thought, hopelessness, prison-walls, physical and mental
despair. This swift passing from one experience to an-
other with complete abandon in each feeling is, perhaps,
the most characteristic feature of Balmont. He speaks of
" the joy of eternal changes." " I am the surface that
breaks the rays, I am the playing thunder, I am the
crystalline brook, I am for all and nobody," he declares
in one of his poems. He admires the " miracle of his
flaming thought," he knows that " whatever is in heaven,
and much more, is in the human soul." " My heart is
wounded by my reason," he confesses; yet soon he accepts
absurdity because " in the abysses of absurdity mad
flowers are living "; he is ready to greet even hell because
" there is truth in suffering," yet he knows that suffering
for him is not final: " I have burned my happiness, yet
I doubted I might kindle it with a stronger flame."
Thus Balmont is the eternal wanderer in the jungles
of human thought, feeling, and emotion. There are, how-
ever, a few points of concentration in his poetry, a few
motives to which he returns with renewed fondness.
These are the witchcraft of poetry, sun and fire, and eter-
nal change.
K. D. BALMONT 173
" Verse is magic in substance," he writes in his essay
on Poetry as Witchcraft. " Every letter in it is magic.
The Word is a miracle, the Verse is witchcraft. The
music that governs the universe and the soul, is Verse.
Prose is a line, and Prose is a plane, it has only two
dimensions. Verse alone has three dimensions. Verse is
a pyramid, a shaft, a tower. In the rare verse of a rare
poet there are even more than three dimensions: there
are as many as there are in fancy." " The Universe is
multi-voiced music. The entire Universe is chiseled
Verse."
The power of sun and fire is perhaps the most favorite
subject of Balmont's lyrics. The sun is " the creator of
the world," " the giver of life," " the music of a beauti-
ful tale," the hot blood " that makes the soul impas-
sioned." The fire is "purifying, fateful, beautiful, im-
perious, radiant, alive." " O, thou shinest, thou warmest,
thou burnest, thou livest, thou livest! " In fire all the
qualities of poetry, including that of change, are com-
bined.
Change for Balmont is life. " I live too quickly," he
writes in his notebook, " and I know nobody who loves
moments as I do. I go, I go, I go away, I change, I suf-
fer changes. I give myself to the moment, and over and
over again it opens before me new fields. And new
flowers are blossoming before me forever."
" I give myself to the Universal, and the Universe in-
vades me. Stars, and valleys, and mountains are near
to me. Beasts and heroes are near to me. The beautiful
and the unbeautiful are near to me. I speak to a friend,
and at the same time I am far away from him, beyond
the barrier of centuries, somewhere in ancient Rome,
somewhere in eternal India, somewhere in a country whose
174 THE " MODERNISTS "
name is Maya. I speak to a foe, and at the same time I
secretly love him though I may say the most cruel words.
... I know full freedom. Immensity can shut itself
in a small space. A grain of sand can become a system
of the astral world. Feeble hands will erect immense
edifices in the name of Beauty. Cities will perish, for-
ests will burn down, and where they spread their noise
or silence there will be new whispers and new rustling,
life eternal.
" I know there are two gods: the god of rest, and the
god of motion. I love both of them, yet I do not linger
with the former. I have paid my tribute to him. Let
it be. I see the quick glance of sparkling eyes. I hear
the hiss of the wind. I hear the singing of strings;
hammers near the furnace; the rolling of the world-music.
I am giving myself to the Universal. I am awed. I am
full of joy. The Universe has invaded me. Good-bye,
my Yesterday. Onward to unknown To-morrow."
Balmont uses all the devices of modern art; schematiza-
tion; symbolization; impressionism. His rhythms are
rich in variety, in time, in timbre, in color. His language
represents all shadings from the very powerful to the
mellow, blending echoes of distant faint music.
Balmont is an indefatigable translator. He knows all
the European languages. He translated all the works of
Shelley, most of Walt Whitman's Leaves of Grass, nearly
all the works of Edgar Allan Poe, many dramas of Ibsen,
of the Polish poet Slowacki, the poems of Calderon, a
number of legends from the Sanscrit, etc. He has also
written a book of poems for children and many short
stories.
" Balmont 's poetry is characterized by his desire to divest
himself of time and space, to move entirely into the kingdom
K. D. BALMONT 175
of dreams. People and reality interest him very little. He
sings primarily of sky, stars, sun, infiniteness, fleetingness,
silence, lucidity, darkness, chaos, eternity, elevation, spheres
* beyond the limits of the limited/ All these abstract ideas
are living realities to Balmont, and in this respect he is, after
Tyutchev, the most intimate of Russian pantheistic poets.
The real, living nature, however, such as trees, grass, azure,
gushing of waters, is hardly felt by him, and he does not even
attempt to picture such things. He is concerned with the ab-
stract substance of nature as a whole. He is almost deprived
of the ability to draw or paint; his landscapes are indefinite,
his flowers are only ' bashful/ his ocean is ' powerful/ his wind
is • reckless, unaccountable/ etc. He writes entirely in epi-
thets, in abstract definitions, and projects his own sensations
into inanimate nature. Thus we have before us typical sym-
bolic poetry, poetry of hazy moods and misty contours, poetry
of reflection, where the living, direct impression gives way
before the synthesis, the philosophical inquiry into the founda-
tions of the life of the universe. Balmont thinks of himself as
a poet of the elements. Yet he is much nearer to us than he
would care to admit."
S. A. Vengerov.
" A book of Balmont's enchants the reader, it makes him
dizzy like a bouquet of heavy-scented flowers. Balmont is a
creator, a magician, a veritable vates. His book intoxicates
both author and reader."
D. Vygodsky.
" Lyricism is the foundation of Balmont's poetry. All the
ten volumes of his works are lyrics only. Drop after drop and
tear after tear the poet's soul is pouring out in an unceasing,
uniform, though scattered and many-voiced song, and never
can express itself. There are not enough words, enough har-
monies, it is impossible to say all. Balmont is too full of
rhymes and rhythms, harmonies and dreams."
E. V. Anitchkov.
Of the many volumes of poems by Balmont, the fol-
lowing are the most celebrated and most characteristic:
1 76 THE " MODERNISTS "
Under Northern Skies. (1894.)
Burning Buildings. (1900.)
Let Us Be Like the Sun. (1903.)
Love Only. (1904.)
The general character of each volume is suggested by
the titles.
V. BRYUSOV (1873-)
Poet, novelist, critic. One of the founders of the modern-
ist school and one of the most erudite Russian writers of
the present generation. In the nineties, he attained ques-
tionable fame by his ultra-decadent poems which, as he
later admitted in his autobiography, were not meant seri-
ously. In those poems, he spoke of " pale limbs," " the
cry of the desire," " the whirling inexhaustible ardor of
[physical] delights " as a means to reach the deepest
mysteries of existence. Even among those ecstatic con-
fessions, however, we hear voices of a different order.
One of Bryusov's early poems, written in 1895, begins
with: " God, relieve our torturous pain! We are crouch-
ing like beasts in the caves. We are prostrate on rough
beds of stone, we are choking without sunshine and
faith." Even in his early poems, the visible world appears
to be only a series of symbols signifying the Real. " In
the radiance of earthly reflections, hazy shadows I see
both by day and by night, passing shadows that are lit
by a dull fire," he wrote in 1896. All this manifested a
serious turn of mind and a meditative nature. Soon it
became obvious that his first poems were a passing mood.
Bryusov is reserved by nature, he is cool, he is passion-
less. He is only an observer. " A wizard with crossed
arms, turned into stone," he was characterized by one of
the critics. Bryusov of the later period is the poet who
puts the feelings and gropings of modern men into lines
of classical purity and academic perfection. He is one
of the first to give poetic descriptions of modern city life.
Automobiles, electric cars, aeroplanes, are not only men-
177
178 THE " MODERNISTS "
tioned in his poems, but the very throbbing of the heart
of a modern industrial center is audible in many of his
lines.
" His poems have the strange quality of giving sternness,
nobility, and a peculiar air of solemnity to everything they
touch. You have the feeling of having read them long ago
in old volumes. It seems as if every line of Bryusov's could
live an independent life, so beautiful is it by itself, so perfect
is it in itself, so finished is it in every way. It seems that
if those lines were torn asunder, scattered, separated from each
other, they would assemble by themselves and resume their
former shape.
" Bryusov is a crystallizing poet. Madness, storm, chaos
become icy and lucid in his works. ' My poems are a magic
vessel of poisons distilled in silence,' he spoke about himself.
If you put into this vessel the most ecstatic, the most passion-
ate experiences, how beautifully the process of purification will
be completed, and what a thick, aromatic translucent wine
will pour forth 1 " K. Tchukovsky.
As a novelist Bryusov tends towards the mysterious,
the miraculous. He is one of the best imitators of the
style of old-time writers. He has also written, however,
a number of realistic stories depicting modern life. Bryu-
sov is considered one of the best Pushkinists, and his
critical essays on Russian and foreign writers place him
among the best critics. Bryusov also translated many
works of Paul Verlaine, Verhaeren, Maeterlinck, D'An-
nunzio, Oscar Wilde, and others.
i. Stephanos. (1906.)
Considered the ripest and most perfect book of Bryu-
sov's seven volumes of poems.
"Stephanos is a great book. In it Bryusov is celebrating
a victory over the elemental powers in his own spirit. In it he
V. BRYUSOV 179
is a hero, a victor, a giant. It is a great radiant book of Rus-
sian poetry which is destined to make an epoch. . . .
Stephanos is a book which carries a blessing. It knows the
sorcery of purifying the human soul. From a high mountain
you look over your life, and you reconcile yourself to all, and
forgive all, and know that all is wise and all is quiet."
K. Tchukovsky.
2. The Axis of the Globe. (1907.)
A book of short stories and plays of a fantastic char-
acter. Although somewhat similar to the stories of Poe
and Hoffmann, they, nevertheless, bear the stamp of an in-
dividual talent and possess a peculiar fascination. " For
each individual, dream-life is a second reality," we read
in one of the stories. " It depends upon personal in-
clination which of the two realities to choose." In The
Axis of the Globe, Bryusov chose the reality of dream-
life, but he made the dream real.
3. The Flaming Angel. Novel. (1908-1909.)
The work bears the subtitle " A story of the sixteenth
century in two volumes " and is for the sake of local
color declared to be an exact translation from an old Ger-
man manuscript. The full title reads: The Flaming
Angel, or a true story of the Devil who at various times
appeared to an innocent Virgin in the shape of a Holy
Angel, luring her to sinful actions; of the ungodly prac-
tices of magic, alchemy, astrology, cabalistic art, and
necromancy ; of the trial of the aforesaid Virgin under the
presidency of His Reverence, the Bishop of Trier; and
also of meetings and conversations with the Knight and
thrice Doctor Agrippa of Nettesheim, and Doctor Faust,
written by an eyewitness.
[Of value is also Bryusov's The Far and Near, essays on Rus-
sian poets from Tyutchev to our days. Two volumes.]
K. D. MEREZHKOVSKY (1865-)
Novelist, critic, publicist, poet. One of the most influen-
tial figures in the modernist school, yet one who aroused
much criticism and disparaging comment because of the
unusual point of concentration of all his writings \ Merezh-
kovsky is a religious mystic who believes that all the past
history of humanity was only a preparation for the com-
ing of the New Kingdom, the Kingdom of the Holy Spirit.
The First Testament, he says, was the religion of God in
the World. The Second Testament, that of the Son, was
the religion of God in Man. The Third Testament, the
religion to come, will be the religion of God in Humanity.
" The Father is personified in Cosmos, the Son in Logos,
the Spirit, in one collective universal Being, God-
Humanity.' '
This creed of Merezhkovsky's makes all his work
unique. Merezhkovsky is a writer with a purpose. He
scans millennia and remote cultures to detect the struggle
of the Spirit against earthly chains, the striving of hu-
manity towards a new religious life. " There is a strong
bond of unity between all these books notwithstanding
their heterogeneous, often contradictory character," he
writes in an introduction to a complete edition of his
works. " They are all links of one chain, parts of one
whole. They are not many books but one book pub-
lished in several parts for the sake of convenience. One
book, one topic. What is Christianity for the modern
man? The answer to this question is the covert bond
between the parts of the whole."
180
K. D. MEREZHKOVSKY 181
Merezhkovsky's creed is both his strength and his
weakness. It gives meaning to his writings; it elevates
his novels above the plane of mere narratives; it gives his
critical research a peculiar orientation; it marks his
essays on current events with an uncompromising spiritu-
ality. Yet, at the same time, it narrows, as it were, the
range of his vision, and quite frequently it induces him
to see a struggle of religious ideas where this is hardly
the case. His hunger for spiritual tragedies prompts him
sometimes to distort the perspective. And it is due less
to his central idea and more to his skill as a reviver of
epochs, to his ingenuity in creating characters and situa-
tions, to his sincere and lucid language, to his sensitive
penetration into the very essence of the works of others,
in short to his talent as a novelist and critic, that many
of his works achieved recognition and even became
famous.
" Poetry, mysticism, criticism, religion, all this was trans-
formed by Merezhkovsky into an aureole around some new
attitude towards religion, a theurgical one, in which religion,
mysticism, and poetry are blended. All the rest, such as his-
tory, culture, science, philosophy, have only prepared humanity
for the new life. Now this life is approaching, and pure art,
the historical Church, the State, science, history, are being
discarded.
"And what light is flooding Merezhkovsky's message; how
this light is being refracted in the existing methods of creative
work, in novels, criticism, religious research! How it attracts
to his esthetes, mystics, theologians, and ordinary cultured
people! Verily, something new has Merezhkovsky beheld! It
is incommensurable with the existing forms of creative work.
And this is the reason why the tower of his works, reaching
high into the clouds, has no homogeneous foundation. . . .
" A strange light colors the work of Merezhkovsky. It can-
not be decomposed. It cannot be reconstructed out of a sum
182 THE " MODERNISTS w
total of his critical, mystic, and poetic qualities. . . . Merezh-
kovsky is more than a mere poet, a mere critic."
Andrey Byely.
i. Christ and Antichrist, a trilogy consisting of the fol-
lowing historical novels:
Julian the Apostate. (The Death of the Gods.)
(1896.)
Leonardo da Vinci. (Gods Resurrecting.) (1901.)
Peter and Alexis. (1905.)
Each of these novels deals with the spiritual aspect of a
period grave with consequences for humanity. Their aim
is to give the reader not so much the sequence of historic
events as the atmosphere of past epochs vibrating with
intellectual and emotional unrest. The structure of the
novels is rational. Every scene and every detail is chosen
to illustrate the main idea of the author. The scheme of
the author is often all too evident. Yet each of the novels
makes excellent reading, being full of life and action.
" Few possess Merezhkovsky's art of bringing near to us
the vistas of the magic past, of identifying the hopes, anxie-
ties, thoughts, and feelings of the most distant epochs with
our own. Merezhkovsky knows how to be convincing. He has
enough knowledge of history, archeology, scholasticism, ancient
paintings, diaries and other sources of information, and he
uses it very skilfully. His attention is drawn to the most
striking moments in the history of the world. . . . The his-
toric perspective becomes clear, and we gain the impression
that we are ourselves completing the slow underground work
of unseen elemental powers." . ^
. A. DOLININ.
2. Julian the Apostate is all astir with the clash of two
worlds, the Hellenic and the Christian. The former is
nearly gone. It lives only in the memory of the Roman
K. D. MEREZHKOVSKY 183
Emperor Julian and the priest of Dionysius, Maxim, as
the last strain of a melody beautiful and joyous. Chris-
tianity is the present, with its killing of the flesh, with its
barren exterior, with its poverty, black monks, eternal
disputes, sternness, punishments, shadows instead of sun-
shine. The central figure is Julian, torn between the two
worlds and yet hoping against hope that some day a resur-
rection of God-like beauty would take place on earth.
The novel is full of vivid scenes and unusual color.
The tragedy of the few survivors of the Hellenic world
is represented in strong yet delicate strokes. The novel
lives a life of its own.
3. Leonardo da Vinci deals with the Renaissance in
Italy when t-hft Hftllftnir. world onrp mnrp trinmphpH in tn*
joul^of jnan. The place of action is Florence. The per-
sons are Savonarola, JLgnngjdnJ Moro; Cpgarp Rnrgfa
Machiayelli.
" Under the surface of political events, another current, not
less stormy, makes itself felt. It penetrates religion, art, sci-
ence, the modes of every-day life. The fires of the Inquisition
are burning ... yet simultaneously new and perfect works
of art are being created embodying classic subjects; new
statutes are being erected by the hands of such geniuses as
Leonardo, Michael Angelo, and Raphael. Black Magic is still
reigning . . . yet here are made tremendous scientific dis-
coveries of eternal universal value. And the same everywhere.
All foundations are shattered, everything is moving, changing.
The spirit of revival is rampant, the worship of life asserts
itself, the assertion of one's own personality is the question of
the day." . _
A. DOLININ.
The figure of Leonardo as described by Merezhkovsky
makes a lasting impression. If anybody succeeded in
drawing the picture of a superman, it is Merezhkovsky.
184 THE " MODERNISTS "
The spirit of the epoch is given a very careful, almost
scientific presentation in the novel.
Peter and Alexis takes us into the northern Russian
capital just erected by the powerful Russian monarch,
Peter the Great, on the marshes of the Gulf of Finland.
Here again we see the struggle between religion and ma-
terialism, between the spiritual aspects of life and the
craving for external achievements. Peter is the reckless,
wilful, stubborn representative of earthly glory. His son,
Alexis, is thinking of spiritual values. Peter looks at
the Church as a tool to serve the ends of the State. Alexis
thinks of the Church as the Kingdom of Heaven on earth.
Peter is masterful, merciless, cruel in his work as in his
pleasure. Alexis is tender, loving, though firm in the
struggle for his ideas. Peter is the representative of the
Antichrist. Alexis is the herald of Christ.
The novel gives an impressive picture of Russian life
two hundred years ago.
4. Tolstoi and Dostoyevsky. (Life, Work, and Re-
ligion.) (1901-1902.)
A two-volume critical review of the personalities and
creations of the two Russian literary giants. Considered
the best work in this field. Merezhkovsky's analysis is
both philosophic and artistic; he is primarily concerned
with the religious and moral views of both writers, yet he
has a deep and sympathetic understanding for the pure
beauty of their work. Moreover, the scope of his investi-
gations required an analysis of the very methods of their
artistic work. Thus, the essay, although fundamentally
an argument in favor of a definite thesis, represents the
keenest and the most intellectual appreciation of Tolstoi
and Dostoyevsky. The thesis Merezhkovsky intends to
K. D. MEREZHKOVSKY 185
prove is that while Tolstoi is something between a heathen
and a Christian, while he has no real conception of the
spiritual aspects of life, Dostoyevsky is the man who pene-
trated the sancta sanctorum of the spirit. The thesis is
formulated in the following words: " Tolstoi is the great-
est expositor of the man who is neither flesh nor spirit
but is somewhere between flesh and spirit, the ' man of
the soul '; he describes that side of the flesh which faces
the spirit, and that side of the spirit which faces the flesh,
a mysterious realm where the struggle between the Beast
and God in man takes place. This is, let it be noted, the
struggle and tragedy of his own personal life; he himself
is primarily a man of the soul, neither thoroughly pagan,
nor thoroughly Christian, a man who is constantly being
reborn, who is constantly being converted yet cannot
be reborn and become converted into Christianity; a half-
heathen, half-Christian."
5. Eternal Companions. (1897.)
A book of essays on old and modern European and
Russian authors, among them Cervantes, Calderon, Flau-
bert, Ibsen, Pushkin. In the preface Merezhkovsky says:
" The author would like to show, behind the books, the
living soul of the writer, that unique form of being which
will never be repeated; then to show the influence of
this soul, often separated from us by ages and nations
and yet closer to us than those among whom we live, upon
the intellect, the will, the heart, and the entire inner life
of a critic who is representative of a certain generation."
Merezhkovsky also translated a number of classic
tragedies by CEschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides.
[Of importance are Merezhkovsky's Pavel the First, a drama,
and Alexander the First, a novel forming the first part of
another trilogy.]
F. SOLOGUB (1863-)
Poet, novelist, writer of short stories. One of the stran-
gest and most fascinating figures in the new school.
Sologub is a dreamer, yet his dreams are uglier than
real life. Sologub is a worshiper of beauty, yet in most
of his beauty-feasts the odor of decay is disturbing.
Sologub craves full-blooded lusty life, yet invariably he
sees the grimace of a wrinkled hag behind the face of
youth. Sologub is fiercely longing for pure love, yet his
love is always tormented by the devil of lust, and vulgar
hideous sensuality screens from him the image of innocent
joy.
Sologub is obsessed by a multi-colored unhealthy imagi-
nation which populates his world with demons, witches,
and other sinister shadowy creatures. At the same time
he is one of the most lucid and incisive realists with un-
usual skill at throwing life's actualities into sharp relief.
He does not ignore the facts of political struggle, and his
sympathies are quite clear and outspoken. Yet his transi-
tion from realism to demonism is accomplished without
strain. Sologub does not need a conjurer; his little and
big devils, his witches and dragons are always lurking
on the edge of his horizon, ready to overrun the field
of his vision and to embrace with their impure arms
every man and woman they come across.
Darkness, ugliness, monstrosity, graveyard reptiles, the
thick poison of weird pleasures, distorted figures, death.
. . . And yet, over it all and in spite of it all, there is
a luminous beautiful light shining in Sologub's works.
186
F. SOLOGUB 187
One learns to love him. One feels a suffering sympa-
thetic soul afflicted with the madness of modern sensi-
tiveness and cherishing some clear undying hope. There
is an innocent, almost childish enthusiasm in Sologub, as
if he were strangely happy over the strange things that
unfold before his eyes.
It may be added that intellectual Russia accepted
Sologub perhaps more readily than any of the modernists
outside of Balmont.
" Being complicated, he is uniform; being crudely realistic,
he is an idealist; being tortuous, he is simple; being intelligible,
he is full of riddles. He is pitiful and formidable; he says
the truth when he is jesting; he is appalling yet strangely
attractive; his democratic sympathies are as indubitable as his
profound contempt for all humanity, including the demos. In
our literature, there is no other figure embodying as many
riddles and horrors, yet look at his portrait and you see a re-
spectable old gentleman, earnest and placid. He carries a
stone on his bosom, this innocent one; and so do his books."
A. G. Gornfeld.
" Sologub 's style is chiseled, at once subtle and simple. In
Sologub, the lyrical pathos of Gogol turns into a pathos of
solemn greatness and sternness. . . . From parts of his works
we carried away many riches into the treasury of our letters.
His phrases are often stalks heavy with grain; he has no
empty words: every word is magnificent in its heaviness, simple
in its structural uniformity."
A. Byely.
1. Lyrical Poems. (1 896-191 7.)
Utter loneliness cries out of these carved lines. The
subsoil of loneliness breathes a chill even through the gay-
est of Sologub's poems. The gaiety in itself is of a dismal
kind. " Dreadful is the enchanted trail, yet it gives for-
getfulness; bitter is the hemlock, yet it brings gaiety;
188 THE " MODERNISTS "
there is comfort in the breathing of dead lips. Bring me,
then, oh sorceress, thy cruel herb," he says in one of his
poems. The motive of death often recurs in his lyrics.
Death seems to be a coveted haven. Men enter the king-
dom of death as if it were a land of blossoming dreams, —
perhaps because death is the limit of abandon in sex.
Yet Sologub often speaks of " unimpassioned death,"
" unimpassioned overstepping of the fateful mark." Solo-
gub is torn by suffering, and sufferings have a sweetness
for him. " Fearfully dreaming, we yearn for tortures "
could be made a motto to the several volumes of his
poems. Twisted with convulsions of wretchedness, how-
ever, he always aspires to spring, youth, clear unrippled
waters.
Sologub 's poems are endowed with a peculiar convinc-
ing power. Grave and somewhat monotonous, lacking
the brilliancy of Balmont and the sculptural qualities of
Bryusov, they have a compelling sincerity and a life of
their own. Sologub's verse is delicate and stoutly con-
structed.
2. The Little Demon. (1907.)
A novel whose hero became a byword in Russian litera-
ture and in everyday conversation. The words " Little
Demon " hardly convey the idea of the title. It should,
perhaps, be translated as The Trivial Demon, or The
Mean Little Devil. This latter creature is the torment of
a half-insane Russian official Peredonov who embodies
the pestilential side of Russian life under the autocratic
regime. Peredonov sees the evasive petty devil as "a
dirty, stinking, hideous, and strange " being; she is " mist-
like " and assumes " many forms," she lies in a petty
vulgar way, and " laughs squeakingly " ; she wraps life in
F. SOLOGUB 189
a colorless nauseating shroud. Never since The Family
Golovlev did Russian literature create a negative type
equal to Peredonov.
" In the literature of the world there is hardly a creature
more absurd, more monstrous and appalling, more unreal in
spite of his commonness than this gymnasium teacher of an
ordinary provincial town. It is utterly impossible to character-
ize in a few words the power of vulgarity which is the keynote
of Peredonov's nature. There is something great in this limit-
less, all-embracing pettiness, there is something satanical in
the mire of his paltry meanness. His gloomy self-satisfaction,
his reckless egotism, his cowardly vileness, his ever-suspecting
fright, his unremitting and yet feeble sensuality, his supersti-
tions and cynicism form a living figure from the very begin-
ning. The further you read the more you are overwhelmed
by this curious combination of shocking impossibility and
artistic convincingness."
A. G. Gornfeld.
Peredonov is afflicted by progressing insanity, yet this
is a kind of normal insanity, similar to that of Golovlev.
It only tends to bring forth the fundamental qualities of
his nature. Peredonov has ugly and cruel illusions which
are the true reflection of himself.
Contrasted to Peredonov is the love of a number of
young people in the same provincial town — Sologub's
love, always tinged with the restrained lust which our
author is so prone to describe.
3. Witchcraft, or The Legend That Is Being Created,
(1907-1913.)
A novel consisting of four independent parts. The first
part begins with the following words: " I take a piece of
life, crude and poor, and create from it a delightful legend,
because I am a poet. Stagnate in darkness, thou bleak
igo THE " MODERNISTS "
everyday life, or blaze up in a furious conflagration, —
over thee, I, the poet, will erect the legend of the beautiful
and the charming that I am creating."
Among the persons of the novel, there are commonplace
citizens and men endowed with supernatural forces. The
central figure is a man whose uncanny scientific achieve-
ments make him omnipotent. The places of action are a
provincial Russian town, the legendary United Islands,
and the air through which the heroes travel in a scientifi-
cally prepared little planet. The novel has a peculiar
charm, — that of Sologub's enchanted trail.
