Anthology of Modern Slavonic Literature in Prose and Verse

Front matter

ANTHOLOGY OF MODERN SLAVONIC LITERATURE

By the same Author

MODERN RUSSIAN POETRY:

Front matter

ANTHOLOGY OF MODERN SLAVONIC LITERATURE

By the same Author

MODERN RUSSIAN POETRY:

Preface

PREFACE

The bulk of this Anthology has been selected from translations which have been accumulating for several years. My aim has been to include what is most typically racial; but what is most typically racial is not always the most adapted for translation. In making my choice of material, this was one of the difficulties I had to deal with. It was less acute in the prose section; but on the other hand, this section presented certain other obstacles of its own. The first arose from the need of finding short prose works complete in themselves. Only twice (with Reymont and Machar) did I deviate from this principle, and even in these two cases the reader will find that each of the extracts chosen, although part of a longer work, formean organic whole. The second obstacle was due to the purely practical diffculty, under present conditions, of obtaining the necessary books. To take a particular instance, this accounts for the scanty manner in which Southern Slav prose is represented. It is hoped, however, that such gaps as these (and perhaps the many others) may be filled in later when circumstances are more favourable.

The word "modern" has been interpreted usually from a chronological point of view. In many cases its application to style and tendency followed as a matter of course. There are a few obvious exceptions. Thus, Prešern died in 1849. Shevtchenko's poems date back more than half a century. The "Ode to Slavdom" by Preradović was written in 1865. In all these cases my choice is justified, I think, by the racial criterion I have mentioned. But for the most part, the chronological standard has been adhered to. About three in four of the writers represented are still alive.

Ever since I began to arrange my material, I have had the considerable advantage of frequent consultations with Mr. Janko Lavrin. Indeed, I believe it is due to his suggestion that this work has assumed its present form. For that definite service, together with a great deal of personal encouragement which cannot be precisely indicated, I here express my gratitude, although it cannot but fall far short of what is due.

P. Selver.

London, April, 1918.

Introduction

INTRODUCTION

The distribution of the Slavs in Europe is excellently conjectured by Professor Lubor Niederle, the Czech authority, in the following terms ("Slovanský Svět," p. 2):—

"The primitive Slav race had its nucleus between the Oder and the Dnieper; stage by stage, in prehistoric times, it had reached the Elbe, the Saale, the Danube, the Niemen and the Baltic. It had spread itself over this wide area, partly through the influence of certain geographical conditions, as, for example, the main watercourses and mountains, partly through currents of civilisation, whose effects in the East differed from those in the West; partly also, through the influence of linguistic development. To begin with, the divisions were three in number. The first, to the west of the Vistula and the Carpathians, spread out in a westerly direction beyond the lower Elbe, the Saale and the Bohemian Forest, resulting in those branches of the Slavs known as the Polabians, Pomeranians, Poles and Czechs; the second, whose primitive headquarters lay between the Upper Vistula, the Dniester and the middle Danube, in course of time advanced south of the Carpathians, and while one detachment settled on the Drave, the other, crossing the Save and Danube, penetrated to the Balkan regions and developed into the Slovene, Serbo-Croatian and Bulgarian groups; the third fraction extended in a vast circle from the lower Dnieper basin, and reached the Gulf of Finland, the upper Dnieper and the Volga to the north, the Don to the east, and the lower Danube to the south. This division formed the Russian race, which was further modified within itself under the influence of varying local conditions."

This account deals feasibly with the difficult question of origins. It has the additional advantage of forming a convenient basis upon which to catalogue the modern Slavs. By retaining the three suggested divisions, which may be designated as Western, Southern and Eastern (this being the order in which their origins are dealt with), we arrive at the following statistical arrangement:—

Western Slavs.—Poles, 20 millions. Western Slavs.—Czechs, 7 millions. Western Slavs.—Slovaks, 2 millions. Western Slavs.—Wends, 150 thousand. Southern Slavs.—Serbo-Croatians, 9 millions. Southern Slavs.—Bulgarians, 5 millions. Southern Slavs.—Slovenes, 11/2 millions. Eastern Slavs.—Great Russians, 65 millions. Eastern Slavs.—Little Russians (Malo-Russians, Ruthenians or Ukrainians). 31 millions. Eastern Slavs.—White Russians, 7 millions.

