Anthology of Russian literature from the earliest period to the present time, volume 2 (of 2)

Anthology Of Russian Literature

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From the Earliest Period to the Present Time

By

Leo Wiener

Assistant Professor Of Slavic Languages At Harvard University

In Two Parts

8^o with Photogravure Frontispieces

PART I.--From the Tenth Century to the Close of the Eighteenth Century

PART II.--The Nineteenth Century

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G. P. Putnam’S Sons

New York London

[Illustration: TURGÉNEV]

IVáN Sergyeevich TurgéNev

“In days of doubt, in days of anguished thought over the fate of my native land, you alone are my staff and my support, O great, mighty, true and free Russian language! Were it not for you how could one help despairing at the sight of what is taking place at home? But it is unthinkable that such a language should not be given to a great nation.”

TurgéNev.

Anthology of Russian Literature

From the Earliest Period to the Present Time

By

Leo Wiener

Assistant Professor of Slavic Languages at Harvard University

In Two Parts

Part II

The Nineteenth Century

G. P. Putnam’s Sons New York and London The Knickerbocker Press 1903

Preface

Considerations of space compel me to give but a small selection of authors from the last two decades of the nineteenth century, while some of the writers, here omitted, of the beginning of this period have been previously treated in the first volume of the Anthology. For the intermediate time, the material here offered will be found sufficiently complete, while the essays of Byelínski, Dobrolyúbov, Písarev, and Merezhkóvski illustrate the evolution of Russian literature in the nineteenth century, as viewed by the Russian critics themselves.

The introductory sketch is not intended as a preliminary exposition of the Anthology, but as a résumé of all the matter contained there; it will, therefore, be best perused after the extracts and biographical sketches of the separate authors have become familiar to the reader. To avoid undue annotations, literary allusions have not been mentioned in the footnotes; they may readily be discovered by turning to the Index, where all cross references are given.

During the preparation of the second volume, the interesting discovery was made that not Sir John Bowring, but William D. Lewis, an American, was the first to render Russian poetry into English; thus, the _Stanzas_ given on p. 394 of vol. i. originally appeared in the National Gazette and Literary Register of Philadelphia, on January 31, 1821, while other poems seem to have been translated by him much earlier.

I again wish to express my thanks to the authors and publishers by whose permission translations are here reproduced, and to my colleague, Prof. F. N. Robinson, who has patiently read through these pages and given me his advice.

Contents

PAGE PREFACE v A SKETCH OF RUSSIAN LITERATURE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY 3 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY 27 Karamzín (1766-1826) 27 Letters of a Russian Traveller 28 Tver 28 On the French Tragedy 30 On Shakspere 31 London 32 The Churchyard 33 Poor Líza 34 History of the Russian Empire. Introduction 37 Krylóv (1768-1844) 41 The Ass and the Nightingale 41 The Quartette 43 Damian’s Fishsoup 44 The Swan, the Pike, and the Crab 45 The Lion and the Wolf 45 The Cloud 46 The Shipwrecked Sailor and the Sea 46 Izmáylov (1779-1831) 46 The Drunkard’s Vow 47 The Canary and the Nightingale 47 The Two Cats 48 Naryézhny (1780-1825) 49 The Two Iváns; or, The Passion for Litigation 49 Zhukóvski (1783-1852) 54 Svyetlána 55 The Minstrel in the Russian Camp 63 Kozlóv (1779-1840) 67 Solitude 68 Kíev 69 The Black Monk 70 Bátyushkov (1787-1855) 73 The Friend’s Shadow 73 The Dying Tasso 75 Glínka (1788-1880) 78 Moscow 79 The Search for God 80 Prince Vyázemski (1792-1878) 81 The Samovár 82 To My Three Absent Friends 84 Death Reaps the Harvest of Life 85 Rylyéev (1796-1826) 86 Voynaróvski 87 Iván Susánin 88 Griboyédov (1795-1829) 92 Intelligence Comes to Grief 93 Bestúzhev (Marlínski) (1797-1837) 102 Ammalát Bek 102 Lazhéchnikov (1794-1869) 111 The Heretic 112 Baron Délvig (1798-1831) 120 Gloomy Thoughts 120 Sang a little bird, and sang 121 Ah, you night, you little night 122 Púshkin (1799-1837) 122 The Captain’s Daughter 125 Evgéni Onyégin. Tatyána’s Letter 131 The Bakhchisaráy Fountain 133 The Poison-Tree 135 The Bird 136 The Prophet 137 The Talisman 138 The Lay of the Wise Olég 139 To the Slanderers of Russia 142 Borís Godunóv 143 Demons 147 Baratýnski (1800-1844) 149 Finland 150 Spring 151 Truth 151 Yazýkov (1803-1846) 152 The Sailor 153 The Storm 154 To the Poet 155 Lérmontov (1814-1841) 155 A Hero of Our Times. Maksím Maksímych 157 The Demon 165 Dispute 167 Alone I wander out along the road 170 The Sail 171 The Prayer 171 The Branch of Palestine 172 Remember’st thou the day when we 173 At a Ball 174 Dream 175 Koltsóv (1808-1842) 176 First Love 176 The Abundant Harvest 177 The Forest 179 Betrayed by a Bride 181 The Mower 182 Gógol (1809-1852) 185 The Dnieper 187 The Revizór 188 Dead Souls. Mrs. Koróbochka 199 Byelínski (1811-1848) 205 The Natural School 206 Aksákov (1791-1859) 216 The Family Chronicle 217 Khomyakóv (1804-1860) 229 To My Children 230 The Eagle 231 Kíev 232 Tyútchev (1803-1873) 234 Scarce cooled from midday heat 234 The Spring-Storm 235 I suffer still from anguished longing 235 Sunrise 235 Gértsen (Herzen) (1812-1870) 236 Slavophiles and Panslavism 237 Ogarév (1813-1877) 242 To Iskánder 242 Monologues 244 The Village Watchman 244 Count A. K. Tolstóy (1817-1875) 245 Prince Serébryany 246 The Death of Iván the Terrible 255 The Kurgán 257 Goncharóv (1812-1891) 259 Oblómov 260 Dobrolyúbov (1836-1861) 271 What is Oblómovism? 272 Turgénev (1818-1883) 280 Fathers and Sons 282 Poems in Prose. Nature 295 Grigoróvich (1822-1900) 296 The Fishermen 297 Polónski (1820-1898) 303 The Birds 303 Night in the Crimea 304 Love scared thee not 305 Musician Grasshopper 305 Písemski (1820-1881) 310 The Old Proprietress 311 Shenshín (Fet) (1820-1892) 319 When deeply musing in the silence of the night 320 Every feeling at night to me becomes clearer and deeper 320 Stay here awhile, ’tis good 321 Night, thou art so blest with odours sweet and strong 321 Tryst 322 Dostoévski (1821-1881) 322 Crime and Punishment 323 A. N. Máykov (1821-1898) 339 The Peris 340 Who Was He? 341 The Marble Faun 342 Three Deaths. The Death of Seneca and of Lucius 344 Nekrásov (1821-1877) 347 Red-nosed Frost 348 A Moral Man 352 Who Lives in Russia Happily 353 The Unmown Strip 359 A Mother’s Tears 360 Nikítin (1824-1861) 361 Burlák 361 The Gaffer 364 Pleshchéev (1825-1894) 365 Forward 366 My Country 367 A Legend 367 Spring 368 Ostróvski (1823-1886) 369 The Storm 369 Saltykóv (Shchedrín) (1826-1889) 379 Beyond the Border 380 Písarev (1841-1868) 385 Flowers of Harmless Humour 386 Count L. N. Tolstóy (1828- ) 391 Ánna Karénin 392 War and Peace 401 Uspénski (1840-1902) 408 The Power of the Land. Iván Petróv 409 Levítov (1842-1877) 417 Shoemaker Cock-of-the-Boots 417 Zlatovrátski (1845- ) 427 Old Shadows 428 Korolénko (1853- ) 436 The Old Bell-ringer 437 Garshín (1855-1888) 443 That Which Was Not 443 Potápenko (1856- ) 448 A Thousand Talents 448 Nádson (1862-1887) 457 My Friend, My Brother! 458 Poetry 458 Pity the stately cypress trees 459 Chékhov (1860- ) 459 In the Court-room 460 Pyeshkóv (Górki) (1871- ) 467 In the Steppe 468 Merezhkóvski (1865- ) 482 From an Essay on “Pushkin” 483 INDEX 495