" In the rapid succession of pictures and persons you begin
early to experience the influence of a cruel enchantment char-
acteristic of Sologub's conception of the world. As you follow
him, you notice that he has left the usual well-known road
to lead you over some strange winding paths. You have
repeatedly stumbled over unevennesses and debris. You look
around and to your amazement you see tombs, half-destroyed
monuments. . . . Yet this is no graveyard, no! This is the
enchanted trail which has a miraculous power of creating
illusions. On this trail, the living seem to be ghosts, the
ghosts turn into living beings, the swift little devils are run-
ning up and down; the mysterious ' quiet boys ' wander silently
about, tracing around you some weird magic circles. ... If
the realm of the mysterious and problematical in art does
not offend your rational attitude towards the world, do not
hesitate to follow the artist on his enchanted trail."
Vl. Kranichfeld.
4. Short Stories. ( 1896-19 17.)
Sologub has written several volumes of short stories
which are of the same quality as the rest of his work.
No student of Sologub's should fail to acquaint himself
with his short stories and sketches.
F. SOLOGUB 191
5. War Poems. (i9I5-)
A volume of dignified and simple poems on subjects
of the World War. Here are some of the titles: Hymn;
Russia Is Love; March; Unity oft Nations; A Warrior to
His Bride; A Wife to the Reservist; The Veteran; Wit-
helm II; Victory Be with You; Belgium; To a Boy
Scout; Trench Fever, etc.
[Of interest are also Sologub's Sweeter than Poison, a novel,
and his fables for children and for adults.]
A. VOLYNSKY (PLEXER) (1863-)
Philosopher and critic. One of the founders of the new
school in Russian literature. At one time, in the nineties,
he stood in the midst of the most heated battles between
the old and the new. As a critic of the monthly Syeverny
Vyestnik (The Northern Courier) he bitterly attacked
the former school of critics, including Mikhaylovsky,
primarily for their inadequate knowledge of philosophy.
He criticized the Russian literature of the past period for
paying much attention to the questions of political and
social reforms. These questions, in his opinion, had noth-
ing to do with art. The task of the artist, he said, was
to seek for the metaphysical roots of human life, for
the metaphysical foundations of our spiritual values. The
philosophy Volynsky preached was purely idealistic as
opposed to what he called the gross materialism of the
dominant literary school.
Volynsky was not recognized by the majority of Rus-
sian intellectuals. His aversion to the burning questions
of social reform, his keen interest in religion, his attacks
on venerable masters of public opinion, gained him the
notoriety of a reactionary which was not true, and he was
venomously mocked. However, his influence on the new
school was quite considerable, and the trace he left in
Russian thought is quite unmistakable.
1. The Fight for Idealism. Critical Essays. (1900.)
2. The Book of Great Indignation. Essays. (1904.)
3. F. M. Dostoyevsky. Essay. (1906.)
192
A. VOLYNSKY 193
In all these essays, Volynsky appears as the champion
of symbolistic art as opposed to realism or naturalism.
The symbol, he says, is a means of connecting the outward
concrete phenomena with their internal meaning. This
meaning reveals itself only to such philosophers and
artists who adhere to the idealistic philosophy. When
we are imbued with such a philosophic spirit " our con-
sciousness becomes particularly sensitive to the processes
which are taking place in the darkness of the human soul,
it acquires a penetrative keenness which aids the unclear
forebodings and moods to issue forth from the depths
and clothe themselves in fresh artistic forms. The ideal-
istic conception appears to bore the human psyche, the
complicated, entangled, sometimes accidental processes of
the mind, as a borer penetrates the earth allowing the
fresh salubrious waters to burst forth." Idealism and
symbolism are twin brothers, " both uniting the visible
and the invisible world."
Philosophy, i.e., the idealistic conception of the world,
is, thus, in Volynsky's opinion, indispensable for the real
artist. Moreover, the poet and the philosopher do prac-
tically the same thing, — they reveal the truth, though
their methods differ. " Both feel and grasp the truth
directly, through the momentary vital contact of an elated
soul with the world, notwithstanding a host of logical
failures, illusions of our senses and predilections of every-
day life." In this instant of grasping the truth, the poet
is a philosopher and the philosopher is a poet. But
whereas the philosopher proves his truth in a chain of
syllogisms, the poet represents it in a concrete phenome-
non. " His task is to show the indissoluble bond
of unity between the particular and the general, the
finite and the infinite, the transitory and the eternal, —
194 THE " MODERNISTS "
to show it in simple and clear images taken from every-
day life."
This being the ideal of a poet, it is natural for Volynsky
to think that only a philosopher can be a critic. " Criti-
cism must be, not of a social, but of a philosophic nature,
i.e., it must be based on the solid foundation of an ideal-
istic philosophy. It is the task of criticism to observe
how a poetic idea, born in the mysterious depths of the
human spirit, makes its way through the heterogeneous
material of the authors practical views and conceptions;
an idea thus born either transforms the facts of external
experience and puts them in a light where their real mean-
ing can be apprehended, or, where the natural talent of
the writer is limited, it dissolves under the influence of
his psychological peculiarities and false conceptions. Real
criticism must be competent both in the valuation of
poetic ideas which are always of an abstract nature, and
in laying bare the creative processes which are a recipro-
cal action between the conscious and unconscious forces
of the artist. Art can yield its secrets only to the philoso-
pher who, in a contemplative ecstasy, unites the finite with
the infinite, traces the connection between psychic moods
as expressed in poetic images and the eternal laws of
the development of the world."
Volynsky's involved and cumbersome style was a great
hindrance to his popularity, yet, aside from this and from
his philosophical conceptions, his criticisms struck a new
note in the understanding of the task of an artist and a
critic. Volynsky himself gave good examples. His criti-
cal sketches of Dostoyevsky, Tolstoi, and others are
undoubtedly a step forward in the history of Russian
criticism. They are fresh, bold, vivid, and artistic.
[Other books by Volynsky: Russian Critics; Leonardo da
Vinci.]
A. BLOCK (1880-)
Poet. Author of many books of lyrical poems. Author
of many plays. One of the leaders of the modernist
school.
" Block is the soul of music, irresistible, charming, tenderly
luring. ... It is not the reading alone that gives us an idea
of Block: his poems enter your soul and stay there as a
reminiscence of music, of an enchanted land. Block's songs
draw your soul close to the altar of silence, which is born out
of a deep, genuine, and most complete experience of the
moment.
" Block has a refined ear, he hears the grass grow, he hears
cthe flight of angels in the ether '; Block is a mystic. Yet
Block hears, not only the rustling of angels' wings, but also
' the crawling monsters at the bottom of the sea.' Block, as
Dostoyevsky, never turns his back on the ordinary, every-
day realities, but how fantastic these same realities often ap-
pear both to Block and Dostoyevsky! "
M. Hofman.
" Block is a great poet. He is one of the few who fight for
the right of poetry to look, not only into the clear, definite
movements of the human soul, but also into its mysteries, rid-
dles, strange twists, and precipices hidden in its darkest
recesses."
A. IZMAILOV.
i. Songs of the Beautiful Lady. (1905.)
A series of lyrical poems to the eternal beauty of the
feminine soul which, to the poet, is something holy, re-
calling, as it does, the Madonna or the queen of his
dreams.
195
196 THE " MODERNISTS "
" The sanctuary of eternal beauty, the sanctuary of the uni-
versal feminine soul is equivalent in Block's eyes to a religious
sanctuary. . . . Whatever the feminine figure created by the
fantasy of the poet is called, whether his Queen or his Muse,
does not matter. To Block she is the incarnation of all beauty
on earth and outside of it. He cherished a mystic belief that
some day he would meet her and this day would mark the
beginning of a new life. Who is She? He does not know
himself. She is the Unknown. . . . His dream of her is
misty and hazy. The images in which he thinks of her are
sometimes strange to the utmost and capricious to madness.
She appears and disappears like a spirit. He knows nothing
about her, he knows nothing about tie hour of their meeting,
whether it would be long or only a fleeting moment. . . . The
shadowy quality of his pictures, the haziness of the action, its
remoteness from all background of reality, is one of the char-
acteristic features of Block's poetry. It gave occasion to one
of the critics to call him justly the poet of the dream-like con-
A. Izmailov.
2. Poems on Russia. (191 5.)
There is nothing shadowy or dream-like about this col-
lection of poems dealing with Russia as a nation and
giving utterance to the poet's healthy patriotic feelings.
Block sees " the poverty of his native land," the " rags
and tatters," the " swamps eternal," the " rusty hillocks,"
yet he loves his country as part of himself. He believes
in Russia's future. Russia fought the Tartars, Russia's
history is one continuous fight, Russia could dream of
quiet only " through tears and dust," and Russia will fight
her way to strength and happiness. The Poems on Russia
are full of robust hope, sturdy confidence in the power of
the native land, and, to accompaniment of murmuring
forests and singing snow-storms, they strike a new note
in Russian poetry.
V. IVANOV (1866-)
One of the most erudite Russian poets. Thoroughly
familiar with the history, mythology, literature, and in-
stitutions of ancient Greece and Rome. A linguist mas-
tering, besides the classic languages, nearly every cultural
European tongue (his doctor's dissertation, written in
Latin, bears the title, De societatibus vectigalium pub-
licorum populi Roman). His scholarly knowledge of the
ancient world, of history, philosophy and religion, he
pours into his poetry, which is a curious blend of archaic
language and modernist ideas and emotions.
Somebody has called Ivanov " The sunny old wizard
with a soul of a baby." He says about himself: " Poor
and sun-lit do I wander with a song; I bestow my gift
of brightness on the world." This " gift of brightness "
is the worship of Beauty.
" He gave himself to the idea of art so completely that all
the rest appears to him a mere insignificant appendix. He is
close to philosophy ; he goes through the experiences of ancient
cults, beginning with the Orient, continuing through the Hel-
lenic religion of Dionysius, going up to the preaching of the
Galilean; yet even religion is conceived by him as beauty, as
various shades of beauty. In some strange manner, beauty to
him is always connected with the idea of ancient times. . . .
"He is not interested in passing psychological moods, as
hundreds of other poets. He looks everywhere for broad
philosophical generalizations. . . . He is interested in the
mysteries of the universe, in cosmic phenomena, human con-
ceptions and births, eternal dawns, days and nights, relations
of luminaries and days, mysterious riddles of constellations.
For instance, human passion occupies him, not as a personal
.197
198 THE " MODERNISTS "
experience of his or of any given individual, but rather as a
philosophical abstraction, as a synthesis of feelings."
A. Izmailov.
Lyrical Poems. ( 1903-19 17.)
"A guest has come from foreign lands, a stranger, full of
thoughts, full of experiences, full of wisdom. Nobody knows
him, but somehow everybody begins to smile at him as if he
were their own, as if they had been looking for him and long-
ing for his coming. Joyfully they greet him, joyfully they call
him their beloved one, with happy surprise they become aware
that they are closely connected with this seemingly elaborate
but at bottom most simple poet. Everybody feels that they
had loved him for a long time, that they had known him as
he is: crowned, yet calm and gentle.
" Ivanov's influence is only beginning to be felt, and it is
hardly possible to maintain a correct perspective in appreciat-
ing it. Suffice it to be said that all the new forces that actually
contributed something valuable in the field of poetry in the last
few years, ought to feel themselves obliged to the creative
genius of Vyatcheslav Ivanov and bound to him by the most
intimate bonds."
Vl. Pyast.
ANDREY BYELY (B. N. BUGAYEV) (1880-)
Poet, novelist, critic, and theoretician of symbolism. The
most profound exponent of symbolism in the present
generation.
Byely has the rare ability of living philosophical prob-
lems. It is not reason alone that he exercises in the search
for the meaning of life; it is all the passions, cravings,
delights, and sufferings of a talented, imaginative, high-
strung, and truthful nature that he brings into his philo-
sophical gropings. And in the very same way as poets
sing their love for mortals or their pain from conflicting
psychological phenomena, so Byely tells about his at-
tempts at unveiling the mystery of the universe or his
clashes with the Unknowable and Eternal.
The professional philosopher may not discern anything
new in Byely's constructions. When Byely was a very
young man, a mere boy, the school of modernists was still
indulging in the worship of the Ego, in the art of the
decadence. He paid a brief tribute to this doctrine, but
he was dissatisfied. His way ever since, to put it in
Ivanov-Razumnik's words, was "a struggle against the
1 icy desert ! of cosmic loneliness, a continuous impatient
search for an exit from the ' wilderness of nonsense.' "
He takes refuge in religion. He must have a living, act-
ing God. Yet the promises of religion are far-flung. The
glorious future is so remote. Andrey Byely then seizes
at the idea of the approaching end of the world. Christ
is coming, very soon, he believes now; the closed door
is about to open. This new profession of faith, however,
.199
200 THE " MODERNISTS "
is also of brief duration. The young thinker is disap-
pointed. The magic future is slow to come. The stormy
years of 1 905-1 906 find him in the power of a new faith:
the people; Russia; the shining horizons opening before a
religious nation that arose to battle for a new truth. This
faith is naturally crushed with the defeat of the people,
and his restless mind turns to the Kantian philosophy,
hoping to find in critical reason a guide through the tangle
of existence. But reason is cold; logism kills metaph>sics,
which for Byely is life itself. Byely is a mystic by his
very nature. Back into the warm embrace of mysticism
he falls from the cool heights of pure reason, making a
swift stride towards theosophy of which he becomes an
ardent proselyte under the mastership of Rudolph Steiner.
In each point of these wanderings, he is all enthusiasm,
inspiration; still he is always aware of the other gods left
behind, and he speaks of them as a man would speak
of his personal enemies or friends.
These queries are very familiar to the students of
philosophy, and Byely hardly created anything novel.
What is valuable in his gropings is their artistic expres-
sion. His poems, sketches, essays, and stories are one
continuous record of his progress over the twisted paths
of philosophical research. And though to him, personally,
his experiences may be of supreme importance, he is noted
in Russia more for his artistic achievements than for his
philosophical conceptions.
Andrey Byely is the most refined of Russian modern-
ists. Even Balmont and Bryusov seem heavy compared
with his aerial, ethereal, almost ephemeral ways of ex-
pressing poetic thoughts. At the same time, he is full of
white fire, and his lines have the quality of coined silver.
He is constantly carried on a high tide of enthusiasm.
ANDREY BYELY 201
Nobody equals him in using an abstract language, yet he
can be so simple, so naive, so strangely convincing. Lack
of stability is one of his characteristic features. He is as
restless in his style, his forms, and his methods as he is in
philosophy. Sometimes it is an article written in the most
scientific manner, equal in dryness only to the works of
German scholars; sometimes it is a half -poetic essay full
of images and brilliant illustrations; at other times a
poem of excellent musical qualities is produced, to be
followed by a gripping literary appreciation of some do-
mestic or foreign writer, or by a story where moral prob-
lems and vast philosophical generalizations are insepa-
rably blended* with such keen and detailed presentations
of characters and surroundings as to make the old realistic
masters appear dull. The historian of literature would
have to class all these productions under different heads —
if such classification be necessary at all. To Byely they
are united in his personality, being as they are, the ex-
pressions of one individual soul pouring itself out at
various moments and in various moods. A more sedate
author might have been more uniform and rounded. Yet
these qualities, if qualities they may be called, are sur-
passed by the spontaneity of Byely's works, which are
all flashes of his soul, sparks of his burning brain, calls of
joy at the sight of enchanted lands, and mournful chants
around the urns where ashes of once living gods are
buried.
Andrey Byely is the most individual of Russian mod-
ernists. He writes for himself and in a way that suits
himself. This is why he is sometimes difficult to follow;
the meaning of his images is not always clear at first sight.
In fact, he advises his readers to be patient, to read his
book several times (as in the case of The Goblet of Snow-
202 THE " MODERNISTS "
Storms). Some of his theosophic terms will be under-
stood only by specialists. This was the cause of much
unfavorable comment on the part of writers opposed to
the modernist school. Even the severest critics, however,
recognize in him a sparkling talent with a streak of
genius and with an unusual emotional appeal. Byely is
one of the few occupying the very summit of present-day
Russian literature.
" A desire to read mysteries in phenomena, the attempt of
a sincere mind to penetrate instantly, by one superhuman
effort, into the meaning of life, — those characteristic features
of modern mystics, assume in the works of A. Byely a tragic
aspect. There is much fiery impact in his artistic work. He is
sensitive to hysterics; he must needs put every perceived
phenomenon into the most conspicuous place, illuminate it by
the most brilliant light. ... He loses his balance, he feels
the incommensurability of his soul with the universe, and now
he is indignant over the universe that cannot enter his soul,
now he is indignant over his soul that cannot embrace the
universe. With all that, Byely has a talent of undoubted
quality. He has the gift of hearing the voice of the masses
and being understood by the masses. Look at his picture of
provincial life in The Silver Dove. What a delicate lacy
fabric, what fine threads of great love, poignant bitterness, and
boundless sympathy with the poor tragedies of a little world!
Brilliant sparks of irony, a product of deep suffering, mix
with genuine pearls of bursting tears." p ^
i. Symphonies.
The Heroic {Northern Symphony). (1902.)
The Second {Dramatic Symphony). (1904.)
The Return {Third Symphony). (1905.)
The Goblet of Snow-Storms {Fourth Symphony).
(1908.)
Each of these volumes is a collection of symbolic poems
in prose, philosophic visions, half-tales, half-dreams, little
ANDREY BYELY 203
sketches from actual life terminating in imaginary realms,
even polemic articles, pictures, portraits, miniatures. The
Symphonies seem to be the form best adapted to the tone
of Byely's soul. In connection with them, a Russian
critic quotes Edgar Allan Poe: " Doubting, dreaming
dreams no mortal ever dared to dream before."
" A symphony in artistic prose, — what can be more daring
than this undertaking! No critic, however, would deny the
young artist a right to such daring. The strict rules of har-
mony, and perhaps even counterpoint, are observed in rela-
tion to the language. You can trace the leading motives and
the changing voices."
Vl. Pyast.
2. The Silver Dove. Novel. (1910.)
The leading idea is that Russia is destined to regenerate
the world through a combination of religious faith and
revolutionary action. An intellectual man, a student of
the classic world, leaves his cultural environments to mix
with the plain people where he hopes to find the germs of
a new truth. He has an idea that the Hellenic feeling of
life has not yet vanished under the cover of Christianity.
He hopes for a new era in humanity brought about by the
contact of western thought with Russian faith. "The
Russians are people of the fields, of the woods; they do
not clothe themselves in words, they do not gladden the
eye by the mode of their living; their speech is just
filthy, their mode of living is drunken, quarrelsome, un-
couthness, hunger, dumbness, darkness. . . . But look
here: the wine of the spirit is ready on the table before
every one. Russia is that rock on which theories are being
wrecked, science is turned into dust, and even life itself
is burned out. On the day when the West will be grafted
on Russia, a world-wide conflagration will enwrap it;
204 THE " MODERNISTS "
everything inflammable will perish, because only from the
ashes of death will arise the soul of Eden, the Golden
Bird."
The hero goes down to the people, where he becomes
involved in the religious sect of " The Doves," whose
members, in the author's presentation, are endowed with
great mystic power. They are plain workingmen, with
very little education, but they are all aflame with religious
and revolutionary ardor. Their mysticism is black,
crude, but genuine.
The novel shows signs of the author's theosophic
beliefs.
3. Petersburg. Novel. (1913.)
The leading idea: conflict between the Mongolian world
and the Russian religious soul. The Mongolian world is
nihilism, the power of darkness, the spirit of death. This
spirit is incarnated in father and son, of whom one is a
high Russian bureaucrat and the other a revolutionary
terrorist. The action is set against the background of
the Russian revolution with its conspiracies, agents provo-
cateurs, secret service men, self-sacrifices of pure idealis-
tic souls, and harrowing tragedies for many. In Byely's
conception, this is a clash between the Orient and real
Russia, between the general spirit of destruction and
Christ. It is a forecast of the future, an apocalyptic
struggle between the Dragon and Christ throughout the
universe. In the novel, Christ wins, sad and mer-
ciful; the tragedies have purified the souls of the
sinners.
The novel contains many allusions to theosophic ex-
periences which only the initiated would understand.
Still, it is very strong and full of splendid pictures.
ANDREY BYELY 205
4. Poems. (1904-1917.)
There are many volumes of Byely's poetry, marking
the stages of his philosophical and religious moods, begin-
ning with Gold in Azure and ending with Urns and Ashes.
In all of them Byely appears a poet of great sincerity
and charm who knows the secret of being convincing even
when he treats a very abstract subject. Sometimes,
though, he becomes a naive and youthful singer of things
common to all poets of the world: longings, loneliness,
love. Attention should be called to his beautiful poems
of the exquisite life of the eighteenth century. It is, how-
ever, the tortures of a never-satisfied thinker that give
his lyricisms their special value. Sometimes he is mock-
ing at himself. Sometimes he is at war with all the powers
of the spirit. At all times he is himself, utterly individual
and self-centered.
5. Symbolism. (1910.)
A book of essays on the theory of artistic creative
ability. Byely's views may be thus briefly summarized:
There is a fundamental difference between reason and
creative ability in their questioning the nature of the exist-
ent and in the forms in which they answer this question.
" While reason asks, ' What is life, what is the reality
of life? ' creative ability answers in bold affirmative:
'Here is that which is being actually experienced; here
is life.' " The forms of reason are the ways in which the
nature of the existent is being defined, i.e., they are the
methods of exact science. The forms in which creative
ability affirms life are the expression of experiences, the
expression of the images lived through.
" The image lived through is a symbol; a symbol put
into words, paint, matter, is an artistic image."
206 THE " MODERNISTS "
There is a difference between the image of reality
and the image of art. The former exists through the
laws of nature; the laws of nature are part of my " I,"
the reflecting part of it, not the entire " I." " Reality,
if I wish to conceive it, is turned into a question which
I put to my reason. Whereas in the image of art my
whole * I ' is given. My ' 1 ' is the actual reality; it is
the creative power."
This is, Byely says, contrary to the popular conception,
according to which the creative work is only an emblem
of reality while the real reality is in surrounding nature.
" It is nothing astonishing that the imagery of the artist
which is not subject to reason, has been taken by many
to be an expression of a creative dream; it has been
denied reality. To those, however, who have conceived
the real nature of symbols, the phenomena, including the
*if are only a reflection of another 'I' which is real,
eternal, creative."
Ill
THE RECENT TIDE
GENERAL SURVEY
The years between the middle of the nineties of the past
century and the revolution of 191 7 may be called the
revolutionary period in the history of Russia. It starts
with an outbreak of social unrest on a large scale: labor
strikes in 1896 and subsequent years, political demonstra-
tions in various cities, upheavals of university students
all over the country. In 1902, peasant revolts begin and
spread like wildfire. Then comes the unfortunate war
with Japan in 1904 and 1905. It is followed by a tre-
mendous revolutionary uprising in 1 905-1 906 which
changed Russia from an autocratic country to a nominal
parliamentary monarchy. The revolution is soon quelled;
the old regime wreaks vengeance on its opponents. Yet
the new forces are not destroyed. After a brief period of
stupefaction, social movement again stirs the country.
Strikes follow political manifestations, parliamentary
protests are backed by growing political parties. The
masses of the people, notably the industrial workers,
awake to new courage and new activities sooner than
the intelligentzia. The world war culminates in the great
revolution of 191 7, which totally changed the face of
Russia.
The literature of this period is a true reflection of the
times. In fact, it is hardly possible to understand the
new Russian literature without an insight into the under-
lying social and political conditions.
1. The peasant is still a dominant figure in the works
of many writers. This is Russian literary tradition. Yet
attention is rapidly turning to the city, to the modern in-
209
210 THE RECENT TIDE
dustrial center. Veresayev, Gorky, Andreyev, Kuprin,
Artzybashev, Yushkevitch, and many others have little
to do with the village. They either describe the modern
intellectual confronted with a multitude of novel prob-
lems, or they go down to the plain people who are awaken-
ing from ages-old stupor. It is evident that the center
of gravity has moved from rural Russia into the large
city. The nobleman's nest is not mentioned at all, or
it is shown in a state of dilapidation and decay. The old
life is gone. The patriarchal system has disappeared.
In the works of Russian writers we hear the sound of
factory whistles, the noise of locomotives, the clatter of
industrial work. The Russian writers, as a rule, do not
worship at the shrine of industrialism, yet they do not
fail to record the new era. Neither do they close their
eyes to the fact that the poor man of the city, the fac-
tory hand, the clerk, the artisan's apprentice, is of a
quicker intelligence, has more culture, and is more sus-
ceptible to new ideas than the peasant. The unprece-
dented movements that stir the large cities, the formation
of secret parties, the organization of strikes, demonstra-
tions and other forms of social protest, are novel subjects
of study for Russian writers. With their customary
thoroughness, they scrutinize every detail of these move-
ments and report them in literary works.
2. The village offers new and startling material for the
study of the Russian national character. For the first
time in modern history, the village has awakened. True,
it is hardly moved by ideas. It strikes out blindly. It
seems to be following a primitive impulse. It burns the
mansion of the noble landlord and gets hold of his grain.
One may argue the wisdom of such actions. Yet, what a
picture! What material for an artist! Millions of
GENERAL SURVEY 211
slaves, patient for centuries, throwing off their chains,
breathing new courage, facing terrible dangers, believing
in their right to destroy their foes. What a wealth of
color! What a variety of characters! Here are self-
conscious leaders of a modern type, and half-savages who
are almost inarticulate; old patriarchs with long beards
and childlike faith, and gay youths enjoying revolt as a
glorious diversion. In the roar of battle sounds the voice
of an ancient creed which never died in the mind of the
people, " The land is God's and the people's."
The agrarian revolts hold the modern Russian writer
spellbound. Here he has an occasion to look into the
very depths of the people's character. Here he has a
chance to test the people's faith. Here he can also find
solutions to the old controversy: is the peasant a com-
munist by nature, or does he only care to improve his
individual life with no regard for the rest?
The landlord, of course, is a prominent figure in many
descriptions of peasant upheavals. Some writers have
sympathy with him. As a rule, however, the landlord's
psychology, expressed in fear and hate, fascinated the
writers much less than the psychology of the peasants.
In descriptions of ordinary village life, outside of the
agrarian movement, a new tone is prevailing. The writ-
ers have before their eyes the standards of living in the
cities. They compare the life of a poor urban worker
with the life of the peasant, and they are appalled. There
is no more reverence in their writings for the traditions
and customs of the village. They are indignant. They
are sick at heart. With a nauseating feeling do they
picture the poverty, brutality, degradations of the peas-
ant. All descriptions of the modern village are a con-
tinuous cry of anguish.
