THE
RUSSIAN NOVELISTS
BY
E M DE VOGÜÉ
_TRANSLATED BY_
JANE LORING EDMANDS
BOSTON
D. LOTHROP COMPANY
FRANKLIN AND HAWLEY STREETS
COPYRIGHT, 1887,
BY D. LOTHROP COMPANY.
ELECTROTYPED
BY C. J. PETERS AND SON, BOSTON.
TRANSLATOR’S NOTE.
The spelling of Russian names is a matter of peculiar difficulty, and
no fixed usage in regard to it has as yet been established. I have
tried to follow the system presented in the Proceedings of the American
Library Association for 1885, but it has been in some cases impossible
for me to go back to the original Russian form as a starting-point.
I have found it necessary to abridge M. de Vogüé’s work somewhat, in
order to bring it within certain prescribed limits.
J. L. E.
PREFACE.
In offering this book to the constantly increasing class of persons
interested in Russian literature, I owe them a little explanation
in regard to the unavoidable omissions in these essays, as well as
to their object and aim. The region we are approaching is a vast,
almost unexplored one; we can only venture upon some of its highways,
selecting certain provinces, while we neglect others.
This volume does not claim to give a complete history of Russian
literature, or a didactic treatise upon it. Such a work does not yet
exist in Russia, and would be premature even in France.
My aim is quite a different one. To do justice to both the dead and the
living, in a history of the literature of only the past hundred years,
I should but accumulate a quantity of names foreign to our ears, and a
list of works which have never been translated. The entire political
and social history of the three preceding reigns should be written, to
properly explain the last.
It appears to me better to proceed as a naturalist would do in his
researches in a foreign country. He would collect specimens peculiarly
characteristic of the climate and soil, and choose from among them
a few individual types which are perfectly developed. He draws our
attention to them, as best revealing to us the actual and peculiar
conditions of life in this particular corner of the earth.
This is my plan. I shall briefly touch upon the earliest Russian
literature, and show how it became subjected to foreign influences,
from which it was finally emancipated in the present century.
From this time, I am embarrassed in choosing from such a rich supply
of material, but I shall confine myself to a few individual types.
This method is, besides, even more legitimate in Russia than in more
recently settled countries. If you go through one hundred different
villages between St. Petersburg and Moscow, you will see that, in
feature, bearing, and costume the people seem to be remarkably similar;
so that a few portraits, chosen at random, will describe the whole
race, both as to physical and moral traits.
This series of studies is principally devoted to the four distinguished
contemporary writers, already well known in Europe by their translated
works. I have tried to show the man as well as his work; and both,
as illustrating the Russian national character. Without paying much
attention to the rules of literary composition, I have been glad to
make use of everything which would help me to carry out my design:
of biographical details, personal recollections, digressions upon
points of historical and political interest, without which the moral
evolutions of a country so little known would be quite unintelligible.
There is but one rule to be followed; to use every means of
illuminating the object you wish to exhibit, that it may be thoroughly
understood in all its phases. To this end, I have used the method of
comparison between the Russian authors and those of other countries
more familiar to us, as the surest and most rapid one.
Some persons may express surprise that it is of her novelists that I
demand the secret of Russia.
It is because poetry and romance, the modes of expression most
natural to this people, are alone compatible with the exigencies of
a press-censure which was formerly most severe, and is even now very
suspicious. There is no medium for ideas save through the supple meshes
of fiction; so that the fiction which shields yet conveys these ideas
assumes the importance of a doctrinal treatise.
Of these two leading forms of literature, the first, poetry, absorbed
the early part of the present century; the other, the novel, has
superseded poetry, and monopolized the attention of the whole nation
for the last forty years.
With the great name of Pushkin at the head of the list, the Russians
consider the romantic period as the crowning point of their
intellectual glory. I once agreed with them, but have had two motives
for changing my opinion.
In the first place, it would be quite useless to discuss works which
we could not quote from; for the Russian poets have never been and
never will be translated. The life and beauty of a lyric poem is in its
arrangement of words and its rhythm; this beauty cannot be transferred
into a foreign form. I once read a very admirable and exact Russian
translation of Alfred de Musset’s “_Nights_”; it produced the same
sensation as when we look upon a beautiful corpse; the soul had fled,
like the divine essence which was the life of those charming verses.
The task is yet more difficult when you attempt to transfer an idea
from the most poetical language in Europe into one which possesses the
least of that quality. Certain verses of Pushkin and Lermontof are the
finest I know in any language. But in the fragment of French prose they
are transferred into, you glean but a commonplace thought. Many have
tried, and many more will continue to try to translate them, but the
result is not worth the effort. Besides, it does not seem to me that
this romantic poetry expresses what is most typical of the Russian
spirit. By giving poetry the first rank in their literature, their
critics are influenced by the _prestige_ of the past and the enthusiasm
of youth; for the passage of time adds lustre to what is past, to the
detriment of the present.