This results in a total of nearly 150 millions, but the figures are, of course, very approximate. It must be remembered, for instance, that political conditions have made the census returns in certain districts somewhat unreliable, and cases are not unknown where Slav populations help to increase German or Magyar totals. Slav authorities themselves have differed greatly, not only in the question of figures, but also in actual classification. Thus, Šafařík, one of the heralds of the Czech revival, writing in 1826, estimated a total of just over 55 million Slavs, among whom he included what he called Bosniaks, Dalmatians and Slavonians. The same authority drew no distinction between the Great and Little Russians, estimated the Ukrainians in Austria at only three millions and had very vague ideas about the Bulgarians. Writing again in 1842, he increased his estimated total to 78 millions.

Several Slav tribes became extinct at an early period, although their former abodes are often revealed in Saxon and Prussian place-names (Pomerania, Prussia. Leipzig and Berlin are examples). Jan Kollár, one of the poets of the Czech revival, refers to some of these lost races in his famous Prologue to "The Daughter of Sláva," written in 1824:—

The difficulties of classification are almost as great when we come to consider the Slav languages. In 1822, Dobrovský, the practical founder of Slav philology, divided them into 9 different tongues; Šafařík in 1842 proposed 6 languages with 13 dialects; Schleicher in 1865 proposed 8; Miklosich, a prominent Slovene scholar, decided on 9; Jagić, a Croat authority of European reputation, is in favour of 8. The reason for this diversity is that some philologists designate as a language what others will admit only as a dialect. Thus, many Russian authorities are unwilling to treat Ukrainian as a separate language (not altogether justly); Slovaks such as Czambel, with the fatal Slav tendency towards cleavage, insist on a distinct Slovak race (of Southern Slav origin) with a distinct Slovak language (again not altogether justly). Even the Wends who live under German rule in parts of Saxony and Brandenburg, scanty as they are, claim a division into two varying dialects.

However, making all reasonable allowances, we may regard the following as an accurate arrangement:—

|Eastern | Russian Little Russian (Malo-Russian, Ruthenian, Ukrainian

|Western | Polish Czech-Slovak Wendic

|Southern | Serbo-Croat Slovene Bulgarian

Of these languages, Polish, Czech, Croat and Wendic are written in the Latin alphabet, adapted to their particular phonetic needs by the use of various diacritic signs. The remainder employ the so-called Cyrillic alphabet. This difference of alphabet is the only real distinction between Croat and Serbian. It should be noticed that the Cyrillic alpbabet is not identical in the case of all the languages that use it. Russian, Ukrainian, Serbian and Bulgarian have the bulk of the letters in common: but each language has also a few characters peculiar to itself.

As a whole, the Slav languages are distinguished by striking similarities of structure and vocabulary. The so-called "aspects" of the verb are common to them all; while the numerous noun inflections are lacking only in Bulgarian. This language, it may be added, differs from the rest also by the use of a definite article, which is suffixed to the noun. The same construction exists in two other Balkan, but non-Slav languages, Albanian and Roumanian.

The following lists will give some idea of the degrees of affinity between the chief Slav languages:—

|Russian. | | Polish | Czech | Serbo-Croat | Slovene.

pólnye (full) | pełny | pln(ý) | | pun(i) | poln(i)

otyéts (father) | ojciec | otec | | otac | otec

dyen' (day) | dzien | den | | dan | den (dan)

byedá (woe) | biada | bída | | biéda | béda

dólgie (long) | długi | dlouhý | | dug(i) | dolg(i)

These few examples might lead an observer to deduce a closer similarity than would be justified by comparing the languages in the bulk, and taking into account something more than isolated words. Many of the Slavs themselves are apt to exaggerate to the extent to which their languages resemble each other. M. Léger tells of a Slovak who was convinced that his native dialect would be freely understood in Moscow; he was soon disillusioned. V. Hrubý asserts in his "Com- parative Handbook of the Slavonic Languages" that he "often had the opportunity of observing how Czech, Polish and Russian workmen conversed readily in their native idioms with Croat pedlars for hours at a time." This is, if anything, slightly overstated.