212 THE RECENT TIDE
3. The conflagration of 1 905-1 906 reaching into prac-
tically every realm of Russian life and making sober peo-
ple mad with passions, hopes and visions, offered a source
of material which will not be exhausted for generations.
Every Russian writer had to write about the revolution.
There was no escaping it. There was no end to the vari-
ety of subjects that pressed themselves irresistibly on
the mind of the observer. Here was the psychology of
revolutionary individuals and the psychology of the
masses; the bureaucratic official waging war against the
people, and his son or daughter in the ranks of the revo-
lution; the army officer quelling rebellion and secretly
sympathizing with his victims; the professional terrorist
and the agent provocateur; the priest who throws off his
robe to serve God in unity with the masses, and the priest
who organizes the dregs of the city to murder and rob the
fighters for freedom; the exalted youth who waits in a
prison cell for his last dawn, and the mother who gives
her son the last caress before he is shot. . . . The revo-
lution and the aristocracy, the revolution and the men of
wealth, the revolution and the army, the revolution and
the factory, the revolution and the morals, the revolution
and the school, the revolution and the family, the revo-
lution everywhere. A literature with a tradition of record-
ing truthfully all social movements, could not fail to
respond. If the nineteenth century literature suffered
from the monotony of life, that of the twentieth century
was overwhelmed by too much material. It could not
digest it in a short time. The descriptions of the revo-
lution are mostly crude sketches, raw material hardly
turned into works of art.
4. The reaction of the revolutionary period on the
mind of intellectual Russia was, perhaps, the most potent
GENERAL SURVEY 213
factor in shaping the literature of recent times. A revo-
lutionary period takes nothing for granted. It is in-
clined to question every fundamental of society, of
humanity, of the universe. It seeks for a revision of the
accepted answers as to the meaning of life. This natural
tendency was strengthened by the peculiar situation of
the intelligentzia in the revolution. The time for discus-
sion had passed. The time for action had come. Every
thinking man and woman had to decide as to the place
they were going to take in the great struggle. Those who
went into the revolution had to justify their idealistic co-
operation with the workingmen or the peasants whose
cause was not their own cause. Those who stayed out
had to justify their unwillingness to sacrifice their lives
for mere social or political improvements. Either camp
was laboring under a terrific nervous and mental strain.
Why suffer? Why give up my most precious life, for a
future I shall not share? What, after all, is a real value
in life? What is the 'meaning of an ideal? Can there be
an ideal without belief in an eternal moral law? Can
there be an eternal moral law without religion? Is a
fight for freedom also a manifestation of a religious spirit,
or it is only a crass materialistic greed for bread and but-
ter? Have I a right to take somebody's life so that the
life of others might be improved? From these questions
there was a straight road to the most harrowing, accursed
problems of consciousness and existence, matter and
spirit, causality and moral law, God and the world. Lit-
erature faithfully recorded all these queries that made
the intellectual unhappy in the midst of a world rampant
with shouts, battles, and hopes.
Contrary to tradition, literature works now in fits and
starts. Moods are coming and moods are going, and while
214 THE RECENT TIDE
they last every writer deems it his duty to indulge in
them whether he has a natural inclination for such
broodings or not. The intellectual vogue becomes a
compelling force. Out of a welter of themes and at-
tempts, three important subjects are worth particular men-
tion: religion, individualism, sex. They occupy the fore-
ground of Russian literature, especially after the collapse
of the 1 905-1 906 upheaval.
5. The modernists, or symbolists,1 whose artistic work
was, in a measure, determined by their religious concep-
tions, are now becoming more outspoken. They no more
repudiate social movements. They are not against the
revolution. What they wish is to see the revolution con-
ducted on a religious basis and for religious purposes.
They loathe the materialistic spirit which is, in their
opinion, the moving force of the great struggle. They
would rather see it a movement to free the soul from all
fetters, to open an era for the spiritual regeneration of
mankind. " The coming of Christ " is a slogan now often
repeated in literature.
Mystic moods and religious problems soon begin to
interest many of the writers who do not belong to the
group of symbolists; some of them are hardly fit to dis-
cuss such questions at all or even to understand real
religious emotions, but such is the current of the time
that nearly every writer makes his heroes think and talk
religion. " Seeking for a God " and " Constructing a
God " was the name of the movement. How widespread
it became, may be seen from the fact that some Social-
Democrats, notoriously atheists and materialists, began
to speak of the necessity to construct a proletarian revo-
lutionary religion. Said Lunatcharsky, later Minister of
1 See Chapter II.
GENERAL SURVEY 215
Education in Soviet-Russia: "Socialism as a doctrine
is the real religion of mankind. . . . Human cooperation
is striving towards one aim: there must be a living all-
powerful God. We are those who construct Him. . . .
Our grandchildren will feel as if they were the neurons
of one universal brain, the inseparable molecules of a
growing world soul, participants in the consciousness and
ruling will of a beautiful universe." (1908.)
The symbolists at one end of society, the Socialists at
the other, mark the extent of the dominant religious mood
which colored the literature of the period after 1 905-1 906,
6. Another, less dominant current was individualism.
The intellectual who discovered that the revolution was
not the great glorious holiday he had hoped it would be-
come and that his role in it was not a leading or deter-
mining one, soon turned his back to all social cooperation.
The preaching of the ego becomes loud in certain sections
of Russian literature. Gratification of individual desires
is now the law for many a hero of fiction. . . . Said the
notorious Sanin, in a novel of the same name: "Why
shall I expose my l ego ' to humiliation and death in order
that the workingmen of the thirtieth century may not be
wanting in food and sexual love? . . . Let the devil take
all the workingmen and all the non-workingmen of all
the world!" And further: " What is Bebel s to me! . . .
A talker talks, another will talk something else, and I
must die anyway, to-day or to-morrow. ... It seems
to me that when you are dying and know exactly that you
are dying, it will not even enter your mind to think that
the words of Bebel, Nietzsche, Tolstoi, or somebody else
have any meaning."
This spelled nihilism. Fortunately for Russia, it was
1 Leading German socialist widely read in Russia.
216 THE RECENT TIDE
more pronounced in literature than in life, though it must
be said that after the abortive revolution, hosts of in-
tellectuals abandoned what they called their former
" dreams," settled down and were concerned with their
material well-being more than with the fate of their
fatherland or humanity in general. The greed for
pleasure was quite considerable in large sections of the
intellectual world.
7. Hand in hand with these movements went the flood-
ing of literature with sex. There are several reasons for
this sex tide. One, purely mechanical, is the lifting of
the censorship ban after the revolution. Up to 1905,
the censor read every word before it was put into print.
The censor was rigid in eliminating what he deemed in-
decent. The abolition of preliminary censorship made it
easier for the authors to describe certain moments which
they thought a vital part of their stories. On the other
hand, literature in the twentieth century had generally
become more realistic, more keenly interested in char-
acteristic details; and it was natural for many a writer
to dwell upon a certain aspect of life which he thought
of great importance.
There was, however, something unnatural in this sud-
den incline of an entire literature towards the discus-
sion and description of sex. The springs of this move-
ment ought to be sought in the general disorganization of
life; in the inflamed condition of popular imagination
after the heroisms, sufferings, and cruelties of the revolu-
tion; in the relaxation of the intellectual world after the
terrific strain; in a feeling of hopelessness and despair that
began to weigh on the soul of many a former fighter, caus-
ing epidemics of suicide; in discrepancy between recent
shining hopes and surrounding inhuman conditions. The
GENERAL SURVEY 217
mystic trend of the time must also be taken into account,
as it was undoubtedly reflected in a kind of sex mysti-
cism dwelt upon by some writers.
The sex wave was of brief duration. Careful ob-
servers agree in the opinion that it was more a literary
movement than an adequate presentation of what was
happening in life. Literature was exaggerating certain
phenomena, making exceptions almost a general rule.
Whatever the case may be, hardly any writer escaped
the influence of the sex vogue. The years 1907-1910
may be rightly called the years of sexual aberration in
Russian literature.
Even then, however, there was a difference in the treat-
ment of sex subjects. While a small minority drew no
line of demarcation between sex and lust, the overwhelm-
ing majority of writers, among them leading figures like
Andreyev, Sergeyev-Tzensky, Kuprin, and even Artzy-
bashev, approached sex as a grave problem, as one of
the greatest tragedies in human life, as one of the mo-
ments where man's real self becomes bare. Sex for those
writers was a means of looking into the remotest corners
of the human soul.
8. The number of readers in the twentieth century in-
creased enormously. Readers are now recruited not only
from the intelligentzia, but from the unlearned city popu-
lation, from the more advanced workingmen, even from
the peasantry. An audience which a popular writer is
facing in recent times is much more heterogeneous than
were the audiences of a Dostoyevsky or Turgenev. Con-
sequently, it is easy for an author to become a success
by catering to the popular taste and by nerve-racking
methods. The number of writers also increased; the
competition between them grew. This, of course, made
218 THE RECENT TIDE
some writers unconsciously seek for popular favor. On
the other hand, it made the authors more agile, more
eager to respond to the call of the time, more concerned
with the form of their writings.
9. The form of Russian literature underwent tre-
mendous changes. Started by the group of modernists,
the reform of language and style is spreading over all
the literary field. There is a difference in the subjects
treated by the symbolists and realists; there is a differ-
ence in moods; but there is almost no difference in
methods. Nearly all Russian literature uses now a more
vivid, more refined, more pointed, and more flexible lan-
guage. Nearly all Russian writers resort to impression-
ism as a means of giving a quick and incisive picture of
an object. The slowness of Russian writings is now a
thing of the past. The authors use bold, sometimes dar-
ing strokes; they go straight to the core of a subject,
eliminating introductory tedium. They are unusually
frank, simple, close to the reader. At the same time,
they are more realistic than their predecessors. They
feel more keenly the details of life; they pay more atten-
tion to material surroundings; they are more accurate in
their descriptions. There is an air of extraordinary fresh-
ness about the best works of this period.
10. If Russian literature of the nineteenth century
resembled a stream, that of the twentieth resembles a
spring tide. Its waters are rushing, scintillating, spread-
ing over large regions. The heavy monthly ceased being
the literary center. Life is too quick for a monthly. The
great respected journals have not disappeared; they have
even increased in number, yet political discussion now
uses the pamphlet and the book as the most effective
weapon; literature is resorting to the almanac which is
GENERAL SURVEY 219
quicker and more flexible, less bound by traditions and
more accessible to the public. Great collections of
periodically appearing almanacs, notably Shipovnik
(Wild Rose), Znanie (Knowledge), and Zemlya (Earth),
become the leading centers of literature. Leading in
modern times, however, has no more the meaning at-
tributed to the word in former generations. The leading
almanacs give the newest and most representative litera-
ture of their time. Yet there is no one writer or critic
who would stand out as the spokesman of his generation.
There are innumerable voices, but no dominant voice.
The critics have now ceased to be the masters of
thought. The number of critics has increased in a large
proportion. They are divided according to schools. The
socialist critic, ordinarily an adherent of the economic
interpretation of history, takes an author to account for
the material he represents and for his attitude towards his
figures. This school of critics is mainly concerned with
the contents of a work; it searches literature as to the
reactionary or progressive ideas it embodies; it argues
with authors as to their interest in members of a decaying
class or in a civilization doomed to failure. It uses litera-
ture as a means of discussing sociological and political
problems. At the other pole are the mystic critics who
would see in literature a revelation of eternal ideas, an
incarnation of the mystic essence which cannot be ex-
pressed in terms of positive knowledge. This school is
interested both in the form of literary works and in their
substance. It pays much attention to the artistic quali-
ties of literary production; it is eager to portray in vivid
strokes the creative personality of an artist. Yet it has
slight use for works that do not touch upon the mystic.
The rest of the critics occupy a position close to one
220 THE RECENT TIDE
or the other extreme. Most of them are doing excellent
work. Russian literature is being carefully and lovingly
studied. Great collective works on the history of our
literature appear. Individual treatises devoted to one
phase of literature or to one writer become more numer-
ous and more serious. The literary treatise, one may
say, is almost entirely a product of this period. The
flood of essays is enormous. Yet critics are mere critics.
Leadership has passed into other hands.
Russian literature resembles a spring tide. Yet it has
not become shallow. Russian authors are now, as before,
concerned with the most fundamental problems of life,
and the light of an ideal shines throughout their writings.
ii. The World War brought no deep changes in Rus-
sian literature. Peace-loving had been a tradition of
Russian writers for over a century. The sufferings of a
nation in consequence of war had interested Russian
authors infinitely more than the gains or glory of war.
This attitude was, in general, maintained also in the
course of the World War, up to the revolution of 191 7. A
few authors went to the front as war correspondents. A
few pictured the feelings of those at the rear. Several
books of war songs and war poetry were published. Still,
with all the gravity and vastness of the world crisis, no
exceptional work of war fiction or war poetry was pro-
duced. This was partly due to crass individualism that
still prevailed among many of the intellectuals, an indi-
vidualism indifferent to social or national problems. On
the other hand, the war was unpopular among the more
radical groups and this must have unconsciously influ-
enced the writers.
War time, as a rule, is not conducive to deep artistic
work in the literary field, and Russia was no exception.
GENERAL SURVEY 221
In 1915-1917, the old motives seemed quite exhausted;
impending social changes were felt by many, and litera-
ture was on a cross-road, with no definite trend or domi-
nant idea.
Then came the revolution, changing Russia from its
very foundations. Upon the outcome of the present crisis
depends the future of Russian culture and the fate of its
most precious flower, Russian literature.
MAXIM GORKY (1868-)
Gorky's appearance in Russian literature amounted to
little less than a revolution. He hurled himself into Rus-
sian life like a lusty playboy's laughter into the midst
of a dull and mournful company. He thrust an abun-
dance of self-conscious vitality into a sad, subdued atmos-
phere. It was a time when the social ground was begin-
ning to vibrate with latent energy. Waves of crude yet
irresistible strength were saturating those huge blocks of
the plain people who, to the intelligentzia, had presented
the eternal riddle of Russia. The plain people were
rapidly going through molecular social transformations
wrought with revolution.
In the field of literature, the open outburst of this new
energy was Maxim Gorky. He came at the head of a
motley crowd of hungry but invincibly bold individuals,
the bossy aki (tramps) who took particular delight in
shouting into the colorless Russian intellectual landscape:
" Here we are, and we shall leave no stone in your edifice
unturned."
It was not altogether true what Gorky told in his
early stories and plays. His characters were too clever,
too enlightened, too self-conscious, and they expressed
themselves in such excellent maxims that the friendly aid
of the author was justly suspected. Yet the obviousness
of it somehow did not matter. It was the tone that
thrilled. It was the greed for life manifested by those
individuals that caught the breath of the intelligentzia.
Gorky's characters could not be pitied. They were poor,
MAXIM GORKY 223
they were outcasts, yet they possessed a staggering
amount of compressed energy, a rebellious daring, and
they behaved like the masters of life, not like her sub-
ordinates. They had a voracious appetite for the best
things on earth, and they were restless.
Thus Gorky of the first years was the herald of a com-
ing era. Hence the almost miraculous spread of his
popularity. All his contemporaries seemed men of the
past. He alone was the man of the future. " I love to
listen when the instruments in an orchestra are being
tuned," Nil the machinist declares in one of Gorky's plays.
All Russia was then tuning her instruments for the sym-
phony of the revolution, and Gorky was the man that
foretold the leading motive. Gorky became a leading
spirit of Russia because he was ahead of his time.
Yet he could not be a herald forever. The revolution
of 1905 came and overshadowed all that human imagina-
tion could foresee. Gorky's task now becomes, not to
outrun events, but to keep pace with life. In this second
period, he attempts to depict the most significant sides
of the new era in Russia: revolutionary labor movement,
the revolutionary agrarian movement, the philosophico-
theological gropings of the progressive elements, the new
appreciation of human personality asserting itself in hard
and perilous struggle. In all the works of this period, he
throws magnificent figures into sharp relief. His spirit is
alive in a supreme effort to embrace all, to open new vistas
in every direction, to say the real, the final thing unre-
vealed to the rest. Yet the response of the reader is no
more the same, not because Gorky has changed, but be-
cause social conditions are different from what they were.
The public ceased to find in his works the sign of new
revelations.
224 THE RECENT TIDE
The third period of Gorky's career arrived when he
gave up the effort to depict contemporary events and
turned to his past for material. We see old Russia again,
looked at from the summit of the present understanding.
Gorky endeavors to trace the path that leads from the
shadowy caverns of yesterday to to-day. He throws into
literature gross unshapely clods of old Russian life, un-
canny in its brutality, fiendish in its savage instincts,
yet full of indomitable strength and fiercely longing for
spiritual regeneration.
Throughout his works, particularly in the long stories,
one motive is ever recurring, one problem is always press-
ing to the foreground. It is the story of a mute soul
that strives to become articulate; it is the story of in-
nately sound human beings thrown into primitive environ-
ments and groping their way upward to the light. This
fundamental interest of Gorky's, a direct consequence of
his own ascension from the bottom, is, perhaps, his great-
est contribution to Russian spiritual growth.
" In Gorky's works, the heroes often preach ideas; they
speak in the name of the author; they speak all in the same
manner. This is because Gorky is never satisfied with mere
presentation; he almost always sees a definite goal, there is
always somebody suffering whom he rushes to aid, whom he
wishes to rescue from danger, with whom he must share his
thoughts and feelings, as they come along. He is not satis-
fied to wait for the natural process to transform his thoughts
into artistic images. Gorky has no patience."
A. Derman.
" Gorky is all of the people, he is elemental, he is vast, he
is a continuation of the people just as the people are a con-
tinuation of Gorky. None in present-day Russian literature
has more right to be called the writer of the people. This not
because the people are the subject of Gorky's artistic work:
MAXIM GORKY 225
many have treated the same subject. This is because Gorky's
writings are not pictures of the people, but their self-revela-
tion. Gorky was destined to be a vessel for the best thoughts
of the people, their sorrows and joys, their strivings and
ascensions."
R. Grigoryev.
In the course of time between 1905 and 19 13, the
period of Gorky's forced absence from Russia, Gorky
became intensely popular among a new class of people,
the Russian industrial workingmen. His return home
was enthusiastically hailed by this young aspiring class
of Russian readers, who saw in him the great luminary
of optimistic humanitarianism. One of the many work-
ingmen's greetings reads: " We hail the man whom neither
cowardice nor selfishness could deter from the common
cause. Only a few voices were raised for the assertion
of life and human personality, and yours was the loudest
of all. Now funereal motives are being drowned by the
vigorous voices of awakening life, and we are firmly con-
vinced that contact with the working people and the
native soil will give a powerful uplift to your creative
work."
For the first period (approximately 1 892-1904) the
following works are the most outstanding:
1. Short Stories and Sketches. (Several volumes.)
In these productions, Gorky is at odds with life. He
hates the smug existence of the rich, the placid spirit of
the intelligentzia, the servility of the peasant. It seems to
him that the only free man in his country, free in spirit
and body, is the bossyak (literally, " the barefooted ")
whom he decorates with gay colors. Some day, he thinks,
this bossyak may become the master of life. At any rate,
226 THE RECENT TIDE
he is superior to the rest of society (this gave occasion
to critics to discover affinities between Gorky of the first
period and Nietzsche). The stories and sketches are
hardly an adequate picture of real life. They rather ex-
press the yearnings and cravings of a restless poetic soul.
2. Foma Gordyeyev. (1899.)
3. Three of Them. (1900-1901.)
Novels expressing the groping of plain men for a solu-
tion of the meaning of life. Foma in Foma Gordyeyev
is a son of the middle-class, heir to a great fortune; Ilya
in Three of Them is a son of peasants who emigrated into
a modern industrial center. Both are thrown into the
jungle of life to work out for themselves a true philosophy.
Both have a restless soul, dissatisfied with compromises,
and both finally perish in agony under the lash of in-
scrutable reality.
" Foma is a bossyak and a proletarian in spite of his mil-
lions. He is a bossyak reared in the Russian soil, that is to
say, he is not only a man absolutely unadapted to struggle,
but he accelerates his own destruction with a strange impa-
tience and passion. His destruction lures him as an abyss into
which he looks every minute.
" Foma is a mystic, religious nature, thinking in terms of the
truth of life and peace among men, yet at the same time he is
a skeptic. A terrible drama of spiritual blindness and spiritual'
impotence takes place. The hunger for life and heroism is
expressed in orgies, the hunger for space, in hideous excesses;
yearnings turn into sickness, into a veritable nostalgia for an
unknown far-off homeland of beauty." Andreyevitch.
4. The Philistines. (1902.)
A play depicting the decay of the middle-class Russian
family. Contrasted with this decay is the sturdy work-
ingman, Nil.
MAXIM GORKY 227
"Nil, the machinist, is enthusiastic over the processes of
life; he preaches courage and the love of life. His activities
are directed against the petty middle-class which lacks creative
energy. Nil loves to forge ; ' to swing the hammer ' is for him
a joy; he is always eager to meddle ' in the very thickest of
life ' ; he hates ' rotting existence ' and believes in the victory
of new life."
V. L. LVOV-ROGATCHEVSKY.
5. In the Depths (literally: At the Bottom). (1903.)
A play taking place in a lodging house for the poorest
(night asylum). Gorky gives a remarkable collection of
creatures that once were men. The play is more realistic
than his earlier stories. Hardly any tinge of the super-
man is given to those tramps, thieves, ex-convicts, and
prostitutes. The picture is extremely gloomy.
In the second period, Gorky is enchanted by the social
forces that seem to him to mold life into new shapes.
These are the working-class struggling for industrial
freedom, the peasantry breaking the chains of slavery,
and the thinking elements of the masses finding in the
people at large the meaning of life. The major works of
this period are:
6. Mother. (1905.)
^ A novel describing the revolutionary labor-movemen in
an industrial suburb and the changes wrought in the minds
of the workingmen through their adherence to an ideal
lifting them above their everyday life.
" There is a purpose in each of Gorky's works, yet the de-
velopment of his purpose is seldom mechanical: he nearly
always succeeds in overcoming his rationalism, in subjugating
his idea to a living, stirring image. An example is Mother.
The story is rational from beginning to end. The task of the
228 THE RECENT TIDE
author was incredible, enough to make you giddy. He wanted
to show how a middle-aged ignorant woman, beaten all her
life and broken into a dull patience, is transformed into a
conscious and active socialist with a sweeping grasp of revo-
lutionary principles. However, when you finish reading and
look back over those hundreds of pages, you marvel not so
much at the magnitude of his purpose as at the purely artistic
impressions the author made you experience."
A. Derman. /
7. Confessions. Novel. (1908.)
The story of a plain man seeking a religious solution
for the problem of life and finally making the people his
great religious ideal. His God becomes the God of justice
and love, unity and humaneness.
8. Summer. (1909.)
A novel devoted to the agrarian movement in the vil-
lages. The story is full of sun-lit love for the common
people and ends with " Holiday greetings, thou great Rus-
sian nation." It is remarkable for its optimism at a
time when the political prospect of Russia was very dark.
In the third period, Gorky's writings are stripped of
their romantic adornments. Gorky goes back to life as it
is, yet now he no more rejects it as in his first period.
He finds beauty even among the poorest in spirit. He
is more calm, reposed. A delicate tenderness permeates
his realistic colorful descriptions. The most notable of
this period are:
9. Matvey Kozhemyakin. Novel. (1911.)
10. My Childhood. Reminiscences. (1913.)
" Gorky describes the savagery, ignorance, drunkenness,
rakishness, stupidity, recklessness, poverty, and dirt of the
MAXIM GORKY 229
gray masses of the people. In a word, he tells a story of an
immense sea of evil flooding our grievous and gloomy life.
However, there is only a deepened melancholy, a sadness, a
subdued longing [in these works]. Above this feeling rises
his sincere faith in the triumph of good, the joy of living."
M. Korolitzky.
[Among the rest of Gorky's works attention is called to his
Town Okurov; Italian Tales; Over Russia; Children of the
Sun; The Life of a Superdous Man.]
LEONID ANDREYEV (1871-1919)
" I have traversed many towns and lands, and nowhere
have I seen a free man," says one of Andreyev's heroes.
" I have seen only slaves. I have seen cages in which
they live, beds on which they are born and die; I have
seen their hatred and love, their sin and virtue. And their
pleasures have I seen: miserable attempts at reviving
ancient joy. And whatever I saw bore the stamp of
stupidity and madness. . . . Amid the flowers of a beau-
tiful earth they have erected a madhouse."
These words could be made a motto to most of An-
dreyev's works. Andreyev questions the fundamentals of
our life. Things taken by mankind for granted he sub-
jects to a sharp scrutiny only to arrive at the conclusion
that there is madness and horror everywhere. Human
existence, human thought, human actions, and valuations
strike him as full of exasperating problems that allow no
rest and no happiness in the inquisitive mind. The sim-
plest of these problems is, perhaps, the problem of the
subconscious. Man never knows what he is apt to do in a
few minutes. "Thousands of lives are present in my
soul," Andreyev says in one of his essays, " lives that
preceded my birth. Every life speaks its own language."
Can there be any prospect of freedom for the individual?
Andreyev creates one work after the other to em-
phasize this lack of freedom. Man's passions are the
abysmal brute that is ever lurking in the depths of the
human soul. Man's thought is a treacherous weapon
that turns against its master in the most crucial moment.
230
LEONID ANDREYEV 231
Man is limited to his individual consciousness, ever un-
able to cast a glance under the skull of another human
being. Man thinks he is embracing the universe while
he himself is only a slave to laws of thought and existence
that not he has created and not he is at liberty to alter.
Walls and walls are surrounding Andreyev on every
side: The wall of the laws of nature that make every
human being a prisoner in the world, and the wall of our
psychology that make a man a prisoner within his own
brain; the wall of blind fate determining the lot of man
with implacable cruelty, and the wall of the unknown
that breathes dread into human souls; the wall of modern
culture crushing every trait of creative individuality,
and the wall of human institutions with their misery,
hatred, oppression of the weakest, and streams of inno-
cent blood; the wall of age which nobody can fail to ap-
proach, and the wall of all walls — death looming up at
the end of men and worlds. Against all these walls, An-
dreyev's thought beats with furious passion. He finds no
solution. He accepts no consolation. Religion is no
answer to him. God, if there is a God, is the greatest of
all riddles that make man's mind despair and man's heart
ache with indignation; love leads nowhere, since men that
burnt themselves out in a great sacrifice of love have
not improved the world; good in general is of no avail,
since it is a shame to flaunt one's goodness in a world
steeped in sin, wretchedness, and evil. Only a miracle
could break the numerous walls that surround our exist-
ence, but he who puts his faith in a miracle is finally
deceived and betrayed.
