LITERATURE***


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RUSSIA

ITS PEOPLE AND ITS LITERATURE

BY

EMILIA PARDO BAZAN

Translated from the Spanish

By FANNY HALE GARDINER

CHICAGO

A.C. McCLURG & CO.

1901




TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE.


Emilia Pardo Bazan, the author of the following critical survey of
Russian literature, is a Spanish woman of well-known literary
attainments as well as wealth and position. Her life has been spent in
association with men of mark, both during frequent sojourns at Madrid
and at home in Galicia, "the Switzerland of Spain," from which province
her father was a deputy to Cortes.

Books and libraries were almost her only pleasures in childhood, as she
was allowed few companions, and she says she could never apply herself
to music. By the time she was fourteen she had read widely in history,
sciences, poetry, and fiction, excepting the works of the French
romanticists, Dumas, George Sand, and Victor Hugo, which were forbidden
fruit and were finally obtained and enjoyed as such. At sixteen she
married and went to live in Madrid, where, amid the gayeties of the
capital, her love for literature suffered a long eclipse.

Her father was obliged, for political reasons, to leave the country
after the abdication of Amadeus, and she accompanied him in a long and
to her profitable period of wandering, during which she learned French,
English, and Italian, in order to read the literatures of those tongues.
She also plunged deep into German philosophy, at first out of curiosity,
because it was then in vogue; but she confesses a debt of gratitude to
it nevertheless.

While she was thus absorbed in foreign tongues and literatures, she
remained almost entirely ignorant of the new movement in her own land,
led by Valera, Galdos, and Alarcon. The prostration which characterized
the reign of Isabella II. had been followed by a rejuvenation born of
the Revolution of 1868. When this new literature was at last brought to
her notice, she read it with delighted surprise, and was immediately
struck by something resembling the spirit of Cervantes, Hurtado, and
other Spanish writers of old renown. Inspired by the possibility of this
heredity, she resolved to try novel-writing herself,--a thought which
had never occurred to her when her idea of the novel had been bounded by
the romantic limitations of Victor Hugo and his suite. But if the novel
might consist of descriptions of places and customs familiar to us, and
studies of the people we see about us, then she would dare attempt it.
As yet, however, no one talked of realism or naturalism in Spain; the
tendency of Spanish writers was rather toward a restoration of elegant
Castilian, and her own first novel followed this line, although
evidently inspired by the breath of realism as far as she was then aware
of it. The methods and objects of the French realists became fully
manifest to her shortly afterward; for, being in poor health, she went
to Vichy, where in hours of enforced leisure she read for the first time
Balzac, Flaubert, Goncourt, and Daudet. The result led her to see the
importance of their aims and the force of their art, to which she added
the idea that each country should cultivate its own tradition while
following the modern methods. These convictions she embodied first in a
prologue to her second novel, "A Wedding Journey," and then in a series
of articles published in the "Epoca" at Madrid, and afterward in Paris;
these she avers were the first echoes in Spain of the French realist
movement.

All of her novels have been influenced by the school of art to which she
has devoted her attention and criticism, and her study of which has well
qualified her for the essays contained in this volume. This work on
Russian literature was published in 1887, but prior to its appearance
in print the Senora de Bazan was invited to read selections from it
before the Ateneo de Madrid,--an honor never before extended to a woman,
I believe.

Few Spanish women are accustomed to speaking in public, and she thus
describes her own first attempt in 1885, when, during the festivities
attending the opening of the first railway between Madrid and Coruna,
the capital of her native province, she was asked to address a large
audience invited to honor the memory of a local poet:--

     "Fearful of attempting so unusual a performance, as well as
     doubtful of the ability to make my voice heard in a large
     theatre, I took advantage of the presence of my friend
     Emilio Castelar to read to him my discourse and confide to
     him my fears. On the eve of the performance, Castelar,
     ensconced in an arm-chair in my library, puzzled his brains
     over the questions whether I should read standing or
     sitting, whether I should hold my papers in my hand or no,
     and having an artist's eye to the scenic effect, I think he
     would have liked to suggest that I pose before the mirror!
     But I was less troubled about my attitude than by the
     knowledge that Castelar was to speak also, and before me,
     which would hardly predispose my audience in my favor....
     The theatre was crowded to suffocation, but I found that
     this rather animated than terrified me. I rose to read (for
     it was finally decided that I should stand), and I cannot
     tell how thin and hard and unsympathetic my voice sounded in
     the silence. My throat choked with emotion; but I was
     scarcely through the first paragraph when I heard at my
     right hand the voice of Castelar, low and earnest, saying
     over and over again, 'Very good, very good! That is the
     tone! So, so! 'I breathed more freely, speaking became
     easier to me; and my audience, far from becoming impatient,
     gave me an attention and applause doubly grateful to one
     whose only hope had been to avoid a fiasco. Castelar greeted
     me at the close with a warm hand-grasp and beaming eyes,
     saying, 'We ought to be well satisfied, Emilia; we have
     achieved a notable and brilliant success; let us be happy,
     then!'"

Probably the Senora de Bazan learned her lesson well, and had no need of
the friendly admonitions of Castelar when she came to address the
distinguished audience at the Ateneo, for she is said to have "looked
very much at ease," and to have been very well received, but a good deal
criticised afterward, being the first Spanish woman who ever dared to
read in the Ateneo.