The fact is, that in spite of many cognate words and constractions, each member of the group has peculiarities of pronunciation and vocabulary which distinguish it often very strikingly from the rest. Thus, Russian with its Tartar elements (found in several everyday words) and fluctuating stress, contrasts with Polish where the stress falls on the penultimate syllable, and where, as in no other modern Slavonic language, two nasal sounds have survived from primitive Slavonic. In Czech again, words have their chief stress on the first syllable, while the vocabulary as a whole is more purely Slavonic than that of the previous two. In general, it will be found that the Slavonic languages of recent development, such as Czech and Slovene, contain fewer words of foreign origin than those whose tradition is more continuous. The reason is, that on the revival of these languages during the early part of last century, the non-Slavonic elements were deliberately eliminated. But even in these languages the native element has, in the last twenty years or so, been modified by an admixture of foreign words derived largely from a study of French literature. This has resulted in numerous pairs of synonyms, which some native scholars are inclined to welcome on the ground that they provide the language with subtler shades of meaning.

Part I. Prose

PART I.

PROSE.

In a Foreign Land

SLAVONIC ANTHOLOGY

PART I. PROSE

RUSSIAN:

ANTON CHEKHOV: IN A FOREIGN LAND.

It is Sunday, at noon. Kamyshev, a landed proprietor, is sitting at home in his dining-room, at a sumptuously appointed table, and is slowly breakfasting. His meal is shared by Monsieur Champune, a dapper, clean-shaven old Frenchman. This Champune was once employed by Kamyshev as a tutor; he taught his children deportment, good pronunciation, and dancing. Later on, when Kamyshev's children had grown up and become lieutenants, Champune remained something in the nature of a masculine governess. The duties of the whilom tutor are not onerous. He has to dress decently, reek of scents, listen to Kamyshev's empty chatter, eat, drink, sleep,—and beyond that, apparently, nothing. In return, be receives board, lodging, and an indefinite salary.

Kamyshev is eating and, as usual, babbling vapidly. "Confound it?" says he, wiping away the tears which he has provoked through eating a morsel of ham, thickly smeared with mustard. "Whew! It's got into my head and all my joints. Your French mustard couldn't do that, not even if you swallowed a whole pot of it."

"Some like French mustard, and some Russian," remarks Champune mildly.

"Nobody likes French mustard, except the French. But give what you like to a Frenchman,—he'll eat it all up; frogs and rats and cockroaches. Ugh! For instance, you don't like this ham because it's Russian; but give you roasted glass and say it's French, and you'll begin to eat and smack your lips. Your idea is, that all Russian things are rotten."

"I don't say so!"

"All Russian things are rotten, but French,—oh, c'est très joli! Your idea is, that there's no better country than France, but my idea is,—well, what is France, honestly speaking? A chunk of earth! Send our local police official there, and within a month he'll ask to be transferred; no room to move! You can travel through all your France in a single day, but in our country you go out of the gate,—no end to be seen. You travel and travel…

"Yes, monsieur, Russia is a tremendous country."

"That it is! Your idea is, that there's no better people than the French. An educated, intelligent nation! So civilised! I'll grant you, the French are all educated, good-mannered. Quite so. A Frenchman will never lapse into boorish behaviour. He'll bring a lady a chair at the proper moment, he won't eat crabs with a fork, he won't spit on the floor, but he hasn't that spirit… No, that spirit isn't in him. I can't make it clear to you, but,—how shall I put it?—a Frenchman is lacking in something or other…" (the speaker waves his fingers about) "something or other … something juristic. I remember reading somewhere that you've all got an acquired intelligence from books, while our intelligence is innate. If you instruct a Russian properly in the sciences, there's not one of your professors can equal him."

"That may be" says Champune, as though against his will.

"No, not may be, but it is so! It's no good scowling about it, I'm speaking the truth. Russian intelligence is an inventive intelligence. Only, of course, they don't give him free play, and he's not good at bragging. He invents something and smashes it up or gives it to the children to play with, while your Frenchman invents some rubbish and shouts it from the housetops. Just lately our coachman Yona carved a man out of wood; you pull this man by a thread, and it does something indecent. But Yona doesn't brag about it. In general, I don't care for the French. I'm not speaking about you, but in general. An immoral nation. From the outside, they are just like men, but they live like dogs. Take, for example now, marriage. If a man here gets married, he sticks to his wife and there's an end of the matter. But the Lord only knows what you do. The man sits all day in the café, and his wife crams the house full of Frenchmen and then for the cancan.