Thus Andreyev is engaged in a cruel feud with life, with
destiny, with God, with reason. He challenges his mas-
ters, the masters of all our fortunes, in the words of
232 THE RECENT TIDE
Anathema: " I am tired of searching. I am tired of liv-
ing and fruitless suffering in my vain pursuit of the thing
that ever escapes me. Give me death, but do not torture
me with not knowing." Yet the only answer he hears
from " Him Who Guards the Entrance " is: " My face is
uncovered, yet you do not see it. My speech is loud, yet
you do not hear it. My commands are clear, yet you do
not know them. And you shall never see and never hear
and never understand." He Who Guards the Entrance is
speaking " in the language of silence," and loud cries out
Andreyev, the man with the wounded intellect, in a con-
temptuous protest against a reply that answers nothing.
Loudly rings that cry of despair through all Andreyev's
writings.
Andreyev is the spokesman of the Russian intellectual
who was awakened by modern progress from the slug-
gishness of a patriarchal system to the realization of the
complexity of life. The Russian intellectual was sud-
denly put before enormous problems. The alternative of
either heroic sacrifice for a common cause or cowardly
abstinence from life's constructive work loomed up be-
fore every self-conscious individual. Life itself was
undergoing catastrophic changes. Everything was shak-
ing, yielding, giving way to new forms. It looked as if a
powerful hand had tossed all structures asunder, reveal-
ing the very foundations. Russian intellect was feverishly
scrutinizing life, revaluing the most harrowing problems.
It was in the nature of Russian surroundings to tinge all
these gropings with the dark colors of sadness, loneliness,
pessimism. Andreyev was the writer destined to embody
this spirit of intellectual unrest in striking artistic pic-
tures. When he wrote his great question marks, he
brought together strong yet unclear currents of thought
LEONID ANDREYEV 233
and emotion diffused through thinking Russia, and out of
them created vivid images. The response was vast.
Andreyev is never contented to write a story for the
story's sake. Every story or play of his represents a
problem. The scheme is somewhat like this: Granted a
man is put in certain conditions and made to suffer certain
experiences, what would be the spiritual or moral effect?
The surroundings and conditions thus become of sub-
ordinate importance; the center of gravity is put into the
spiritual or moral reaction. It is, therefore, natural for
Andreyev to depart often from the road of realism, to
substitute abstractions for living human beings, to trans-
fer the place of his tragedies into imaginary realms. An-
dreyev is one of the first to introduce schematization into
Russian literature. Yet such is the power of his talent
that even the abstract creations of his mind are glowing
with intense life, and the excruciating pain of a King Hun-
ger or a Eleazar becomes our own.
" Andreyev has no types. He has masks through which the
author himself is speaking to you. Not one image created by
Andreyev will enter Russian literature to stay in it as a type.
Leonid Andreyev himself will stay in it with all his masks, with
his Punch and Judy theater in which all the time is heard the
nervous, alarmed, and somewhat bawling voice of the author, a
man exalted, stirred, and restless.
"When the sea is covered with a ripple it cannot reflect
things. The soul of a modern man, nervous and agitated, is
not fitted to objective contemplation, to the construction of
characters and bringing them to life. It can reflect only it-
self, clamor about itself, think its own thought, suffer its own
tortures. That is why Andreyev is inclined to fantastic
images, to stylization. That is why he makes a number of
masks covering the same contents and without individual
traits."
K. I. Arabazhin.
234 THE RECENT TIDE
" There is a spiral-like impetuosity and the glow of a pas-
sionate temperament in the combination of Andreyev's words
and phrases. His words harass, beat, lash your face, they
importunately intrude into your soul, they moan and clang,
they ring the great alarm bells, they strike your heart like
claps of thunder, they rankle in your soul, sometimes they
yelp and howl like hungry dogs begging for mercy and atten-
tion. Andreyev loves contrasts. His contours are sharp.
Everything is thrust on the canvas with crude and bold strokes,
sometimes producing a sensational effect."
K. I. Arabazhin.
And yet, there is sometimes a beautiful tenderness, an
almost bashful love of life and youth in many of An-
dreyev's works. In spite of his heralded objectivism,
there is a strain of lyricism vibrating through his thun-
derous questionings, at times rising to heights of power-
ful harmony and drowning all other sounds. It is this
personal, intimately human quality of his writings that
lends them a peculiar fascination.
Andreyev is one of the most prolific and versatile Rus-
sian story writers and dramatists. Out of an abundance
of a twenty years' harvest we shall select a few most
characteristic specimens:
i. The Wall. A story. (1901.)
The Great Wall stands between the lepers and the un-
known which lures them with irresistible force. In vain
are their efforts to crush it or climb over it. It is im-
placable and eternally silent.
2. The Abyss. A story. (1902.)
3. In the Fog. A story. (1902.)
Both stories deal with the brute force of sex passion
overmastering otherwise pure and innocent human beings.
LEONID ANDREYEV 235
The Abyss was a subject of nation-wide discussion for a
number of months.
4. The Thought. Novelette. (1902.)
5. The Black Masks. A play. (1908.)
Both works deal with the limitations of the human
mind. The hero of The Thought was betrayed by reason,
which he had considered his most faithful slave. The
hero of The Black Masks was defeated by the multitude
of dark forces hidden within his own personality.
" In The Black Masks, Andreyev cruelly asserted that we
cannot escape the horror and darkness spread around us; that
even if we take refuge in the ' enchanted castles of our souls '
illuminating them with the brightest lights, the black masks
would come and bring along the boundless horror and cold-
ness of life, and extinguish the lights."
L. S. Kozlovsky.
6. The Life of Vassily Fiveysky. Novelette. (1904.)
One of the most powerful of Andreyev's works. A
man whom fate unjustly persecuted all his life, a second
Job, begins to question the justice of God. He is a priest,
a believer, and his rebellion against the order of things
makes him finally believe that he is chosen to perform
miracles. He dies in his superhuman effort to attain the
unattainable. The story is carved with a masterful hand
out of the very substance of emotion.
7. So It Was. Novelette. (1906.)
8. The Governor. Novelette. (1906.)
The heroes of both stories, the king in the first, the
Russian governor in the second, are persecuted and finally
destroyed by the force of blind popular passion. In both
stories, the revolutionary movement assumes the role of
236 THE RECENT TIDE
Fate for individuals put in a position to arouse the peo-
ple's hatred.
9. Savva. A play. (1906.)
Savva is an anarchist disgusted with civilization. He
says: " We have got to destroy everything, the old houses,
the Universities, science, the old literature, the old art!
. . . What I wish is to free the earth, to free Thought.
... To break the prison in which ideas are hidden
away, to give them wings, to open a new, great, unknown
world. In fire and thunder, I wish to overstep the bound-
ary of the universe."
Sawa is voicing Andreyev's hazy belief in some un-
known world which may come as a result of the free
creative energy of unshackled humanity. This belief,
however, is never as strong in Andreyev as the conscious-
ness of the chains imposed upon human life and soul.
The climax of Savva is reached when the anarchist's
rationalism clashes against the childlike faith of plain
people. A miracle happens, yet it is not due to super-
natural intervention. It is the miracle of the human
mind which creates gods and makes them a living reality.
10. Judas Iscariot and Others. Novelette. (1907.)
" In Andreyev's presentation, the ultimate and most horrify-
ing sacrifice brought on the altar of love was not Christ's but
Judas 's: Christ let men crucify His body, Judas crucified his
soul; Christ was beaten and spit upon when led to His execu-
tion; Judas's soul is forever crushed and downtrodden. With
Judas, as Andreyev depicts him, betrayal is only a mask, not
his real face. He betrays Christ out of love for Him, out
of the yearning for a miracle. He wants the world to realize
quickly who Christ is. He hopes that .people will liberate
Christ from the hands of His tormentors, he hopes they will
pull the accursed cross out of the ground and raise free Jesus
high above the earth." L. S. Kozlovsky.
LEONID ANDREYEV 237
11. Darkness. Novelette. (1907.)
Here Andreyev raises the question: What right has a
man to be good in the face of so many unhappy people
whom life made sinful? Isn't it the greatest sacrifice to
give one's purity for his fellow-beings? The story aroused
much discussion.
12. The Life of Man. A play. (1907.)
This is an almost allegorical work. What is the mean-
ing of life? Of what avail is our struggle for happiness
if everything is destined to pass away? What sense is
there in beauty, youth, love, fame, friendship, creative
work, if man is always alone and at the end he is old and
doomed to death?
All these questions are shouting from The Life of Man.
The inexorableness of the order of things is represented
by Him in Gray, in whose hands the candle symbolizing
human life is burning down slowly but incessantly.
" Who is ' He in Gray? ' Is it God, Devil, Fate? We do
not know. Neither does Andreyev know. Or perhaps he
only pretends not to know. A deeply nihilistic thought, full
of all-denying pessimism, is hidden behind ' Him in Gray.'
For Andreyev, there is nothing beyond, neither Devil, nor
God, nor Fate. There is only ' Somebody in Gray,' only
a ' Wall ' against which mankind struggles in vain. It is a
stony, gray, indifferent implacable wall."
K. I. Arabazhin.
13. King Hunger. A play. (1908.)
An allegorical presentation of modern class-struggle
and revolution. Artistically, King Hunger does not rank
with the best of Andreyev's works. It is, however, signifi-
cant as a reflection of the counter-revolution in Russia and
the belief in coming upheavals.
238 THE RECENT TIDE
14. Eleazar. A story. (1908.)
The man who spent three days and three nights in the
kingdom of death comes back to life, yet his glance
deadens all joy and puts horror into men's hearts.
Eleazar is counted among the best of Andreyev's produc-
tions.
15. The Seven Who Were Hanged. Novelette. (1909.)
Seven men and women, revolutionists and ordinary
criminals, are waiting for death in their prison cells.
What do they experience? What thoughts are surging in
their minds? What visions do they see? What fears are
consuming them? Leonid Andreyev follows the seven up
to the very scaffold. The story stands out as a work of
unsurpassed strength and penetration.
16. Anathema. A tragedy. (1909.)
Three figures occupy the foreground in this profound
work: David Laizer, personifying goodness and self-
sacrifice for the sake of humanity; Anathema, personify-
ing the inquisitive human mind that wants to understand
instead of blindly believing; and He Who Guards the
Entrance, the eternal mystery, the eternal silence to
which man cannot reconcile himself. Anathema is highly
valued as a work of art.
17. The Ocean. A tragedy. (1911.)
" Beyond the shores of life, beyond the boundaries ac-
cessible to our eyes, the limitless ocean of chaos begins, deep,
indomitable, constantly stirred. Andreyev's symbolical drama,
The Ocean, is a hymn to this boundless unconquered elemental
power of life, to those new and fearful possibilities of life ex-
ceeding all limits of conscious creative work."
L. S. Kozlovsky.
LEONID ANDREYEV 239
Andreyev's lyrical qualities attain here an unusual
power.
18. The Sorrows of Belgium. A play. (1914.)
The fate of invaded Belgium and the sacrifice of her
best minds are represented in this imaginary work.
19. Gaudeamus. (1910.)
20. Ekaterina Ivanovna. (191 3.)
Two plays of the more realistic kind, where philosophi-
cal problems give way to dramas of everyday life. The
characters in both plays are sharply drawn, and the
psychological analysis is very keen. Both plays were, for
a long time, part of the Russian repertoire.
[Other works of interest : To the Stars, a play ; The Thief,
a story ; The Red Laughter, notes ; The Curse of the Beast, a
story; My Diary, a story; Sashka Zhegulev, a novel; Anfisa,
a play. It must be noted that in almost every work of
Andreyev's his creative personality is revealed to a certain
degree, the only exceptions being his early stories up to ap-
proximately 1 900-1901. Nearly every work of Andreyev's,
therefore, is of interest to the student.]
V. VERESAYEV (1867-)
Author of stories and sketches whose works were par-
ticularly dear to the progressive Russian intellectual of
modern times. Veresayev, perhaps, more than any other
writer marks the transition from old patriarchalism to the
intensity of modern social life. In his first stories we still
feel the melancholy resignation of a Chekhov. In his
post-revolutionary works (after 1905) there is the sturdy
optimism characteristic of Gorky. Veresayev gives lucid
and colorful expression to social gropings prevailing
among the thinking elements of Russia. The pivot of his
artistic interest is man in his relation to self-sacrifice for
a great social cause. However, his figures are no abstrac-
tions. They breathe the spirit of unmistakable reality.
They are molded from the clay of experiences common to
every man and woman in Russia who was connected with
the struggle for freedom.
" Veresayev is neither a master of our thoughts, nor a master
of our feelings. He is merely a sensitive, observing intellectual,
himself overmastered by current thoughts and feelings. With
marvelous precision and skill, he records the fluctuations of
the social tide. He has reflected all the changes in the course
of social thought, all the stages of social movement. . . . His
courageous, active characters illumine the darkness of Rus-
sian life like so many bright torches, and like the luminaries
of Christianity they wake in our soul a passionate desire to
live in light, to forsake the stale misery of everyday life for
the joy of heroic deeds."
V. Lvov.
240
V. VERESAYEV 241
" Veresayev's hero is always an intellectual, and could be
nothing else. Veresayev is a writer of the intelligentzia, pure
and simple. He is fascinated by contemplations over the intel-
ligentzia; he is its historian and interpreter. As a manysided
person, Veresayev is necessarily interested in many things, yet
only in a casual way. His real self is revealed in his analysis
of the intellectual's mind. This is his element, his main object,
his real interest that gives a clue to his personality. What-
ever he has written bears the sharp imprint of deep personal
experiences. The works and the author are intimately con-
nected as if supplementing each other. In this respect hardly
any writer is more subjective than Veresayev."
E. KOLTONOVSKAYA.
Veresayev's language is clear, simple, and refined. His
tone is sincere and intimate. His attitude is broad and
sympathetic. A peculiar warmth of human understand-
ing permeates Veresayev's writings, and the reader feels
that he is taken into the confidence of a loving brother
who cherishes beautiful ideals.
1. Pathless. A story. (1894.)
" Tchekanov, the hero of Pathless, a physician, is a son of
the dark and gloomy eighties when nobody saw a way out.
He is weighed down by the ' horror and curse ' of his gen-
eration. ... He is able, honest; he is hungry for social
activities, yet his time passes aimlessly, ' with no guiding
star,' and he does not believe he could make use of his powers.
When opportunity offers itself, he goes to fight famine and
cholera, yet he lacks faith to animate his work. His only
desire is to ' anesthetize himself, to find complete forgetrful-
ness ' in this semblance of useful work in the service of
humanity.
" Life is cruel to him. The people whom he wanted to serve
mistake him for an enemy and beat him to death. The
physician dies in a rotten dark village, and it is astonishing
to find that on his deathbed he musters enough power to
forgive the people." A. Izmailov.
242 THE RECENT TIDE
2. The Contagious Disease. A story. (1897).
This story depicts the next stage in the life of the in-
telligentzia. The deep shadows of the eighties are al-
ready dissipating. There are new voices in the air.
Labor begins to stir. Unrest is accumulating under the
surface. The Marxists are predicting a speedy revolution.
"In prolonged debates between Narodniki and Marxists,
the standards of two camps and two generations become out-
lined in a somewhat schematic manner. On one hand the
camp of the sentimental philanthropists of the eighties who had
substituted the sacrifice of money for the sacrifice of them-
selves and had confused service to the government with serv-
ice to the people ; on the other hand the camp of revolutionary
Marxists rejecting compromises and half-measures, proclaiming
with enthusiasm the gospel of work for the cause."
V. L. LVOV-ROGATCHEVSKY.
3. The Turning Point. Novel. (1902.)
The story marks the beginning of the new century,
We find in it a group of young intellectuals some of whom
are actually engaged in revolutionary work. We still hear
the voices of meditation and reflection; there are men and
women who complain and whine in their inability either
to raise the banner of heroic but dangerous work or settle
down in the mire of conventional sluggishness. Yet those
feeble voices are drowned in hymns of youth and life,
unreflecting, undoubting, unflinching, eager to give every-
thing in the ecstasy of revolutionary onrush. In the
background, the figure of the revolutionary workingman
looms up.
4. Towards Life. Novel. (1909.)
Here we notice the growth of the revolutionary intel-
lectual as a result of intensive social strife and an im-
V. VERESAYEV 243
proved social atmosphere. The hero grows broader and
deeper.
" The hero is much interested in social problems ; he is a
radical, a member of the Social-Democratic party. Yet he is
no more a rationalist as were the former heroes of Veresayev.
He has a religious feeling and a still more pronounced cosmic
feeling. He is, first of all, a man facing God and Nature. He
needs to know the truth about himself as a man, a part of
one great living whole. The dry human reason with its
ready answers that 'have no roots in the soul/ inspires him
with little confidence. He greedily listens to the voices of his
elemental life where everything is to him dark, mysterious, and
new."
E. KOLTONOVSKAYA.
5. Memories of a Physician. (1901.)
With ultimate sincerity Veresayev related in this book
his experiences first as a student of medicine, then as
a young physician. What he told was not flattering to
the medical profession. The book aroused an enormous
amount of discussion.
6. In the War. Sketches. (1907.)
As a participant of the Russo-Japanese war, Veresayev
gives an eyewitness's account of the inefficiency, negli-
gence, cowardice, and brutality of the Russian military
command which culminated in shameful defeats. This
is one of the most truthful stories of the disintegration
and demoralization of a great army under corrupt rule.
7. The Living Life, consisting of two volumes:
Dostoyevsky and Leo Tolstoi. (1911.)
Apollo and Dionysius. (191 5.)
Differing in contents, the first being a juxtaposition of
Dostoyevsky's and Tolstoi's philosophies of life, the sec-
244 THE RECENT TIDE
ond, a study in Nietzsche's philosophy as compared with
the cults of the ancient gods of Greece, both volumes have
one aim, — the assertion of life. Veresayev proclaims the
supremacy of instinct over reason, of life over conscious-
ness. Truth is to him, together with Nietzsche, " not a
thing to be revealed, but a thing to be created." The road
to it lies in " rejuvenation of the man himself, rejuvena-
tion of his blood, nerves, his entire body, regeneration of
the instinct of life." The books are written in an easy
and vivid style, and are full of poetic beauty.
[Of interest are also Veresayev's short stories and his longer
story, The End of Audrey Ivanovitch.]
A. KUPRIN (1870-)
Writer of stories and sketches. Kuprin's works, all of
a realistic character, reveal the author as a man of
spiritual balance and health. Kuprin is interested in life,
in all its manifestations. The Stream of Life he called
one of his stories, and the stream of life he is eager to
reflect in his artistic productions. Life is infinite; its
forms are countless; its happenings are manifold; the
aspect of things changes from beautiful sublimity to
crime and despair. Yet the light of the soul shines
through all the jungles of life, and our scrutiny of her
face should never lose its keenness. Such is Kuprin's
program.
Kuprin is actuated by an insatiable artistic curiosity.
He would not shut himself in one corner of the world.
There is not one thing that looms up before his eyes to the
exclusion of the rest. The problem of God or the life
beyond is only one wave in the stream of life; revolution
is a ripple; death is an episode; sex is one among many
emotions. Joy and sadness are twin brothers wander-
ing through the hearts of men. What remains for the
artist is to go through life, to fix his gaze on people,
characters, quaint constellations, amusing or touching or
shocking happenings.
This Kuprin does with joy and force. His works are
all alive with gay designs, brimful of powerful emotions,
astir with movement and packed with meaning, swept by
strong winds, and pierced through by arrows of light.
Kuprin loves everything, and the number of his friends is
245
246 THE RECENT TIDE
amazing: the tramp and the scholar, the horse thief and
the philosopher, the contrabandist and the artist, the bar-
keeper and the physician, the prostitute and the priest,
the plain soldier and the army officer, the Pole and the
Jew, the revolutionist and the Black Hundred official,
the peasant and the noble landlord, the industrial worker
and the business magnate, the prize-fighter and the school
teacher, the young girl and the crippled beggar, the child
and the burglar, the race horse and the dog, — all find room
in his stories, and to all of them he gives in turn his lov-
ing attention. He makes no effort in calling his figures
into existence. They come to him with ease and grace.
His only task is to choose, to concentrate for a while on
a definite point in the everlasting current. This concen-
tration is done with unusual energy. Kuprin takes in
every shade, every line, every detail. His characters are
typical. His slang is magnificent. His dialogues are
reality itself. His descriptions are a result of numerous
and careful observations. Altogether his works unfold
before the reader a broad and varied panorama of every-
day Russian life at the beginning of the twentieth cen-
tury. At the same time, there is a touch of sadness in
most of Kuprin 's writings, as if a man were bashfully
yearning for something vague and beautiful which will
never be attained.
In summing up Kuprin's merits, in a report before the
Russian National Academy, division of Literature, in
1 91 2, the aged venerable academician, K. Arsenyev, thus
characterized our author:
" Kuprin remains faithful to the best traditions of our
literature. Not overstepping the boundaries of healthy realism,
at the same time not shrinking before the darkest sides of
reality, he follows the traditions of Turgenev in preserving the
A. KUPRIN 247
purity of the Russian language, and he writes with a graceful
simplicity which excludes artificial contents or unnaturally
distorted form."
These words link Kuprin with Russian literature of the
nineteenth century, with Turgenev and Tolstoi: Kuprin
is a direct descendant of the classics. Yet there is a dif-
ference between him and the traditional Russian writer.
Kuprin lacks a central idea. His works do not revolve
around one axis. Therefore, they do not seem to be dis-
jecta membra of one whole. " What is Kuprin himself? "
The question was asked many a time by Russian critics.
The answer can be only general. Kuprin, as seen in his
works, loves strength, motion, sharp reliefs, bright colors,
and he is more interested in the psychology of men than
in universal ideas. Often he is witty, and his humor is
refreshing. Sometimes he chooses to become very simple,
and then he writes delightful stories for children. Russia
has been glad to recognize his value as a narrator, and
he occupies a foremost place among the present genera-
tion of writers.
In his versatility, in his search for local color, in his
careful construction of a plot, Kuprin approaches the type
of an American story-writer more, perhaps, than any of
his contemporaries.
1. Short Stories. (1893-1918.)
It is hardly possible to make a choice between Kuprin's
numerous short stories. In fact, each has an interest of
its own, and no one can serve as a substitute for another.
The student of Russian literature and Russian life will
read as many of them as can be secured.
" Kuprin's stories give the impression of unusual freshness,
purity, and brightness. Reading those brief scenes, sketches
248 THE RECENT TIDE
and descriptions, you experience something akin to your state
of mind on a clear spring morning, when the air expands your
chest, when you breathe easily and freely, when the most
delicate details of the young verdure are drawn against a
blue sky with marvelous accuracy. Life is gladdening at such
moments, and this unconscious gladness over the interest, the
depth and the multiplicity of life, fills Kuprin's book. The
artist resembles a child who has just rushed out into the
fields; he cannot have enough of the immediateness of exist-
tence; he is affected himself and affects the reader with
healthy, sturdy feelings. Involuntarily you exclaim, ' God, how
good it is to live! ' And yet, the content of the stories is not
happy. In them, as in life, sorrow and joy, the comic and
the sad are combined in the most capricious patterns, are fused
into one multicolored bright picture so alive that you can al-
most touch it." A. I. Bogdanovitch .
Of the longer stories the most remarkable are:
2. The Duel. Novel. (1905.)
One of the first to describe barrack-life in modern
Russia. (Before 1905, the censor allowed no adequate
description of the army.) The main figures in the story
are the officers of a regiment stationed in a provincial
town. The tragedies of the heroes are of a more univer-
sal than local character. Yet great attention is given to
the environment, to the psychology of the plain soldiers,
the drilling, the senseless subordination, the inefficiency
of the commander. The types of the officers are drawn
with a skilful hand.
" The Duel is the best of Kuprin's works. It reveals his
talent in a maximum of power and brilliancy. It is written
with amazing mastery, at the same time it shows no signs of
effort. A plastic expositor of real life is combined in Kuprin
with an artist of modern type, a psychologist, and a lyricist.
The Duel is not only a story but an artistic epic, both of so-
A. KUPRIN 249
ciety and individuals, combining the satirical and the tragic
elements. Its power is in its simplicity and in its undivided
artistic mood."
E. KOLTONOVSKAYA.
3. Sulamith. Novelette. (1908.)
The love-story of King Solomon and the shepherdess.
Oriental nature, oriental tone, and oriental temperament
are reproduced in this work with much love and artistic
finish. One of the best exotic stories in the Russian
language.
4. The Pit. Novel. (1909-1913.)
The scene of action is a house of ill-repute in a south-
ern Russian town. The characters are a number of girls
and a host of intellectual visitors. The work is a gallery
of the actual types which could be met in any intellectual
circle in Russia. The place where the author finds his
men, gives him an opportunity to look deeper into their
real selves. Kuprin does not shun details of sex-life, yet
he alway° remains the artist whose frankness is the pres-
entation of truth. He never revels in an artistically
superfluous scrutiny of vulgar things. There is almost an
unique simplicity in his writings on sex relation. The
psychological analysis is very keen.
5. A Bracelet of Garnets. Novelette. (1911.)
A sentimental yet very beautiful love-story, full of
romanticism and youthful faith in human nature. As a
mottQ, the author puts on the front pages the following
note: " L. van Beethoven, 2 Son. (Op. 2, No. 2)."
6. Leastrygonians. Sketches. (191 2.)
One of the most charming descriptions of the Black
Sea coast and its fisherfolk. Kuprin's eye for nature's
250 THE RECENT TIDE
beauty and his love for the primitive appear at their best
in these sketches. Refinement, humor, imagination, make
these simple pages almost a hymn to the eternal forces
of life.
" Sharp external perception is combined in Kuprin with
internal fullness and depth. He almost exceeds the boundaries
of our five senses. He is endowed with a strange faculty, a
subconscious reason, which enables him to grasp the inner sub-
stance of things, the sequence of causes and effects, the primi-
tive foundation of life."
E. KOLTONOVSKAYA.
[Other works of interest: Moloch; Stories for Children; Hu-
morous Stories; At Rest, a play.]
I. BUNIN (1870-)
In lonely corners of the great Plain, old mansions are
dreaming of days gone by. Life, once gay and sturdy,
oozed out through moldy floors and cracked walls. The
noble inhabitants have disappeared, or live in little out-
buildings, forlorn and poor. The broad ponds are half
dry. The park and the orchard overrun the playgrounds
and the paths. A riot of green and blossoms triumphs
over the work of human hands. Life glories among ruins.
... An eternal sun pours life over dilapidation.
This is the Russia of the nobles, the decay of noble
landholding: a tendency clearly marked in the economic
history of Russia after the abolition of serfdom.
In one of such melancholy nooks, Ivan Bunin was
born. In his childhood, he still breathed the atmosphere
of ancient traditions. The old types, pillars of an archaic
yet genuine culture, were still alive, though passing
rapidly. When he grew up, decay was nearly complete.