A foreigner can perhaps judge more truly in this case; for distance
equalizes all remote objects on the same plane. I believe that the
great novelists of the past forty years will be of more service
to Russia than her poets. For the first time she is in advance of
Western Europe through her writers, who have expressed æsthetic forms
of thought which are peculiarly her own. This is why I choose these
romances as illustrative of the national character. Ten years’ study of
these works has suggested to me many thoughts relative to the character
of this people, and the part it is destined to fill in the domain of
intellect. As the novelist undertakes to bring up every problem of the
national life, it will not be a matter of surprise if I make use of
works of fiction in touching upon grave subjects and in the weaving
together of some abstract thoughts.
We shall see the Russians plead the cause of realism with new
arguments, and better ones, in my opinion, than those of their rivals
in the West.
This work is an important one, and is the foundation of all the
contests of ideas in the civilized world; revealing, moreover, the most
characteristic conceptions of our contemporaries.
In all primitive literature, the classical hero was the only one
considered worthy of attention, representing in action all ideas on
religions, monarchical, social, and moral subjects, existing from time
immemorial. In exaggerating the qualities of his hero, either for good
or evil, the classic poet took for his model what he deemed should or
should not be expected of him, rather than what such a character would
be in reality.
For the last century, other views have gradually prevailed.
Observation, rather than imagination, has been employed. The writer
constantly gives us a close analysis of actions and feelings, rather
than the diversion and excitement of intrigues and the display of
passions. Classic art was like a king who has the right to govern,
punish, reward, and choose his favorites from an aristocracy, obliging
them to adopt conventional rules as to manners, morals, and modes of
speech. The new art tries to imitate nature in its unconsciousness,
its moral indifference. It expresses the triumph of the masses over
the individual, of the crowd over the solitary hero, of the relative
over the absolute. It has been called natural, realistic; would the
word democratic suffice to define it, or not? It would be short-sighted
in us not to perceive that political changes are only episodes in the
great and universal change which is taking place.
Man has undertaken to explain the Universe, and perceives that the
existence itself, the greatness and the dangers of this Universe are
the result of the incessant accumulation of infinitesimal atoms.
While institutions put the ruling of states into the hands of the
multitude, science gave up the Universe to the control of the atoms
of which it is composed. In the analysis of all physical and moral
phenomena, the ancient theories as to their origin are entirely
displaced by the doctrine of the constant evolution of microscopic and
invisible beings. The moral sciences feel the shock communicated by
the discoveries in natural science. The psychologist, who studies the
secrets of the soul, finds that the human being is the result of a long
series of accumulated sensations and actions, always influenced by its
surroundings, as the sensitive strings of an instrument vary according
to the surrounding temperature.
Are not these tendencies affecting practical life as well, in the
doctrines of equality of classes, division of property, universal
suffrage, and all the other consequences of this principle, which are
summed up in the word democracy, the watchword of our times? Sixty
years ago, the tide of the stream of democracy ran high, but now
the stream has become an ocean, which is seeking its level over the
entire surface of Europe. Here and there, little islets remain, solid
rocks upon which thrones still stand, occasional fragments of feudal
governments, with a clinging remnant of caste privileges; but the most
far-seeing of these monarchs and of these castes know well that the
sea is rising. Their only hope is that a democratic organization may
not be incompatible with a monarchical form; we shall find in Russia a
patriarchal democracy growing up within the shadow of an absolute power.
Literature, which always expresses the existing condition of society,
could not escape this general change of base; at first instinctively,
then as a doctrine, it regulated its methods and its ideals according
to the new spirit. Its first efforts at reformation were awkward
and uncertain; romanticism, as we know to-day, was but a bastard
production. It was merely a reaction against the classic hero, but was
still unconsciously permeated by the classic spirit. Men soon tired of
this, and demanded of authors more sincerity, and representations of
the world more conformable to the teachings of the positive sciences,
which were gaining ground day by day. They demanded to know more of
human life, of ideas, and the relations of human beings to each other.
Then it was that realism sprung into existence, and was adopted by all
European literature, and is still reigning, with the various shades
of difference that we shall allude to. A path was prepared for it by
the universal revolution I have spoken of; but a realization of the
general causes of this revolution could alone give to literature a
philosophical turn.
These great changes in men’s ideas were thought to be due to the
advancement in scientific knowledge, and the resulting freedom of
thought, which for a time inaugurated the worship of reason. But
beyond the circle of truth already conquered appeared new and unknown
abysses, and man found himself still a slave, oppressed by natural
laws, in bondage to his passions. Then his presumption vanished.
He fell back into uncertainty and doubt. Better armed and wiser,
undoubtedly, but his necessities increased with the means of satisfying
them. Disenchanted, his old instincts came back to him; he sought a
higher Power,―but could find none. Everything conspired to break up
the traditions of the past; the pride of reason, fully persuaded of
its own power, as well as the aggravating stubbornness of orthodoxy.
By a strange contradiction, the pride of intelligence increased with
universal doubt which shattered all opinions.
