A history of Russian literature

Preface

In the year 1834 the great Bielinski, on his maiden appearance as a literary critic, bestowed the following epigraph, borrowed from one of his fellow-critics, Senkowski, on his first essay : —

"Do we possess a literature ?"

" No, we have nothing but a book-trade ! " Eighteen months later, he began to publish a halfyearly Review under this somewhat confusing title, — Nothings about Nothing.

Hence we may conceive what the country of Pouchkine, of Gogol, of Tourgueniev, and of Tolstoi' has gained by the labour of the past half-century.

For this labour has not confined itself to the amassing of a treasure-house of conceptions, exquisite or stately. It has endowed the nation that conceived them, and Bielinski himself as well, with the conscious possession of a national genius, the anterior manifestations of which had escaped appreciation, because they had been judged from the aesthetic point of view only, and not from that historical standpoint which alone befitted them. In Russia, more even than elsewhere, the theory of evolution, applied by Taine — in how brilliant a manner we all know — to English literature, remains the only one whereby the sense of a literary developvi PREFACE

ment which, during the march of history, has experienced such strange checks and forward impulses, can be efficiently revealed. The volume of the literary patrimony of Russia, increasing in proportion to the political fortunes of the country, attracted first the curiosity, and presently the admiration, of Western Europe.

It is a far cry, now, to the days when Sir John Bowring's articles in the Foreign Quarterly Review came as a revelation. But the notoriety then so rapidly acquired is still unfairly apportioned. The works of Krylov have been translated into twenty-one languages. Those of Pouchkine still await a worthy translator, both in England, in France, and in Germany. Such authors as Lermontov and Chtchedrine are practically unknown to foreign readers.

These special circumstances have dictated the plan of my work. I have thought it right to avoid excessive generalisation. Russian literature has not yet acquired, in the eyes of the European public, that remoteness which would permit of my summing it up in certain given works and salient figures. I have likewise felt unable to avoid a certain amount of detail. It is not possible to speak to English readers of a Eugene Onieguine, as I should speak to them of Hamlet. My Russian readers, if such there be, will doubtless reproach me with having paid too scant attention to some one or other of their favourite authors. My excuse is, that even in such a book as this, I have not chosen to speak of anything save that which I personally know, and am capable of judging.

PREFACE vii

I expect to elicit yet other reproaches, in this direction. The form assumed, in the lapse of time, by such personages as Hamlet or Eugene Onieguine, is the twofold outcome of an original individual conception, and of a subsequent and collective process. These, first superposed, become inter-pervading, and end, to the popular imagination, in complete fusion. This collaborative process, the secret and existence of which escape the notice of the great majority, constitutes a great difficulty for a writer addressing a public other than that in the midst of which the types he evokes have sprung into being. Try to forget all that the lapse of years, and the action of endless commentaries, the ingenuity, the tenderness, the worship of millions of readers, have added and altered, in such a figure as that of Gretchen. You will see how much of the original remains, and you will realise my difficulty in speaking to my readers of Tatiana, if by chance (and it is a very likely chance) the character of Tatiana be unknown to them. I dare not venture to flatter myself I have completely overcome this difficulty.

Further, I do not close my eyes to my own deficiencies as an interpreter between two worlds, in each of which I myself am half a stranger. While other qualifications for the part may fail me, I bring to it, I hope, a freshness of impression, and an independence of judgment, which may, to a certain extent, justify the Editor of this series in the selection with which he has been good enough to honour me.

Will Mr. Gosse allow me to associate with him, in viii PREFACE

this expression of my gratitude, those Russian friends who have helped me towards the accomplishment of my undertaking, — among them MM. Onieguine and Chtchoukine, to whom a double share of thanks is due. Their knowledge and their courtesy have proved as inexhaustible as their libraries, which rank among the wonders of this fair city of Paris, where they have fixed their home, and where I myself have been so happy as to be able to write this book.