Sadness lingered on the silent, too silent piazzas; sad-
ness looked, wide-eyed, at the onrush of primitive nature.
This clear crystalline sadness Bunin took with him
into his poems and stories. It is a sadness that never com-
plains. It is dejection full of reserve and resignation.
It is dignified. It is shy. Its words are scant and lucid.
It looks backward yet it has courage to face the present.
It finds a quaint happiness in its own sweetness. And it
finds consolation in life's eternal regeneration. " My
heart is grieving in secret joy that life is vast and empty
like the steppe." . . . " All is as was before. . . . Only
251
252 THE RECENT TIDE
my life has passed." ..." And happy am I with my
grievous lot." . . . " I greet you, silent cell and joy of
lonely days."
In Bunin's poems, nature is foremost, but it appears in
its more subdued moments. Dusk, night, moonshine,
autumn, falling leaves, far north, golden fields after har-
vest, asters, steppe, hoar frost, lonely forest. . . . Bunin
not only describes, he lives nature. Often he goes to the
Orient, to Asia Minor, Palestine, Egypt, Turkey. He
stands there at the grave of ancient civilizations; he
meditates over the tombs of old heroic deeds. His sad-
ness is nourished by the contrast between the present
loneliness and the former wealth of thought and action.
His moods become more universal. His poems rise to
heights of philosophic contemplation.
In his stories, Bunin lovingly returns to the old noble
mansion. He recollects former years. He draws types
of the former generation. He gives the spirit of the old,
carefree life. When he visits the same mansions later,
he sees the passing, the desolation, the cobwebs, the
powerless inhabitants. His stories, or rather sketches, of
this life are almost poems in prose, — the notes of a wan-
derer who has lost his home. What he describes is no
more his own, though it stirs beautiful and gracious recol-
lections. Here Bunin remains detached, — friendly, un-
derstanding, but detached.
There is, however, another aspect to the mansion, and
that is the surrounding village with its moujiks. Fol-
lowing the Russian tradition, Bunin gives much care to
pictures of peasant life. But here he is still more de-
tached. He does not live the life of the village. He
does not suffer the pain of its people. He does not see
their visions. He is an outside observer, and what he
I. BUNIN 253
sees and narrates is appalling. Here the lyrical tone
leaves Bunin entirely. He is cool and analytical, and
though he does not accuse, he cannot conceal his aversion.
" They have not even traditions," he writes of the peas-
ants. " Their graves have no names. And their lives,
how they resemble each other, how meager they are and
how they pass without leaving a trace! For the fruit of
their work and worry is only bread, the real concrete
bread which is being eaten. They have dug ponds in the
rocky bed of the little stream Kamenka which disap-
peared long ago. Yet the ponds are nothing durable,
they become dry. They have built habitations. Yet
their habitations are short-lived; at the first spark they
burn to the ground." Bunin has no love for this kind
of people and almost no pity.
Bunin 's style is well characterized by the venerable
academician, Count Golenishtchev-Kutuzov, in a paper
presented to the National Academy: " Those who seek
1 novelty ' in art can find proof in Bunin's works to the
effect that real art detects in ages-old and yet ever young
pictures of nature, as well as in the moods of the human
soul, a wealth of new details, new shades of beauty which
can be expressed in original form without recurring to the
artificial means of symbolism, impressionism, or deca-
dence." Bunin himself, in a public address in 19 13,
characterized as " the most precious features " of Russian
literature the qualities of " depth, earnestness, simplicity,
sincerity, nobility, directness," repudiating all " modern-
ist " attempts. Bunin remains classic. Yet he could not
avoid the influence of his time. His poems are more
colorful than those of the nineteenth century and are often
tinged with impressionism, especially where the shades of
color are given.
254 THE RECENT TIDE
i. Poems. (Various collections and groups between 1886
and 1915O
"Against the background of Russian modernism, Bunin's
poetry stands out as the best in the old. He continues the
eternal Pushkin tradition and in his clear and stern outlines
he gives examples of nobility and directness. . . . His lines
are of the old coinage that has stood the test; his handwriting
is the most legible in modern literature; his design is concise
and concentrated. . . . Both inwardly and outwardly, his
poems deviate from prose at just the proper time ; perhaps it is
more correct to say that he makes prose poetic; perhaps he
rather conquers prose and turns it into poems than creates
poems as something apart from prose. His verse seems to
have lost its independence, its absolute distinction from prose,
yet it has not become ordinary.
" Bunin turns into poetry the everyday facts. He is not
afraid of the old values of the world. ... He pictures facts,
from which beauty is organically born. We would call it white
beauty, for this is Bunin's favorite color. The epithets white,
silvery, silver-gray sound so often in his lucid pages. Not
only on his window-pane ' silvery from rime, chrysanthemums
are sketched ' but his poems in general seem to be touched
with rime and recall those charming arabesques which our Rus-
sian landscape painter, Frost, draws. . . . His poetry never
flames, it has no pathos, but it has the power of sincerity and
truth." J. Eichenwald.
" Bunin has shown an inimitable mastery in the art of land-
scape painting. In this realm none equals him among the
writers of the present generation. Bunin's landscapes are dis-
tinguished by genuine simplicity and clarity. His attitude
towards nature is, not the impetuous passion of Tyutchev, but
a quiet love which seeks for tenderness, happiness, joy."
Vl. Kranichfeld.
"After picturing his native land, he was drawn to far-
away countries, to the burning sun-lit Orient which he de-
scribes in colors seen with a sharp eye, yet he also puts into
his poems l the things that shone in these lands.' This, how-
I. BUNIN 255
ever, he acquired mainly from books, legends, and the beliefs
of the Oriental peoples, particularly the peoples of ancient
times. In a revival of the past, in a spiritual communion with
former generations, Bunin finds a way of broadening, or, as
he puts it himself, of ' multiplying ' our own existence."
Th. D. Batyushkov.
2. Short Stories and Sketches. (1886-19 17.)
In one of his lyrical sketches, Bunin speaks of his trip
over a new railroad-line cut through the woods. " I see
the station-fires recede and disappear among the trees.
To which country belong I, a lonesome wanderer? What
has remained in common between me and this primitive
forest land? Over vast plains it stretches endlessly. Is
it my part to understand its sorrow, to give it aid? How
beautiful, how rich is this virgin land! Great shadowy
walls loom up on either side drowsing silently in this
warm January night filled with the tender and pure
fragrance of snow and fresh pines. And what mystic dis-
tances ahead! "
This tone prevails in most of Bunin's lyrical sketches.
However, when he comes down to the plain inhabitants of
these " mystic distances," he sees only misery and ugli-
ness. A hungry peasant- woman whose children are too
frightened to clamor for bread. A poor country teacher
whose life is devoid of culture and refinement. A broken
landlord, drinking heavily. Tattered pilgrims marching
through a bleak landscape. A country priest in primitive
surroundings. " Quiet and desolation, — not exhaustion
but desolation," as Bunin said in one of these sketches.
" A whole epic of desolation."
3. The Village. Sketches. (1910.)
In this book, the author's aversion to village life
reached its climax. With outward calm and inner horror,
256 THE RECENT TIDE
Bunin describes the peasants of a small village after the
stormy days of the abortive revolution. He sees only
hideous instincts, savagery, brutality, greed.
" Bunin as narrator has a streak of cruelty. It is in the
nature of his talent. His is not the pathological, neurotic
cruelty which pervades Dostoyevsky's works. His cruelty is
calm, balanced, judicious; it is a result of long contemplation
and scrupulous investigation. Bunin searches for the roots of
evil with a sober, coldly incisive mind, and yet with inner pas-
sion. These researches draw him irresistibly. The impression
created by The Village is dumbfounding."
E. Kaltonovskaya.
Bunin is also known as a translator of Anglo-American
poets. He translated many of Byron's, Tennyson's, and
Longfellow's poems.
[Of merit is also Bunin's Temple of the Sun, lyrical travel-
sketches of Turkey, the Archipelago, Palestine, Egypt.]
O. G. SERGEYEV-TZENSKY (1876-)
In the polychrome symphony of Russian literature,
Sergeyev-Tzensky's voice became heard as a cry of an-
guish. Amidst a multitude of complacent artists, he
stood up with a distorted face, with a curse on his lips,
with a gesture of burning despair. Life, what is it? It
is a mockery, a humiliation. " All of life seems to be
dragged to the ground by an iron rope; there is no good
or evil in life, there are only facts; the thing that alone
justifies life is horror, which has been invented for this
purpose by the feeble human soul." Sergeyev-Tzensky
was vehement and merciless in recording the futility of
life. It seemed to him that the fate of men was in the
hands of somebody or something blind, cruel, vicious,
without aim or reason. Accident was determining the
happiness or misery of human beings; brute elemental
force was killing what nobility and beauty tried to as-
sert itself. " Life is a road to the cemetery decorated
with theatrical scenery." "Life is a series of senseless
accidents and senseless deaths." "Life is cruelty."
" Man is a malign mixture of deity and amphibium."
Story after story Sergeyev-Tzensky put forth to express
his repudiation of life. And because the stories were
strong in the drawing of characters and the vividness of
description, and because the sincerity of the author was
felt as a perceptible vibration throughout every story, and
because his productions were so strange, challenging,
almost cruel, yet always full of a humane spirit and
tense with suppressed emotion, the author rapidly became
257
258 THE RECENT TIDE
the object of interest and heated discussion. There was
much gloom, much brooding, much ugliness in his works.
Yet somehow nobody resented it. Sergeyev-Tzensky's
personality made the reader accept the horrors he in-
voked. The reader loved this afflicted, much suffering
soul.
At the same time, the stories of Sergeyev-Tzensky were
astir with life. This gruff negator knew so well the secret
of loving observation, the joy of contact with reality,
the fascination of closeness to nature. Moreover, he
seemed to draw a sharp line between human society and
nature. Man is being eternally " chewed between the
jaws of somebody or something "; nature is eternally
harmonious and eternally beautiful. Man is destined to
pass; Nature is everlasting; her strong current is cleans-
ing the human soul of its mire and filth.
As years passed, however, a change came over Ser-
geyev-Tzensky. Perhaps it was due to the new tone in
Russian life when the country began to recuperate after
the shock of 190 5- 190 7. Perhaps it was due to the grow-
ing maturity of the artist. Sergeyev-Tzensky began to
see a light in the dark cave of life. He discovered a
power that would elevate man over the horrors, the mean-
ness, and the cruelty of bare facts. Love as justification,
emotional acceptance preceding logical inquiry, impressed
itself on the writer's creative imagination. His stories
were now shot through with sympathy; the call of life as
an irresistible force, the overcoming of loneliness through
contact with another human soul, became the subjects
of his writing. He sees a time in the future, "when
something common for all in the world will gradually
filter into life. Shall I call it soul, mystery, thought, or
eternity? The word does not matter. Whatever you
0. G. SERGEYEV-TZENSKY 259
call it, the word will not express the thing because it has
no name. It will come, and everything will sound in
accord; lines from everything will concentrate in the
heart of man."
In this new phase, Sergeyev-Tzensky was heartily
greeted by those who believed in his talent, and now he
stands as one of the most respected and hopeful writers of
our generation.
"In reading Sergeyev-Tzensky's stories, we are invariably
under the spell of the rare sincerity and avidity with which
the author seeks for his truth. We feel that for him it is
an actual question of life, that all his stories and novelettes,
better or worse, bright or dull, are not a narrative of his seek-
ing for the truth, but the process of seeking itself, that he
wrote them not for the reader but for himself; while creating
his works, he formulates to himself, he clarifies and appre-
hends those nebulous shapes of truth, the absence of which
makes life devoid of meaning. This increases the contagious
effect of the objective truth sought and found by the author."
A. Derman.
" The world for Sergeyev-Tzensky is full of things ; every-
thing has a face, has life, has a name. Sergeyev-Tzensky's
world is just the opposite of Dostoyevsky's, where human beings
are surrounded by a great void; here everything is saturated
with a variety of things that have been noticed, recorded, and
expressed in the language of the plain people, in our every-
day terminology. Sergeyev-Tzensky avidly drinks from these
inexhaustible sources of concrete knowledge of the visible
world. ' Every day was overcrowded with sun, flowers, care
for meals and tea, sound sleep/ So every story by Sergeyev-
Tzensky is overcrowded with various things, colors, names,
sayings. . . . Here everything has sharp contours, has indi-
viduality. Overpowered by the idea that our life is in the
hands of somebody hostile, he still admires the constructive
processes of life. . . . Never since Gogol has Russian litera-
ture known such a religion of work. Death only emphasizes
260 THE RECENT TIDE
the futility of this intensive spending of energy, the rottenness
at the bottom of great effort." A. Gornfeld.
" Sergeyev-Tzensky's images, all saturated with color, re-
mind one of double-petaled flowers in a hothouse. This qual-
ity is felt in his poetic prose, musical, picturesque, plastic,
fragrant. His stories should not be read in haste, should not
be scanned. One ought to read them slowly, the way you
recite verse that is full of epithets and similes. Sergeyev-
Tzensky is an artist who is in love with picturesque words.
He does not typewrite them, indeed, he enjoys the creative
process, he devotes his free time to the happiness of creative
work. ... If our contemporary writers suffer from anemia,
Sergeyev-Tzensky is sometimes hampered by a fullness of
blood and vigor. His imagination knows no limit."
V. LVOV-ROGATCHEVSKY.
"A desire to express in full every notion of life, coupled
with an aversion for the trite images and similes current in
literature, led Sergeyev-Tzensky, in the first years of his
career, to use queer expressions, startling descriptions, far-
fetched similes which sometimes appealed very little to the
imagination of the reader. Some of his descriptions became ex-
cellent material for parodies. Some gave him more fame than
even the discussions over his best stories. It must be noted,
however, that at no time was it a pose with the author.
It was a sincere desire on his part to give the impression of
the thing as he felt it. It was an attempt to break the
monotony of traditional writing. That it induced many a
critic to class him with the pseudo-modernists and decadents,
mattered little to him. In the course of time, he gradually
dropped this vague and unnatural manner and became strongly
realistic in the best sense of the word.
" Sergeyev-Tzensky grows with every year, with every new
step. Each new work of his bears a clearer stamp of those
tragic motives which make the essence of Russian literature
and give it a world-wide significance. Ever closer does he come
to the understanding of ' something ' which makes life sacred
and reconciles us with existence." Ivanov-Razumnik.
0. G. SERGEYEV-TZENSKY 261
1. Short Stories. (1903-1917.)
The evolution of Sergeyev-Tzensky's conception of life
can be traced through his short stories as well as through
his novelettes. The former, therefore, must be divided
into two groups — those of the first and those of the sec-
ond period. The most characteristic of the first period
are: Masks; Dijteria; Father Dear; Murder; Wing-
Stroke; I Shall Soon Die; A Little Corner; The Baby
Bear; On the Shore. As a motto to all these stories, a
sentence from Masks may be cited: " Somebody big and
powerful has covered the earth with an air-pump, pressed
its edges tight and pumped the air from within; that is
why life is so crowded, tense, and there is nothing to
breathe with." In the second period, of which the stories
Sky; Bosom; Neighbor; Fright; The Sun That Is in No
Hurry are the most characteristic, a more optimistic view
on life prevails.
2. Forest Marshes. (1907.)
One of the most impressive of the author's novelettes.
It is the story of a plain woman, a daughter of poor
peasants, who has an inherently beautiful soul, a craving
for a clean life, a strong sense of justice, and a sensitive-
ness as tender as only the most chosen are endowed with.
All this, however, is crushed by a terrific combination of
circumstances amidst a poor and hideous life, and finally
the woman dies as senselessly as she lived. The impres-
sion of Forest Marshes is actually haunting.
3. Babayev. (1907.)
A series of sketches in its totality forming the life
story of Lieutenant Babayev, who serves in the Russian
army, partakes in the orgies of his comrades, in the Jew-
262 THE RECENT TIDE
ish massacres, in the quelling of a peasants' revolt, in
the crushing of a revolutionary insurrection, and yet feels
that his life is ugly and that there must be some truth,
some meaning in life which he cannot grasp. The struggle
of that unhappy and cruel soul for a solution of his ap-
palling existence makes the reader forget some weak parts
in the work. Babayev is essentially Russian, and it shows
a varied panorama of general disorder and neurasthenia
in the Russia of 1 905-1 906.
" There is no meaning, no sanctity, no beauty, — Lieutenant
Babayev cannot find them, and therefore he purposely and
with cold curiosity commits all these senseless, criminal, ab-
horrent acts. When he shoots down the workingmen and stu-
dents, he envies them passionately because ' they, not he,
intend to create a new life; they are broad, while he is nar-
row; they broke off from themselves and plunged, gaily-
voiced, into immensity, as one plunges from a high beach into
the ocean, while he is chained to himself and exhausted.'
Lieutenant Babayev dies as senselessly as he lived; he falls
from the hand of a girl-revolutionary, and not even in the
agony of death is his soul born."
Ivanov-Razumnik.
4. The Sadness of the Fields. Novelette. (1909.)
" There was suffering, beautiful, deep, gladsome, pain-
ful, silent, wept over in sleepless nights," thus the author
speaks of the heroine of this novelette, the young beau-
tiful woman whose six children died at their birth and who
now bears the seventh under her heart. She is sad, yet
there is hope faintly gleaming; she is composed, yet
despair is eating at the root of her existence. Contrasted
with it is a sturdy, active, healthy farm life tense with
sheer muscular vigor and saturated with creative effort.
The question " why? " is ringing throughout the entire
O. G. SERGEYEV-TZENSKY 263
work, which is full of plastic figures and motion, and yet
gives the impression of a pathetic, melancholy song. The
figure of the woman is drawn with much tenderness and
love. Anna dies, yet life continues its course. Life is
stronger than all our questions, suffering, and despair.
This strangely moving story is one of the best produc-
tions of modern Russian literature.
5. Movements. (1909-1910.)
A novelette where the question of fate again occupies
the author. A man is telling the story of his life. He
was healthy, strong, gay, a hard worker, a builder of
life. He started poor, he created for himself an inde-
pendent and respected existence. His estate is his pride
and joy. He is at the summit of life. Yet a combina-
tion of circumstances ruins him and leaves him practically
poor. He loses his good name. He discovers that he is
ill and soon to die. Why is it so? What is his fault?
In the days of his suffering he discovers a great truth
— that he has been selfish all his life. The return to a
more altruistic conception, a more humane and intimate
contact with his fellow human beings, brings a ray of
light into the misery of his suffering.
6. The Oblique Helena. Novelette. (1916.)
The oblique " Helena " is a coal mine. A young min-
ing engineer who lives there in primitive and inhuman
conditions becomes disgusted with life and decides to
commit suicide. Just when he is ready for the fatal act,
a series of ordinary incidents disturbs his mind. For
the first time he realizes how much meaning there is even
to the most trivial life. A heavy shock and subsequent
recovery make him feel life with a new keenness. It is
264 THE RECENT TIDE
not abstract reasoning that erases his non-acceptance of
life. It is the immediate realization of numerous bonds
connecting us with the actualities of existence. Life sim-
ply stretches its many tentacles and holds the man fast;
it pours over him a great variety of events which he must
face and of responsibilities which he must bear. Thus
the solution of the problem, " Why live? ", the author
indicates, is to be found in the very entanglement of life
itself. Here, too, as in Movements, the idea of life as a
sympathetic contact with other human beings, is modestly,
though firmly asserted.
The Oblique Helena is a splendid piece of realistic
literature devoid of all the embellishments that were com-
mon in Sergeyev-Tzensky's early writings. It is full of
unusual vigor, action, and details.
[Other works of importance: The Orchard; Chief of Police
Deryabin, etc.]
M. P. ARTZYBASHEV (1878-)
Artzybashev belongs entirely to the twentieth century
and to the modern city. He lacks the composure of the
older Russian writers. He is full of sharp dissonances, of
crude and cruel visions. A man with an enormous narra-
tive talent and an eager eye for the tragic, he is haunted
by a few ideas which give a strange fascination to most
of his works, yet in a way make them repulsive. Artzy-
bashev is afraid of death, which invariably appears to him
in the form of disease, decay, decomposition of flesh. To
save himself from the apparition of death, he clings to
life's most striking manifestations, which, to him, outside
of man, are nature in its vigor and beauty, in man himself,
sex. Artzybashev became known as the first to speak of
sex passion in the most naked manner.
" Artzybashev's ' peculiarity ' as a writer consists in abusing
that manner of artistic expression which I would suggest call-
ing the sexual manner of writing. This manner brings to the
foreground descriptions of the details of sex-life which are un-
necessary from the standpoint of artistic truth and which it
would be better to pass over with silence in the interest of
mental hygiene. . . . Naturally, with this dwelling upon
unnecessary sexual details, Artzybashev combines a lack of
respect for womanhood."
Dr. A. P. Omeltchenko (physician).
Sex-life in its crudest forms, sex-desire in its primitive
appearance, color the works of Artzybashev, yet they do
not exhaust his contents as a writer. He is a keen ob-
server, he eagerly responds to the trend of sentiment in
265
266 THE RECENT TIDE
surrounding society, and he has the ability to thrill the
reader by his frankness and boldness.
" M. Artzybashev scrutinizes the face of nature with a pain-
fully sharp gaze. ... He looks as if he were seeing every
trait, every minute detail of living nature for the first and last
time. . . . Artzybashev is first a painter, then a narrator. He
writes, not in his study, but in the open air, he uses not a pen,
but a brush. This is no more a corner of nature seen through
the prism of man's temperament; this is art striving to become
nature.
" Artzybashev's landscapes are made by the sun, shot
through with light, and saturated with air.
"... However, when the artist turns from landscape to
man, he is unable to overcome technical difficulties and the
prevailing sentiment of sadness and despair. Here Artzy-
bashev scratches off with a knife the picture of life, and draws
death.
". . .A dull, heavy tone; twilight; a black casket, a black
grave, a black hole; a nightmare of black and fire; a black
desert; a black man. All this screens the sun, the moon, and
the stars. Black colors replace the golden hues, which the
rays of the sun have so tenderly played with. . . .
"... The keenest pleasure of a person is, then, reduced
to the cult of the body."
V. LVOV-ROGATCHEVSKY.
It is fair to say that Artzybashev belongs to the number
of young writers who do not shun sensationalism. He
would not shrink from catching the reader or holding him
spellbound even at the price of too sharp contrasts and
nerve-racking scenes. The purpose in his works is not
always concealed. Sometimes a strange unpleasant
protest arises in the cultured reader against Artzybashev's
" naturalism," which is intermixed with long and trite
discussions.
M. P. ARTZYBASHEV - 267
1. Stories of the Revolution. (1904-1907.)
Scattered among Artzybashev's works are a number of
short stories which give a good picture of various mo-
ments and happenings in the revolution of 1 905-1 906.
The inevitably piercing tones and cruel clashes of revolu-
tionary struggle fitted Artzybashev's artistic inclinations.
Scenes that appalled others had a strong attraction for
him. In his Revolutionist, a, squad of soldiers flogs the
peasants; his In the Village pictures rape committed by a
punitive expedition, the peasants kill their soldier enemies
from an ambush; The Blood Stain describes the fight on
barricades and the subsequent cruel execution of revolu-
tionists by victorious officers; Moujik and Landlord, Re-
volt, Horror, Morning Shadows belong to the same series.
The revolutionary stories are taken from real life, and
give the atmosphere of the bloody strife. To the same
series belong the following two:
2. The Human Tide. Novel. (1907.)
The scene of action is the city and port of Odessa.
The events are grouped around the revolutionary insur-
rection of the masses in the summer of 1905. The re-
volt of the sailors on a battle cruiser in the harbor forms
a picturesque chapter. The burning of the harbor ware-
houses is described with a masterful hand. The atmos-
phere of the great upheaval is, in the main, truthfully
reproduced. So are the types of the philistines and the
characters of the revolutionists.
3. The Workingman Shevyrev. Novelette. (1909.)
The hero is an anarchist, a terrorist. He is hunted
by the police and knows that he will soon be captured.
The story gives the events of his last day before he is
268 THE RECENT TIDE
surrounded. Shevyrev, nominally a workingman, in re-
ality a former student and a man of culture, evolved the
creed of hate. " I do not think of love," he says, " I
can only hate. Why should I love our people? Because
they devour each other like pigs? because they are so
miserable, so pitiful, so weak and foolish that they allow
millions of them to be driven under the table? . . .
I have turned my hate towards those who think them-
selves the unassailable masters of life. ... I cannot live,
yet while dying I shall remind them of their error; I
shall prove that they are themselves defenseless in the
hands of men who have courage and sense to throw off the
spell of hypnotism."
4. Sanin. (1907.)
This novel is a product of the reaction felt by the in-
telligentzia after the storms of 1 90 5?01 Individualism in-
stead of collectivism, the cult of power instead of the wor-
ship of ideas, bodily pleasures instead of self-sacrifice, are
accentuated, if not directly preached, in Sanin. Its tex-
ture consists of love-episodes and discussions between a
group of intellectuals in a provincial town. The love epi-
sodes are crude and frank as to sex emotions. The dis-
cussions are rather primitive and tedious. The attention
attracted by the novel is due to the fact that it attacked
boldly a problem much discussed in intellectual circles
just after the revolution. Its power lies in its vivid de-
scription of characters, in many scenes full of action, and
in a strongly felt hunger for life.
" Sanin [the main hero] does not understand human suf-
ferings and sorrow, he cannot experience them in sympathy
with others, and he would not hold his lust in bounds even
if it should be the cause of others' misfortune. Not one fea-
M. P. ARTZYBASHEV 269
ture of a new man is contained in such a nature. Sanins are
as old as the old regime of which they are a product. . . .
They are those who, being ejected from their own social class,
■ — Sanin is the last of a noble family — do not become mem-
bers of another class or another stable group. They are social
parasites."
Dr. A. P. Omeltchenko.
" Bright succulent colors, breathing the vibration of joy and
strength, alternate with a pale mournful sheen, boresome
scraggy words, which importunately stick to you. It seems
to the reader that the life of the people described by the author
is revolving, as it were, in two different worlds. One world
is limited, suffocating, and ugly; here people cripple each other
and inflict mortal wounds ; whereas, near by, a vast and friendly
world lies outstretched, a world radiant with all the joys of
life, a world alluring through the powerful voices of blood,
instincts, heart."
L. Voitolovsky.
5. The Woman That Stood Between. Novel. (1915.)
Here Artzybashev attempted to show the other side of
unrestricted sex-passion. A woman is described, a clean,
healthy, and beautiful, though by no means exceptional
young woman, destined by nature to be a mother and
a friend. Love-experiences with self-seeking men who
never cared for the soul or the personality in the object
of their jdesire, make her a fiend of passion, a soulless,
dangerous, and desperate enemy of human society.