"That's untrue!" Champune cannot keep himself from saying. "In France domestic life is very highly esteemed."

"We know all about that domestic life! You ought to be ashamed of yourself for defending it. But it must be said in all fairness: A swine remains a swine. All thanks to the Germans for having beaten them. My goodness me, thanks to them. God prosper them for it."

"If that is so, monsieur, I don't understand," says the Frenchman, leaping up with his eyes flashing, "if you hate the French, why you keep me here."

"Where am I to put you, then?"

"Dismiss me, and I'll go back to France."

"Wha-a-t? Do you think they'd let you into France now? Why, you're a traitor to your country. Sometimes you call Napoleon a great man, sometimes Gambetta. The devil himself couldn't make you out."

"Monsieur !" says Champune in French, splut- tering and crumpling his serviette in his hands, "A greater insult than you have just flung upon my feelings, not even my enemy could think of. We are done with each other." And striking up a tragic attitude, the Frenchman daintily throws his serviette upon the table and departs in a dignified manner.

About three hours later, the table is laid afresh, and the dinner is served. Kamyshev sits down alone to dinner. After his preliminary glass of spirits, he is seized with a craving for vapid chatter. He wants to gossip and he has no auditor.

"What is Alphonse Ludovicovitch doing?" he asks the flunkey.

"He's packing his trunk, sir."

"What tomfoolery, Heaven help us!" says Kamyshev, and goes to the Frenchman.

Champune is sitting in the middle of his room on the floor, and with trembling hands is packing his trunk with washing, scent-bottles, prayer-books, braces, neckties. His whole air of respectability, the trunk, the bed, and the table give the impression of something elegant and womanish. From his big blue eyes large tears are falling on to the trunk.

"Where are you off to?" asks Kamyshev, after looking on a little.

The Frenchman is silent.

"Do you want to go away?" continues Kamyshev. "Well, just as you please. I won't stop you. But there's one curious thing ; how can you get along without a passport? That's what puzzles me. You know, I've lost your passport. I put it away somewhere among some papers, and its got lost. And they're strict about passports here. You won't manage to go five versts before they'll collar you."

Champune lifts up his head and looks at Kamyshev mistrustfully.

"Oh, yes. You'll see. They'll tell by your face that you've got no passport, and they’ll want to know at once who you are, Alphonse Champune? We know these Alphonse Champunes. Would you mind stepping this way for a short journey?"

"You're joking."

“What should I joke for? A lot of good it would be to me! But just notice this one thing. Please don't whine afterwards and write letters. I won't lift a finger, when they lead you past here in manacles."

Champune jumps up, and pale, with eyes wideopen, he begins to pace across the room.

"Why do you treat me like this?" he says, clutching at his head in desperation. "Good Heavens! Oh, cursed be the hour in which the pernicious idea entered by mind to leave my native land?

"Come, come, come! It was only a little joke on my part!" remarks Kamyshey, mitigating his tone. "What a queer chap, not to understand a joke. There's no talking to you."

"My dear friend," whimpers Champune, pacified by Kamyshev’s tone, "I swear to you, I am attached to Russia, to you, and to your children. To leave you would be as hard for me as to die. But every word of yours cuts into my heart."

"Oh, you queer fellow! If I abuse the French, why on earth should you feel insulted? There are heaps of people we abuse, and supposing all of them were to feel insulted? You are a queer fellow, really! Just follow the example of Lazar Isakitch, my tenant. Sometimes I call him this, sometimes that, Jew one day, scab another, and make a pig's ear with my coat-tail, and pull him by the earlocks. He doesn’t feel insulted."

"But what a servile creature he is. For a kopeck he'll put up with any degradation."

"Well, well, well Nevermind. Let's go in to dinner. Peace and harmony!"

Champune powders his tear-stained face and follows Kamyshev into the dining-room. The first course is served in silence; after the second, the same performance begins again, and thus Champune's tribulations have no end.

My Life

DMITRI MEREZHKOVSKY: MY LIFE.