A Sketch Of Russian Literature In The Nineteenth Century

I

Were we to compare English literature to the starred heavens with their galaxies and their permanent constellations of varying magnitudes, Russian literature would represent itself to us as the darkling sky which is now illumined by the refracted glamour of the aurora borealis, now by the illusive flashes of shooting meteors, and now again by the steadier brilliancy of some errant comet, by the side of which stars seem pale and insignificant. In England, as with the other great nations of the West, there have been temporary suspensions of literary activities, but with every new unshrouding the ancient combinations gleam forth in the azure vault in untarnished brilliancy, even though new stars may obtrude themselves to view. Not thus in Russia. After every short period of celestial fireworks the heavens are suddenly merged into palpable darkness, to dazzle us once more with an entirely new display of unwonted splendour.

Such, at least, is the aspect Russian literature bears in the nineteenth century. Though Púshkin’s poetry was naturally the crowning glory of the incipient reign of Nicholas I., it bears but a faint resemblance to the lacrimose verses of Karamzín, or to the elegant imitations and patriotic ebullitions of Zhukóvski of the previous two decades, and yet Karamzín lived till Púshkin reached man’s estate, while Zhukóvski was still active after his death. Púshkin and his contemporaries are classed separately from Lérmontov, though but fifteen years lie between their births and only four between their deaths. No new division is made for poetry since the days of Lérmontov, though in the light of Nekrásov’s realism, who began writing in 1848, the poets of pure art, Máykov, Polónski, Tyútchev, Fet,--all of them born long before Púshkin’s demise,--were reviled by the democratic critics and suffered more or less complete oblivion after the fifties. Still more pathetic is the fate of Vyázemski who, reared in the school of Karamzín, had the misfortune of surviving to a vigorous old age: he bitterly felt the living literary death to which he was doomed for more than a quarter of a century.

The vicissitudes of prose have been even more varied. Karamzín had barely established the new style of writing, based on French and English writers, still struggling with the reactionary tendency of Shishkóv, whose antiquated style is prominent in Griboyédov’s comedy, when a whole school of Romanticists, beginning with Bestúzhev-Marlínski and Lazhéchnikov, and ending with Púshkin and Lérmontov, evolved, under the influence of Walter Scott, the Russian novel. It is a far cry from Karamzín’s _Líza_ to Púshkin’s _Captain’s Daughter_ and to Lérmontov’s _Hero of Our Time_. Yet, within less than a decade after the latter had charmed the public, Gógol’s _Dead Souls_ completely obliterated the fame of all its predecessors, and Byelínski’s dictum in regard to the Natural School at once set the pace for an entirely new set of writers,--the novelists of the forties. Turgénev, Goncharóv, Tolstóy, Dostoévski, Písemski, were trained in that school and wrote their first productions in the lifetime of Gógol. Yet after the memorial year 1848 a reaction set in in literature as well as in affairs, and the fifties, except for rare flashes of genius from Turgénev and Tolstóy, were one barren waste. Of Gógol’s example and Byelínski’s injunctions hardly a trace was left. Then, during the reign of Alexander II., the atmosphere was again cleared, and the sixties produced that wonderful series of writings for which Russia is mainly known abroad. And yet, in 1862, Turgénev proved by his _Fathers and Sons_ that he was no longer in touch with Russian reality; and a few years later, after Tolstóy had written his _War and Peace_ and _Anna Karénin_, began Tolstóy’s rapid departure from all reality.

In the meantime the critics, from the master Byelínski down, through Dobrolyúbov, Písarev and Chernyshévski, reached the _ne plus ultra_ of negation, and with them rose a new set of authors, who returned to the lowest elements of society for their themes,--to the peasants. Grigoróvich, Pomyalóvski, Uspénski, and a whole host of minor writers, many of them riotous in the absence of style, produced a vast amount of literature. Dostoévski, revelling in excruciating psychological analyses, wrote his best work, _Crime and Punishment_, in 1865. No wonder, then, that after such a concentrated creative period there should follow a decade of impotence, in which the only relief was afforded by the older writers, who occasionally lighted up the darkness with their phosphorescence. Then, since the eighties, there has been a November shower of novelists, Korolénko, Potápenko, Chékhov, Boborýkin, and many, many more, and but lately a new comet has loomed up in the horizon in the person of Maksím Górki.

The periods of distinct literary ideals are so short, their activities so varied, that one feels tempted to treat the nineteenth century by decades, or, to avoid embarrassing results from a purely mechanical arrangement, to survey each field of belles-lettres, poetry, drama, prose, in its evolution from Karamzín to the present. Neither method, however, is free from serious objections, and it will be found more convenient to regard the literary movement under each reign, especially since the Decembrist revolt at the end of the rule of Alexander I., the Crimean War under Nicholas I., and the death of Alexander II. mark real epochs in the intellectual movements of Russia. Each reign, in its turn, is by some historical event divisible into two parts, the first of which coincides with aspirations and vigorous activities in literature, the second with relaxation and indifference. Such events were the year 1812 and, in a higher measure, the year 1848.

It would, however, be incorrect to identify the various periods with the political changes of the Empire. Though, naturally, a new impetus may be given at the beginning of a new reign, or a great national calamity may rouse the dormant literary powers of the people, yet the accessions to the throne of the successive rulers, and their policies, do not sufficiently account for the shortness of each separate period and their apparently abrupt cessations; just as, on the other hand, the political changes themselves are frequently only the reflex of the antecedent literary movement with the pronounced public opinion which is based upon it. Thus, for example, the emancipation of the serfs, with its tremendous political and social consequences, was not merely an arbitrary act of the monarch, but the logical culmination of the literary propaganda, with Turgénev and his _Memoirs of a Huntsman_ at its head, which had preceded it.

Nor can governmental policy and severity of censorship be made accountable for the short-lived literary influence of each individual author, for the early maturity of genius, and the wide chasm between the author’s sunny youth and his old age in the rare instances when he has lived beyond his forties. At forty years of age, rather earlier than later, all Russian writers have reached their apogee. Most authors have gained their reputation long before that, and their old age passes by unnoticed or in mystic abstractions, and in nearly all cases out of tune with the realities of the day. And how appallingly large is the number of those whose career was brought to an untimely end before they had reached forty, either by violent means, as that of Púshkin and Lérmontov, or through insanity, as that of Garshín, or through disease, frequently as the result of dire wretchedness in youth, or of intemperance, as that of Byelínski, Dobrolyúbov, Písarev, Nikítin, Nádson, and many others!

The peculiar conditions of Russian literary life are the result of the whole social structure of the country. Here we shall find an answer to the many perplexing questions that the foreigner must necessarily put to himself as he contemplates, not only the peculiar course of Russian belles-lettres and their artistic and political maxims, but also the exaggerated relation that Russian men of letters bear to the political life of the nation.