All the Sages having declared that the new theories regarding the
universe were contrary to religious explanations, pride refused to make
further researches. The defenders of orthodoxy have done little to
facilitate matters. They did not understand that their doctrine was the
fountain-head of all progress, and that they turned that stream from
its natural direction by opposing the discoveries of science and all
political changes.
The strongest proof of the truth of a doctrine is the faculty of
accommodating itself to all human developments, without changing
itself, because it contains the germ of all the developments. The
remarkable power of religion over men arises from this faculty; when
orthodoxy does not recognize this gift, it depreciates its own strength.
By reason of this misunderstanding, the responsibility of which
should be shared by all parties, it has taken a long time to come to
a perception of this simple truth. The world has been for eighteen
centuries in a state of fermentation, through the gospel. Bossuet, one
of those rare spirits which prophesy truly, realized this. He said:
“Jesus Christ came into the world to overthrow all that pride has
established in it; thence it is that his policy is in direct opposition
to that of the age.”
But this constant, active work of the gospel, although formerly
acknowledged, is now denied by many; this gives to realism the
harshness of its methods. The realist should acknowledge the present,
abiding influence of the spirit of the gospel in the world. He
should, above all, possess the religious sentiment; it will give him
the charity he needs. The spirit of charity loses its influence in
literature the moment it withdraws from its true source.
To sum up what realism should be, I must seek a general formula,
which will express both its method and the extent of its creative
power. I can find but one, and it is a very old one; but I know of none
better, more scientific, or which approaches nearer the secret of all
creation:―
“And the Lord formed man of the dust of the ground.”―But, to complete
the formula, and account for the dual nature of our humanity, we must
add the text: “And breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and
man became a living soul―”
This divine spark, derived from the source of universal life, is the
spirit, the active and mysterious and incomprehensible element of
our being, which baffles all our explanations, and without which we
are nothing. At the point where life begins, there do we cease to
comprehend.
The realist is groping his way, trying his experiments in the creations
of his brain, which breathe the spirit of truth, and speak with at
least the accent of sincerity and sympathy.
CONTENTS.
CHAPTER PAGE
TRANSLATOR’S NOTE 3
PREFACE 5
I. EPOCHS IN RUSSIAN LITERATURE 19
II. ROMANTICISM.―PUSHKIN AND POETRY 44
III. THE EVOLUTION OF REALISM IN RUSSIA.―GOGOL 56
IV. TURGENEF 88
V. THE RELIGION OF ENDURANCE.―DOSTOYEVSKI 141
VI. NIHILISM AND MYSTICISM.―TOLSTOÏ 209
THE RUSSIAN NOVELISTS.
CHAPTER I.
EPOCHS IN RUSSIAN LITERATURE.
I.
Before studying those contemporary writers who alone will reveal to
us the true Russian spirit and character, we must devote a little
attention to their predecessors, in order to understand the Russian
literature in its prolonged infancy, and its bearing upon that of
the present day. We shall see how everything conspired to retard its
development. Russian literature may be divided into four distinct
epochs. The first, ending with the accession of Peter the Great, was in
fact its mediæval age. In this epoch a wealth of national traditions
had accumulated in its popular poetry and barbarous essays. The second
period embraces the last century, from Peter the Great to Alexander
I., and, although seemingly progressive, was the least fruitful
one, because its literature was but a servile imitation of that of
the Occident. The third, the short epoch of romanticism, produced a
brilliant set of poets, whose works were of value to the general world
of letters. But they were hot-house blooms, produced by a culture
imported from abroad, and give but little idea of the true properties
of their native soil.
Forty years ago a new epoch began. Russia has finally produced
something spontaneous and original. In the realistic novel, Russian
genius has at last come to a realizing sense of its own existence; and,
while bound indissolubly to the past, it already lisps and stammers
the programme of its future. We shall see how this genius has soared
from darkness and obscurity, acting already a part in history, although
continually repressed by history’s cruel wrongs and injustice and its
brusque changes of situation. We must recall too the intellectual
origin of this race and its moral peregrinations, and then we can make
more allowance for what there is of gloom, irresolution, and obscurity
in its literature.
* * * * *
The Russian people are afflicted with a national, a historical malady,
which is partly hereditary, partly contracted during the course of its
existence. The hereditary part is that proclivity of the Slavonic mind
towards that negative doctrine which to-day we call Nihilism, and which
the Hindu fathers called _Nirvâna_. In fact, if we would understand
Russia well, we must recall to our minds what she has learned from
ancient India.