My father, who is now dead, told me that my great-grandfather, Fyodor Merezhky, was a major in the Cossack army at Glukhov, in Little Russia. My grandfather, Ivan Fyodorovitch, came to Petrograd towards the end of the 18th century in the reign of Paul I., and being a man of title, was admitted into the Ismailov regiment of the guards. It was probably about that time that he changed his Little Russian name Merezhky for the Great Russian Merezhkovsky. Later on my grandfather was transferred from Petrograd to Moscow, and took part in the war of 1812.

My father, Sergey Ivanovitch, was born at Moscow, in 1821, being the son of Ivan Fyodorovitch, and his second wife, née Kurbskaya. He was educated at a private school owned by Madame Liebermann. In 1839 he entered the Civil Service. He served first with Talysin, Governor of Orenburg, as assistant to the head of a department, then in a similar capacity with Count Shavalov, marshal of the Emperor's household, and finally as head of a department in the Court Chancery. He held this position under the minister, Count Adlerberg, during the whole reign of Alexander II. In 1853 he married Var- vara Vassilyevna Tchesnokova, a daughter of the chief of the Central Police Bureau at Petrograd.

I came into the world on August 2nd (14th) 1865, at Petrograd, on the Yelagin Island, in an official building belonging to the castle, where my parents used to spend the summer. I still love the melancholy thickets and the ponds in the marshy Yelagin Park, where we children, under the influence of Mayne-Reid and Cooper, used to play at "Indians." The pine-tree in which, hovering like a bird in the airy heights, I used to read and dream, and, far from all mankind, felt like a free "savage," is there to this very day. I can still remember how we would explore the gloomy cellars of the castle, where the stalactites hanging from the damp ceiling sparkled in the candle-light; or how we mounted to the flat green dome of the castle from which we had a view of the sea; and also, how we went boating, and, on the sandy shore of the Krestovsky Island we would light a fire and bake potatoes, and feel more like "savages" than ever.

In winter we used to stay in the old Bauer House, which was built as long ago as the days of Peter the Great. It stands at the corner of the Neva and the Fontanka, by the Pratcheshny Bridge, opposite the Summer Garden. On one side we had the summer palace of Peter I., on the other his "cottage" and the oldest church in Petrograd, the wooden Trinity Cathedral. My father's huge, two-storied official residence had any number of rooms, both for use and for show. They were large and gloomy, the windows faced towards the north, and the decorations were dull and pompous. My father could not bear the children to make a noise and disturb him in his work; we always crept past his study door on tiptoe.

I now believe that my father had many good qualities. But, always morose and harassed by the heavy official duties of those old days, he was a man who never managed to lead a real family life. There were nine of us, six boys and three girls. As children we lived on fairly good terms with each other, but later, each went his own way, for we lacked the spiritual ties which always come from the father.

I was the youngest boy and my mother loved me more than her other sons. If there is any good in me at all, I have to thank her for it. When I was 7 or 8, I nearly died of diphtheria; I owe my life to my mother's devoted care.

My father used to go on long official journeys abroad, and to Livadia in the Crimea, where the invalid Empress was then residing, and he left us children in the care of Amalia Christianovna, the old housekeeper, a German woman from Reval. She was a good-natured, but narrow-minded and shy sort of person. What I felt for her was not so much love, as childlike pity. I also had an old nurse who used to tell me Russian folk-tales and legends of the saints. Even now I can remember the dark corner with the eikon and a lamp burning in front of it, and the never-returning joy of childish prayer. I did not really like going to church; the priests in their ornate dress made me feel afraid.

Sometimes, to please my mother, my father took me with him to the Crimea, where we owned a small estate close to the waterfall of Utchan-Su. It was there that I first became acquainted with the beauty of the south. I still remember the splendid castle at Oreanda, that now lies in ruins. The white marble pillars by the blue sea form my imperishable symbol of ancient Greece.

I was educated at the 3rd High School. It was at the end of the seventies and the beginning of the eighties, during the dull period of strictest classicism. There was no trace of education,—nothing but cramming and drill. Our headmaster, a half-crazy old German, was called Lemonius, and the name suited him well. The teachers were all insignificant place-hunters. I have no pleasant memories of any of them, except Kessler, the old Latin master, author of the well-known grammar. Although he did not do us much good, he did at least have a kindly glance for us.