The literate class of the people of Russia is at the present time but a small part of the total population, and the cultured elements of society form but a small percentage of all those who can read and write Russian. The conditions were, naturally, much more unfavourable for education in the beginning of the nineteenth century. The Western civilisation which had spread over Russia since the days of Peter the Great had not penetrated deep: it had not touched the core of things, had not changed much in the semi-barbaric home life of the gentry and even of the higher nobility. Below these classes it was practically non-existent. A desire for learning there was, and the fathers who wished to have their children benefited by the blessings of an education had either to fall back on foreign tutors, or to send them to the schools maintained at Moscow and St. Petersburg. The Lyceum at Tsárskoe-Seló was the chief seminary of learning for the sons of the nobility. The sons were just as eager to acquire the lustre of the foreign culture, but they invariably understood this European learning merely as a counteraction to the brutal surroundings of old Russia. They brought with them no home traditions of refinement, no settled political and social views. At their schools the young men were banded together by common interests of progress against the world without, and they felt that the future of Russia depended upon them as an intellectual force. Had the next generation of students been recruited exclusively from the sons of men who had enjoyed school advantages before, there would have been a nucleus for traditional culture. But, in the nature of the case, ever-new elements were availing themselves of the higher schooling, and the younger generation was as much torn out of its barren surroundings as the young men at the beginning of the century. They, too, were the chosen few, and upon them, they knew, devolved the task of regenerating their country. Unfortunately they lacked not only traditions of culture in their families, but the school had not been able to transmit any other positive tradition than the general desire for mental training and literary brilliancy. The ethical principle of culture was but weakly developed, and the absence of stated maxims of life made philosophic moderation impossible. If the older generation had been carried away by the prevailing French taste, or by Byron’s enticing poetry, or by the powerful Romanticism of Germany, without, however, grasping the underlying philosophy of either, or making it its own, the youths of the thirties sat at the feet of the German philosophers, and with the enthusiasm of new converts transferred their tenets into their whole view of life and letters, however, by first eliminating from it the essence of methodical thinking, which alone would have assured any permanency to the Russian ecstasy.

Since culture was confined chiefly to the higher classes of society, there was slowly growing up a select circle of cultivated men who, while not characterised by the stability of the German intellectual class or the dignified refinement of the English aristocracy, atoned for the superficiality of their learning by a superabundance of youthful enthusiasm. But, before the gentry had any time to crystallise into an intellectual class, the doors of schools were thrown open to the nation at large, and the middle classes began at once to avail themselves of the privilege. There was a new influx of men without a tradition, and the work of intellectualising had to be begun once more. The vigorous burghers had not the wealth and position of their noble predecessors to distract their spiritual energies, and to them the pursuit of learning was a very serious matter. But their efforts were often thwarted by a struggle against all kinds of adversities, and they frequently succumbed in body and mind to the effects of poverty and persecution. If the sons of the gentry in the previous generations stood out as a protest against their fathers, the young men now added to it a protest against the higher classes, and, as is natural in a state of chronic protests, they rapidly reached the negation of everything. Russian literature passes all the stages of negation, from the criticisms of Chátski in Griboyédov’s comedy to the conscious superiority of Bazárov in Turgénev’s _Fathers and Sons_, and from the critiques of Byelínski to the negation of art and literature in the acrid solvent of Písarev’s reviews and in the latter-day literary productions of the master-artist Tolstóy.

The salutary effects of the renewal of the intellectual classes with every generation have been in the extreme democratisation of Russian society, and in the frequent and varied evolution of talent,--artistic, musical, literary, political. But the democracy, lacking the moderation of established procedure, too often loses itself in mazes of inactive speculation, and, lacking historic perspective and philosophic precision, is vacillating in its ultimate ends; while the same causes militate against a concentration of talent, and rather disperse its strength and nullify its effects. Hence the apt classification of the heroes of Russian novels as so many Oblómovs, which Dobrolyúbov has made in his review of Goncharóv’s famous work. It is, indeed, a notable fact that Russia has not produced a single philosopher worthy of the name, and a late attempt at discovering _The Philosophic Tendencies in Russian Poetry_ has resulted in a meagre work which, though interesting for the poets it harbours, is conspicuous for the absence of that philosophy which it sets out to find.

Philosophy can have free sway only where there is calm reflection; and reflection lies at the base of actions only where ideals of life are formed at a mature age. Unfortunately for Russia, young men have stood behind the cultural movements, and by “young men” are in Russia understood those who have not yet reached the age of thirty. In the Anglo-American civilisation men between thirty and fifty are supposed to be young men, men of action, which view, having its origin in the conservative spirit of Anglo-Saxon institutions, more than anything else assures a cautious progress. In Russia, we have seen, the task of fostering progress has fallen on school-lads and university students. The consequence has been disastrous. Russian youths have tried to carry high the banner of progress, and one cannot help but admire the courage with which they have upheld their cause, the enthusiasm with which they have advocated their tenets, the sacrifices which they have ever been ready to bring. At the same time it must be evident that their courage has frequently been ill-advised, their enthusiasm brittle because not tempered by chill experience, and their sacrifices vain and useless. There has been no bond of sympathy between the sons and their fathers, and the enthusiasm of one generation has not been bequeathed in its turn to the next.

As long as effervescent youth has lasted, Russians have not hesitated to throw their whole souls into their cause. In Púshkin’s days they surpassed Byron in the recklessness of their youthful excesses, and would-be Manfreds could be met with in the flesh. As Slavophiles they were willing to forego the fruits of Western civilisation, and gloried in their unwieldy native costume. As Soilers and Populists they renounced the society of their likes, and buried themselves in the deadening wildernesses of distant villages. Even if the Government had not nipped their efforts by exile and prisons, their fate could not later in life have been happy. When their first fervour had evaporated, and they were brought face to face with actualities, the discrepancy between theories and practices of necessity produced a revulsion. The stout of heart maintained their cherished hopes, but their minds became variously affected by quiet sorrow, melancholy, despair. The men of coarser texture turned liberal opportunists, temporisers, or downright deniers of all their previous thoughts and acts. The Government absorbed these as officials in various capacities, and thus the better elements, through their abhorrence of compromise, have generally been lost to the State.

The same disenchantment is noticeable in the life of every man of letters. Literature has been in Russia the field in which all the battles of progress have been fought. As there does not exist a representative government, where political opinions may struggle for recognition, and as there cannot exist a public opinion based on tradition and class interests, literature alone appears as the medium for advancing social and political ideas; and since scientific treatises reach but a vanishing proportion of the nation, belles-lettres proper have in Russia become the means for inculcating and propagating truths. In the beginning of the nineteenth century this was not yet so apparent, and literature for art’s sake could hold its own. But with the advancing democratisation of society, literature gathered ever more around camps with definite ideas, and literary art receded more and more and lived out its day in oblivion. The individual authors have always been conscious of their high calling, and in their youth have devoted themselves with fervour to their tasks; but in middle life they generally have been chilled by the actual conditions of life, and have fallen a prey to disappointment, the effects of which were mysticism, renunciation, opportunism, as the case might be.

Thus, also, there has followed a period of comparative stagnation and even retrogression after every decade of concentrated production. The men whom common interests had brought together in literary emulation had passed their perihelion, and another generation had not yet reached maturity; and in the interim the discordant notes could be heard more clearly. In the last twenty years, however, a marked change has taken place in Russian literature. While there has not risen an author of the first magnitude, there has been no lack of writers and poets of the second rank, and the reactionary element has been well kept in abeyance. Russian critics stigmatise this period as one of mediocrity, and despair of the future, since never before has there been so long a time without some author of strong personality and influence. In reality, the symptoms are very encouraging. It is evident from the long duration of the smouldering literary life that society is becoming more stable, even though temporarily less deep, and that literary sentiment and culture is gaining in breadth. The next outburst of literary activities will unquestionably be greater than any that have preceded it.