Artzybashev 's manner is much more refined in this than
in his earlier works.
[Other works of importance: The Death of Lande; The Wife;
The Millionaire ; Sub-Lieutenant Gololobov, and many other
short stories ; The Breaking Point, a novel ; Jealousy, a play.]
EVGENY CHIRIKOV (1864-)
Notwithstanding significant changes in the social and
economic structure of Russia towards the beginning of
the twentieth century, the country as a whole remained
provincial. Industrial centers were increasing, yet the
prevailing type was a small archaic town. Political
parties were forming in the capitals and in the leading
cities, yet the bulk of Russia remained untouched. In-
tellectual unrest was rapidly spreading, yet the average
Russian citizen (or inhabitant as he was termed in the
official language) was rather indolent and bored. The
town population, what may be called, in a sense, the cul-
tured stratum of the Russian nation, led a colorless,
spiritless existence. The government officials were con-
fined to deadening routine under a system of strict sub-
ordination. The professional man, after leaving his Alma
Mater, ordinarily succumbed to the apathy of his sur-
roundings, though never forgetting the dreams and aspira-
tions of his youth. The business man, not yet stirred by
the enterprising spirit of modern industrialism, continued
his crude work in a lazy, monotonous fashion. Altogether,
it was a narrow, stagnant, listless existence, where gossip,
cards, drinking, petty jealousies, and paltry ambitions
took the place of events. Only at times, a real intellec-
tual, a radical student, a former revolutionary, a political
refugee would be thrown into the swamp of provincial
lassitude. His clashes with the " aborigines," his futile
attempts to mold native thought according to modern
ideas, his suffering and despair, would, then, represent a
veritable tragedy.
370
EVGENY CHIRIKOV 271
Evgeny Chirikov is the man who described provincial
Russia in its true colors. Born and bred in the heart
of the Eastern provinces, he knew provincial Russia as
few of his colleagues. It was the very air he breathed till
late in his life. Through him, perhaps, more than through
many a realist, Russia learned to know herself.
Chirikov is possessed of an easy style, an attractive
conversational mode of writing, a sense of unobtrusive
humor, a tolerant attitude to human weaknesses, and a
vague, though sincere, idealism. Chirikov is not the
groping kind of a writer. He never tries to grasp the new,
the social and political phenomena which are in the mak-
ing. His is not the task to express very subtle move-
ments of the human soul. He takes known types, char-
acteristics that are widespread, forms of life that have
been crystallized and are easy to observe. Moreover, he
does not seek for the extraordinary. His material is the
ordinary life of ordinary people. " Their life runs, day
in and day out, monotonous, boresome like a rainy eve-
ning when everything is wet, gray, and gloomy. It is a
colorless and tiresome existence. It is like turning the
pages of a cook-book. To-day soup and cutlets, to-
morrow borshch and cutlets, and this is the only change."
Chirikov's stories and plays would appear monotonous
if not for his vividness, alertness, and unusual skill in
drawing characters and reproducing situations and con-
versations.
Chirikov is not what one may call a great writer. Yet
he has been very popular among intellectual Russians
during the last twenty years as a truthful narrator, a critic
of Russian backwardness, and an inexhaustible source
of information concerning provincial Russia. Somehow,
Chirikov becomes a friend to those who read him. It is
272 THE RECENT TIDE
perhaps his smile, perhaps his love for youth and youth-
ful endeavor. He has the peculiar ability of the Russian
writer to " laugh through tears." He is in sympathy with
his unhappy heroes, giving utterance to their longing for
a sounder and more human life, yet never condemning
them for inability to break their chains. He loves and de-
scribes children with a unique tenderness.
To the foreigner, Chirikov ought to be most welcome
as a man reproducing the original Russian town-life with
almost photographic accuracy.
Chirikov's stories, novels, and plays are very numerous.
It is, perhaps, advisable to make a selection according to
the main themes.
i. The Students Have Come. A story. (1897.)
The Foreigners. A novelette. (1899.)
The Prodigal Son. A story. (1899.)
On Bail. A story. (1904.)
In each of these works, one or several radical intellec-
tuals happen to live in a provincial town. In The Stu-
dents Have Come, two university boys, spending their
vacation in the native town, are trying to develop the con-
sciousness of their provincial friends. In The Foreigners,
a group of revolutionary intellectuals are founding a local
progressive paper. In The Prodigal Son and On Bail, a
young man, formerly active in revolutionary movements,
comes home to his parents after prison and wanderings.
In each case, the hopes of the newcomers are frustrated.
Prejudices, archaic conceptions of decency, intrigues,
ambitions of local officials, all the petrified forms of life,
crush the attempts at improvement. Even the hope of
living peacefully under a father's roof is made impossible
through incessant lecturing and nagging. The figures of
EVGENY CHIRIKOV 273
former idealists now settled down and absorbed in the
mire of contentment, figures to be met in many other
of Chirikov's sketches, are quite appalling.
2. Faust. A story. (1900.)
In the Rear-House. A two-act play. (1902.)
Ivan Mir onytch. A four-act play. (1905.)
A woman's soul enmeshed in the trivialities of philis-
tine existence and longing for something beautiful and
meaningful, is the subject which recurs in these as in many
other of Chirikov's productions. In drawing the women
prisoners of provincial somnolence, the author is particu-
larly eloquent and sympathetic. To the heroine of Faust,
life in her youth " seemed big, extending far away to
limitless horizons; it was wrapt in luring blue mists,
attractive in infinite variety, and full of mystery and
promise." Her soul was stirred with " a vague expecta-
tion of happiness, perhaps the happiness of triumphant
love." Yet time passed, the horizons became narrower.
" Everybody lives in the same way. They are bored,
they gossip, they talk of apartments and positions, they
play cards, they raise children, and they complain, the
husbands to their wives, the wives to their husbands. . . .
There is no triumphant love. There is triumphant vul-
garity, meanness, and boredom." The heroine of The
Rear-House exclaims: "If I could only go away, run
away from this terrible life! . . . I do not want it any
more. I cannot stand it! " In Ivan Mir onytch a seem-
ingly happy family-life in the narrow cage of sluggish
officialdom is interrupted by the wife's cry of anguish: " I
am sinking. ... I wish to live and there is nothing to
live with! . . . You have eaten out half the life from
my soul. I loathe your schedule! "
274 THE RECENT TIDE
3. Tanya's Happiness. A story. (1899.)
The Birthday Child. A novelette. (1900.)
Marka of the Pits. A novelette. (1904.)
Chirikov draws here the figures of poor girls who by
force of circumstances became street-walkers. The au-
thor shows that fundamentally they are healthy human
beings. Marka of the Pits is a woman of special gifts
who fought bravely for purity and love. She has the
physical vigor, the strength of character, and the love of
freedom which mark only the chosen. She succumbs, as
many others, to poverty in the midst of an unorganized
society that can offer no protection. Marka of the Pits
is one of the most colorful pieces of Chirikov's writings.
4. Invalids. A story. (1897.)
The House of the Kochergins. A play. (1910.)
The intellectual conflict between the older and the
younger generation of Russian radicals is the subject of
these works. In both, an old-time fighter for freedom
returns home after many years of political exile only to
find that the programs, the tactics, and the aspirations of
the younger revolutionaries differ radically from former
faiths and methods. The old men seem antiquated and
are pushed aside with the brutality of heartless youth.
5. In a Dale among Mountains. A story. (1899.)
A humorous story presenting the ring of local official
lawlessness which offers stubborn resistance to any pro-
test or attempt at improvement, however loyal. The
ring closes its deadly grip over any alien body which
disturbs the peace of unhampered arbitrary and selfish
administration.
EVGENY CHIRIKOV 275
6. Insurrectionists, A novelette. (1906.)
The Peasants. A four-act play. (1906.)
Here Chirikov deals with the agrarian movement of the
Russian peasantry in the abortive revolution of 1905-
1906. The pictures and events are those that are most
typical in that vast popular movement. Both pieces al-
most approach an eyewitness account of actual events in
one or two of the numberless Russian villages. The char-
acters of the landlords, the officials, and the peasants are
well known and stereotyped. The causes of the move-
ment are laid bare with a clever hand.
7. The Jews. A play. (1905.)
A typical pogrom in a Jewish town is here presented.
Attention is centered on a Jewish family of patriarchal
parents, a beautiful innocent daughter, and a revolution-
ary son. The pogroms bring ruin and death to the un-
fortunate family.
8. Tarchanov's Life. (1911-1913.)
Volume I. Youth.
Volume II. Exile.
Volume III. Return.
A story of love and youth interwoven with the political
movements in Russia at the end of the century and
thrown against a background of Russian provincial life.
The novel is written in the first person and contains some
autobiographical material. It narrates the life of a young
Russian from the moment he passes his college entrance
examination to the time he reaches his full growth and
occupies a position in the ranks of constructive workers.
The novel is typical of a young Russian radical of the
middle-class and is full of details of everyday Russia.
276 THE RECENT TIDE
9. War Echoes. Sketches. (191 6.)
" There are towns in Russia whose existence is known
only to Our Lord and the ispravnik (county chief of
police). They are mentioned neither in history, nor in
geography, and it is not known who was their inventor.
Nothing is spoken about them and nothing is written."
Into such a town Chirikov takes us at the beginning of
the world war and shows us a series of transformations
wrought in local conditions and habit by the great storm.
The second part gives pictures of trench-life.
[Other interesting works of Chirikov are The Friends of the
Press, a play; The Legend of the Old Castle; The Prison of
Human Passions, and a number of short sketches.]
V. ROPSHIN (BORIS SAVINKOV)
From the ranks of revolutionary terrorists came Boris
Savinkov, a member of the Socialist-Revolutionary party,
an active participant in many terrorist attempts on the
life of high Russian officials, and one of the leaders of
his party. Under the name of Ropshin, he came to tell
in a strong and truthful language of the tragedies in-
evitably connected with the work of hunting and killing
human beings as a revolutionary profession. Perhaps he
was somewhat disappointed in the results of his own
activities and in the revolution as a whole. Perhaps his
meditations reflect a state of reaction after the upheavals
of 1 905-1 906. Yet his sincerity was beyond doubt. And
he embodied his thoughts in living images that were con-
vincing.
The sensation among Russian intellectuals was im-
mense. A flood of heated discussion followed. Ad-
herents and opponents of revolutionary terrorism inter-
preted Ropshin's writings from various angles. Most of
them, however, overlooked the fundamental fact that his
works were works of fiction and that their merits lay
only in their being an adequate presentation of the human
soul under certain conditions. Now that the discussion
has subsided and it is possible to view the matter from
an historic standpoint, it is clear that Ropshin contributed
human documents of considerable importance. No stu-
dent of the Russian revolutionary movement should fail
to read them.
Ropshin is a talented writer. He is influenced by the
277
278 THE RECENT TIDE
great masters, particularly by Tolstoi, but he is not an
imitator. His works have literary value aside from their
contents.
i. The Pale Horse. Novelette. (1909.)
2. What Never Happened. Novel. (191 2.)
When a man shatters all his relations with the rest of
humanity and devotes himself entirely to the work of
killing human beings, strange transformations must take
place in his soul. No matter how lofty the ideal he fights
for, no matter how unselfish the revolutionist is (there
can be no common selfishness in a man who knows that
his activities must unavoidably culminate in his death),
he must soon begin to look at life from angles hitherto
unknown to him. He will either harden and turn into a
" master of the red guild " to whom life in general has
no value, or he will begin to question his right to take
human lives. The former is the case with George, the
hero of The Pale Horse; the latter is personified in Bolo-
tov, the main figure of What Never Happened,
" George is the head of a terrorist group, the organizer and
executor of terroristic assassinations. His life is one continu-
ous, unrelenting struggle, the struggle of beasts: either he will
kill, or he will be killed. An iron hand, a keen eye, an unusual
presence of mind, an indomitable will are his weapons. When
he wins a victory, he feels himself the incarnation of an ele-
mental, apocalyptic, revenging power, elevated high above the
rest of mankind. This gives him joy, triumph, a sensation of
life's exuberance. In the intoxication of such a struggle, there
is no place for self-analysis. George passes calmly by all
theoretical discussions. He only cares for practical results.
What is beyond action is mere words to him. He loves nobody.
He cares for nobody. He is indifferent to the spiritual life of
men, their sufferings and gropings. This defect in instincts,
however, making George a perfect instrument of terror, car-
V. ROPSHIN 279
ries with it its own negation. If people are only machines, if
there is no love to bind human beings together, what place
remains for ideologies that gave birth to revolutionary move-
ments and to terrorism itself? "
S. Adrianov.
It must be noted that investigations conducted by the
Socialist- Revolutionary party in 1 910-19 11 as to the ac-
tivities of the terrorist groups, revealed the existence of
types similar to George of The Pale Horse, although they
were not the rule. There were many terrorists who could
say with Vanya, another figure in The Pale Horse: " We
must go through the torture of crucifixion; out of love and
for the sake of love we must determine upon the worst.
But only, only out of love and for the sake of love."
A far more frequent type was the revolutionist who
practised terror yet was full of doubt and query. Such
is Bolotov of What Never Happened.
" Bolotov is a veritable Hamlet whom fate has thrown into
the ranks of fighters for freedom. He is perhaps more of a
Hamlet than his prototype himself. True, his Hamletism
does not prevent him from acting in a very decisive manner.
But just when he acts, the conflict between reason and will
becomes manifest. His will prompts him to fight, his fight
brings him to acts of violence, and the acts of violence arouse
in his mind the question, ' Can violence be justified, and if so,
what is its justification? ' This question haunts Bolotov, it
follows him to the barricades, to a revolutionary congress, to
terroristic attempts. He is so absorbed in this question that
everything outside of it seems to him superfluous and bore-
some nonsense. . . . Whatever our personal conception, such
experiences deserve a careful and, let me say frankly, a re-
spectful attitude. Those experiences are no phrase and no
invention, they are a tragedy, one of those tragedies which
' purify ' the spectator (to use a well-known expression of
Aristotle) and which make us believe in the inherent beauty,
280 THE RECENT TIDE
if not of human nature as a whole, at least of certain por-
tions of mankind."
G. V. Plekhanov.
What Never Happened contains many pictures of
mass-movement, such as the record of the Moscow revolt
in December, 1905, one of the best in the Russian lan-
guage, and many descriptions of revolutionary party
activities. The characters of the revolutionaries are
vivid and true to life.
ALEXEY REMIZOV (1877-)
A shocking world. Hideous details. Men and women
seem ordinary human beings, yet each of them has a little
mean devil in his brain. Every man and woman is com-
mitting or about to commit some unclean act. They are
no criminals, yet a fetid ichor runs through their veins,
and they experience malicious joy when they do vile mis-
chief.
Such are the characters in Alexey Remizov's stories.
Such is, in his perception, the population of his native
land. A foul smell rises from the places he describes,
an odor of decaying corpses, of suppurating ulcers, of
ugly diseases, of sickening offal. A slimy substance is
creeping through the land, through habitations of men,
through their very souls, a heavy substance full of venom,
license, rot, loathsome vermin, uncanny abomination.
" A catalogue of turpitude," somebody called Remizov's
stories.
His people are bored and intrinsically unhappy. Yet
their conduct cannot be blamed on conditions alone.
They have sinister instincts. They are cruel. They are
drunken. They use the basest language. They indulge
in vicious obscenity. They are sensuous in petty ways.
They beat each other, they cripple the weak, they kiss the
dust from the boots of the strong, they torture animals,
they see ghosts, they are intermixed with demons, witches,
monsters, and all the filthy creatures of an unhealthy
imagination. Altogether it is a world in which every evil
desire is given free swing, and the inhabitants would ap-
281
282 THE RECENT TIDE
pear insane if they did not bear such a striking resem-
blance to the people we see every day in the ordinary
pursuits of life.
It is this mixture of almost fantastic debasement with
the most usual features of human character and occupa-
tion that makes Remizov's writings unique in Russian
literature. Somehow one feels that he is not even exag-
gerating. He has only a keener eye for the ugly facts of
life as they occur every day. He is appalled by the
amount of real Russian, good-humored, matter-of-fact
degradation, physical and mental, which is spread in
every realm of life. His most favored image is a dragon,
an unclean mystic serpent, wriggling slowly over the land.
One must not forget that the time he appeared in litera-
ture was the time of Rasputins and Azovs, the time of
cruel agrarian revolts accompanied by unwarranted atroc-
ities, the time of Black Hundred outrages, punitive ex-
peditions, scaffolds erected before dawn, summary shoot-
ings and pogroms. It is evident that most of his revolting
details Remizov collected from news items in the daily
press. One of his characters thus summarizes his views
on Russia in the watchful hours of unhappy nights. " In-
juries, violence, ruin, overcrowding, want, robbery, venal-
ity, murder, disorder, and lawlessness, — this is the Russian
land. Unbalanced, unfriendly to each other, erratic in
their ways, incoherent and inarticulate, eternally silent, —
this is the Russian people. Who will save the Russian
land, stripped, burned out, trampled bare, corroded, and
devastated as it is? Who will break the untruth? Who
will allay the hatred? Where are the straight, fearless
thoughts, the untrembling heart? " Still, it must be noted
that the scope of Remizov's pictures is much broader
than mere social and political influences on human con-
ALEXEY REMIZOV 283
duct. His scrutiny is directed into the souls of men. And
it is there that he sees his dreadful visions.
In his effort to convey an adequate impression, Remizov
often resorts to the fantastic. Devils, hobgoblins, all
sorts of witchcraft, all manner of unnatural occurrences
take place in his stories side by side with the facts of
real life. It is sometimes difficult to discern whether the
writer introduces these strange phenomena as part of the'
experiences of his persons, or gives them as an element
of his own visions. Still, he is one of the staunchest real-
ists in modern Russian literature. He knows a wealth of
facts about the actual people in every walk of life. He
knows such details as hardly any other man of letters
has had an occasion to observe. He presents all this
with unusual skill and in sharp outlines that impress
themselves irresistibly on the mind of the reader. He
seems to be grinning inwardly while unloading his mass
of palpitating, glaring illuminated human material. He
has done his work well, he seems to think. In fact, he
came into the closest possible contact with the people. He
acquired a vast knowledge of the people's tales, songs,
conjurations, plays, beliefs, superstitions. He studied the
people's toys, works of art, incarnations of the popular
imagination. He drank from the fresh well of the people's
mythology and mysticism, and the fantastic creations of
the people's mind became almost a reality to him.
All this he embodies in his writings with relentless
energy. He overwhelms by the number and variety of his
facts. He makes one tired. Yet this very accumulation
of colorful particulars creates the impression desired, the
impression of a dreadful world.
Remizov seems to be objective. Yet through all his
cruel pages a wounded soul is crying without words.
284 THE RECENT TIDE
Remizov is sick of life. Remizov is crushed by the hor-
rors of life. It were easier if life were a tragedy. He
might have found solace in the grandeur of conflicting
forces. But life to him is abominable nonsense. Life is
one protracted, agonizing nausea. And the miserable
sadness of it all lingers at the bottom of his heart.
Sometimes he tries to be humorous. It seems as if a
smile could give him relief. But he cannot detach him-
self from his world. He cannot be aloof. That's why
his smile is more of a grin. He cannot even be funny.
He is grotesque. He makes the grimaces of a clown.
At times he looks as if he were a madman. There is
no end to the twists of his caprices. Some of his pages
would sound like a conscious mocking exaggeration if
not for the repugnant horror that creeps through them.
Altogether, Remizov's form is admirably suited to ex-
press just that perception of life which must drive a
man into complete and incurable despair.
Just to catch his breath, Remizov sometimes leaves his
cultured circles and goes back to folklore. Then he
creates tales in the strain and in the language of the
primitive people. It would be proper to call them " tales
of our times," because they combine the folklore with
a modern conception of things. Remizov also writes stories
for children, — very simple, very graceful, very sincere.
Yet the careful reader will even here perceive the echoes
of his dread of life. The same crooked nasty demons are
playing their petty games everywhere.
Remizov is one of the unhappiest of modern Russian
authors. Not one of the solutions offered by his fellow-
artists comforts him. He is not religious in the higher
sense of the word. He is close to the plain rugged men
who believe, pray, worship, go to church, light a candle
ALEXEY REMIZOV 285
before the holy images, and drink before and after. He
often feels like one of them. But he is only in the grip
of religious ceremonies without the elevation of real faith.
In his worst moments he is inclined to mock even at God.
These are, perhaps, the most painful spasms in the gray
torture of his despair.
And no aid. And no way out.
Alexey Remizov is, perhaps, the greatest master of the
Russian language in the present generation of writers.
His vocabulary of popular expressions is amazing. His
ability to adapt words to ideas is unsurpassed. He gives
the impression of using naked words. His language is
almost perplexing. With all this, he is not posing. He is
genuine. A strange, unhealthy flower in the swamp of
Russian life.
1. Sisters in Christ. Novelette. (1910.)
A large tenement house in a poor section of Peters-
burg. Flats and rooms packed with clerks, students, pro-
fessional folk, and some of the working-class. Remizov
goes from story to story, from door to door describing
the inhabitants. In a few lines, he condenses the whole
life of a person. And the life is always a hideous misery.
As the descriptions grow in number and particulars, the
reader is seized with fear. It seems as if a god with the
qualities of a monkey had decided to distort the face of
life, making it a mockery at harmony, happiness, justice,
2. The Fifth Affliction. Novelette. (191 2.)
A provincial town. The portraits of all the notables
are drawn with uncanny penetration. The elements of
a society devoid of a higher human interest are presented
with such clairvoyance as to make them look almost
286 THE RECENT TIDE
fantastic. Against this background is thrown the figure
of a strong man longing for beauty and right. His protest
against surrounding forces is silent but relentless. It is
a gigantic struggle of one reticent man against the evil of
a world absorbing even his own wife and children. In the
tragic features of the hero, it is easy to recognize the
author himself.
3. Tales. (1907-1916.)
4. Stories for Children.
Some of Remizov's stories for children were published
in two volumes as early as 1907; others are contained in
numerous periodicals and almanacs. Remizov's tales in-
clude, besides imitations of folklore, also plain stories
and observations of a realistic nature.
V. V. MUJZHEL (1880-)
Mujzhel is stern and gloomy. A son of a small village
in northern Russia, he had a taste of the real life of the
real people, and what he tells would seem revenge if his
objectivity were not clearly evident. He is primarily con-
cerned with the life of the modern village, and his stories
sometimes border on ethnographic descriptions. A man
of modern times, he can no more idealize the rural insti-
tutions and foundations as did the Narodniki, at the same
time he has no contempt for the peasant. He seems to
say, " Here he is, the cornerstone of Russian economic
structure, the backbone of the nation; it is not my fault,
and it is not his fault, if he is so poor, dismal, and de-
graded."
Mujzhel is as slow and monotonous as the progress of a
loaded wagon over the muddy Russian roads. Not a
sparkle, not a smile. Even nature rarely distracts his
attention from his drab, uncanny moujiks. With the
same heavy solemnity, he tells of customs and crimes,
village amusements and debasement. What he writes is
not fiction, it is horror. One cannot love Mujzhel. Yet
one must admit that what he tells is true. Somehow, the
crudeness of his style goes well with the crudeness of his
subjects. Artistic finish would seem incompatible with
abysmal poverty, brutishness, coarseness, hatred, and
rage. Mujzhel does not want to be attractive. He pro-
ceeds to heap detail upon detail, to link event with event
till the reader is overwhelmed and crushed. All the time,
the author remains composed, giving no hint as to his own
feelings.
287
288 THE RECENT TIDE
Mujzhel started his literary career in 1904, when revolt,
prison, and exile were everyday occurrences in Russia.
This phase of Russian life is also presented by Mujzhel
and with the same nerve-racking monotony. Altogether
he gives the impression of being himself the most un-
comfortable of modern writers, reflecting, as he does, the
lack of harmony and comfort throughout the vast plains
of Russia. There is the quality of an anatomist in Muj-
zhePs work: with a black scalpel he dissects hideous
growths, shirking before no depravity. He is cruel, yet
it is the cruelty of facts, not the cruelty of his nature.
Russians were compelled to read him as they were com-
pelled to live under the old regime. He was their own,
part of their natural experiences.
1. A Peasant's Death. A story. (1905.)
Cruel is the life of a peasant, cruel his death, yet the
man is no savage. He has intelligence. He has a strong
longing for righteousness and light. He is dying, slowly
and painfully, a victim of invincible and hostile forces,
yet in his agony he is thinking. " Before the end of his
life, Gregory suddenly beheld all his life at once, all as it
had been: dark, filthy, full of worry and pain. He saw
a long row of years, monotonous, gloomy, hungry. . . .
He could have lived in light, goodness, and love as other
people, he could have lived in obedience to God as, he
heard, others did, he could have been good, just, pure.
Now . . . now it is too late. He is dying, he must die.
In front of him is only death. ..."
2. Rent. A story. (1906.)
What stands out in this narrative of a common agrarian
revolt is the fury of hatred displayed by the peasants.
V. V. MUJZHEL 289
Centuries of slavery had nourished their hatred for the
master. Decades of starvation had filled good-natured
people with sheer animal rage against those who have
meals to eat. Agrarian uprisings seem to be no acts of
deliberation, but outbursts of dark elemental passions.
3. The Life of a Peasant Woman. Novelette. (1907.)
"... She bore children, she was ill . . . she bore
children again and was ill again, she suffered long and
hard. All the time she worked, she carried pails of water
up the frozen steeps twelve times a day, she tended the
cattle, she heated the stove, in summer she mowed and
reaped, her back ached, her chest was heavy, her arms
were full of crushing pain, and the tears trickled down
her nose, and there was no time to wipe them away."
Worst of all is the lack of sympathy, of care, of under-
standing between the members of one family. Brutal life
erased many of their human qualities and — homo homini
lupus. The climax of the story, when the woman gives
birth to a dead child in the midst of a deserted field,
makes even the hardened reader shudder.
4. A Year. Novel. (191 1.)
This two-volume work is almost an encyclopedia of
Russian village life after 1906. It follows the cycle of
agricultural activities season after season. It describes
village holidays, weddings, and other festivities with all
their ceremonies. It presents a number of peasants, men
and women, whose aspirations, loves, hatreds, and suffer-
ings it unrolls in natural sequence. All this is shown
against the background of an entire community engaged
in a fierce struggle for a meager existence.
Of special significance is the process of disintegration
2Q0 THE RECENT TIDE
convincingly pictured. Old semi-communistic land tenure
is doomed. The poorer peasants still cling to it as a last
means of protection, yet the implacable law of competi-
tion breaks old barriers. The rich become richer, the
poor poorer. Patriarchal conditions are an anachronism
in a society invaded by modern capitalism. The govern-
ment is frankly aiding the strong against the weak, and
all are aware that new times are coming.