K. WALISZEWSKI.

December 1899

Contents

CHAP. PAGE

INTRODUCTION I

I. THE EPIC AGE .... ... 8

Introduction

The Slavs, like the Latins, the Celts, and the Germans, belong to the Aryan or Indo-European race. Oppressed for many years by the Western peoples, which drew the word slave from the appellation " Slav," scorned by their German neighbours, who would not regard their race in any other light but that of " ethnological matter " (ethnologischer Stoff), they probably owed their inferiority solely to their geographical position. Modern civilisation, like that of the ancients, built itself up almost independently of the Slavs. Yet they have raised their protest against a too absolute decree of exclusion, and they have right on their side. The Slav nation did not, indeed, hollow out the channels of the double movement, intellectual or religious, Renaissance and Reform, from which the modern era issued, but it opened them in two directions. Copernicus and John Huss were both Slavs.

The Slav race, the latest comer into the world of civilisation, has always been at school, always under some rod or sway. Whether it be the Oriental and material conquest of the thirteenth century, or the Western and moral one of the eighteenth, it merely undergoes a change of masters. Thus the evolution of the individuality of the race was no easy matter. Modern Russia still labours at the task, and it has other work to do as well. Modern Russia is an empire a thousand years old, and a colony, the age of which is not, indeed, as has been asserted, that of one hundred and fifty years, but of four centuries precisely. And the colonists of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, who recommenced, in the neighbourhood of Perm and towards the Upper Kama, the interrupted work of the old Novgorod merchants, have made but little relative progress. Odessa, with its 405,000 inhabitants, dates from 1794.

Between the Novgorod merchants and their sixteenthcentury successors came the Mongol invasion. This does not suffice to explain the prolonged check in the organic development of the huge body which it left in life. Previously, indeed, gaps, periodic suppressions of growth and evolution, had been manifest, and they were repeated after the disappearance of this particular cause. They would seem to be the result of some constitutional vice, connected as much with race and climate as with the course of historical events. Under these inclement skies, history appears to have brought about an accidental mingling of elements, the ill-controlled action of which, when they chanced to harmonise, gave birth to violent outbreaks of energy, while, when they disagreed, the result became apparent in sudden stoppages of progress. The outcome has something of the American in it, and yet something of the Turkish. Thanks to its geographical situation betwixt Europe and Asia, thanks to its historical position betwixt a series of anvils, whereon the Byzantine priest, the Tartar soldier, and the German free-lance have taken turns to hammer out its genius, Russia, young and old at once, has not yet found its

THE RUSSIAN RACE 3

orbit nor its true balance. Here we see a waste ; there extreme refinement. Men have called it rotten ere it was ripe. But that must not be said. Prematurely ripe on one side, indeed, with a distracting medley of savage instincts and ideal aspirations, of intellectual riches and moral penury. But Nature must be given time to perfect her own work.

There is much for her to do. The mixture of races, and their strugglesagainst hostile conditions of existence, against the climate, against foreign invasion, have called another problem into existence. How to fuse into one amalgam such contradictory elements as strength and weakness, tenacity and elasticity, ruggedness and good-nature,insensibility and kindness. The perpetual struggle which has tempered and hardened the Russian to his inmost soul has rendered him singularly susceptible to external emotions. He knows — no man better — how to suffer. No man knows better than he what suffering costs; and this makes him compassionate. Under an exterior that is often coarse enough you may find a man of infinite tenderness. But press him not too far. Count not too much upon him. He is prone to terrible revulsions !

The same causes have developed his practical inclinations. In his case — in art as in life — realism is no theory ; it is the application of natural instincts. Even in poetry and in religion the Russian has a horror of abstractions. No metaphysical spirit, no sentimentality whatsoever; great resourcefulness, perfect tact as regards both men and matters, and in all his ideas, his habits, and his literature, a positivism carried to the point of brutality. This, in brief, appears to me to be Russian psychology. But to all this, and from the same causes always, is linked a marked proneness to melancholy, "Sadness, scepticism, irony," said Herzen, "are the three strings of Russian literature." He added, " Our laugh is but a sickly sneer ! " Some weep ; some dream. In these last, their melancholy inclines them to a hazy mysticism, which either triumphs over the realistic instincts, or else allies itself with them in strangest union. Of such a union Dostoievski was the product.