Turning from the authoress to the work, I will only add that I hope the
American reader may find it to be what it seemed to me as I read it in
Spanish,--an epitome of a vast and elaborate subject, and a guide to a
clear path through this maze which without a guide can hardly be clear
to any but a profound student of belles-lettres; for classicism,
romanticism, and realism are technical terms, and the purpose of the
modern novel is only just beginning to be understood by even fairly
intelligent readers. In the belief that the interest awakened by Russian
literature is not ephemeral, and that this great, young, and original
people has come upon the world's stage with a work to perform before the
world's eye, I have translated this careful, critical, synthetical study
of the Russian people and literature for the benefit of my intelligent
countrymen.

F.H.G.

Chicago, March, 1890.




CONTENTS.


Book I.

THE EVOLUTION OF RUSSIA.

   I. Scope and Purpose of the Present Essay
  II. The Russian Country
 III. The Russian Race
  IV. Russian History
   V. The Russian Autocracy
  VI. The Agrarian Communes
 VII. Social Classes in Russia
VIII. Russian Serfdom


Book II.

RUSSIAN NIHILISM AND ITS LITERATURE.

   I. The Word "Nihilism"
  II. Origin of the Intellectual Revolution
 III. Woman and the Family
  IV. Going to the People
   V. Herzen and the Nihilist Novel
  VI. The Reign of Terror
 VII. The Police and the Censor


Book III.

RISE OF THE RUSSIAN NOVEL.

   I. The Beginnings of Russian Literature
  II. Russian Romanticism.--The Lyric Poets
 III. Russian Realism: Gogol, its Founder


Book IV.

MODERN RUSSIAN REALISM.

   I. Turguenief, Poet and Artist
  II. Gontcharof and Oblomovism
 III. Dostoiewsky, Psychologist and Visionary
  IV. Tolstoi, Nihilist and Mystic
   V. French Realism and Russian Realism




Book I.


THE EVOLUTION OF RUSSIA.




I.

Scope And Purpose of the Present Essay.


The idea of writing something about Russia, the Russian novel, and
Russian social conditions (all of which bear an intimate relationship to
one another), occurred to me during a sojourn in Paris, where I was
struck with the popularity and success achieved by the Russian authors,
and especially the novelists. I remember that it was in the month of
March, 1885, that the Russian novel "Crime and Punishment," by
Dostoiewsky, fell into my hands and left on my mind a deep impression.
Circumstances prevented my following up at that time my idea of literary
work on the subject; but the next winter I had nothing more important to
do than to make my projected excursion into this new realm.

My interest was quickened by all the reports I read of those who had
done the same. They all declared that one branch of Russian literature,
that which flourishes to-day in every part of Europe, namely, the novel,
has no rival in any other nation, and that the so much discussed
tendency to the pre-eminence of truth in art, variously called realism,
naturalism, etc., has existed in the Russian novel ever since the
Romantic period, a full quarter of a century earlier than in France. I
saw also that the more refined and select portion of the Parisian
public, that part which boasts an educated and exacting taste, bought
and devoured the works of Turguenief, Tolstoi, and Dostoiewsky with as
much eagerness as those of Zola, Goncourt, and Daudet; and it was
useless to ascribe this universal eagerness merely to a conspiracy
intended to produce jealousy and humiliation among the masters and
leaders of naturalism or realism in France, even though I may be aware
that such a conspiracy tacitly exists, as well as a certain amount of
involuntary jealousy, which, in fact, even the most illustrious artist
is prone to display.

I do not ignore the objections that might be urged against going to
foreign lands in search of novelties, and I should decline to face them
if Russian literature were but one of the many caprices of the exhausted
Parisian imagination. I know very well that the French capital is a city
of novelties, hungry for extravagances which may entertain for a moment
and appease its yawning weariness, and that to this necessity for
diversion the _decadent_ school (which has lately had such a revival,
and claims the aberrations of the Spanish Gongora as its master), though
aided by some talent and some technical skill, owes the favor it enjoys.
Some years ago I attended a concert in Paris, where I heard an orchestra
of Bohemians, or Zingaras, itinerant musicians from Hungary. I was
asked my opinion of them at the close, and I frankly confessed that the
orchestra sounded to me very like a jangling of mule-bells or a
caterwauling; they were only a little more tolerable than a street band
of my own country (Spain), and only because these were gypsies were
their scrapings to be endured at all. Literary oddities are puffed and
made much of by certain Parisian critics very much as the Bohemian
musicians were, as, for example, the Japanese novel "The Loyal Ronins,"
and certain romantic sketches of North American origin.

It is but just, nevertheless, to acknowledge that in France the mania
for the exotic has a laudable aim and obeys an instinct of equity. To
know everything, to call nothing outlandish, to accord the highest right
of human citizenship, the right of creating their own art and of
sacrificing according to their own rites and customs on the altar sacred
to Beauty, not only to the great nations, but to the decayed and obscure
ones,--this surely is a generous act on the part of a people endowed
with directive energies; the more so as, in order to do this, the French
have to overcome a certain petulant vanity which naturally leads them to
consider themselves not merely the first but the only people.

But confining myself now to Russia, I do not deny that to my curiosity
there were added certain doubts as to the value of her literary
treasures. During my investigations, however, I have discovered that,
apart from the intrinsic merit of her famous authors, her literature
must attract our attention because of its intimate connections with
social, political, and historical problems which are occupying the mind
of Europe to-day, and are outcomes of the great revolutionary movement,
unless it would be more correct to say that they inspired and directed
that movement.

I take this opportunity to confess frankly that I lack one almost
indispensable qualification for my task,--the knowledge of the Russian
language. It would have been easy for me,