Many philosophers of the present day in Russia fully accept the
doctrines of Buddha, and boast with pride of the purity of their Aryan
blood, bringing forward many arguments in support of this claim. First,
there is the fact that the physical type is very marked in families
in which the Tartar blood has never mingled. Many a Moscow student or
peasant from certain provinces might, except for his light complexion,
easily pass in a street of Lahore or Benares for a native of the valley
of the Ganges. Moreover, they have strong philological arguments. The
old Slavonic dialect is declared by linguists to more nearly approach
the Sanscrit than does the Greek of the very earliest epochs. The
grammatical rules are identical. Speak of the _Vêda_ to any Russian
peasant, and you will find he needs no explanation; the verb _vêdat_
is one in constant use by him. If he should mention the word “fire,”
it will be the original one used by his ancestors who worshipped that
element. Numberless examples could be quoted to prove this close
relation to the original Sanscrit; but this is still more strongly
shown by an analytical study of the Russian mind and character.
The Hindu type of mind may be easily recognized in the Slavonic
intellectual type. By studying the revolutions of India one could
easily understand possible convulsions in Russia. The most able authors
state the Buddhist revolution to have arisen from a social rather than
a religious reaction of the popular sentiment against the spirit of
caste, against the fixed organizations of society. Like Christianity
in the West, Buddhism was in the extreme East the revelation, the
personification of charity and meekness, of moral and social freedom,
which were to render life more tolerable to multitudes of human beings
bowed under the yoke of an implacable theocracy.
The best doctrines, in order to succeed, must permit certain
exaggerations for the fanciful and imaginative, and tolerate certain
errors which attract minds warped by prolonged sufferings. To the
latter, Christianity offers asceticism; Buddhism promises them the joys
of annihilation, the Nirvâna. Nihilism is the word invented by Burnouf
as a translation of _Nirvâna_. Max Müller says that the Sanscrit
word really means “the action of extinguishing a light by blowing it
out.” Will not this definition explain Russian Nihilism, which would
extinguish the light of civilization by stifling it, then plunge back
into chaos.
Undoubtedly, numerous and more recent causes have acted upon the
national mind producing this peculiar state of discouragement, which in
violent natures has developed into a furious desire to destroy every
existing condition, because all are bad. Moreover, Christianity has
lent a new formula to what there was of good in the old instincts. Its
influence has been profound, accounting for the spirit of fraternity
and self-sacrifice so admirable in this people. But I cannot help
thinking that with this stolid race we must go back to the habits of
thought of very ancient times in order to realize what their natural
inclinations and difficulties would be.
We shall now see how these have been aggravated or modified by a series
of accidents. I know of no people which has been so overwhelmed by
its own fate; like a river which has changed its course over and over
again, or the life of one of those men who seem fated to begin several
different careers in life and succeed in none.
The Western nations have developed under much more favorable
conditions. After the forced establishment and final withdrawal of
Islamism, they enjoyed a long period of comparative peace, several
centuries in which they could work out the problem of life. Constant
revolutions and wars did not wholly throw them off the track which they
had marked out for themselves from the outset.
Russia, on the contrary, seems to have offered a free field for the
most radical experiments, in which its poor people have been involved
every two or three hundred years, just as they were well started in a
new direction. Plunged into the most barbarous and heathenish anarchy,
different tribes waged war there for two or three centuries after
these had wholly ceased in France. Then Christianity came, but from a
Byzantine, the least pure source; a vitiated Christianity, enervated
by oriental corruption. The Russian people were fated to become wholly
Greek in religion, laws, and government, thus commencing a new epoch in
history. Would this germ of a new life have time to develop?
Two hundred years after the baptisms at Kiev, Russia was overwhelmed by
the Mongolian invasion. Asia returned to demand its prey and to seize
the young Christian territory, which was already gravitating toward
Europe. Pagans from the beginning, the Tartars became Mohammedans,
remained wholly Asiatic, and introduced oriental customs among their
Russian subjects. Not until the fifteenth century, when the Renaissance
was dawning upon western Europe, did Russia begin to throw off this
Tartar yoke. They freed themselves by a succession of strong efforts,
but very gradually. The Crescent did not disappear from the Volga until
1550, leaving behind it traces of the oriental spirit for all time.
The Russian people were now crushed by an iron despotism, made up
of Mongolian customs and Byzantine ceremonies. Just emancipated
from foreign oppression, they were forced to cultivate the soil.
Boris Godunof condemned them to serfdom, by which their whole social
condition was changed in one day, with one stroke of the pen,―that
unfortunate St. George’s day which the _muzhik_ would curse for three
hundred years to come.
In the next century Russia was invaded from the Occident. Poland
obtained one-half of its territory and ruled at Moscow. The Poles were
afterwards expelled, when the nation could take time to breathe and
assert itself again. Naturally, it then turned toward Asia and its own
traditions.
Now appeared upon the scene a rough pilot in the person of Peter
the Great, to guide the helm of this giant raft which was floating
at random, and direct it toward Europe. At this epoch occurred the
strangest of all the experiments tried by history upon Russia. To
continue the figure, imagine a ship guided towards the West by the
captain and his officers, while the entire crew were bent upon sailing
for the East. Such was the strange condition of affairs for one
hundred and fifty years, from the accession of Peter to the death of
the Emperor Nicholas; the consequences of which condition are still
observable. The sovereign and a few men he called to his aid abjured
oriental life entirely, and became Europeans in ideas, politics,
language, and dress. Little by little, the upper classes followed this
example during the latter part of the last century.