Finally, we must inquire of the climate, of the race, and of its history, wherefore this Russian, who is a conceiver of ideas, a realiser of artistic forms, should be possessed of scant originality in his methods of thought, while showing much in his methods of translating the thoughts of others, in his sentiments, his tastes, his gestures. In such matters, indeed, his originality reaches the point of oddity, and goes beyond it, even as far as that indigenous samodourstvo which, in certain of its forms, borders closely on madness. This, again, is natural, because psychological development has degrees of its own, and the emotional faculties are here naturally on a lower plane.

To sum it up. A people and a literature standing apart; geographically ,ethnographically, historically, outside the Western European community. No doubt the three great elements of Western civilisation, the Christian, the Graeco-Norman, and the German, are to be found at the base of this eccentric formation, but in very different proportion, combination, and depth. Both the nation and its literature have, indeed, alike received the triple baptism which freed Russia from all the primitive barbarisms — the apostolate of Cyril and Methodius, the Varegian conquest, the Byzantine civilization. But the hold of the conquerors, whether of Norman or of German

THE RUSSIAN LANGUAGE origin, was weak and transient ; so weak and so transient, indeed, that their very origin is now disputed. Cyril and Methodius bore with them the germ of the Eastern Schism, and by that schism, as well as by the influence of Byzantium, Russia was actually cut off from the Western European world, and isolated in a solitude which was to endure for centuries. From the Crusades down to the Revolution, she bore no part in any of the manifestations of European life. She slumbered on, hard by.

All this will be recognised by my readers in the literature we are about to study together. Somewhat of it is evident even in the language used by Dosto'ievski and Tolstoi. A wondrous instrument it is, the most melodious, certainly, in the Slavonic circle, one of the most melodious in the universe; flexible, sonorous, graceful, lending itself to every tone and every style, simple or elegant at will, subtle and refined, energetic, picturesque. In its diversity of form and construction, partly due to its frequent inversions, it resembles the classic languages and German. Its power of embodying a whole figure in one word marks its kinship with the Oriental tongues. The extreme variability of the tonic accent, which lends itself to every rhythmic combination, a markedly intuitive character, and a wonderful plasticity, combine to form a language unrivalled, perhaps, in its poetic qualities. But the instrument was made but yesterday. There are gaps in it ; some parts are borrowed ; we find discords here and there which the centuries have not yet had time to fill, to harmonise, to resolve. This tongue finds soft and caressing words even for those things which partake the least of such a character. Vo'ina stands for war ;

vo'ine for the warrior. But should the warrior be called to defend his country, threatened by an invader, he becomes Khrabryi, Zachtchichtchaiouchtchyi / Can we not hear the hoarse whistling yell of the barbarians ?

This language is the offspring, too, of Peter the Great and the Reform. Later on I shall speak of its origin. In its alphabet we recognise perverted forms of both Greek and Roman letters, and others of strange appearance, which neither these two classic alphabets nor that of the German tongue possess ; and a residuum, also perverted, from the ancient liturgic or Cyrillic Slav alphabet — the Tower of Babel, never-ending.

Modern Russia belongs to the Oriental family of the Slavonic languages ; but of all these languages it is the one which contains the greatest number of elements pertaining to other families. Thus the vowel a, specially characteristic of the Finnish tongue, has replaced, in many words, the primitive o of the Slavonic roots. The Tartar invasion has left its impress both on words and on the construction of sentences. In the department of science, the German invader has won a decided victory ; and Dobrolioubov, the great critic of the " fifties," was able to say, and without undue exaggeration, that the literary language of his country had nothing Russian about it.

But the Russian tongue it is ; and being also the language of a colonising nation, it admits of no divergence nor any provincial corruption. There is hardly any patois in the country. But it is a new language, without any deep root in the country's history, and the literature of which it is the organ is likewise new, and devoid of historic depth. Hence, apart even from the manifold

THE RUSSIAN LANGUAGE 7

causes already enumerated, we have an alternation of periods of rich and rapid expansion with others of the sterility born of exhaustion. Of this fact we shall see clear evidence. Hence also a predisposition to new formulae, and to the wiping out of the old ones, to thorough-going radicalism in things literary, to haughty scorn of all traditions and conventions, and even of propriety.

