A group of sixty-seven Russian writers and publicists,
comprising the best men of letters of the nation, with the
exception of Vladimir Korolenko, who is at present in
France, have signed a reply to the tribute to the writers of
Russia by English men of letters, a translation of which was
printed in CURRENT HISTORY for February, 1915. The text of
the reply, given below, is taken from the Moscow daily
newspaper, Outro Rossii; its translation into English by Leo
Pasvolsky appeared in the New York Evening Post of June
20th.
We have known you for a long time. We have known you since we Russians
came to a communion with Western Europe and began to draw from the
great spiritual treasury created by our brethren of Western Europe.
From generation to generation we have watched intently the life of
England, and have stored away in our minds and our hearts everything
brilliant, peculiar, and individual, that has impressed itself upon
the English word, the English thought, and the English life.
We have always wondered at the breadth and the manifoldness of the
English soul, in whose literature one finds, side by side, Milton and
Swift, Scott and Shelley, Shakespeare and Byron. We have always been
amazed by the incessant and constantly growing power of civic life in
England; we have always known that the English people was the first
among the peoples of the world to enter upon a struggle for civic
rights, and that nowhere does the word _freedom_ ring so proud and so
triumphant as it does in England.
With wonder and veneration, have we watched the English people, that
combines the greatest idealism with the most marvellous creative
genius, that constantly transforms words into deeds, aspirations into
actions, thoughts and feelings into institutions, go onward, from step
to step, reaching out into the heavens, yet never relinquishing the
earth, higher and higher along its triumphant road, still onward in
its work of creating the life of England.
Kingdoms and peoples, cultures and institutions, pass away like
dreams. But thoughts and words remain, whether they be of white men,
or black, or yellow, whether they be of Jews or of Hellenes, whether
they be inscribed on slabs of stone, or on boards of clay, or on
strips of papyrus. Words and thoughts live to the present day; they
still move us and uplift us, even though we have already forgotten the
names of those who spoke them. And we know that only the winged words
live on, the words that are intelligible to the whole of mankind, that
appeal to the whole of humanity, to the common human mind, the common
heart.
We know the vast power of the English word. We know what a marvellous
contribution the English writers have made to the life not of England
alone, but to that of the whole world, the whole humanity. It is with
a feeling of long-standing affection and veneration that we turn to
the ancient book, called "England," whose pages never grow yellow,
whose letters are never effaced, whose thoughts never become dim,
whose new chapters bear witness to the fact that the book is still
being written, that new pages are still being added, and that these
new pages are permeated with that same bright and powerful spirit of
humanity that illumines and enlivens the pages of the past.
We feel proud because you have recognized the great individual worth
of the Russian literature, and we are moved by your ardent expressions
of sympathy and friendship. You scarcely know what Lord Byron was to
us at the dawn of our literature, how our greatest poets, Poushkin and
Lermontov, were swayed by him. You scarcely know to what an extent the
Shakespearean Hamlet, the Prince of Denmark, has become a part of our
literature, how near to us is Hamlet's tragedy.
We, too, pronounce the names of Copperfield and Snodgrass with a
little difficulty, but the name of Dickens is as familiar to us and as
near to our hearts as the names of some of our own writers.
We trust, and we even permit ourselves to hope, that our friendship
will not end on the fields of battle, but that our mutual
understanding will continue to grow, as it lives on together with
those sincere and heartfelt words, with which you have addressed us.
We trust that it will be transformed into a spiritual unity between
us, a unity based on the universal achievements of the spirit of
humanity.
We trust even further. We trust that evil will finally become
extinguished in the hearts of men, that mutual ill-feeling will be
bitter and poignant no longer, and that, when ears of corn will be
again fluttering upon the fields, mutilated by trenches and ramparts,
and drenched in human blood, when wild flowers will begin to grow over
the countless unknown graves, time will come, when the nations that
are separated by such a tremendous gulf today, will come together
again upon the one great road of humanity and will turn back once more
to the great, universal words, that are common to all men.
We trust, and we hope.
Greetings to you.
(Signed)
L. ANDREEV,
K. ARSENIEV,
I. BUNIN,
U. BUNIN,
I. BELOUSOV,
M. GORKY,
V. VERESAEV,
A. GRUSINSKY,
N. DAVYDOV,
S. ELPATIEVSKY,
I. IGNATOV,
S. MELGUNOV,
A. SERAFIMOVICH,
N. TELESHOV,
I. SHMELEV,
N. MOROZOV,
COUNT A.N. TOLSTOY,
N. RUSANOV,
F. KRIUKOV,
A. GORNFELD,
A. PIESHECHONOV,
N. KAREYEV,
F. BATUSHKOV,
L. PANTELEYEV,
N. KOTLIAREVSKY,
V. MIAKOTIN,
V. VODOVOSOV,
P. SAKULIN,
OLNEM-TSEKHOVSKAYA,
A. KONI,
W. KRANIKHFELD,
B. LAZAREVSKY,
P. POTAPENKO,
TH. SOLOGUB,
T. SCHEPKINA-KUPERNIK,
W. BOGUCHARSKY,
K. BARANTSEVICH,
S. VENGEROV,
P. MILIUKOV,
A. PRUGAVIN,
M. KOVALEVSKY,
A. POSNIKOV,
E. LETKOVA-SULTANOVA,
D. OVSIANNIKO-KULIKOVSKY,
A. REMEZOV,
D. MEREZHKOVSKY,
Z. HIPPICS,
F. ZELINSKY,
N. TCHAIKOVSKY,
A. BLOK,
E. TCHIRIKOV,
A. PETRISCHEV,
I. BIELOKONSKY,
PRINCE A. SUMBATOV,
W. FRITCHE,
A. VESELOVSKY,
W. NEMEROVICH-DANCHENKO,
PRINCE E. TROUBETSKOY,
I. SHPAZHINSKY,
TH. KOKOSHKIN,
COUNT E.L. TOLSTOY,
N. TEMKOCSKY,
M. ARTISIBASHEV,
U. BALTRUSHAITIS,
U. AICHENWALD,
PRINCE D. SHAKHOVSKY,
W. BRUSOV.
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