II

The gloom which had spread over literature at the end of Catherine’s reign was lifted at the very opening of the nineteenth century by the accession of the liberal Alexander I. Instead of continuing the persecution of the Free Masons and suppressing literature, the Emperor himself favoured all kinds of mystic societies, and carried his liberalism to the greatest extreme. He associated with Quakers, and Jesuits were left unmolested in the capital. He proposed to reorganise the country on Western models, and did not think it unwise to ask Thomas Jefferson for a sketch of the American Constitution. He surrounded himself with men of pronounced progressive tendencies, and heaped honours on the author of the _Journey from St. Petersburg to Moscow_, whose advanced ideas had so displeased Catherine.

Yet only the end of his reign saw the fruition of the new spirit in literature, when Púshkin with his mighty genius for ever settled the direction Russian letters were to take. There could have been no sudden change. No new ideals had taken the place of the literary traditions of the eighteenth century, which looked upon authorship as a pleasant pastime and profitable exercise of wit, but did not invest the authors with the dignity of social factors. Though Romanticism was rapidly displacing the older pseudo-classicism, many authors of the former style were still active among the changing surroundings. Ózerov produced his thunderous dramas and found a ready audience, and Derzhávin not only continued his writing of odes, but was able to maintain a coterie of literary men who would not listen to the innovations of Karamzín.

The most persistent stickler for the old conventions was Shishkóv. He had no ear for the subtler beauties of verse, and identified poetry with high-sounding epithets and well-turned phrases. His admiration for the older bards led him to seek in their language, with the strange admixture of Church-Slavic words, the proper norm for all time, and to abhor the introduction of foreign words, which Karamzín so dexterously applied in his formation of a new literary style. As President of the Russian Academy Shishkóv exercised a certain influence, and the discussion of the two styles agitated society for some time. There was just a spark of truth in his contention. Like Shcherbátov before him, and the Slavophiles thirty years later, he was anxious to see a greater approach to the national spirit. Like his predecessor, he did not fail to recognise that the colourless imitation of foreign models was not bringing literature any nearer to the people, and, like the older historian, he receded as far as possible into the past in his search for native elements. Writers were at that time not yet prepared to look for a common bond with the people in a living intercourse with them.

In the meanwhile Karamzín proceeded to find his models for composition in the West, and to base his literary style on a close imitation of French and English writers. He freely introduced such words and turns as would mould Russian into a simpler and more harmonious instrument. His example has been followed ever since. He was led by personal predilection and a natural pensiveness to father that sentimentalism which had found such a ready soil in Europe. How unnatural for Russian that sentimentalism was, may be seen in the gentle transformation the peasants have suffered in his novels. But in his day no one took exception to such a treatment, and many affected that exotic sentiment themselves.

In general, the particular direction of any author was very much a matter of chance. Not the necessities of the time, not the spiritual needs of any class of society decided what the poet was to sing and the novelist was to write about,--indeed, society had not yet risen to a well-defined spiritual life,--but the temporary whim of the author, the accidental acquaintance with this or that manifestation in the foreign literatures were the only reasons for transplanting the foreign models upon Russian soil. The adroitness with which extraneous themes have been handled by many of the writers is truly remarkable. In Bátyushkov it reached masterly perfection. Having tried himself in imitations of German, French, and classical models, his interest finally centred on the Italian poets, especially Tasso. The result of his especial predilection was that faultless poem, _The Dying Tasso_, which combines epic calm and majesty of language as probably no other production in Russian literature. But he had no contemporary audience that could follow him in his exquisite interpretation of the Italian classical spirit, just as Gnyédich, the famous translator of the Iliad, felt aggrieved at the indifference with which society met his great undertaking.

While a select number of authors, separating themselves from the life that surrounded them, found inspiration in the distant past, Zhukóvski devoted himself to familiarising his nation with the productions of the German Romantic Muse. But, while in Europe Romanticism was the logical outcome of the period of storm and stress through which it had just passed, it bore no relation to actual spiritual needs in Russia. Consequently only the external form and the technique, and not the inner meaning was transplanted by Zhukóvski to his native soil. It is true, he all the time preached a high ideal for poetry, but that ideal was only superficially related to the fashionable Romantic verse in which he enunciated it.

More original than these was Krylóv who, basing his fables on those of La Fontaine, clad them in an idiomatic form and adorned them with an art peculiarly his own. It would be, however, a mistake to suppose that he, at least, fell back on the native element for his subjects. There is absolutely nothing Russian in his fables. Not only do the popular animal stories differ widely from those employed by him for illustration, but he did not hesitate to introduce classical allusions whenever a chance offered itself. The same method, though in a coarser vein, was also pursued by Izmáylov.

The year 1812 had its immediate effects upon literature. It gave rise to patriotic songs, like Zhukóvski’s _In the Camp of Russian Warriors_, and to the patriotic series by Rylyéev. It led to a closer study of Russian history, and Karamzín’s monumental work could not have come at a more auspicious period. The consequences were even greater. Many young officers who had formed their ideals of life through the imitations of their native literature took part in the campaign in Germany and France, and there came in contact with all the living movements that agitated the best minds. They brought home with them a new enthusiasm, formed secret societies in imitation of the German _Tugendbund_, and dreamed of a violent reorganisation of Russia. All the best young forces were directly or indirectly affected by the new ideal. In the meanwhile the Government entered into its phase of reaction, and obscurantism became rampant. University professors were watched by the secret police, and instruction was carried on under great difficulties. The slightest expression of independence or freedom led to banishment and imprisonment. The strained relations between the youthful idealists and the reactionaries culminated in the unfortunate and impossible Decembrist conspiracy in 1825, when Rylyéev, among others, paid the penalty of death for his rashness.

But the accumulated literary force could no longer be dispersed. A galaxy of poets had with wonderful skill reproduced every imaginable aspect of European verse, even though they did not enter into a full understanding of the meaning and duty of their art. The language had been polished by Karamzín and his followers to its utmost extent and was now capable of every literary form. It only needed a subtle genius to breathe a soul into that fair body. That genius was Púshkin.

III

A period rich in literary experience and new modes of expression does not necessarily presage the coming of a genius who will unify the unrelated modes into a symmetric, intrinsically artistic whole. But, given an ardent poetic soul and a time when the minds of men are agitated by high aspirations and hopes, the opportunity is favourable for that soul to become the focus of all the tendencies of the day, and to reflect the accumulated force as one bright light for long years to come. The conditions could not have been more auspicious for giving direction and meaning to Púshkin’s genius. Not only Derzhávin, Karamzín, Dmítriev, Zhukóvski, Bátyushkov, and Krylóv furnished him in his youth with varied poetical productions for his imitation, but a large number of minor poets, trained in the traditions of the eighteenth century, Merzlyakóv, Neledínski-Melétski, Dolgorúki, were still active during the formative time of his genius. And not only the external forms of verse had been carried to a high perfection in his schooldays. The liberalism of the Government in the beginning of Alexander’s reign, the stirring patriotism of the nation consequent upon the events of the year 1812, the crass obscurantism and reaction from above, and the secret organisations of the youthful idealists which soon after superseded the open progress of the previous decade,--all that combined to inspire the younger generation of poets with the seriousness and dignity of their mission.

In his evolution Púshkin passed through several stages. In _Ruslán and Lyudmíla_, which he wrote in 1820, the year of his first exile, he attempted to treat a popular subject in the Romantic style, but there is little of a native element in it. During his banishment to the south he came under the influence of Byron, and began his _Evgéni Onyégin_, the first real Russian novel. In _Borís Godunóv_ he came under the spell of Shakspere.