Chapter I The Epic Age

Popular Poetry

In Russia the epic age was prolonged up to the threshold of the present century. The heroic legend of Platov and his Cossacks pursuing the retreat of the hated Khrantzouz (Frenchman) is still in the mouth of the popular bard, the strings of whose rustic lyre yet ring in certain remote corners of the country, in defiance of Pouchkine and his followers. This phenomenon is natural enough. From the point of view of literary evolution, five or six centuries lie between Russia and the other countries possessed of European culture. At the period when Duns Scotus, William of Wykeham, and Roger Bacon were barring the West with that streak of light whereat such men as Columbus, Descartes, Galileo, and Newton were soon to kindle their torches, Russia still lay wrapped in darkness. An explanation of this long-continued gloom has been sought even among the skulls lately unearthed in the neighbourhood of Moscow. These appear to have revealed that, in the primitive inhabitants of that country, the sensual elements were so excessively developed as to exclude the rest.

The Tartar conquest of the thirteenth century should be a much more trustworthy event on which to reckon, in this connection. It destroyed the budding civilisation 8

THE DAWN OF CHRISTIANITY 9

of the sphere influenced by Kiev. But even then, the empire of the Vladimirs and the Jaroslavs followed far indeed behind the progress of the European world. In 1240, when the hordes of Baty thundered at the gates of Kiev, nothing within them portended the approaching birth of a Dante, and no labours such as those of a Duns Scotus, nor even of a Villehardouin, suffered interruption. The tardy dawn of Christianity in these quarters, together with the baptism of Vladimir (988), and the Byzantine hegemony, which was its first-fruit, in themselves involved a falling behind the hour marked by the European clock. The Byzantine culture had a value of its own. Previous to the Renaissance, it imposed itself even upon the West. But it had little communicative power. To the outer world its only effulgence was that of a centre of religious propaganda, and this fervour, strongly tinctured with asceticism, checked, more than it favoured, any intellectual soarings. Here we find the explanation of another phenomenon — that the poetry of this epoch, and even of later times, has only been handed down to us by word of mouth. In this part of the world, and up till the close of the seventeenth century writing and printing were controlled by the Church — a Church resolute in her hostility to every element of profane culture. In the Domestic Code (domostro'i) of Pope Sylvester, a contemporary of Ivan the Terrible, the national poetry is still treated as devilry — pagan, and consequently damnable.

Thus the harmonious offspring of the national genius has lived on in the memories of succeeding generations. But hunted, even in this final refuge, by ecclesiastical anathemas, it has retreated, step by step, towards the

IO RUSSIAN LITERATURE

lonely and bitter regions of the extremest North. When modern science sought to wake the echoes of the old songs first warbled under the " Golden Gate" of Kiev, the only answer came from the huts and taverns of the White Sea. The oldest of all the collections of Russian verse, that of Kircha Danilov, dates from the eighteenth century only, and is of dubious value. The wave of melody has rolled across time and space, gathering, as it passed, local legends, passing inspirations, and the enigmatic fruit of foreign fiction and lyrics. Then it has divided, evaporated, and lost itself, finally, in the sand and mud.

The work done for the West by the Icelandic Sagas was thus delayed, in Russia, by some four or five centuries. The only written traces of the glory of Ilia of Mourom, the great hero of the cycle of Kiev, are to be found in German, Polish, or Scandinavian manuscripts. It was an English traveller, Richard James, whose curiosity induced him, at the beginning of the seventeenth century (1619), to note down the original forms of the Russian lyric ; and as a crowning disgrace, the first imitators (in the following century) of this English collector (Novikov, Tchoulkov, Popov, Bogdanovitch) were forgers. They took upon themselves to correct the outpourings of the popular inspiration !

Did ancient Russia possess concurrently with this oral poetry a literary verse, allied with the Nibelungenlied and the Chansons de Geste f One specimen exists, the famous "Story of the Band of Igor." But this is but a solitary ruin. I shall refer to it later.