The central figure of the novel is young Sergey, a
simple peasant endowed with common sense and a feeling
of justice. He is not a revolutionist, not a hero, yet one
can easily see how a man of his type may become a leader
in times of crisis. " Contrary to what happens in all
classes higher up, where the hero unites the masses by his
will, here the masses squeeze the hero out from among
themselves, endowing him with all their qualities, putting
him in a position where he cannot retreat, almost de-
priving him of his own will, which may not be in accord
with the will of the masses. They split his life with the
heavy blow of their impersonal power and lead him, un-
gratefully, on the painful way of sacrifice under a heavy
yoke which drags him to the ground."
The only ray of light in the gloomy and discordant pic-
ture of The Year is the dignity of labor on the soil. It
elevates and cleanses.
5. Sin. Novelette. (191 2.)
This is the bottom of misery and humiliation. It is a
nightmare. The story centers around a soldier who comes
home to his native village all saturated with the traditions
of barrack life, such as recklessness, lack of respect for
human dignity, and that particular contempt for civilians
which was carefully bred in the army under the old
V. V. MUJZHEL 291
regime. He is ill with an ugly disease, and he has heard
that innocent bodies are a cure to such diseases. . .. .
6. On the Edge of Life. Novelette. (1909.)
Put a number of refined and cultured revolutionaries
into the midst of a forlorn semi-savage little peasant
community thousands of miles away from civilization, and
you will have the contents of this story. Despair on the
side of the exiles, hatred on the side of the natives. Added
are hunger, physical discomfort, humiliations. The re-
sult is murder, suicide, and horror.
[Another work of significance, besides numerous stories of
revolt and prison, such as Nightmare, Criminals, etc., is Iron
in Hand, a Cross in the Heart, — volume of war sketches pub-
lished in 1915 containing observations on the East-Prussian
front.]
SEMYON YUSHKEVITCH (1868-)
The end of the nineteenth and the beginning of the twen-
tieth century saw the coming of a new crop of writers
who might be called the new realists (Gusev-Orenburgsky,
Seraphimovitch, Skitaletz, Teleshov, Yushkevitch, and
others). These writers are no "seekers." They are
not battling against universal problems. They are not
creators of new forms. They are not strikingly original.
Sometimes it is quite difficult to distinguish between the
style of one author and the other. What they do is to
observe honestly and to record truthfully the main cur-
rents of life as it rolls before their eyes.
None of these writers belongs to the first ranks of Rus-
sian literature; none will be called " the master of the
thought " of his generation. Yet they are respected and
loved as able exponents of the ideas that move their con-
temporaries. They are all good narrators. They have
color, imagination, a vivid dialogue, a sense of harmony.
In their manner, they mark a long step forward as com-
pared with the average realistic writings of the nine-
teenth century. They are quicker, bolder, more decisive,
and more accurate in their descriptions. They use a
more palpitating language, thus unconsciously following
the tempo of more restless times. And they are, on the
whole, more attractive reading, more shot through with
emotion than their predecessors of the same caliber.1
1 With these writers may also be classed Chirikov and Mujzhel.
(See respective chapters.)
292
SEMYON YUSHKEVTTCH 293
At heart, all these writers are dreaming of a beautiful
human life cloaked in light and warmed by genuine love.
Their ideal is vague, yet it makes them bitter opponents
of all the evil in life. Contrary to their symbolistic col-
leagues, they are inclined to seek the roots of evfl in
social conditions. They scrutinize men in their emotions
and passions, yet they invariably put their characters
into the broader social and political framework. They
are all adherents of progressive ideas, and a sympathy
for the radical social movements is manifest in their
works. The general reader was sometimes more eager to
read those works than the productions of the great
masters.
One of this set, perhaps one of the ablest, is Semyon
Yushkevitch. The realm of his observations is primarily
the Jewish life.
A world of pathetic contrasts enfolds before our eyes
in Yushkevitch's stories and plays. As he proceeds from
the upper to the lower strata of Jewish society, the burden
of oppression increases, yet the light of idealism becomes
brighter. Down below, in those crowded suburbs of mod-
ern industrial centers, where there is packed together the
most miserable portion of the most miserable people in
Russia, life is sheer agony. Men and women are stricken
dumb and stirred again to mad activity by the lash of
hunger. Yet the spirit is alive, the self-conscious per-
sonality attempts to assert itself, the protest is rampant,
and the pure flowers of dreams are in constant bloom.
There is poverty, but there is intelligence. There
is forced degradation, but the mass of the people
is inherently sound. There is injustice, but there is
not hatred, because people prefer to love than to
hate.
294 THE RECENT TIDE
Yushkevitch is one of the very few through whom
Russian society learned to trace the ramifications of an
evil regime in a portion of Russia whose life was not
familiar to it through personal experience.
i. Ita Heine. (1902.) \
2. Our Sisters. (1903.) I Novelettes.
3. The Street. (1911.) j
This is how Yushkevitch himself characterizes the
poorest class of Jews: " There were no chosen here, no-
body was spared. . . . Men ever howled for bread,
howled over their misery, howled with the hopeless sound
of despair. As if all hearts had melted into one heart,
pure human suffering flowed from a deep well, cutting
the soul like a sword. Nobody was spared. . . .
Fathers and mothers tormented themselves, nobody
knows why, and they lived like martyr-animals, from
morning to evening, from morning to evening. Crushed
by labor, hunger, worries, they still gave birth to chil-
dren, prepared them for the great service of life, and
boys and girls, knowing want from their early childhood,
were put into factories, shops, and plants where bodies
withered, youth evaporated. ... In the struggle for
bread, everything was grasped at, nothing was shunned,
neither prostitution, nor theft."
One of the occupations in the struggle for bread is the
service of a wet nurse as described in Ita Heine. Young
mothers, sometimes unhappy young girls, hire themselves
and their bodies to feed the children of the wealthy, while
their own children, their flesh and blood, are dying under
the cruel hand of a careless keeper. The traffic in wet
nurses is a history of complete misery and deprivation,
leading down to the street.
SEMYON YUSHKEVITCH 295
Another occupation is domestic service as described in
Our Sisters. Domestic servants in a backward and unor-
ganized society can hardly be distinguished from slaves.
The employers, families of the middle-class, lead an idle,
lazy, senseless life. The servants have no definite work-
ing hours, no rest, no rights. Worst of all — they are
made a plaything in the hands of the house-masters or
their sons, against whom they have no means of defense.
The work of the domestic servant often leads down to the
street.
And so we see in The Street all those outcasts of human
society shunned by all, yet recognized by law and con-
sidered an unavoidable evil. Yushkevitch goes to the
houses, the families of the girls, shows us their circum-
stances, gives details of the girls' efforts to find clean,
honest work sufficient to maintain themselves. He looks
into the souls of the poor victims, and the reader realizes
that underneath the misery and hideousness of their occu-
pation there is a human soul, crushed, trampled down,
bleeding, and yearning, eternally yearning for honesty,
purity, peace. . . . "Don't you see, we've got to live;
somehow we've got to," this is the ultimate justification
of all those horrors often recorded by Yushkevitch.
4. The Jews. Novel. (1904.)
A great stir has come over the poor suburb. Some new
God has touched the hearts of all those sufferers and
toilers. The forebodings of the revolution are in the air.
New hopes are dawning. Prophets are rising from the
dust; poor human frames, bent under the burden of op-
pression, straighten out, and words, awkward and un-
learned, but burning with fanatic faith, are warming
hearts. Zionism on one hand, — the hope for a speedy
296 THE RECENT TIDE
return to the land of the fathers; revolutionary doctrine
on the other hand, — the hope for a brotherly cooperation
of all Russian peoples in the glorious work of liberty.
A clash of ideals, a battle of convictions, — and over it
all, the shining vision of a better life. Love, young and
bashful, makes its appearance among youth, and then —
a mysterious hand spreading venom, a pogrom, blood and
death. . . .
The Jews made Yushkevitch very popular in Russia.
5. Hunger. Play in four acts. (1905.)
6. In Town. Play in four acts. (1906.)
The souls of people brought to despair by utter poverty,
yet resisting with all their might and unwilling to give
up the struggle, form the contents of both plays. It is
interesting to note the difference between Yushkevitch's
characters and the peasants of Mujzhel. The poverty and
the hopeless situation are the same, yet Yushkevitch's
people live in towns. They are more intelligent, more
alert. Their sufferings are more keenly felt and more
hysterically protested against.
7. Miserere. A lyric drama in eight scenes. (1911.)
The most poetic of Yushkevitch's works. Strains of
subdued music are sounding throughout the scenes, and
the dominant note is death. A group of young Jewish
boys and girls, working boys and working girls, who grew
up on the marshes of poverty, resemble a cluster of pale,
delicate flowers in the crack of a ruin. They pray for
sun, but the sun is shut out. They reach for life, but life
eludes them. They love, yet sadness cuts love at its
root. They are beautiful in their humane attitude and
in their ideals, but death weighs heavily on their bent
SEMYON YUSHKEVITCH 297
heads. They willingly pass away, to the sound of
music. . . .
Miserere was a favorite of the Russian stage.
[Other works of significance: The King, a play; The Comedy
of Marriage, a play ; Leon Drei, a novel in two volumes ;
Sketches from Childhood; Doves, tales from the life of doves,
and many short stories.]
S. I. GUSEV-ORENBURGSKY (1867-)
The life of the clergy, especially in the rural districts,
offers very instructive material to the student of Russia.
The rural clergy is in a double position. On one hand,
it comes into close contact with the poor peasant in his
most intimate personal and family affairs; on the other
hand, it is a member of a strong bureaucratic hierarchy
whose aim is anything but the welfare of the people.
On one hand, it is surrounded by primitive conditions,
away from the centers of civilization; on the other hand,
it feels itself entitled, by education and social position,
to a more cultured existence. On one hand, it is sup-
posed to be concerned with the highest spiritual values;
on the other, it is placed in a situation where the care
for daily bread and the worry for material things absorb
all the faculties.
The rural clergy receives no salary outside of a house
to live in and a piece of land. The minister's income con-
sists of fees collected from the parishioners for the per-
formance of religious ceremonies. As the peasants have
very little money, the fees are quite often presented in
kind: geese, chickens, eggs, bread. At any rate, this in-
volves a haggling between minister and peasant and is
quite injurious to the dignity of a clergyman. For the
meager living he is thus allowed to make, the minister is
supposed to obey rigidly all the orders from the bishop.
He is not allowed to hesitate, to have his personal opinion,
under the threat of being immediately transferred to a
worse and more distant parish or suspended from service.
298
S. I. GUSEV-ORENBURGSKY 299
The bishop of the province is the supreme power over
local ministers and no appeal is of any use.
" The entire order of life in this social class bears an archaic
stamp. It is the order of things as it existed before Peter
[the Great]. On the surface, old Russia is supposed to have
disappeared some two hundred years ago ; down in the depths,
however, it has still retained its power. Here the officers live
on fees collected for their maintenance; here people prostrate
themselves bodily before their superiors. Centuries have
brought almost no change in this social stratum. Of course,
the archbishop seems to be quite up to date; he studies Au-
gustinus, he is a conscious adherent of modern clericalism on
a nationalist basis, and is mentally superior to the bulk of the
clergy. Yet all his relations and endeavors remind you of the
Kiev school in the seventeenth century. It is ancient Russia,
its strength is still great; it is a factor of tremendous im-
portance and as such deserves careful attention."
N. Korobka.
However, in spite of distressing conditions, in spite of
harrowing loneliness in out-of-the-way barbarous vil-
lages, in spite of pressure from above and misery from
below, the spirit is not all dead, the conscience is not
extinguished. God's spark is often shining through the
mud and mist of humiliation and stupefaction. The
ministers are doing wrong but as a rule they do not rest
satisfied. They are tools in the hands of a strong and
sinister power, and are often aware of it. They help to
keep the people in ignorance and bondage, but they pro-
test inwardly and are not infrequently the most lamen-
table victims of a conflict between their duties before God
and their duties before human institutions.
The writer of our times who devoted most of his talent
to studies in the life of the clergy is Gusev-Orenburgsky.
Hardly any living man of letters knows this class better
3oo THE RECENT TIDE
than Gusev. An easy style, a conversational mode of
writing, and a colorful language make his short and long
stories very attractive reading.
i. Short Stories, (i 899-1 91 6.)
Gusev-Orenburgsky is a friend of the clergy. He does
not come to condemn. He comes to understand. He
brands nobody even for evil acts, he wants to lay bare
the springs of human actions. This is why his stories
contain both negative and positive types of clergymen.
The former are subservient to their superiors, they care
for their fields and orchards and cattle and poultry more
than for their spiritual flock, and they indulge in abun-
dant food and drinks. In many cases, they are hand in
glove with the local " fist," the rich peasant who exploits
his fellow-villagers. The positive types of clergymen are
idealistic, they help their parishioners both materially
and spiritually, they serve as their spokesmen before the
authorities, they participate in their mental and moral
struggles, and they help to combat the " fists."
The wives of the ministers are ordinarily more refined
than their husbands, and their loneliness is sometimes in-
tolerable. One of them says in a story by Gusev-Oren-
burgsky: " I have counted all the eggs, examined all the
chickens, played all the waltzes . . . and what now?
And thus to live all my life?! Year after year?! I'll
soon be aging, my face will become wrinkled, my eyes will
lose their luster. . . . I'll get spectacles, and still I'll go
on examining the chickens, counting the eggs, playing
the waltzes. ..."
2. The Land of the Fathers. Novel. (1905.)
" The land of the fathers is old Russia, the land of the chil-
dren is young Russia. They have come into conflict now, they
S. I. GUSEV-ORENBURGSKY 301
are brazenly facing each other, and there can be no peace.
The battle is raging all along the front ; the question is no more
who shall win, as the victory of the young is assured ; the ques-
tion is how soon the victory will come and how many painful
skirmishes will be required. . . . The clergy takes an impor-
tant part in the life of the village, and it has been touched by
the rebellious spirit of our times. City and town have drawn
closer in mutual influences, and a roaring stream is rushing
between banks recently quiet in a patriarchal complacency."
N. Asheshov.
Father Ivan, one of the main figures, is drawn into the
revolutionary movement. He feels " as if from the golden
peaks of a mountain range he saw boundless vistas,
flooded with the light of a morning sun." He takes off his
robe to serve the cause of the people.
3. Over the Madow. Novelette. (1909.)
A great stir has come over the land. Life is out of
joint. Old foundations are shaking under the onrush of
new forces. The clergy is restless. Hot waves of popu-
lar emotion, often moving in unhealthy channels, reach
the ministers, infect their souls, make them see new
visions. The spirit of mysticism awakens in a time of
popular upheavals. Religion and revolution are blended
in the dark depths of the masses.
Over the turmoil and haze of movements, clashes, and
despair, rises the calm figure of a minister who interprets
the Bible literally and finds in it all the ideals of equality,
brotherhood, justice. " Eternal justice must be restored,"
is his slogan. For this evangelical faith he is considered
a dangerous rebel.
4. Darkness. Novelette. (191 5.)
A forlorn poor village. A young minister adored by his
parish, an ideal shepherd of men. Economic work is
302 THE RECENT TIDE
united with the preaching of religious and moral ideals in
the work of this young idealist. He manifests strength
of will, courage, and a real sense of leadership. Under
his guidance the village improves considerably. This,
however, is to the disfavor of the local rich man who used
to hold the entire country in his grip. A visit to the
bishop makes him victorious over the minister. The lat-
ter dares to blame the bishop for a partial attitude. His
fate is sealed.
BORIS ZAITZEV (1881-)
Of all the voices in modern Russian literature, Zaitzev's
is the lowest. It is tender and fragile. It melts away in
the distance. It leaves the impression of a silent prayer.
Zaitzev writes stories. They tell real facts about real
people. They do not shun the mire and the evil of exist-
ence. Yet they always touch the strings of lyricism, and
longing rises in their wake, happy longing akin to sadness.
Zaitzev pictures life. He is in the midst of it. There
is strife and hatred and blood in his stories. There is the
clash of wills, of passions, of ideals. There is brutal
force often triumphant. Yet over the turmoil and the
ugly noises, Zaitzev spreads the cover of lofty silence.
It hangs over all and pacifies all and bridges the space
between the passing happenings of the earth and the silent
roads to eternity.
Zaitzev loves life, yet he is not afraid of death. Life
to him is a great unending festivity. The sun pours
gold into his heart and gives him the happiness of a child,
and he knows there is no dread in death. Death is only
one step to a new, light, and joyous existence. He knows
firmly " the gladness and the refreshingness of that which
is above life."
Zaitzev knows suffering. Yet he knows also the curing
power of love. Fundamentally man cannot be penetrated
by utter despair. Man breathes the soft air of love and
longing and is happy. Man is a vessel of happiness.
" When human souls blossom, thou givest them fragrance.
393
304 THE RECENT TIDE
When they perish, thou puttest ecstasy into them. Oh,
Eternal spirit of love, thou art triumphant! "
Zaitzev is the most ecstatic of all modern Russian
writers. He is like a saint that lives in the wilderness;
a man that has seen much pain and much travail and
much sin, and has retained a pure, kind, gentle soul able
to bless God for every ray of light, for every whiff of the
summer breeze. Zaitzev is drunk with joy, but he is
never riotous. Only his voice trembles with suppressed
emotion.
Zaitzev is religious, perhaps the only writer that does
not seek his God, because he has found Him. God ap-
pears to Zaitzev in nature, in the actions of men, in the
destinies of mankind. Zaitzev cannot call his God by
name — no religious man can — but he feels His presence
in those miraculous changes that come into a human soul
and lead it over new paths.
Zaitzev is close to nature as few of his contemporaries.
Nature to him is the mother of all; it is the great Whole
of which men and animals and flowers and fields are
only parts. Everything in nature is important, as every-
thing in life is full of meaning, and a man finds his real
self only in close communion with nature. " I could lie
for hours half sleeping on the sand," he speaks through
one of his persons, " I could listen to the ocean, observe
the endless course of the clouds. I experienced that de-
tachment from men and life, some return to the primeval
which must be known to anchorets and the founders of
monasteries. I did not feel any more that I was a mem-
ber of the bar, a member of society, and a man dressed
according to fashion. I would have been able to say in
the words of St. Francis: ' The ocean is my brother, the
clouds, the grasses, the sea-weeds are dear sisters of mine.'
BORIS ZAITZEV 305
Here I could have been as nude and mentally simple as
the children, the fishes, the butterflies."
Zaitzev has been compared frequently to an aquarelle
painter. His landscapes, characters, and happenings are
presented in tender, almost transparent hues. At the
same time, he has a peculiar inner strength, a subdued yet
never diminishing inner glow which makes every stroke
of his brush vibrate with warm though restrained life.
There have been no two opinions in Russia as to the
originality and beauty of his talent, and he quickly occu-
pied a place in the foremost ranks of modern Russian
writers.
" He is illuminated by the inner light of his idealism; he
has a transparent soul, and it is this soul that allows him to live
for the sake of beauty, to notice keenly hearts and nature, those
1 pale peach-colored carpets ' which the dawn brushes over the
sea, those ' black folds of the night ' in which wander robbing
and perishing people, that ' clear fragrance, the air which
seemed to condense into a wonderful winter-drink/ Zaitzev
is montonous, and there is no plot in his stories, no ' subject/
but there is quiet real life, the undulation of its moods, its
intangible solace and beauty. He has fine palaces and a great
hospitable heart; he is the psalmist of the human soul, the
David who stepped forth to fight the giant of the world's rag-
ing reality. To the horror and the drama of life, he opposed
himself, his radiance, his young though restrained triumphant
joy." J. ElCHENWALD.
It is natural that Zaitzev's persons are not men of
action. They are rather passive. They are clay in the
hands of Fate. This gave rise to a number of criticisms
which, far from disputing Zaitzev's talent, disagreed with
his conception of life. Here is a sample:
" In his stories, Zaitzev sketches a religious person who
merges into the cosmos, believes in the transformation of the
306 THE RECENT TIDE
flesh, in immortality, in God. We have a full-size portrait of
a will-less, passive, yielding person who blesses pain, has a
benign soul, is not very clever, and does not even need reason.
He is far from resembling that lightning-bearing creator of
life, the man girdled with the rainbow of knowledge and faith
who appeared in the visions of some mystic philosophers.
Zaitzev's man, in an aureole of tender Christian submissive-
ness, is inactive, he lacks creative power, and no social bonds
unite him with his fellow human beings."
M. Morozov.
i. Stories. ( 1904-19 17.)
It is almost impossible to make a selection from Zait-
zev's stories, all of which are of nearly equal value and
written in the same style. Six volumes of his collected
stories appeared between 1906 and 1916.
2. Far-Away Country. Novel. (1913.)
This is a typical novel of the life of the Russian intel-
ligentzia in the stormy years of 1904- 1906. Students;
students' unrest; demonstrations; aid for starving peas-
ants; revolutionary parties; terror; prison; exile; fugi-
tives abroad; tragedies of lost and found faith. Through
all this whirl of a great mass of humanity in upheaval,
Zaitzev leads with a gentle hand a number of young
men and women to the " far-away country," which may
be death for the sake of an ideal, and may be a life
full of work and sound endeavor. . . . Neither life nor
death is the end of things, and the " far-away country "
still lures with its mystic charm.
[Zaitzev is also the translator of Flaubert's St. Anthony's
Trials and A Simple Heart, and other works.]
APPENDIX
• APPENDIX
JUVENILE LITERATURE IN RUSSIA
In the year of Christ, 1903, the writer of these lines was
involved in a formidable conspiracy. Painfully he had
to guard every step lest he fall into the hands of the ever-
vigilant police. Furtively, under the cloak of night, he
had to steal to the place of his dangerous activities. With
the keenest attention he had to scrutinize the signs in the
windows of that mysterious little house in the suburb be-
fore he entered the low door. The sign denoting " dan-
ger " made his heart ache for the fate of the whole
enterprise.
And when at last he made his way to the spacious back-
room facing the cherry orchard, what did he find there?
A number of boys between the ages of fifteen and nine-
teen whom he, together with two other young students,
was teaching to read and write. Between lessons, we
were also telling the pupils stories from botany, geog-
raphy, or physics. In short, it was an evening school, for
boys who had received no school education. The aims
of our little undertaking were purely cultural: we wanted
to bring a spark of light into the lives of some young
artisans' apprentices in the town where we were spending
our summer vacation. We conducted no political propa-
ganda. We couldn't have done it if we had wanted to
because the level of understanding among the boys was
very low. Yet, had we been discovered by the Argus of
the gendarmery, we might have been tried for sedition.
309
310 APPENDIX
It is easy to imagine that in a country where educa-
tional work among the masses was facing obstacles of
such gravity; where teaching in an elementary school in
one of the forlorn villages was a series of heroic self-
sacrifices; where schools for adults, Sunday schools, pub-
lic lectures of every description were looked upon as so
many nests of destructive propaganda; where books were
scarce, libraries for the villagers very rare, and even the
sale of books to plain people considered undesirable
— it is easy to imagine that in a country of this kind,
where the overwhelming majority of the population is il-
literate, the book must have a totally different value from
that in any modern civilized country. One of the ever-
recurring sentimental topics of Russian journalism, fiction
and painting, is that keen-eyed, intelligent-looking school-
boy who reads before the adults of his family some of the
wonders contained in a book furnished by the teacher.
It is night. The low ceiling of the cabin is covered with
soot. The little oil lamp hardly flickers. Shadows are
hovering in every corner. Outside, the snow-storm is
raging. Close to the stove, in the circle of light, the
boy reads his story. Men with shaggy beards and heavy
fists, work-worn women in their fantastic shawls, the
old ghastly looking grandfather on top of the fireplace —
all listen attentively, with dreamy eyes, with an expres-
sion of bewilderment, delight, and appreciation. " Yes,
son, the book is a great thing," some one will thought-
fully sum up the impressions.
This unusually high value attached to the book through-
out the vast steppes of the Russian empire accounts for
one characteristic feature of Russian juvenile literature.
There is no marked distinction between books for chil-
dren and books for uneducated adults. In the majority
JUVENILE LITERATURE IN RUSSIA 311
of cases, both classes merge into one. It seems as if the
Russian genius found it too extravagant to expend national
intellectual energy on the creation of a specific literature
suited to the psychology and understanding of children.
It favored rather a popular literature of a general char-
acter where every person, young or old, may find delight
and profit. Opinions of this kind were voiced more than
once by the leading thinkers of Russia. " What is the
characteristic feature of a story for children? " asks
Byelinsky, the great critic of the forties. " A story of this
kind," he says, " is clumsily put together and is strewn
over with moral sentences. The aim of such works is
to deceive the children, to distort the face of life." That
should not be. If you want to write for children, the
critic says, do so, but " create narratives and pictures full
of life and motion, permeated with enthusiasm, warm
with emotion, written in an easy, free, playful, colorful
yet simple language, and be sure that your work will form
the most solid foundation and the most effective means of
education. Write for children, if you wish, but write in
a manner that your book may be read by an adult with
equal pleasure." A similar thought is expressed in a
more drastic language by Pisarev, the leading critic and
publicist of the sixties. "Literature for children," he
writes, " is a miserable, adulterated, and utterly artificial
branch of general literature. No place should be given
in school libraries to literature for children. Such libra-
ries should be open for pupils who are in a position to
read with pleasure and understand books written for
adults. What books, then, should form a library for
pupils? The works of the best fictionists and critics,
Russian, French and German, descriptions of famous
travels, historical works, and popular books on all
3i2 APPENDIX
branches of science." In our times, Rubakin, the famous
bibliophile, author of numerous popular books and com-
piler of the most serious systematic catalogue of Russian
literature, expressed the same idea. " A library for chil-
dren," he writes, " ought to be constructed on the same
principle as a library for adults, with the sole difference
that the books contained in the children's department
should be interesting for children and accessible to their
understanding. The word accessible, however, allows
for no arbitrary interpretation. Accessibility is a ques-
tion of form, not of contents. The most abstract thought
can be made accessible to the child's understanding if it
is illustrated by a series of concrete facts and if the facts
are grouped in a way to make the reader proceed from the
less difficult to the more difficult item. . . . This is no
theoretical assertion; it is derived from all our activities
at popularizing science." Rubakin insists on giving
children a maximum of freedom in choosing reading
matter.
It was in conformity with this idea that specific juvenile
literature was not looked upon with favor by the best
elements of the Russian intelligentzia. This does not
mean that Russia lacked writers who published special
magazines for children or compiled sentimental stories to
be read in the children's rooms of more or less wealthy
families. Some of these writers even attained great fame
among their little readers. Yet the progressive Russian
looked askance at all such writings. Sugar-coated stories
stuffed with moral preachings were not to his taste.