I rarely mixed with my schoolfellows, for I was shy and unsociable. The only one with whom I was at all intimate was Evgeni Solovyov, who became a journalist and critic (he is no longer alive); the tie between us, however, was not the similarity, but the divergency of our views; he was a sceptic, and I already had mystical leanings.

At the age of 13 I began to write. My first poem opened thus:

The clouds were scattered, and the heavens Gleamed joyously, and bright and blue…"

It was an imitation of Pushkin's "Fountain of Bakhtchisarai." It was about this time that my first critical treatise was produced,—a set essay on the Legend of Igor, for which Mokhnatchov, my Russian teacher, gave me full marks. I was prouder of this success than I have ever been in the whole subsequent course of my literary career.

On March 1st, 1881, I was walking up and down in our dining-room composing a poem on a subject from the Koran. The servant-girl came running in from the street, and spoke of a dreadful explosion which she had just heard. Later, my father came home to lunch direct from the castle. He was terribly upset, tear-stained and pale, and told us of an attempt upon the Emperor's life.

"There you have the fruits of Nihilism," he said. "What more do these monsters want? They have not spared even such an angel as that…"

My eldest brother, Constantine, a science student (later a well-known biologist), a passionate nihilist, attempted to defend the "monsters." My father flew into a rage, stamped his feet, cursed his son, and drove him out of the house. My mother implored forgiveness for her son, but my father would not hear of it.

This quarrel lasted several years. My mother became ill through fretting about it. About that time she contracted the liver trouble of which she subsequently died. She lives in my memory as a martyr and mediator for her children, but especially for her two favourite sons,—me and my eldest brother.

In the upper classes at school I became a warm admirer of Molière, and founded a "Molière Society." We pursued no political aims, but this did not prevent the political police from summoning us one fine day. An enquiry was instituted, and we lads of 16 and 17 were credited with nothing less than the intention to "overthrow the existing order." It was only my father's position that prevented me from being arrested and expelled. My mother, moreover, had managed to keep the whole affair from reaching my father's ears.

I went on writing verses. My father was very proud of them, had numerous copies made, and showed them to all his acquaintances. In 1879, if I am not mistaken, when I was 14 years old, he once took me to Alupka, to see the 70-year-old Countess, Elisabeth Vorontsov. I did not know then that I had the honour to kiss a hand which had been kissed half a century before by Pushkin.

In 1880, at the house of Countess Tolstoy, the widow of the poet, my father made the acquaintance of Dostoyevsky, and thereupon he took me to see him. I still remember the little apartment in Kolokolnaya Street, the narrow ante-room which was filled with copies of "The Brothers Karamazov," and the equally narrow study where Fyodor Mikhailovitch was sitting and correcting proofs. Turning red and pale, and stammering, I read him my wretched verses. He listened to me in silent annoyance. We had probably disturbed him in his work.

"Bad, very bad! Beneath all criticiem!" he said at length. "To write well it is first necessary to endure much, to suffer much."

"Then he had better not write; I do not want him to suffer," replied my father.

I can still remember the penetrating glance of Dostoyevsky's transparent, pale-blue eyes, and the pressure of his hand when we left. I never saw him again, and soon after that meeting I heard of his death. About the same time I made the acquaintance of an ensign at the military academy, who later was to become the famous poet Semyon Nadson. I loved him like a brother. Even then, he had consumption and was always speaking about death. We had many arguments on religious questions; he denied and I affirmed.

It was Nadson who introduced me to the poet Pleshtcheyev, editorial secretary of the "National Annals." I can still see the gaunt and narrow shoulders wrapped in a plaid, and I can hear the hoarse, hollow cough, and the bellowing voice of Saltykov Shtchedrin, whose quarters were in the editorial sanctum.

My first appearance in public was, if I am not mistaken, in the year 1882, with a poem which was printed in the "Illustrated Review," under the management of Scheller-Mikhailov. My subsequent works were issued in the "National Annals." After I had passed out of the High School in 1884, I entered the historical-philological faculty of Petrograd University. I am scarcely more indebted to the University than to the High School. So that really I grew up without any schooling as well as without fatherly guidance.