In our own day, the popular poetry brought to light by the labours of such Russian savants as Kiriei6vski, Sakharov, Rybnikov, and Hilferding, and revealed to

POPULAR POETRY II

the Western world by the translations and studies of Ralston, Bistrom, Damberg, Iagic, and Rambaud, has emerged in all its wealth. It was an astonishment and a delight. The fragments of French popular songs collected in 1853, tne gwerziou of Lower Brittany, the Chants des Pauvres of the Velay and the Forez, the national poetry of Languedoc and Provence, form but a poverty-stricken treasury in comparison. But there is no possibility of any comparison. The prolongation of the epic period in the lower strata of the Russian world, until the moment of its paradoxical encounter with the sudden development, literary and scientific, which took place in the upper strata, has produced a result which I believe to be unprecedented in human history. At the gates of Archangel the Russian collectors found themselves face to face with the authentic depositaries of a poetic heritage dating from prehistoric epochs. One night in a railway train still carries them into the heart of the twelfth century.

But this inheritance, rich though it be, is not absolutely intact. Some Russian savants, such as Mr. Srezniewski, have gone so far as to doubt its authenticity. It was the absence of certain historic links, the presence of certain features corresponding with the popular poetry, and even with the poetical literature, of other nations which stirred their scepticism. We find no symptom, indeed, of the recorded historic life of the period anterior to the Tartar conquest, and that conquest itself is only reflected in imagery of excessive faintness. On the other hand, we easily recognise in Polkane, one of the heroes of the poetic legend of Bova, the Pulicane of the Reali di Francia, a collection of Italian epic poetry.

Mr, Khalanski has gone so far as to contest the commonly accepted fact of the migration of this poetry from south to north. He founds his theory on the absence of any corresponding movement among the Southern peoples. But no German emigrants were needed to carry the songs of the Edda across the continent of Europe ; and as to the phenomena of concord, or even fusion, with the poetry of the West, they are sufficiently accounted for by the special character of the Russian epopee. This epopee was, until quite recent times, a living being, who dwelt, like all living beings, in communion with the world about him.

To sum it up, Russian popular poetry, as we know it, is neither homogeneous in character nor precise in date. It is the complex product of a series of centuries, and of an organic development which has continued down to our own days. It reflects both the ancient Russian life of the Kiev period, the later Muscovite period, and even the St. Petersburg period of modern times. It has likewise absorbed some features of Western life.

As to form, we find two chief phases — the polymorphous metre, of seven, eight, or nine feet, and the line of three or six feet, in which the simple trochee is followed by the dactyl : —

As to substance, we have three leading categories — heroic tales or bylines, songs on special subjects, and historical songs ; all with one common characteristic, the predominance of the Pagan spirit. The influence of Christianity is hardly to be discerned. And this one feature,both from the point of view of culture, and more particularly from that of literary evolution, opens an abyss between Russia and Europe. The anathema of the Church falls

THE BYLINES 13

on every legend, Christian or Pagan, with equal severity. Hence, partly, arises that profound and imperturbable realism which seems to have saturated the national literature from the outset, and which still predominates in its development.

The Bylines.

The word byline seems to be derived from bylo y " has been." Sakharov was, indeed, the first person to use it, after an ancient manuscript which has now disappeared. Yet it is found in the " Story of the Band of Igor " as equivalent to the expression " narrative." In the seventeenth-century texts the word used is staryna = u antiquity."

The bylines gravitate in two distinct cycles round the two centres of ancient Russian life — Kiev and Novgorod. In the Kiev cycle, the legendary figures cluster round Vladimir. Yet a certain number of bylines evoke yet more ancient heroes, of origin and prowess alike fabulous. Volga Sviatoslavitch is the son of a princess by a serpent ; he is the personification of wisdom and cunning. In the case of Sviatogor the ruling quality is strength. He is so huge that the earth can scarcely carry him — a feature also to be found in the Rustem of Persian story. These personages, like the Titans of the Greek legend, symbolise the struggle of man with the elements. But this Slav myth is far from possessing the fulness of those which have descended to us from the Germans and Scandinavians. There was no priestly caste among the Slav pagans to garner up those religious traditions which have formed the basis of every great school of poetry.

With Vladimir, a gleam of chivalry appears. He and those about him are giants, but jolly companions and mighty drinkers as well. At this point the epic links itself with history, for the Vladimir known to history actually was a great feast-giver. Yet the link is a frail one. The bylines know naught either of this sovereign's introduction of Christianity, or of the energy and skill which, according to the chroniclers, marked his initiatory efforts. The Vladimir of poetry confines himself to perpetually inventing fresh exploits for his heroes, to feeding them royally, and to marrying them off. He has no personal heroism. His deeds of prowess do not exist, and his usual bearing strikes us as somewhat effeminate, and even cowardly. When the Tartars besiege Kiev, he almost goes on his knees to Ilia, the destined saviour of the empire. Ilia requires a good deal of pressing, and is not far wrong, for the sovereign's behaviour betrays a general lack of generosity, not to speak of common honesty.

