A history of Russian literature
Waliszewski, Kazimierz, 1849-1935
• vOo, ' ^ ^ ', <* ^ ^ ^ / 0 0 GV ! ' .** „ ^ .x * ,0o. 'W v** <* ' fr „ . 1 <r •■ ,0o W & > & Ax \. V * V I 8 ,, oox ,0© o> ^ \vv-> ■v\- "* ^ ;- ._ Y> * %> Short Histories of the Literatures of the World Edited by Edmund Gosse A HISTORY OF RUSSIAN LITERATURE BY K. WALISZEWSKI n AUTHOR OF THE ROMANCE OF AN EMPRESS, PETER THE GREAT, ETC. NEW YORK AND LONDON D. APPLETON AND COMPANY 1910 ^1 ^ Authorized Edition 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, Sen- kowski, 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 half- yearly Review under this somewhat confusing title, — Nothings about Nothing. Hence we may conceive what the country of Pouch- kine, 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 amass- ing 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 pos- session 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 be- fitted 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 develop- vi PREFACE ment which, during the march of history, has experi- enced such strange checks and forward impulses, can be efficiently revealed. The volume of the literary patri- mony 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 Bow- ring'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 direc- tion. The form assumed, in the lapse of time, by such personages as Hamlet or Eugene Onieguine, is the two- fold outcome of an original individual conception, and of a subsequent and collective process. These, first super- posed, 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 charac- ter of Tatiana be unknown to them. I dare not venture to flatter myself I have completely overcome this diffi- culty. Further, I do not close my eyes to my own de- ficiencies 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 indepen- dence 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 II. THE RENAISSANCE 47 III. THE FORGING OF THE LANGUAGE . . . 65 IV. THE BONDAGE OF THE WEST — CATHERINE II. . . 88 V. THE TRANSITION PERIOD — KARAMZINE AND JOU- KOVSKI 128 VI. THE NATIONAL EVOLUTION — POUCHKINE . . .154 VII. THE EMANCIPATING MOVEMENT — THE DOCTRINAIRES 189 VIII. LERMONTOV, GOGOL, AND TOURGUENIEV . . . 22? IX. THE CONTROVERSIALISTS — HERZEN AND CHTCHE- DRINE 299 X. THE PREACHERS— DOSTOIEVSKI AND TOLSTOI . . 330 XI. CONTEMPORARY LITERATURE ... . . . 403 BIBLIOGRAPHY 441 INDEX 447 ix .o- A HISTORY OF RUSSIAN LITERATURE 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 " (ethno- logischer 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 West- ern and moral one of the eighteenth, it merely under- goes a change of masters. Thus the evolution of the 2 RUSSIAN LITERATURE 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 recom- menced, in the neighbourhood of Perm and towards the Upper Kama, the interrupted work of the old Novgo- rod merchants, have made but little relative progress. Odessa, with its 405,000 inhabitants, dates from 1794. Between the Novgorod merchants and their sixteenth- century 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 acci- dental 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 pro- gress. The outcome has something of the American in it, and yet something of the Turkish. Thanks to its geo- graphical 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 per- fect 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 inclina- tions. 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 4 RUSSIAN LITERATURE 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 in- stincts, 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 trans- lating the thoughts of others, in his sentiments, his tastes, his gestures. In such matters, indeed, his origi- nality 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, out- side the Western European community. No doubt the three great elements of Western civilisation, the Chris- tian, 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 tran- sient, 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 slum- bered 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'i- evski and Tolstoi. A wondrous instrument it is, the most melodious, certainly, in the Slavonic circle, one of the most melodious in the universe; flexible, sono- rous, 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 in- strument 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 ; RUSSIAN LITERATURE vo'ine for the warrior. But should the warrior be called to defend his country, threatened by an in- vader, he becomes Khrabryi, Zachtchichtchaiouchtchyi / Can we not hear the hoarse whistling yell of the bar- barians ? 