In the beginning of the new reign, Púshkin’s genius was clearly defined and, departing from the Byronism of his former productions, became completely original. At the same time he renounced the easy liberalism of his younger days, and placed himself in the service of the Tsar. Since he withdrew from the communion with the masses and preached an aristocratism in letters as well as life, his real importance in Russian literature has been obscured by the more democratic Gógol. The doctrine which he taught, that art is to be exercised for art’s sake and not polluted by contact with the vulgar, found no ready response in the troubled years of the second half of the century. Only now, when the battle for the masses has been fought, and literature is beginning to lose its didactic and political value, there is to be noticed a growing tendency to turn back to Púshkin as the fountainhead of Russian poetry. This just renewal of the cult of Púshkin has already had the marked effect of rediscovering and bringing to public notice the excellent creations of the poets of his school, Tyútchev, Fet, Máykov, Polónski, and others, and of stimulating the youngest generation of poets, whose names are just beginning to be heard, to higher efforts.

Many contemporary poets were inspired by the master. Délvig, Rylyéev, Baratýnski, Venevítinov, Yazýkov came under his influence, but they were not able to follow him in his eagle flight, and stopped at the earlier stages of his development. There were others who showed more individuality, or even opened up new avenues in literature. Griboyédov’s _Intelligence Comes to Grief_ stood out as the most remarkable drama that had till then appeared in Russia, as it had seized with great clearness the contradictory and indefinite tendencies of society, and indicated the coming conflict between Westerners and Slavophiles. But the indefinite tendencies of the time were reflected with far greater power in Lérmontov.

Lérmontov’s _Hero of Our Time_ is, to a certain extent, an autobiography. It is of the same spiritual family as _Evgéni Onyégin_, but the greater indefiniteness and disenchantment of its hero supply a true portrayal of the men of the thirties who had not yet come to have any well-defined aims in life. Men were dissatisfied with the past, saw all the misery and wretchedness that surrounded them, and wished for something better to come, but did not have the energy to rise above their surroundings and so lost themselves in contradictions and Byronic despair. The same subjective tone runs through all his shorter poems and through _The Demon_, that most precious flower of the whole Romantic school. Such is the sweetness of his verse and the wealth of his imagery that he is preferred by many foreign readers even to Púshkin.

More original than Lérmontov was his contemporary Koltsóv. His middle-class surroundings had brought him in much closer contact with the people than Púshkin, and his neglected early education operated in favour of his poetic genius inasmuch as it kept him free from any traditional associations. When his talent became apparent to him, he for a short time tried his strength in the customary rhymed verses, especially of the type of Púshkin, whom he greatly admired and understood as few poets after him have done. But soon his native feeling asserted itself, and he began to draw his inspiration from popular songs. A number of poets before him, especially Délvig, had attempted this kind of composition, but none of them had even distantly brought to bear the same talent upon it as Koltsóv, and none after him have equalled him.

While Romanticism was scoring its greatest successes, and a novel-reading public was going into ecstasies over the impassioned stories of Bestúzhev-Marlínski, Gógol evolved his series of naturalistic stories, rising by pyramidal steps to his immortal _Dead Souls_, which appeared in the very year that Lérmontov and Koltsóv died. A new chord was struck,--one that reverberates even now through all Russian literature. The foundation was placed for a Russian school of belles-lettres, the first in its annals. All the peculiarities of Russian literature for all time to follow are the direct outcome of the tradition which begins with Gógol. His appearance, though startling and unexpected, was not unprepared. There has always been a strong element of sound naturalism in the Russian character. It shows frequently through the Byzantine shroud in the earliest times; it refreshes us in many a simple folktale; it is a pre-eminent characteristic of the thoughts and acts of Peter the Great; it craves expression in the exotic pseudo-classic rhetoric of the eighteenth century; it comes to the surface in Púshkin’s best productions. Gógol had even a direct predecessor in the manner of his stories in the person of Naryézhny who, being born in the same locality with him, had fallen back on the same rich narrative material of his native Little-Russia.

But in Gógol this naturalism was for the first time clearly expressed and completely freed from all foreign contamination. Not at once, however. He made his début with a Romantic idyl, and all his earlier productions are still tinged with the current mannerism. Only in 1836 appeared his _Cloak_, the prototype of all later Russian novels. He was not at once accepted by the public, so daring were his innovations, so disenchanting his realism, so appalling the wretchedness of Russia which he laid bare. He did not himself proceed consciously upon the new path, but by the inspiration of his genius. Later in life, therefore, when a reaction set in in his thoughts, he deeply regretted his earlier activity. But there was no retracing his steps. The critic Byelínski had subjected him to literary analysis, and had pronounced him the father of the new school. It seemed to him as if there had not even existed a literature before Gógol, and all previous writers henceforth barely eked out an anthology existence.

The conscious tendency towards realism in Russia was due to another fact. The predilection for the encyclopedic knowledge of France and its literature had come to an end in the thirties. Young men had become acquainted in Germany with the philosophy of Schelling and Hegel, and the circles of Moscow were ever more familiarising themselves with the more serious aspects of German science. Those who were not forgetful of their obligations to Europe gathered around Byelínski in their advocacy of a greater approach to Western ideals. Others, again, inspired by the conceptions of _nation_, _national spirit_, _national destiny_, which the German philosophers had evolved, were led to seclude themselves from all foreign influence by advocating the narrow tenets of Slavophilism. The Slavophiles have not produced one great author, for Khomyakóv is better known for his theological writings than for his poetry, and Aksákov, who had received his training before the thirties, wrote his _Family Chronicle_ in his old age, evidently under the influence of Gógol. All the great writers who are honoured abroad, Turgénev, Tolstóy, Dostoévski, have issued from the camp of the Westerners, and had received their impetus in the thirties and early in the forties.

After the year 1848 a reaction set in in letters, under the influence of the political gloom that had been cast over Europe, but especially over Russia. The censorship became more oppressive than ever, and a general apathy took possession of society. Periodicals ceased to exist, or were colourless and pedantic. The flimsiest society novels had pushed all the great literature of the previous decade into the background. The gloom hung over Russia until the end of the reign of Nicholas I., lighted up only by the flashes of the great authors who were passing through their apprenticeship.

IV

Gógol more appropriately ends the old series of authors than begins the new. His powerful genius raised him above his predecessors, but the absence of a definite political or social tendency in his works makes him more akin to the writers of pure art. In the forties, a younger generation of writers was trained in the philosophical conceptions of Germany, and the democratic spirit that swept over Europe affected them in favour of the people. It became incumbent on these authors, not merely to amuse by their productions, but to teach and propagate definite social ideals, to become the protagonists in the battle for human liberties. At the same time the vast abyss which lay between their theories and the disheartening reality about them, the unmooring from all the traditions of the past, and the hopelessness of the future developed in them a strain of scepticism and self-analysis that sooner or later led to pessimism.

The oldest of these new authors, Turgénev, who was the first to express his interest in the people, remained all his life an advocate of a peaceful progress on the basis of a cautious adoption of Western ideals. In style he was a realist of a pronounced type, but his genius saved him from carrying his naturalism to the appalling extent to which the French novelists have carried it. In 1847 he began to attract attention by his sketches from peasant life, but in the sixties he depicted the condition of the intelligent classes as affected by the emancipation of the serfs. The keynote to the conception of his heroes is struck in an article of his on _Hamlet and Don Quixote_, in which he expresses the thought that all people belong to one of these two types, but that in his days there was a predominance of Hamlets, that is, of such as are prone to analysis and scepticism.