He covets the spouse of one of his heroes, and drives husband and wife to despair and death. This legend is evidently a mere variation of the biblical story of David and the wife of Uriah the Hittite, and the polygamous Vladimir bears the sins of a whole series of sovereigns, down to Ivan the Terrible. But the inspiration of the poem is all the more significant.

Ilia is a peerless comrade, the favourite hero of the bylines. His personal appearance, qualities, and brave deeds, are generally supposed to typify the ideal personification of the national temperament and genius. The peculiarities of the hero warrant this belief. In the first place, he is of peasant blood ; and at the feast he forces the lords of Vladimir's court to give place before the moujiks of his company. This humility of origin is not exceptional in the circle about the prince. Another

VLADIMIR 15

member of it, Aliocha, is the son of a pope ; and another, Soloviei* Boudimirovitch, the son of a shopkeeper. Both of these fraternise with Dobrynia, who belongs to a princely family. Ilia and Dobrynia exchange their crosses as a sign of friendship. These traits are true to the instincts and traditions of a nation in whose bosom a real aristocracy has never succeeded in taking root.

'Ilia — like one of his forerunners in the prehistoric cycle, Mikoula Selianinovitch — is a cultivator of the soil, and except for the Russian bard, I believe none but the rhapsodist of the Finnish Kalevala would have bestowed a leading heroic role on a tiller of the ground. Yet in some other traits of character, and certain of his exploits, Ilia so nearly approaches the epic and mythologic world of neighbouring countries, as to seem merged in more than one of their representatives. Until the age of thirty, he remains inactive ; and here the influence of the Christian myth is clearly visible. Later on he fights with a fabulous robber, Soloviei* (the Nightingale), who has wings, and bends the mightiest oaks by the mere weight of his body. But danger alarms Ilia, and the expedients he invents to escape it carry our minds to Hector fleeing before Achilles, and to Rama, seized with terror in the presence of Kabhanda. At the time of his greatest feats, Ilia is no longer young, and his white beard reminds us of Roland. He hesitates long before he succours Kiev ; he is perpetually disputing with Vladimir, and with and around him the whole turbulent and quarrelsome band of the legendary heroes of Europe and Asia, Rustem, Achilles, Sigurd, Siegfried, Arthur, with all the Olympian demi-gods, from the Hindoo Indra to the Thor-Wotan of the Germans, and the Peroune of the Russians, rise before our eyes. But dissimilarities crop up forthwith. When, at long last, Ilia consents to deliver KieV, it is neither lest he should be accused of cowardice, like Rustem, nor to wreak a personal vengeance, like Achilles. He is too much of a philosopher, too good-natured, for that. The Palatine Ogier, whose son has been slain by Charlemagne, demands the murderer's head as the price of his co-operation against the Saracens. Ilia is incapable of making such a bargain ; nor does he obey any instinct of personal devotion to Vladimir. Indifferent alike to the point of honour and to the hope of glory, he raises his eyes above them both. That redoubtable arm is only lifted to defend the widow and the orphan, or for the common weal.

The manner in which this conception has been utilised by the Slavophil party will be easily divined. And assuredly the comparison which certain Western writers, following their lead, have delighted to establish with the Greek heroes and the noblest paladins of the Chansons de Geste, redounds to Ilia's advantage. Yet even here the comparison is irrelevant. The Greek heroes were not Christians, and the paladins were the merest miscreants. This latter type only assumes an ideal aspect in the Romances of the Round Table, and there it at once appears in conjunction with that pregnant belief, the source of true Christian chivalry, that the noblest fashion of employing strength is for the defence of the weak. Ilia, too, has his origin in this belief. The final elaboration of his type is certainly of later date than the Romances of the Round Table, and in its best, which are not always its most apparent features, it undoubtedly is a Christian type.