Impressions of Russia ... Translated ... by S. C. Eastman

Preface

. This book was published in October, 1888, while the translator was in Copenhagen. The great interest taken at the present time in the literature of Eussia and in everything which relates to that great country makes all that aids in giving a correct impression of its political and social condition specially acceptable. Dr. Brandes is a shrewd observer of what he sees, and has an established reputation as an acute literary critic. During his lecturing tours he came in contact with the leading men of St. Petersburg, Moscow, and Warsaw. The brighter aspects of the Eussian problem are in corporated in this volume, while his work on Poland contains the more sombre picture of the oppression to which that country has been subjected. The translator desires to express his obligations to Professor Easmus B. Anderson, late United States Minister to Denmark, for his advice and assistance, as well as to the author, who is himself thoroughly con versant with the English language and literature.

S. C. E. Concord, N.H., May, 1889. CONTENTS. i. The Russian Empire. — Extent. — Natural conditions. — Characteristics of Eussia 1 II. Country and cities. — St. Petersburg and Moscow. — Homogeneity of nature. — Difference of the seasons 5 III. The character of the people. — Have the Russian people originality ? — What it consists of in ordinary matters, in the social, communal, and intellectual domain. — The popular disposition and popular ideal. — The Black Earth 17 IV. Life of the Kussian people. — No popular education. — Peasants and workmen. — Superstition and ignorance. — Submissiveness. — The Kussian intelligentia. — "Nigilists" of both sexes. — Contrast between the standpoint of the intelligent youth and the common people 85 V. Literary and artistic festivals. — The official world. — Ministers. — Censors. — Governors. — Ultra-conservative youth ... 68 VI.

The e lite. — Intellectual aristocracy in Russia and Poland. — The fundamental interests of Russia are modern. — Contact with the official circle. — Instability and capriciousness. — Family dramas. — Russian types of aristocracy. — Two currents in Russian intellectual life : the European and Slavophilist. — Tbe Russian dilemma 80 v CONTENTS. VI VII. Feelings in regard to prospects of war. — Longing for defeat. — Antecedents of the present condition. — Court circles. — Social influence of Herzen and Katkof. — The abolition of serfdom. — The significance of the suppression of the Polish insurrection. — Fundamental, political, and religious re-action. — Terrorists and attempts at assassination. — Foreign and domestic policies. 108 VIII. The Russian press. — Newspapers and periodicals. — Contemporary men of talent, older and younger. — Original men in science and literature. — The Russian public and its receptiveness . . 136 IX.

Art. — Russian characteristic and quality of imitation in architecture and the fine arts. — History of the art of building and of religious pictures. — Development of the art of painting from the time of Catherine to the present time: Brylof, Ivanof. Kramskoi, and Riepin. — Sculpture: Antopolski. — Industrial art. — Relation between the course of development of art and literature 156 LITERATURE. I. Herodotus and Ovid concerning the country and its climate. — Herodotus on the customs and myths of the Scythians. — Resemblance between a Scythian myth and one related in the bilinl. — Kola-Xais and Mikula. — Ovid's account of the Black Sea coast and its inhabitants. — Chronicle of Nestor. — Parallel between the accounts of Nestor and the Icelandic sagas. — Scandinavians and Russians. — Slavic mythology. — The bllini. — Parallel between the contents of these and the old Noise myths and traditions. — The song of Igor. — Its characteristics, and extracts from it 177 II.

The Russian national literature. — The popular ballads of Little Russia and Great Russia. — Their characteristics. — Russian love. — Lomonosof , the founder of the modern literature. How far he is a typical Russian. — Derzhavin and classicism. Influence of Holberg on the Russian theatre. — Zhukovski and romanticism , , CONTENTS. VII III. Pushkin. — Emancipation of poetry. — His life and poetry. — Pushkin and Byron. — Lermontof. — His life and character. — His poetry and Pushkin's 228 IV. The national characteristic. — The Little Russians, Gogol and Shevtchenko. — Gogol's satire and genius. — His ruin. — The history of Shevtchcnko's sufferings and his poetry. — The reformers Herzen and Tchernuishevski. — Herzen and Byelinski. — Herzen creates a public sentiment. — Imprisonment and sentence of Tchernuishevski. — His fate and ideas. — The typical Russian in his principal work 244 V. Turgenief, the first Russian author who becomes cosmopolitan. — His pessimism. — He is an artist and philosopher. — His efforts for the liberation of the serfs. — Characteristics both of him and of his novels 271 VI.

Dostoyevski. — His optimism. — His complex character. — His life of Christian emotion. — His debut. — Byelinski and Dostoyevski. — His arrest and sentence. — The house of correction in Siberia. — His novels. — His labors as a Slavophilist journalist . . 301 VII. Tolstoi. — The strength of his nature and fancy. — The epic character of his imagination. — His realism and power of divination. — His historical portraits. — Their defects. — His fatalism. — His description of how men die. — His ideal of a return to nature. — His pessimism and the French. — His Christian socialism, so typically Russian. — His life and teaching. — His labors for the elevation and education of the people. — His portraits. — What they teach. — Kramskoi's portrait and Riepin's painting. — Tolstoi as Prince of the Ploughshare. — Black Earth . . .