During the first half of the present one, the influence of Europe
became still stronger, affecting administration, education, etc.,
drawing a small part of the masses with it; but the nation remained
stolid, rebellious, with its eyes turned toward the East, as were the
prayers of their Tartar masters. Only forty years ago the Western light
illumined the highest peaks alone, while the broad valleys lay buried
in the shadows of a past which influences them still.
This entire period presents a condition of affairs wholly unique. An
immense population was led by a small class which had adopted foreign
ideas and manners, and even spoke a strange language; a class which
received its whole intellectual, moral, and political food and impetus
from Germany, England, or France, as the case might be;―always from
outside. The management of the land itself was frequently confided to
foreigners―“pagans,” as the Russian peasants called them. Naturally,
these foreigners looked upon this country as a vast field open to
them for the collection of taxes and recruits; and whose destiny it
was to furnish them with everything necessary in carrying out their
projects,―their diplomatic combinations on the chess-board of all
Europe.
There were, of course, some exceptions―some attempts at restoring
national politics and interior reform; but total ignorance of the
country as well as of its language was the rule. Grandparents are still
living in Russia, who, while they speak French perfectly, are quite
incapable of speaking, or at least of writing, in the language of their
grandchildren.
Since the time of Catherine, a series of generations living in
the Parisian elegance and luxury of the days of Louis XV., of the
Empire, and the Restoration, have suffered with the French all their
revolutionary shocks, shared in all their aspirations, been influenced
by all their literature, sympathized in all their theories of
administration and political economy;―and these do not even trouble
themselves to know how a _muzhik_ of the provinces lives, or what he
has to endure. These political economists do not even know how Russian
wheat is raised, which Pushkin declares to grow differently from the
English wheat.
So the people, left to themselves, merely vegetated, and developed
according to the obscure laws of their oriental nature. We can imagine
what disorder would arise in a nation so formed and divided.
In France, historical events have gradually formed a middle class; a
natural connecting link between the two extremes of society. In Russia
this middle class did not exist, and is still wanting, there being
nothing to fill the intervening space. The whole depth of the abyss was
realized by those Russians who became enlightened enough to understand
the state of their country during the latter years of the reign of
Alexander I.
A national fusion was developed, as it usually is on the battle-fields,
where the Russians fell side by side before the invader. This movement,
however, was very gradual, and Russia was virtually divided into two
distinct classes until the death of the Emperor Nicholas, when the
necessity of a more orderly condition of affairs was universally felt,
giving rise to a social revolution which resulted in the emancipation
of the serfs.
For the last quarter of a century, every conscientious and
strong-minded man has worked to perform his part towards the common
object: the establishment of a solid and united country. But they met
with terrible obstacles; for they must abolish the past, heal all
differences, and conciliate all parties.
As a world travelling through space, drawn by opposite attractions, is
divided, bursts asunder, one fragment rushing to join the distant star
which calls it, while the greater portion of the planet continues to
gravitate towards the nearer spheres; and as, in spite of all opposing
forces, these two separated fragments of a world tend to re-unite, no
matter what spaces divide them, or with what a shock they must meet,
having acquired such increased velocity;―so was it with Russia, made
up of so many dissimilar elements, attracted at different times by
opposite poles; now tossed from Europe to Asia, and back again from
Asia to Europe, and finally divided against itself.
This condition is what I called the Russian national malady, which has
plunged this people into the deepest discouragement and confusion.
To historical misfortunes, we may add the peculiarities of soil and
climate in which the Russian drama has been enacted. The severe,
interminable winter interrupts man’s work and depresses his spirit.
In the southern part, the scanty vegetation does not incite him to
wrestle with nature and vie with her in energy and devotion. Is it
not true that man’s mind is modelled according to the nature of his
abiding-place? Must not a country having a limited horizon, and forms
strongly and sharply defined, tend to the development of individuality,
to clearness of conception, and persevering effort? The larger portion
of Russia has nothing analogous to this; only, as Tacitus says, a
“monotonous alternation of wild wood and reeking marsh.” (“_Aut silvis
horrida, aut paludibus fœda_”); endless plains with no distinct
horizon, no decisive outlines, only a mirage of snow, marsh, or sand.
Everywhere the infinite, which confuses the mind and attracts it
hopelessly. Tolstoï has well described it as “that boundless horizon
which appeals to me so strongly.”
The souls of this people must resemble those who sail on a long voyage;
self-centered, resigned to their situation, with impulses of sudden,
violent longing for the impossible. Their land is made for a tent-life,
rather than for dwelling in houses; their ideas are nomadic, like
themselves. As the winds bear the arctic cold over the plains from
the White Sea to the Black, without meeting any resisting obstacle,
so invasions, melancholy, famine, servitude, seize and fill these
empty stretches rapidly and without hindrance. It is a land which is
calculated to nourish the dim, hereditary, confused aspirations of the
Russian heart, rather than those productions of the mind which give an
impetus to literature and the arts.