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 appear- ance, 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, spe- cially 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 depart- ment 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 exaggera- tion, that the literary language of his country had nothing Russian about it. But the Russian tongue it is ; and being also the lan- guage 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 in- habitants 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 approach- ing birth of a Dante, and no labours such as those of a Duns Scotus, nor even of a Villehardouin, suf- fered interruption. The tardy dawn of Christianity in these quarters, together with the baptism of Vladi- mir (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 Renais- sance, 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 con- trolled 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 con- temporary 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 Rus- sian verse, that of Kircha Danilov, dates from the eigh- teenth 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 cen- turies. 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 manu- scripts. 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 Eng- lish collector (Novikov, Tchoulkov, Popov, Bogdano- vitch) 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 Nibelungen- lied 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 col- lectors 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 abso- lutely intact. Some Russian savants, such as Mr. Srez- niewski, 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, in- deed, 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 12 RUSSIAN LITERATURE 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 polymor- phous 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 Chris- tianity 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 lite- rature from the outset, and which still predominates in its development. The Bylines. The word byline seems to be derived from byloy " 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 seven- teenth-century texts the word used is staryna = u anti- quity." 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 Scandi- navians. 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 14 RUSSIAN LITERATURE 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 per- petually inventing fresh exploits for his heroes, to feed- ing 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 personi- fication 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 an- other, 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 be- stowed 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 turbu- lent 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 1 6 RUSSIAN LITERATURE 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, de- mands the murderer's head as the price of his co-opera- tion against the Saracens. Ilia is incapable of making such a bargain ; nor does he obey any instinct of per- sonal 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. Apart, in fact, from his humanitarian instincts, there ILIA 17 is nothing knightly about Ilia. He is too coarse for that, too commonplace, and, above all, too pacifically inclined. He only fights under compulsion, and when it is inevi- table— never for the pleasure of the thing. And this peculiarity makes him the faithful representative of a race the accidents of whose historical fate has rendered it warlike, but which has never been swept away by one of those floods of martial ardour which stirred the Western countries during the Middle Ages. Ilia is a mighty eater and a heavy drinker. On the very eve of a battle we see him get drunk, and remain for twelve days in a state of vinous stupefaction and consequent incapability of action. If his wine does not actually overwhelm his senses, he grows noisy and in- tolerable. When sober he is cautious and calculating, not caring either to exert his strength unnecessarily, or to expose it to ordeals involving too much risk. When he has once made up his mind to face a danger, and has contrived to surmount the shudder which, in his case, always accompanies such a decision, he is much given to joke and banter, a trait which survives in the Russian peasant to this day. The type, on the whole, is a sympathetic one — but quite exceptional even in the legend — set far up on the height of the popular inspiration. Ilia's followers do not reach his ankle. They are lost below him — very much below him — in a confused medley of rogues, blunderers, boasters, and cowards, of whom he himself has but a poor opinion, seeing he generally has to do their work for them. Their merit is their strength — a physical vigour which enables them to triumph over everything, even over common sense. They run their heads against fortress walls, and the walls crumble before them. 1 8 RUSSIAN LITERATURE Barren of ideals as of ideas, they represent, in the popu- lar conception, the lower grade of heroism, the elemen- tary forces of Nature, of the earth, of the wind, of the heavy fist. Tourgueniev has placed this terrible declaration in the mouth of Potioughine, the grumbler in Smoke: " What is known as our ' epic literature ' is the only one in Europe or Asia which does not afford a single example of a typical pair of lovers. The hero of Holy Russia always begins his relations with the being to whose destiny fate has linked his own. by mercilessly ill- treating her. . . . Look into our legends. Love never appears in them but as the result of a charm or spell. It is