Goncharóv, in his _Oblómov_, has given us a type of a passive man who lacks every initiative, and has generalised in his hero all Russians as by nature incapable of active progress; but Tolstóy very early began to carry his analysis to the farthest extent and not only assumed a negative attitude towards all the questions of the day, but soon reached the negation of all progress in general, and sought refuge from the world without in a close communion with the people. He is less careful about style and artistic perfection of his productions than Turgénev, but in the portrayal of separate incidents and in analysis of character he often rises to the highest art. In the second half of his life, but especially since the eighties, Tolstóy has carried negation to the impossible point of non-resistance, thus repeating, though not in an identical form, the experience of Gógol.

Dostoévski, born and bred in the city under distressing circumstances, appropriated for himself the analysis of the lower elements of the population of the towns. His long imprisonment in Siberia acquainted him with the mental and moral life of the criminals, and his own epileptic and extremely nervous condition made it possible for him to pry into the recesses of the diseased and depraved mind. His democratic love for the subjects he described, and the psychological analysis to which he submitted them, however startling and unusual they are in his case, are in keeping with the traditions of the men of the forties.

No new school, no new tendency, has since supplanted the democratic school of analysis which these authors had inaugurated nearly half a century ago. Nearly all authors have taken the _people_ for their motto. The question has only been to decide what really constitutes the _people_. Just before and soon after the emancipation the peasants came in for the largest share of attention. At first their real condition was not clearly understood, and they were, on the one hand, idealised, and, on the other, represented as objects worthy of ridicule. In the meanwhile the Slavophiles, in their attempt to discover the national spirit, did a great deal to study their customs and their oral literature. Thus, by degrees, a proper understanding of the real life of the peasant was possible, and the _novelists of the people_ were able to treat them with greater objectivity and truth. Among these writers of one class or other were Danilévski, Ryeshétnikov, Levítov, Glyeb Uspénski, and Zlatovrátski.

Others, again, proceeded to busy themselves with the intelligent class, pre-eminently with the negative sides of their existence. Písemski painted them in the blackest colours, while Saltykóv applied his great satirical talents more especially to the disclosure of all the wretchedness and dishonesty of the middle and the official strata of society. Ostróvski, again, took for his dramas the Moscow merchant class which stood on the border of the old Russian civilisation, and treated it ideally, apologetically, or negatively at various stages of his development. In poetry the democratic spirit of the forties is best reflected in Nekrásov and in a much lesser degree in Nikítin. Though these writers are related to Koltsóv in the treatment of popular themes, they differ vastly in the application of the democratic motive from their more artistic predecessor.

In the seventies there was the usual reaction in literature as well as in the political life of the nation. Since then a large number of novelists and poets have been endeavouring to reproduce the currents of modern society. The background of all this new literature is still the democracy of the forties, but the centre of interest has shifted from the peasant and the intellectual class to the large burgher population in its undefined tendency to form a substantial middle class. There are no pronounced ideas which these writers feel themselves called to propagate or defend, hence their task is comparatively more difficult than that of the previous generation. They are conscious of this, and when accused of scattering their energies and not rising to the high points of the men of the forties, they have justly answered that they are at a loss to discover any positive tendencies in the nation to reproduce. In the external technique of their works, however, there is a decided improvement over the generation which has just passed away, and the works would, no doubt, greatly interest foreign readers if they did not so much approach well-known models of the West.

In this greater cosmopolitanism of the newer Russian literature, in the broadening of the intellectual horizon, even though the literary life is more shallow, lies the hope of Russia’s future. Life is readjusting itself on a more stable basis. The tendencies of society, though indefinite, are more normal. Hence didacticism in literature is rapidly passing away, and art, this time tempered by the democratic spirit of the age, bids fair to regain its place in letters. Two illustrations will suffice to make this clear. Górki, who by his private life and the influence of the democratic school has been led to descend to the lowest dregs of society for his subjects, absolutely refrains from inculcating, directly or indirectly, any social or political tenet. Whatever he paints, he paints with the consummate skill of the artist for the sake of art. Merezhkóvski, who has not yet entirely passed his apprenticeship in letters, is trying to bridge over the democratic epoch, which he abhors, and aspires for the laurels of Púshkin.

Compared with its humble beginnings in 1800, Russian literature has made a wonderful record in the nineteenth century. The Russian language has been moulded into an instrument of great perfection: it is melodious, and capable of all shades of expression and all literary forms. The great authors of its literature have become the possession of all nations. Intellectual Russia no longer stands aloof. It is an important and valuable member of the great nations of the world. From the steady progress in the past, frequently under the most trying opposition, must be prognosticated a still greater advancement in the future. It has well learned its lessons from the West: it may yet become its teacher.

The Nineteenth Century

Nikoláy Mikháylovich Karamzín. (1766-1826.)

Karamzín was born in the Government of Simbírsk. At fourteen years of age he entered Professor Schaden’s school at Moscow, and later he attended the university. In 1783 he settled in St. Petersburg where he began his literary career in conjunction with his friend Dmítriev (see vol. i., p. 428 _et seq._); he entered the army for a short time, and spent the next year in his native place. After that he was taken to Moscow by I. P. Turgénev, a friend of Nóvikov (see vol. i., pp. 32 and 327), and was brought by him under the educational influences of the Masonic Society, which, however, he never joined himself. He devoted himself to the study of the German language, from which he translated much, and acquainted himself with English literature. In 1789 he travelled extensively through Germany, Switzerland, France, and England, meeting wherever possible the famous men of letters. Upon his return he edited, among other periodicals, the _Moscow Journal_, in which had appeared his _Letters of a Russian Traveller_. These differ immensely in tone and literary execution from the similar compositions by Fon-Vízin (see vol. i., p. 355 _et seq._), and indicate the great stride made in the intellectual advancement of Russia in the short period of one decade. They created a sensation, not only on account of the pleasing and novel manner in which he treated serious subjects, but in a greater measure on account of the strong element of sentimental optimism that pervaded them. His sentimentalism is even more pronounced in his poems, and in his novels _Poor Líza_, _Natálya, the Boyár’s Daughter_, and _Burgomistress Márfa_.

In 1803 Karamzín was appointed historiographer, and he began to busy himself with Russian antiquity. After twelve years of labour appeared the first eight volumes of his _History of the Russian Empire_, in which he continued the sentimental idealisation of the Russian past. Though extolled by his contemporaries, and even later, as the first real history of Russia, it differs from those of his predecessors, the Russians Shcherbátov (see vol. i., p. 287) and Tatíshchev (_ib._, p. 218), and the German historians in Russia, not by any scientific method, but by its literary exposition, which served as a model for a generation of historical novelists. Karamzín’s greatest desert consists in having purified the Russian language from the dross of Church-Slavic words and constructions, by borrowing freely from the store of the spoken language, and by following the simpler constructions and the shorter sentences of the French and the English languages. This innovation involved him in a long controversy with the adherents of the old style, of which Admiral Shishkóv was the head, but he came out victorious, and for ever established the Russian literary norm.

There are several translations, or rather paraphrases, of Karamzín’s stories, and one of his Travels, in English: _Russian Tales_, ... translated into English by J. B. Elrington, London, 1803; _Julia_, translated from the Russ into French by M. du Boullier, and from the French into English by Ann P. H.[awkins], St. Petersburg, 1803; _Tales from the Russian of Nicolai Karamsin_ [translated by A. A. Feldborg], London, 1804; _Travels from Moscow, through Prussia, Germany, Switzerland, France, and England_ ... translated from the German [by A. A. Feldborg], 3 vols., London, 1803. A few of his poems are given in Sir John Bowring’s _Specimens of the Russian Poets_, Part I.: _The Song of Bornholm_, _The Churchyard_, _Autumn_, _Lilea_, _To Nicander_; and in Part II.: _Raïssa_, _The Haven_, _Song of the Good Tzar_, _To ----_, _To the Nightingale_. An epigram is translated by V. E. Marsden in The Anglo-Russian Literary Society, No. 9, and there is also a version of _The Churchyard_ by W. H. Dole (publication not ascertainable).