Nevertheless, we shall see how the persistent seed will develop under
this severe sky and amid such untoward influences, saved by the eternal
spring which exists in all human hearts of every climate.
II.
The middle age of Russian literature, or the period ending with
the accession of Peter the Great, produced first: ecclesiastical
literature, comprising sermons, chronicles, moral and instructive
treatises. Secondly: popular literature, consisting of epic poems,
characteristic sonnets and legends. The former resembles that of
western Europe, being in the same vein, only inferior to it.
Throughout Christendom, the Church was for a long time the only
educator; monk and scholar being almost synonymous words; while
outside the pale of the Church all was barbarism. At first, the writer
was a mere mechanical laborer, or Chinese scribe, who laboriously
copied the Gospels and the ancient Scriptures. He was respected as
possessing one of the arcana of life, and as specially gifted through
a miracle from on high. Many generations of monks passed away before
the idea occurred to these humble copyists to utilize their art in
recording their own personal impressions. At first there were homilies,
mere imitations of those of the Byzantine fathers; then lives of
saints; and the legendary lore of the monastery of Kiev, the great
centre of prayer and holy travail of the whole Slavonic world. Here
originated the first approach to romance of that time, its Golden
Legend, the first effort of the imagination towards the ideal which is
so seductive to every human soul. Then came the chronicles of wars, and
of their attendant and consequent evils. Nestor, the father of Russian
history, noted down his impressions of what he saw, in a style similar
to that of Gregory of Tours.
From the thirteenth to the fifteenth century, these feeble germs of
culture were nearly crushed out of existence by the Tartar invasion;
and even the translation of the Bible into the Slavonic language was
not accomplished until the year 1498.
In 1518, Maximus, a Greek monk, who had lived in Florence with
Savonarola, came to Moscow, bringing with him the first specimens of
printing. He reformed the schools, and collected around him a group of
men eager for knowledge. About this time the so-called civil deacons,
the embryo of future _tchinovnism_,[A] began to assist the students of
Latin and Greek in their translations.
Father Sylvester also wrote the “Domostroi,” a treatise on morals
and domestic economy; a practical encyclopædia for Russians of the
sixteenth century.
In the second half of this century Ivan the Terrible introduced
printing into Russia. A part of the venerable building he erected at
Moscow for a printing establishment is still standing. He tried to
obtain from Germany skilful hands in the new art, but they were refused
him. Each sovereign jealously guarded every master of the great secret,
as they did good alchemists or skilful workers in metals.
A Moscow student, Ivan Fedorof, cast some Slavonic characters, and used
them in printing the Acts of the Apostles, in 1564. This is the most
ancient specimen of typography in Russia. He, the first of Russian
printers, was accused of heresy, and obliged to fly for his life. His
wretched existence seemed a prophetic symbol of the destiny reserved
for the development of thought in his native country. Fedorof took
refuge with some magnates of Lithuania, and printed some books in
their castles; but his patrons and protectors tore him from his beloved
work, and forced him to cultivate the land. He wrote of himself:―“It
was not my work to sow the grain, but to scatter through the earth
food for the mind, nourishment for the souls of all mankind.” He fled
to Lemberg, where he died in extreme poverty, leaving his precious
treasure to a Jew.
The seventeenth century produced a few specimens of secular literature.
But it was an unfavorable time, a time of anxiety, of usurpations;
and afterwards came the Polish invasion. When intellectual life again
awoke, theological works were the order of the day; and even up to the
time of Peter the Great, all the writers of note were theologians.
The development of general literature in Russia was precisely analogous
to that of Western Europe, only about two centuries later, the
seventeenth century in Russia corresponding to the fifteenth in France.
With popular literature, or folk-lore, however, the case is quite
otherwise; nowhere is it so rich and varied as with the Slavonians.
Nature and history seem to have been too cruel to this people. Their
spirits rise in rebellion against their condition, and soar into that
fantastic realm of the imagination, above and outside the material
world; a realm created by the Divine Being for the renewal of man’s
spirit, and giving him an opportunity for the play of his fancy.
According to the poet Tutschef, “Our earthly life is bathed in dreams,
as the earth by ocean’s waves.” Their songs and myths are the music
of history, embracing their whole national life, and changing it into
dreams and fancies. The Cossack fisher-folk have sung them upon their
mighty rivers for more than eight centuries.
When, in the future, Russia shall produce her greatest and truest
poets, they have only to draw from these rich sources, an inexhaustible
store. Never can they find better material; for the imagination of
that anonymous author, the people, is the more sublime, and its heart
more truly poetical, because of its great faith, simplicity, and many
sorrows. What poem can compare with that description of the universe in
a book, written in the fifteenth century, called “Book of the Dove”?―
“The sun is the fire of love glowing in the Lord’s face; the stars fall
from his mantle…. The night is dark with his thoughts; the break of day
is the glance of his eye….”