absorbed with the liquor that brings forgetfulness ; its effect is compared with soil that is dried up, or frozen." Yet numerous female figures flit across these legends. They possess but little charm. They are triumphant, often, with an air of superiority which raises them above the masculine element ; but this they owe neither to their attraction nor to the love they inspire. Ilia of Mourom is overthrown by a giant Polenitsa (Polenitsas is the generic title of these viragos), who prowls over the steppe, shouldering a club weighing several thou- sand pounds, defying the bohatyry (heroes) — and who turns out to be his own daughter. Vassilissa, the daughter of Mikoula, combines strength with cunning to rescue her husband, Stavre Godounovitch ; but the legend is dumb as to her beauty and that of her fellow- women. And this neglect suffices to distinguish the Polenitsas from the Amazons, as well as from the Val- kyries. Men fight with them, they are frequently over- come by them, but they never pay court to them. RUSSIAN WOMEN 19 The woman of modern Russia does not share this peculiarity of her legendary predecessor. Yet certain features of the legendary type do appear, even in the most recent artistic creations, both in poetry and romance. Whether the author be Pouchkine, Tour- gueniev, or Tolstoi, whether it be a question of love or of action, of doing good or of rinding the right way, the initiative is most frequently allotted to the woman. She inspires, guides, rectifies — and is fond of putting herself forward. But this type is not the only one, either in history or legend. It proceeds from the pagan tradition. Byzan- tine Christianity has added the woman of the Terem. This lady has " long hair and a short understanding," a narrow intelligence and an erring flesh. The Penelope of these parts, Nastasia, wife of Dobrynia, wearies of waiting for the husband whom the war keeps from the conjugal hearth, much more quickly than the fair Greek, and forgets all too soon that she has sworn she will not marry Aliocha. The figures evoked by the cycle of Novgorod are quite different — a race of merchants, of pilgrims to the Holy Land, of navigators, and builders of towns. Quarrelsome and pugnacious they still are, but only within the walls of their own city ; and they still lead expeditions into Moslem countries, but only for the sake of traffic. "The Venetians of the Russian Crusade," a certain writer has justly called them. Their history is embodied in two legends, of which many variations exist. That of Sadko only shows us the somewhat vulgar figure of a devout and pushing merchant. The hero of another, Vassili or Vaska, son of Bousslai, is a burgher, unsurpassed even by Ilia in stormy and quarrelsome 20 RUSSIAN LITERATURE temper, who makes the town ring with the tumult of his freaks and bloodthirsty rages. Just as he is about to destroy his fellow-citizens, his father intervenes. Where- upon Vaska shuts him up in a cellar. Vaska's whole life is one tissue of follies and crimes. To expiate these, he goes on pilgrimage to Jerusalem, and dies, on his return, by attempting a dangerous leap and striking against a rock — the image of the fate his pride has courted. Popular Songs. The first singers of bylines are believed to have been professional bards, attached to the court of the Varegian princes. Their tradition seems to have been carried on by the skoromokhy of the Muscovite epoch, against whom the pious and scrupulous Tsar Alexis waged merciless war. For a long period they were the great entertain- ment of the noble houses. Their present descendants are only to be found in the huts and taverns of the province of Olonetz. In hut and tavern, from one end of Russia to the other, simple melodies are still sung, recalling or accom- panying the recital, in a confused traditional medley, of the common events of the popular life and of Christian and Pagan festivals. Christmas Koliada, Roussalnaia, in honour of the Slavonic nymphs (roussalki), harvest songs (dojinki), betrothal songs (svadiebnyie piesni), and funeral songs [pokhoronnyie). Incantations [zagovory) against drought and fire hold a considerable place in this national poetry, and so do riddles {zagadki) and proverbs (posslovitsy), which en- shrine the popular wisdom as drawn from all its nume- rous sources — half Pagan, half Christian, ancient, modern. SONGS 21 To these the bylines bring their share, as do the Scrip- tures, more especially the Psalms and Ecclesiastes, and further and more recent contributions are supplied by the epigrams of Kapnist, the fables of Krylov, and the humoristic verses of Gogol. It may easily be conceived that these songs, resound- ing as they do all over a huge stretch of territory, Great Russia, Little Russia, White Russia, are not absolutely uniform. They reproduce the divergences of historical existence. Their common feature is a profound melan- choly, which broods even over the betrothal songs, and of which we perceive the echo in most of the modern poets. "We all sing in sadnesss. . . . The Russian song is a melancholy plaint," so writes Pouchkine. 