Letters Of A Russian Traveller

TVER, May 18, 1789.

I have departed from you, my dear ones, I have departed! My heart is attached to you with all its tenderest feelings; and here I am getting farther and farther away from you!

O heart, heart! Who knows what you want? For how many years travel has been the fondest dream of my imagination! Did I not in rapture say to myself: “At last you will start”? Did I not awaken joyfully in the morning, did I not fall asleep with pleasure, thinking: “You are going to travel”? How long I could think of nothing else, busy myself with nothing else except the journey! And did I not count the days and hours? But when the desired hour arrived, I grew sorrowful, for I came to the first vivid realisation that I was about to part from the dearest people in the world, and from all that, so to say, entered into the composition of my moral existence.

Whatever I looked at, whether at the table upon which I had for years committed my unripe thoughts and feelings to paper; at the window under which I used to sit dolefully in my fits of melancholy, and where the rising sun found me so often; at the Gothic house, the favourite object of my eyes in the nocturnal hours,--in short, everything that came within my vision was for me a precious monument of the bygone years of my life, rich not in deeds, but in thoughts and feelings. I bade farewell to inanimate things as to friends; and while I was overcome and dispirited, my servants came, and began to weep and entreat me not to forget them and to take them back upon my return. Tears are contagious, my dear ones, especially in such circumstances.

But you are the dearest to me, and I had to part from you. My heart was so full that I forgot to speak. But why should I tell you that? The moment when we bade each other good-bye was such that a thousand agreeable minutes of the future will scarcely repay me for it.

Dear Petróv accompanied me to the toll-gate. There we embraced each other, and for the first time I observed his tears; there I seated myself in the kibítka,[1] glanced at Moscow, where I left behind so much that was dear to me, and said: “Good-bye!” The bells jingled, the horses galloped away,--and your friend was orphaned in the world, and his soul was orphaned!

The whole past is a dream and a shadow! Oh! where are the hours when my heart was so at ease among you, my dear ones? If the future were suddenly revealed to the most fortunate man, his heart would congeal with terror, and his tongue would grow dumb the very moment in which he deemed himself the happiest of mortals.

Upon my whole journey not one cheering thought entered my mind. At the last station in Tver, my melancholy had so increased that, standing, in the village tavern, before the caricatures of the French Queen and the Roman Emperor, I felt, as Shakspere says, “my blood weeping from my heart.” All that I had left behind appeared to me in such a touching aspect. But enough, enough! I am again growing very sad. Good-bye! May God console you! Remember your friend, but without any grievous feeling!

[1] Native vehicle.

On The French Tragedy

In the so-called _French Theatre_ they play tragedies, dramas, and large comedies. I have not changed my opinion of the French Melpomene. She is noble, majestic, beautiful, but she never will touch and stir my heart as does the Muse of Shakspere and of a few (’t is true, a very few) Germans. The French poets have a delicate, refined taste, and may serve as models in the art of writing. Only in the matter of invention, warmth, and deep sentiment of Nature,--forgive me, sacred shades of Corneille, Racine, and Voltaire!--they must concede the supremacy to the English and the Germans. Their tragedies are filled with artistic pictures in which the colours and shades are skilfully matched; but I generally admire them with a cold heart. There is everywhere a mixture of the natural with the romantic; everywhere “mes feux,” “ma foi”; everywhere Greeks and Romans _à la française_, who are dissolved in amatory raptures, who sometimes philosophise, express one thought in a variety of choice words, and, losing themselves in a maze of eloquence, forget to act. The public demands here of the author beautiful verses, “des vers à retenir”; these make a play famous, and, consequently, the versifiers use all their efforts to multiply their number, and are more concerned about them than about the importance of the plot and the new, extraordinary, yet natural situations, forgetting that character is revealed in these unusual occurrences and that the very words obtain their strength from them.

To be short, the creations of the French Melpomene are glorious, and will always be glorious, by the beauty of their diction and brilliant verses; but if a tragedy is deeply to stir our hearts or to terrify our souls, Voltaire’s countrymen have, probably, no more than two real tragedies, and D’Alembert very justly remarked that all their dramas have been composed for reading rather than for the theatre.

On Shakspere

In dramatic poetry the English have nothing remarkable, except the works of one author, but that author is Shakspere, and the English are rich!

It is easy to make light of him, not only with the mind of a Voltaire, but also with the most ordinary mind. I do not wish even to dispute with him who does not feel his great beauties. The amusing critics of Shakspere resemble those naughty urchins who in the street surround a strangely dressed man and cry out: “What a funny fellow! What a strange fellow!”

Every author is marked with the stamp of his age. Shakspere wished to please his contemporaries, knew their taste, and satisfied it. What seemed to be witty then is now wearisome and repulsive; this is the result of the evolution of the mind and taste, with which even the greatest genius cannot count. But every real talent creates for eternity, though paying the tribute to his age: the contemporary beauties disappear, and the common ones that are based on the human heart and on the nature of things preserve their strength, in Shakspere as in Homer. The grandeur and truthfulness of the characters, the attractiveness of the plot, the revelation of the human heart, and the great thoughts that are scattered in the dramas of the British genius will always keep their magic charm for people who are endowed with sentiment. I know no other poet who has such an all-embracing, fertile, inexhaustible imagination,--and you will find all kinds of poetry in Shakspere’s works. He is the favourite son of the goddess Fancy who surrendered to him her magic wand, and disporting in the luxuriant gardens of the imagination he creates miracles at each step.

LONDON, September, 1790

There was a time, when I had hardly seen any Englishmen, when I went into ecstasy over them, and imagined England to be of all countries the most agreeable to my heart. With what delight, being a boarding pupil at Professor S’s, I used to read during the American war the reports of the victorious British admirals! Rodney, Howe, did not leave my tongue; I celebrated their victories and invited my young schoolmates to my room. It seemed to me that to be an Englishman was to be brave, also magnanimous, sentimental, and true. If I am not mistaken, novels were the chief foundation for this opinion. Now I see the English at close range, and I do them justice and praise them, but my praise is as cold as they themselves are.

Above all, I should not like to pass my life in England on account of its damp, gloomy, sombre climate. I know that one may be happy even in Siberia when the heart is satisfied and joyful, but a cheerful climate makes us more cheerful, and here one feels, in a fit of pining and melancholy, more than elsewhere like committing suicide. The groves, parks, fields, gardens,--all that is beautiful in England; but it is all covered with fogs, darkness, and coal smoke. The sun rarely peeps through, and then only for a short time; but without it life upon earth is not a pleasure. “Give my regards to the sun,” someone wrote from here to his friend in Naples; “I have not seen him for a long time.” The English winter is not so cold as ours; but we have at least beautiful days in winter, which are uncommon here even in summer. How, then, can an Englishman keep himself from looking like September?

In the second place, their cold natures do not please me in the least. “It is a snow-covered volcano,” a French emigrant said of them smilingly to me. But I stand, watch, see no flame, and meanwhile freeze. My Russian heart loves to bubble in a sincere, lively conversation, loves the play of the eyes, the rapid changes of the face, the expressive motion of the hands. The Englishman is reticent, indifferent, and speaks as he reads, without ever expressing those sudden mental convulsions that electrify our whole physical system. They say he is profounder than others. Is it not rather that he _seems_ profounder? Is it not because his thick blood moves more slowly in him, and gives him the aspect of being deep in thoughts, though he often has none? The example of a Bacon, Newton, Locke, Hobbes, proves nothing. Geniuses are born in all lands; the universe is their country, and, then, can it be said in justice that, for example, Locke is deeper than Descartes and Leibnitz?