And where can the writers of the modern realistic Russian novel find
tenderer touches or more sharply bitter allusions than in the old
dramatic poem, “The Ascension of Christ”? Jesus, as he is about to rise
to heaven, thus consoles the sorrowing crowd clustered around him:―
“Weep not, dear brethren! I will give you a mountain of gold, a river
of honey; I will leave you gardens planted with vines, fruits, and
manna from heaven.” But the Apostle John interrupts him, saying:―
“Do not give them the mountain of gold, for the princes and nobles
will take it from them, divide it among themselves, and not allow our
brothers to approach. If thou wishest these unfortunates to be fed,
clothed, and sheltered, bestow upon them Thy Holy Name, that they may
glorify it in their lives, on their wanderings through the earth.”
The song of “The Band of Igor,” an epic poem, describing the struggle
with the pagan hordes from the south-west, and supposed by some authors
to have been inspired by Homer, is the most ancient, and the prototype
of all others of the Middle Age. The soul of the Slavonic poet of this
time is Christian only in name. The powers he believes in are those of
nature and the universe. He addresses invocations to the rivers, to the
sea, to darkness, the winds, the sun. The continual contrast between
the beneficent Light and the evil Darkness recalls the ancient Egyptian
hymns, which always describe the eternal contest between day and night.
Pushkin says of the “Song of Igor,” the origin of which is much
disputed among scholars: “All our poets of the eighteenth century
together had not poetry enough in them to comprehend, still less to
compose, a single couplet of this ‘Song of Igor.’”
This epic poetry of Russia strikes its roots in the most remote
antiquity of Asia, from Hindu and Persian myths, as well as from
those of the Occident. It resembles the race itself in its growth
and mode of development, oscillating alternately between the east
and the west. Thus has the Russian mind oscillated between the two
poles of attraction. In this period of its growth, it remembers and
imitates more than it creates; but the foreign images it receives and
reflects assume larger contours and more melancholy colors; a tinge of
plaintiveness, as well as of brotherly love and sympathy.
Not so with the period we now enter. Literature is now reduced to a
restricted form, like the practice of an art, cultivated for itself
and following certain rules. It is an edifice constructed by Peter the
Great, in which the author becomes a servant of the state, with a set
task like the rest of the government officials. All must study in the
school of Western Europe, and must accomplish in the eighteenth century
what France did in the sixteenth. Even the Slavonic language itself
must suffer innovations and adopt foreign terms. Before this, all
books were written in the Old Slavonic language of the church, which
influenced also all scientific and poetical productions.
The change which came about naturally in France, as the result of
an intellectual revolution, for which the minds of the people were
already ripe, was in Russia brought about by a single will; being the
artificial work of one man who aroused the people from slumber before
their time.
A new style of literature cannot be called into being, as an army can
be raised, or a new code of laws established, by an imperial order
or decree. Let us imagine the Renaissance established in France by
Philippe le Bel! Such an attempt was now made in Russia, and its
unsatisfactory results are easily accounted for.
Peter established an Academy of Science at St. Petersburg, sending its
members abroad for a time at first to absorb all possible knowledge,
and return to use it for the benefit of the Russian people. This custom
prevailed for more than a century. The most important of these scholars
was Lomonosof, the son of a poor fisherman of the White Sea. Having
distinguished himself at school, he was taken up by the government and
sent into Germany. Returning to supplant the German professors, whom
he found established at St. Petersburg, he bequeathed to his country a
quite remarkable epic poem on Peter the Great, called “La Pétriade,”
for which his name is revered by his countrymen.
The glorious reign of Catherine II. should have added something to
the literary world. She was a most extraordinary woman. She wrote
comedies for her own theatre at the Hermitage, as well as treatises on
education for the benefit of her grandchildren, and would gladly have
been able to furnish native philosophers worthy to vie with her foreign
courtiers; but they proved mere feeble imitators of Voltaire. Kheraskof
wrote the “Rossiade” and Sumarokof, called by his contemporaries the
Russian Racine, furnished the court with tragedies. But two comedies,
“Le Brigadier,” and “Le Mineur,” by Von Vizin, have more merit, and are
still much read and highly appreciated. These form a curious satire on
the customs of the time. But the name of Derzhavin eclipses all others
of this epoch. His works were modelled somewhat after Rousseau and
Lefranc de Pompignan, and are fully equal to them.
Derzhavin had the good-fortune to live to a ripe old age, and in court
life through several reigns; thus having the best of opportunities
to utilize all striking events. Each new accession to the throne,
victories, anniversaries, all contributed to inflate his national pride
and inspire his muse.
But his high-flown rhetoric is open to severe criticism, and his works
will be chiefly valued as illustrative of a glorious period of Russian
history, and as a memorial of the illustrious Catherine. Pushkin says
of him:―
“He is far inferior to Lomonosof.―He neither understood the grammar
nor the spirit of our language; and in time, when his works will have
been translated, we shall blush for him. We should reserve only a few
of his odes and sketches, and burn all the rest.”