Producers of such works were outside the pale of litera-
ture. In fact, not one " children's author " gained recog-
nition in Russia as equal to the " real " writers.
What, then, is the literature that the thinking Russian
JUVENILE LITERATURE IN RUSSIA 313
deems worthy of circulating among the children and,
equally, among the plain people? These are, first of all,
the creations of the primitive popular genius: fairy-tales
(skazki), hero songs (byliny), legends, collected and
partly put into modern language. Russian folklore is
an inexhaustible source of poetic creations. Those crea-
tions, however, lack the refinements of the Hellenic epics
or the exuberant fantasy and color of the Hindu tales.
Russian folklore is of a more realistic kind. Personified
forces of nature do not seem out of place in a country
which has retained much of its primitive simplicity.
Domestic and wild animals fit well into the scheme of
rural life dominating Russia even at present. This makes
Russian folklore welcome reading for the family and
school. Russian fairy tales in certain ways represent a
good picture of the Russian national character. Their
humor is genuine and refreshing. Many a great writer,
notably the poets Pushkin, Zhukovsky, Count Alexey Tol-
stoi, and Koltzov, have created beautiful legends, songs,
and ballads on themes borrowed from folklore. These
are being read, perhaps, with more delight than even the
original tales. In recent years, many talented artists
have devoted much fond attention to illustration for fairy-
tales. The name of Bilibin stands out as the most famous
among these artists.
The volume of reading matter for the young and for
the unsophisticated adult, however, is composed of the
works of the best Russian writers, classical as well as
modern. In a model catalogue for children between the
ages of nine and eleven, I find works of Bunin, Gogol,
Grigorovitch, Garshin, Gorky, Krylov, Korolenko, Ku-
prin, Mamin-Sibiryak, Machtet, Nikitin, Nekrasov3
Nemirovitch-Danchenko, Pushkin, Zhukovsky, Stan-
3i4 APPENDIX
yukovitch, Seroshevsky, Seraphimovitch, Tolstoi, Tur-
genev, Chekhov, and others, — all writers for adults. It is
the contention of pedagogues that what is good for adults
is good for the little ones, provided they understand it.
Fortunately, almost every great Russian writer created
a number of stories of such lucidity, simplicity, and hu-
manness as to make them, sometimes in an abridged
form, superb reading for children. Nothing can equal
such stories as The Captain's Daughter by Pushkin; The
Cloak by Gogol; The Diary of a Sportsman by Turgenev,
or those wonderful popular stories by Leo Tolstoi which
are being circulated by the millions all over Russia.
Through such works, the young reader learns early to
appreciate good realistic literature and to love his classics.
Excerpts from the writers for adults form also the main
body of readers used in the classroom.
A third category of Russian juvenile literature is popu-
lar works on natural sciences, including geography and
travel. A fourth, by far not the least important, is trans-
lations from foreign languages. In the above-mentioned
catalogue, we find such names as De Amicis, Auerbach,
Baron Muenchhausen, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Bret
Harte, Braddon, Defoe, Dickens, Daudet, Eliot, Goethe,
Malot, Aldrich, Pressense, Rosegger, Saunders, Mark
Twain, Oscar Wilde, etc. It may be interesting to know
that Uncle Tom's Cabin and The Prince and the Pauper
rank among the most popular books in Russia. Not long
ago, Fenimore Cooper and Captain Mayne Reid were
among the favorites.
It seems that America has not been as eager to trans-
late from Russian authors for her children, as Russia has
been to translate American authors. The number of
translations from Russian we find in such a good collec-
JUVENILE LITERATURE IN RUSSIA 315
tion of juvenile books as the children's department of the
Astor Library in the City of New York is very limited.
In fact, nothing but a few fairy-tale books are available.
Of these, Leonard A. Magnus's Russian Folk Tales repre-
sents the most complete collection of fopular fairy-tales
and is very close to the original. It gives a very adequate
presentation of the character of Russian folklore. The
translations are made from the original Afanasyev collec-
tion, which is considered one of the best in Russia. Post
Wheeler's Russian Wonder Tales is less complete, yet it
has the advantage of twelve Bilibin illustrations which,
though very much smaller than the original Russian pic-
tures, give the book an artistic touch. Arthur Ransome's
Old Peter's Russian Tales with illustrations by the Rus-
sian artist, Mitrokhin, is wholly charming. The book
represents Russian fairy-tales retold in a modern manner,
and its illustrations are vivid and full of fancy. Richard
Wilson's Russian Story Book, representing a prose trans-
lation of some heroic epics originally composed in loose
verse, gives the contents of those epics but hardly con-
veys their spirit. For very little readers, Russian Picture
Tales by Valery Car rick is highly recommended. Car-
rick's little fairy albums enjoy widespread recognition in
Russia.
In conclusion, may we not suggest a few Russian books
which, in our opinion might be welcome in any library for
children, the world over? Leo Tolstoi's collection of
popular stories is one of such books; Mamin-Sibiryak's
tales, another. Of the modern writers, Kuprin has written
a number of realistic stories for children that are very at-
tractive. Collections of stories from the works of various
Russian classics, for the reading of young Americans,
would be advisable. Many such stories have already
3i6 APPENDIX
been translated, but they are strewn among other works
of the respective authors. Pushkin's fairy tales in verse,
with illustrations by Bilibin, still await their reincarnation
in English. The translator, however, must be a poet by
the grace of God, to be able to put the beauty, ease, and
musical charm of Pushkin into English.
INDEX
Adrianov, on Ropshin's Pale
Hors-e, 278-279.
Aksakov, Iv. S., on S. T.
Aksakov, 50.
Aksakov, S. T., as nobleman,
3; describing patriarchal Rus-
sia, 9; character and works,
49-Si.
Almanacs, in twentieth century,
218-219.
Andreyev, vii ; controversy over,
viii ; creative personality and
works, 230-239.
Andreyevitch, see Solovyov,
Evgeny.
Anitchkov, on Mamin-Sibir-
yak's Ural Stories, 138; on
Balmont, 175.
Arabazhin, on Lermontov's
Demon, 30; on Andreyev, 233,
234; on Andreyev's Life of
Man, 237.
Army, in Kuprin's Duel, 248-
249.
Arsenyev, on Vladimir So-
lovyov's poems, 112; on
Kuprin, 246-247.
Artzybashev, creative person-
ality and work, 265-269.
Asheshov, on Gusev-Orenburg-
sky's Land of the Fathers,
300-301.
Balmont, vi; on poetry, 162; on
the language, 167-168; creative
personality and works, 171-
176.
Batyushkov, on Alexey Tol-
stoi's poems, 94; on Alexey
Tolstoi's Trilogy, 95; on
Dostoyevsky's Crime and Pun-
ishment, 106; on Dostoyev-
sky's Idiot, 108; on Dostoyev-
sky's Brothers Karamasov,
108-109; on Bunin's poems,
254-255.
Berdyayev, on Vladimir So-
lovyov, in.
Block, creative personality and
works, 195-196.
Boborykin, character and works,
140-142.
Bogdanovitch, on Lyeskov, 122;
on Lyeskov's At Knives'
Points, 124; on Kuprin's
stories, 247-248.
Bourgeoisie, see Middle-Class.
Brodsky, on Koltzov, 34; on
Chernyshevsky's What Is To
Be Donef 60.
Bryusov, vi; on Tyutchev's
lyrical poems, 92; on the iden-
tity of the real and the im-
aginary world, 164; picturing
the industrial city, 166; crea-
tive personality and works,
177-179.
Bugayev, see Byely.
Bunin, vii; creative personal-
ity and works, 251-256.
Bureaucracy, ridiculed in Gri-
boyedov's Misfortune of Rea-
son, 22-23; in Gogol's Con-
troller General, 45-46.
Burenin, on Turgenev's Diary
of a Sportsman, 78.
Byelinsky, as leader, n-12; on
Poltava, 19; on Griboyedov,
24; on Lermontov, 29; on Ler-
montov's Lyrical Poems, 29-
30; creative personality and
works, 35-40; on juvenile lit-
erature, 311.
Byely, on Merezhkovsky, 181-
182 ; on Sologub, 187 ; creative
personality and works, 199-206.
317
3i8
INDEX
Bykov, on Garin, 147; on
Garin's Rural Panorama, 150.
Character, National, in Gon-
tcharov's Oblomov, 73-74.
Chekhov, creative personality
and works, 143-146.
Chernyshevsky, as leader, 11-
12; character and works, 59-
61.
Chirikov, vi; character and
works, 270-276.
City, keenly felt in works of
modernists, 166; in Bryusov's
poems, 177-178; in the works
of the twentieth century,
210.
Clergy, in the works of Lyeskov,
124-125; in the works of
Gusev-Orenburgsky, 208-302.
Critics, leading role of, in nine-
teenth century, 11-12; losing
leadership, in twentieth cen-
tury, 219.
Darsky, on Tyutchev, 89-90.
Derman, on Gorky, 224; on
Gorky's Mother, 227-228; on
Sergeyev-Tzensky, 259.
Dobrolyubov, critic and leader,
11-12; on Ostrovsky's Storm,
54-
Dolinin, on Merezhkovsky as
author of historic novels, 182;
on Merezhkovsky's Leonardo
da Vinci, 183.
Dostoyevsky, creative personal-
ity and works, 101-109.
Druzhinin, on Foeth, 98.
Eichenwald, on Pushkin, 16-17;
on Pushkin's Boris Godounov,
20; on Gontcharov, 72-73; on
Foeth, 99-100; on L. N.
Tolstoi, 114-115; on Uspensky,
130; on Chekhov's works, 146;
on Korolenko, 152; on Bunin's
poems, 254; on Zaitzev, 305.
Ellis, on Gogol, 43.
Foeth, vi; free from gloom, 8;
outside of general stream of
poetry, 12; on Tyutchev's
lyrical poems, 91-92; creative
personality and works, 97-100.
Garin-Mikhaylovsky, creative
personality and works, 147-
151.
Garshin, creative personality
and works, 82-84.
Gippius, 159; on religion, 163-
164; as urban writer, 166.
Gogol, first to picture decay of
feudal system, 9; interested in
(Ukrainian) peasantry, 9-10;
on Pushkin, 15-16, 17; crea-
tive personality and works,
41-48.
GOLENISHCHEV-K UTUZOV, On
Bunin's style, 253.
Golovin, on Lyeskov's Church-
men, 125-126.
Gontcharov, as nobleman, 3;
describing national inertia, 9;
on Griboyedov's Misfortune
of Reason, 24; creative per-
sonality and works, 7I-75-
Gorky, attacks at, viii; creative
personality and works, 222-
229.
Gornfeld, on Tyutchev, 90-91 ;
on Sologub, 187; on Sologub's
Little Demon, 189; on Ser-
geyev-Tzensky, 259-260.
Griboyedov, creative personality
and works, 22-24.
Grigorovitch, vi; slow in man-
ner, 11.
Grigoryev, A., on Turgenev's
Diary of a Sportsman, 78.
Grigoryev, R., on Gorky, 224-
225.
Grinevitch, see Yakubovitch.
Gruzinsky, on Turgenev, 76-
77; on Turgenev's Short
Stories, 77; on Turgenev's
New Earth, 81.
Gusev-Orenburgsky, vi ; char-
acter and works, 298-302.
Gymnasium, in Garin's Gym-
nasium Pupils, 149.
Hofman, on Block, 195.
Ignatov, on Lermontov, 28-29;
INDEX
3*9
on Reshetnikov's Those of
Podlipovka, 56; on Mamin-
Sibiryak, 138.
Individualism, in some works of
twentieth century, 215-216.
Intelligentzia, Evgeny Onegin
as a representative of, 18;
mistrusted by Lyeskov, 121;
represented by Andreyev, 232;
depicted by Veresayev, 240;
against the background of
provincial conservatism in
Chirikov's works, 272-273; in
Zaitzev's Far-Away Country,
306.
Ivanov, V., creative personality
and works, 197-198.
Ivanov-Razumnik, on Lermon-
tov, 28; on Tolstoi's War and
Peace, 116-117; on Byely,
199 ; on Sergeyev-Tzensky,
260, 262.
Izmailov, on Block, 195; on.
Block's Songs of the Beauti-
ful Lady, 196; on Ivanov, 197-
198; on Veresayev's Pathless,
241.
Jews, sympathized with in
Korolenko's Yom-Kipur, 153 ;
in Chirikov's Jews, 275; in
Yushkevitch's works, 293-
297.
Juvenile literature, 309-315.
Kallash, on Kaltzov, 34.
Kavyelin, on Byelinsky, 38-39.
Kogan, on Tolstoi's War and
Peace, 117; on Byely, 202.
Koltonovskaya, on Garshin,
83 ; on Veresayev, 241 ; on
Veresayev's Towards Life,
243; on Kuprin's Duel, 248-
249; on Kuprin's Leastry-
gonians, 250; on Bunin's Vil-
lage, 256.
Koltzov, vi ; as raznotchinetz, 4 ;
as revelation of people's spirit,
9; creative personality and
works, 33-34-
Korobka, on Gogol's Dead
Souls, 47; on Gusev-Oren-
burgsky, 299.
Korolenko, 6; on Garshin, 83;
character and works, 152-153.
Korolitzky, on Gorky, 228-229.
Kotlyarevsky, on Byelinsky,
39; on Gogol, 44-45-
Kozlovsky, on Andreyev's Black
Masks, 235; on Andreyev's
Judas Iscariot, 236; on An-
dreyev's Ocean, 238.
Kranichfeld, on Nekrasov, 68;
on Shchedrin's Monrepos,
128; on Sologub's Witchcraft,
190; on Bunin's poems, 254.
Kuprin, creative personality and
works, 245-250, 315.
Language, Russian, hardly
changing in literature up to
nineties, 12; revolutionized by
modernists, 167-168.
Lermontov, vi; as nobleman, 3;
character and works, 25-32.
Lerner, on Lyeskov, 122; on
Lyeskov's Enchanted Wan-
derer, 125.
Life, National, in the sixties, in
Nekrasov's Who Lives Well in
Russia?, 68-69; in the early
nineteenth century, in Tol-
stoi's War and Peace, 116-118;
in the early eighteenth cen-
tury, in Merezhkovsky's Peter
and Alexis, 184; in Block's
Poems on Russia, 196; in pro-
vincial towns, described by
Chirikov, 270-271.
Literature, Russian, reproducing
spiritual struggles, v; depict-
ing everyday existence, v;
largely a product of the no-
bility up to the nineties, 3-4;
a substitution for public activi-
ties in nineteenth century, 4-6;
as a serious occupation, 6-8;
as voicing a sick conscience, 8;
as describing the character of
the nation, 8-9; scrutinizing
the village, 9-10; slow in man-
ner and style up to end of
nineteenth century, 10-11 ; lack-
ing external perfection, 10-11;
leading place of critic in, 11-
12; almost uniform in Ian-
320
INDEX
guage up to nineties, 12-13;
breathing new life in the last
quarter century, 13 ; modern-
ist school of, 157-170; center
of gravity moving to cities in
twentieth century, 209-210;
agrarian revolts as a new
theme, 210-21 1 ; depicting revo-
lutionary movements, 212;
questioning fundamentals, 212-
213; undergoing changes ac-
cording to prevailing vogue,
213-214 ; discussing religion,
214-215; sometimes cherishing
individualism, 215-216; born
on a sex-tide after 1005, 216-
218; more flexible in recent
times, 217-218; reforming the
language and style in twentieth
century, 218; using the al-
manac, 218-219; no more led
by critics, 219; and the world
war, 220-221 ; juvenile, 309-
315.
Lunatcharsky, on religion,
214-215.
Lvov-Rogatchevsky, on Gorky's
Philistines, 227; on Veresayev,
240 ; on Veresayev's Conta-
gious Disease, 242; on Ser-
geyev-Tzensky, 260; on Artzy-
bashev, 266.
Lyatzky, on Gontcharov's Ob-
lomov, 74.
Lyeskov, first to sketch clergy,
9; creative personality and
works, 121-125.
Maikov, vi.
Mamin-Sibiryak, creative per-
sonality and works, 136-139;
tales for children, 315.
Marxists, 5-6; attitude towards
peasantry, 6; attitude towards
industrial workers, 6; opposed
to Mikhaylovsky, 131.
Melshin, see Yakubovitch.
Merezhkovsky, on Gogol, 44;
on Gontcharov, 73; on Dos-
toyevsky, 104- 105; on autoc-
racy, 161 ; on Christianity, 163 ;
creative personality and works,
180-185.
Middle-class, pictured by Os-
trovsky, 52-55 ; modern, dis-
covered by Shchedrin, 126,
128; rise of, pictured by
Boborykin, 140-142; decay of,
in Gorky's Philistines, 227.
Mikhaylovsky, as leader, 11-
12; on Ostrovsky, 53; on Gar-
shin's stories, 84; on Uspen-
sky, 129-130; character and
works, 131-133; ridiculing the
modernists, 169-170.
Minsky, vi.
Modernists, appearance of, 13;
Mikhaylovsky opposed to, 132 ;
social background of, 157-159;
as a distinct group, 159; as
aloof from social problems,
160-162; indifferent to peas-
antry, 161 ; not hostile to
autocracy, 161 ; embodying in
words the finest shades of
emotion, 162-163; adhering to
an idealistic philosophy, 163;
conceiving poetry as a road to
the mystic reality of life, 164;
opposed to restriction of per-
sonal freedom, 165 ; children
of the city, 166; influenced by
foreign poets, 166-167; revolu-
tionizing Russian language,
167-168; not decadents, 168;
severely criticized at the out-
set, 169-170.
Morozov, on Zaitzev, 305-306.
Moscow, in Boborykin's novels,
141.
Moujik, see Peasantry.
Mujzhel, vi ; creative personal-
ity and works, 287-291.
Nadson, creative personality and
works, 86-87.
Narodniki, 5-6; attitude to-
wards peasantry, 5-6; repre-
sented in Turgenev's New
Earth, 80-81 ; Uspensky as one
of, 129.
Nekrasov, vi; writing of peas-
ants' sufferings, 10; creative
personality and works, 68-70.
Nevedomsky, on Mamin-Sibir-
yak, 137.
INDEX
321
Nezelyonov, on Turgenev's No-
bleman's Nest, 79.
Nihilists, general characteristics,
79-80 ; in Turgenev's Fathers
and Children, 80; mistrusted
by Lyeskov, 121 ; in Lyeskov's
Nowhere and At Knives'
Points, 123-124.
Nikitin, v; as raznotchinetz, 4.
Nikolsky, on Foeth, 100.
Nobility, producing major part
of literature in nineteenth cen-
tury, 3-4; conscious of debt to
the people, 8; represented in
Pushkin's Evgeny Onegin, 18;
represented in Griboyedov's
Misfortune of Reason, 22-23 >
disintegration of, represented
in Gogol's Dead Souls, 47-48;
pictured at its best by Ak-
sakov, 49-50; in the works of
Turgenev, 77, 79 ; thinking ele-
ments of, in Tolstoi's Anna
Karenina, 116; decay of, in
Shchedrin's Family Golovlev,
127; impoverished in Bunin's
works, 251, 252.
Omeltchenko, on Artzybashev,
265; on Artzybashev's Sanin,
268-269.
Ostrovsky, vii ; introducing the
middle-class, 9; creative per-
sonality and works, 52-55-
OVSYANIK O-KULIKOVSKY, On
Pushkin, 18; on Dostoyevsky's
Brothers Karamazov, 109; on
Shchedin, 127; on Uspensky's
In the Grip of the Earth, 130;
on Boborykin's Men of Af-
fairs, 140- 141.
Peasantry, reverence of Narod-
niki for, 5-6; attitude of
Marxists towards, 6; a mys-
tery to the Russian mind, 9-
10; unaware of its power, 10;
under serfdom in the works of
Aksakov, 49; half-savages in
the works of Reshetnikov, 56;
family life in Nekrasov's Red
Nose Frost, 69-70; human
qualities of, in Turgenev's
Diary of a Sportsman, 77-78,
agricultural life in Uspensky's
works, 130; darkness of, in
Garin's A Few Years in the
Village and Rural Panorama,
149-150; new types of, in lit-
erature of twentieth century,
21 1 ; rebellious in Gorky's
Summer, 228; savage in
Bunin's works, 252-253, 255;
afflicted with suffering in
Muizhel's works, 287-291.
Pereverzev, on Gogol, 45; on
Gogol's Dead Souls, 47-48.
Petersburg, see Petrograd.
Petrograd, represented in Push-
kin's Copper Rider, 20; in
Dostoyevsky's Crime and Pun-
ishment, 106.
Pisarev, as leader, 11-12; char-
acter and works, 62-66; on
Gontcharov's Oblomov, 74; on
Turgenev's Fathers and Chil-
dren, 80; on juvenile litera-
ture, 311-312.
Pisemsky, vi; slow in manner,
11.
Plekhanov, on Byelinsky, 39;
on Chernyshevsky's What Is
To Be Done? 59-6o; on
Ropshin's What Never Hap-
pened, 279-280.
Polonsky, vi.
POTAPENKO, Vi.
Prison-life, in the works of
Yakubovitch, 134- 135.
Protopopov, on Aksakov's Fam-
ily Chronicles, 50-51.
Pushkin, vi; as nobleman, 3;
exemplary in poetic language
up to the nineties, 12; crea-
tive personality and works,
14-21, 314.
Pyast, on Ivanov, 198; on
Byely's Symphonies, 203.
Pypin, on Pushkin, 16.
Radlov, on Vladimir Solovyov,
IIO-III.
Raznotchinetz, 4; gloomy on
account of Russian chaos, 8.
Religion, in Dostoyevsky's
works, 101-109; in Tolstoi's
322
INDEX
works, 114-119; in works of
modernists, 163; in literature
of twentieth century, 214-215;
in Gorky's Confessions, 228.
Remizov, creative personality
and works, 281-286.
Reshetnikov, as raznotchinetz,
4; describing savagery of peo-
ple, 10; creative personality
and works, 56.
Revolution, period of, in Russia,
209; main topic of literature
in twentieth century, 212;
foreboded in Gorky's early
works, 222-223; in Gorky's
Mother, 227-228; in An-
dreyev's King Hunger, 237;
moods of intellectuals in
Veresayev's works, 242-243 ;
various aspects of, in Artzy-
bashev's works, 267-268; dis-
carding fighters of old type,
in Chirikov's works, 275; and
professional revolutionists, in
Ropshin's works, 278-280; ex-
iles, in Mujzhel's On Edge of
Life, 291 ; and the clergy, in
Gusev-Orenburgsky's works,
300-301.
Ropshin (Savinkov) works,
277-280.
Rubakin, on juvenile literature,
312.
Russanov, on Mikhaylovsky,
131-132.
Ryedko, on Yakubovitch's In the
World of Castazvays, 135.
Saltykov (Shchedrin), vii; cre-
ative personality and works,
126-128.
Savinkov, see Ropshin.
Shchedrin, see Saltykov.
Sementkovsky, on Lyeskov's
Bullsheep, 123.
Serfdom, see Peasantry.
Sergeyev-Tzensky, vii; creative
personality and works, 257-
264.
Siberia, in the works of Mamin-
Sibiryak, 136-139; in Koro-
lenko's stories, 152-153.
Skabitchevsky, on Ostrovsky,
53; on Lyeskov's Nowhere,
123; on Boborykin, 140.
Slavophils, 5.
Sologub, creative personality
and works, 186-191.
Solovyov, Evgeny (Andreye-
vitch), on Lermontov, 27; on
Gorky's Foma Gordyeyev, 226.
Solovyov, Vladimir, on Ty-
utchev, 90; on Alexey Tolstoi,
93; character and works, 110-
113.
Stanyukovitch, vi.
Strakhov, on Turgenev's Fa-
thers and Children, 80; on
Foeth's poems, 08-99.
Styeklov, on Chernyshevsky's
What Is To Be Done? 59.
Tchukovsky, on Bryusov, 178;
on Bryusov's Stephanos, 178-
1.79.
Tolstoi, Alexey, as nobleman,
3; free from gloom, 8; crea-
tive personality and works,
93-95.
Tolstoi, L. N., as nobleman, 3;
creative personality and works,
114-119; viewed by Merezh-
kovsky, 185; author of tales
for the people, 315.
Turgenev, vii; as nobleman, 3;
sees human being in peasant,
9; portraying peasants, 10;
exemplary in prose language
in nineteenth century, 12; on
Pushkin,^ 14 ; on Aksakov's
Notes of a Hunter, 51 ; crea-
tive personality and works,
76-81.
Tyutchev, outside of general
stream of poetry, 12; creative
personality and works, 88-92.
Ukrainia, folk beliefs in Gogol's
tales, 45; in Korolenko's
stories, 153.
Uspensky, vii, 6; observer of
peasant life, 10; slow in man-
ner, 11: general character and
works, 129-130.
Vengerov, on Aksakov's Family
INDEX
323
Chronicles, 50; on Turgenev's
Diary of a Sportsman, 78; on
Balmont, 174-175.
Veresayev, creative personality
and works, 240-244.
Veselovsky, on Griboyedov,
23-
Volynsky, on Dostoyevsky's
Idiot, 107; on the critic's task,
165; character and works,
192-194.
Vygodsky, on Balmont, 175.
Vyetrinsky, on Dostoyevsky,
105.
Weinberg, on Ostrovsky, 54; on
Nekrasov's Who Lives Well in
Russia ? 69.
Westerners, 5.
Working-Class, more enlight-
ened than peasantry, 210;
hailing Gorky's return home,
225; represented in Nil, the
hero of Gorky's Philistines,
227; changing under influence
of an ideal, in Gorky's
Mother, 227-228.
World-War, in Sologub's War
Poems, 191 ; and Russian lit-
erature, 220-221 ; in Chirikov's
War Sketches, 276.
Yakubovitch, P. (P. Ya., Mel-
shin, Grinevitch), 6; character
and works, 134-135.
Yelpatievsky, on Gar in, 148.
Yushkevitch, vi,* creative per-
sonality and works, 292-297.
Zaitzev, creative personality and
works, 303-306.
Zlatovratsky, 11.
V
14 DAY USE ^
RSTURK TO DESK FROM WHIOI BORROWED
LOAN DEPT.
BEC'DLD NOW
v^t^sf
LD2lA-40m-3,'72
(Qll738l0)476-A-32
General Library
University of California
Berkeley
■L&£22!£LEY LIBRARIES
CDS133SflSl
Live Music Archive
Librivox Free Audio
Metropolitan Museum
Cleveland Museum of Art
Internet Arcade
Console Living Room
Books to Borrow
Open Library
TV News
Understanding 9/11