Krylof, the writer of fables in imitation of La Fontaine, deserves
mention. He had talent enough to show some originality in a style of
literature in which it is most difficult to be original; and wrote with
a rude simplicity characteristically Russian, and in a vein much more
vigorous than that of his model.
Karamzin inaugurated a somewhat novel deviation in the way of
imitation. He was an enthusiastic admirer of Rousseau. He was poet,
critic, political economist, novelist, and historian; and bore a
leading part in the literature of the latter part of the eighteenth
century and the beginning of the nineteenth; a time including the
end of Catherine’s reign and the early part of Alexander’s. It was
a transition period between the classic and romantic schools of
literature. Karamzin might be called the Rousseau and the Chateaubriand
of his country. His voluminous history of Russia is of great merit,
although he is sufficiently blinded by his patriotism to cause him to
present a too flattering picture of a most cruel despotism; so that
his assertions are often challenged by later writers. But the work
is of great value as a most conscientious compilation of events and
quotations, and the only one written up to the last twenty years; and
in this respect Karamzin has no rival.
He owed his renown, before writing his history, to a few little
romances of a sentimental turn. The romantic story of “La pauvre
Lise” especially was received with a furor quite out of proportion to
its merit. Its popularity was such that it became the inspiration of
artists and of decorators of porcelain. Lakes and ponds innumerable
were baptized with the name of _Lise_, in memory of her sad fate. Such
enthusiasm seems incredible; but we can never tell what literary effort
may be borne on to undying fame by the wheel of fashion!
The successive efforts of these secondary writers have contributed much
to form the language of Russian literature as it now exists; Karamzin
for its prose, Derzhavin for its poetry. In less than one hundred years
the change was accomplished, and the way prepared for Pushkin, who was
destined to supply an important place in Russian literature.
Karamzin’s part in politics was quite at variance with his position
in the world of letters. Although an imitator of Rousseau, he set
himself against the liberal ideas of Alexander. He was opposed to the
emancipation of the serfs, and became the champion of the so-called
_Muscovitism_, which, forty years later, became _Slavophilism_. He
lived in Moscow, where the conservative element was strongest, acting
in opposition to Speranski, the prime minister.
In 1811, Karamzin wrote a famous paper, addressed to his sovereign,
called, “Old and New Russia,” which so influenced Alexander’s
vacillating mind that it gave the death-blow to Speranski. In this
paper he says: “We are anticipating matters in Russia, where there are
hardly one hundred persons who know how to spell correctly. We must
return to our national traditions, and do away with all ideas imported
from the Occident. No Russian can comprehend any limitation of the
autocratic power. The autocrat draws his wisdom from a fountain within
himself, and from the love of his people,” etc.
This paper contained the germ of every future demand of the Muscovite
party.
Karamzin is the pioneer of the _Slavophile_ party, which would do away
with all the reforms of Peter the Great, and reconstruct the original
Russia as an ideal government, entirely free from any European ideas.
As this political programme became a literary one, it is important to
note its first appearance.
Freemasonry, that embodiment of the spirit of mysticism, worked its
way into Russia, brought from Sweden and Germany, during the reign of
Catherine; and was at once taken up by the literary world, then led by
Novikof. The greater part of the distinguished scholars and statesmen
under Alexander, Karamzin among them, were interested in it, and spread
through the country the philosophical works which deluged Europe.
The French Revolution now broke out; and Catherine, becoming alarmed at
the rapid spread of the new philosophy, ordered the lodges closed, had
the suspicious books seized, and Novikof tried and condemned.
But the new doctrines assumed greater force under Alexander, who
encouraged them. The infatuation for this mysticism spread among all
intelligent people. The state of mind of the upper classes has been
faithfully depicted in the character of Pierre Bezushof, in “War and
Peace,” the historical novel of Leon Tolstoï. (See the chapter which
describes Pierre’s initiation into Freemasonry.) This condition of mind
is not peculiar to the Russians. All Europe was obscured by it at the
end of the eighteenth century; but in Russia it found free scope in
the unsettled and confused state of affairs, where the thinking mind
struggled against the influx of rationalism, while unwilling to accept
the negative philosophy of the learned class. On this account, among
others, the reign of Alexander I. presents a curious subject for study
and contemplation. It offered a point of meeting for every new current
of thought which agitated Russia, as well as for everything that had
been repressed throughout the reign of Nicholas. The Masonic lodges
insensibly became a moving power in politics, which led to the liberal
conspiracy crushed out in 1825. A horror of the revolutionary ideas
of France, and the events of 1812, had produced a great change in the
Russian mind; besides, Russia, now temporarily estranged from France,
became more influenced by Germany; which fact was destined to have a
considerable effect upon their literature. During the whole of the
eighteenth century, France tutored the Russian mind in imitation of the
classics. It now became inculcated with the romanticism of Germany.
FOOTNOTES:
[A] Official rank.