The Churchyard

First Voice

How frightful the grave! How deserted and drear! With the howls of the storm-wind, the creaks of the bier, And the white bones all clattering together!

Second Voice

How peaceful the grave! Its quiet how deep! Its zephyrs breathe calmly, and soft is its sleep, And flowerets perfume it with ether.

First Voice

There riots the blood-crested worm on the dead, And the yellow skull serves the foul toad for a bed, And snakes in its nettle-weeds hiss.

Second Voice

How lovely, how lone the repose of the tomb! No tempests are there, but the nightingales come And sing their sweet chorus of bliss.

First Voice

The ravens of night flap their wings o’er the grave: ’T is the vulture’s abode; ’t is the wolf’s dreary cave, Where they tear up the earth with their fangs.

Second Voice

There the coney at evening disports with his love, Or rests on the sod, while the turtles above Repose on the bough that o’erhangs.

First Voice

There darkness and dampness with poisonous breath And loathsome decay fill the dwelling of death, The trees are all barren and bare.

Second Voice

Oh, soft are the breezes that play round the tomb, And sweet with the violet’s wafted perfume, With lilies and jessamine fair!

First Voice

The pilgrim who reaches this valley of tears Would fain hurry by, and with trembling and fears He is launched on the wreck-covered river.

Second Voice

The traveller outworn with life’s pilgrimage dreary, Lays down his rude staff, like one that is weary, And sweetly reposes for ever.

--From Sir John Bowring’s _Specimens of the Russian Poets_, Part I.

Poor LíZa

Perchance none of those who live in Moscow know the surroundings of that city so well as I do, because nobody is oftener in the open than I, nobody oftener wanders about, planlessly, aimlessly, whither his eyes carry him, through meadows and groves, over hills and vales. Every summer I discover new places of delight, or new beauties in those I already know.

But most pleasant to me is the place where rise the sombre Gothic towers of the monastery of St. Simeon. Standing on that mound, you survey upon your right nearly all of Moscow, that enormous mass of houses and churches, that presents itself to the eyes in the form of a majestic amphitheatre,--a superb picture, especially when the sun shines upon it, when his evening rays gleam on the innumerable gilded cupolas and the innumerable crosses that tower to heaven!

Below, stretch the luscious, dark-green, blossoming fields; beyond them, there flows over the yellow sands the limpid river, stirred by the light oars of fishing-boats, or splashing under the prows of freighted barges that come from the more fertile parts of the Russian Empire and supply hungry Moscow with grain. On the other side of the river there is seen an oak grove, and near it graze numerous flocks. There young shepherds, sitting in the shade of trees, sing simple, doleful songs, and thus shorten the monotonous summer days. A little farther off, in the dense verdure of ancient elms, gleams the gold-domed monastery of St. Daniel’s; still farther away, almost on the verge of the horizon, loom the blue outlines of the Sparrow Hills. To the left appear vast, grain-covered fields, groves, three or four villages, and, in the distance, Kolómna with its high palace.

I often repair to that spot, and nearly always meet spring there; thither I also repair in the gloomy days of autumn, to mourn together with Nature. The winds moan terribly within the walls of the deserted monastery, in the rank grass of the graves, and in the dark corridors of the cells. There I lean against the ruins of the tombstones and hearken to the hollow groan of Time, the groan of those swallowed by the abyss of the past, which makes my heart flutter and tremble. At times I enter into the cells, and I picture to myself those who have lived in them,--sad pictures! Here I see a grey-haired old man bending his knee before the crucifix and imploring a swift liberation from his earthly fetters, for all pleasures of life have left him, all his feelings are dead, except the feeling of ill-health and weakness. There a youthful monk, with pale face and languishing glance, looks through the latticed window, sees the merry birds that freely swim in the aërial ocean,--sees them, and bitter tears issue from his eyes. He pines, withers, dries up,--and the dismal sound of a bell announces to me his untimely death.

At times I scan on the doors of the sanctuary the representation of miracles that have taken place in this monastery: there fishes fall from heaven to appease the hunger of the denizens of the cloister that is besieged by a multitudinous host; here the image of the Mother of God puts the enemy to flight. All that refreshes in my mind the history of our country,--the sad history of those times when the savage Tartars and Lithuanians with fire and sword laid waste the surroundings of the Russian capital, and when luckless Moscow, like a defenceless widow, awaited from God alone succour in her dire distress.

But most frequently of all I am attracted to the walls of St. Simeon’s monastery by the memory of the tearful fate of Líza, poor Líza. Oh! I love those objects that touch my heart and cause me to shed tears of tender sorrow!

Some five hundred feet from the cloister wall there stands, near a birch grove, amidst a green field, a deserted hut without doors, without windows, without a floor; its roof is decayed and has fallen in long ago. In that hut there lived, some thirty years ago, lovely Líza with her old mother.

Líza’s father was a fairly well-to-do peasant, for he loved work, carefully tilled the soil, and always led a sober life. But soon after his death his wife and daughter fell into poverty. The indolent hand of the hired servant ploughed the field carelessly, and the grain began to give diminished returns. They were compelled to let their land to a tenant, at an inconsiderable income. At the same time the poor widow, who continuously shed tears for her deceased husband,--for peasant women also know how to love,--grew weaker and weaker from day to day, and finally could not work at all. Líza alone, who was fifteen years old at her father’s death,--Líza alone did not spare her tender youth nor her rare beauty, and laboured day and night: she wove hempen cloth, knit stockings; in springtime picked flowers, and in winter berries, and sold them in Moscow. Seeing the indefatigableness of her daughter, the sensitive, gentle old woman frequently pressed her to her feebly beating heart, called her “divine grace, protector, consolation of my old age,” and prayed to God to reward her for all she did for her mother.

“God gave me hands to work,” Líza would say. “You nourished me at your breast, watched me in my childhood. Now it is my turn to look after you. Only stop grieving, stop weeping! Our tears will not bring father to life.”

But often gentle Líza could not restrain her own tears, for oh! she recalled that she had had a father, and that he was no more; but to comfort her mother she tried to hide the grief of her heart, and to appear calm and gay.

“In the world to come, beloved Líza,” the sorrowing old woman answered, “in the world to come I shall cease to weep. There, they say, we shall all be happy; I shall certainly be happy when I see your father again. But I do not wish to die now, for what would become of you without me? To whom could I leave you? No, God grant me first to see you provided for! Maybe some good man will be found for you. Then I will bless you, my dear children, will make the sign of the cross, and willingly will lie down in the damp earth.”

From The “History Of The Russian Empire”

Introduction

History is in a certain sense the sacred book of the nations, their most important and indispensable book, the mirror of their being and activities, the tables of their revelation and of their laws, the injunction of the ancestors to their posterity, the complement, the exposition of the present, and the example for the future.

Rulers and lawgivers act according to the lessons of history, and look upon its pages as the mariner looks upon his ocean charts. Human wisdom is in need of experience, and life is short. It is necessary to know how riotous passions have of yore agitated civil society, and in what manner the beneficent dominion of reason has bridled its tempestuous onrush, in order to establish order, harmonise the interests of men, and give them the best attainable happiness upon earth.

But even a simple citizen must read history. It reconciles him to the imperfection of the visible order of things, as to a common phenomenon in all ages; consoles him in his country’s calamities, by certifying to former similar, even more ominous misfortunes, by which the country did not perish; it fosters a moral sense, and by its equitable judgment inclines the soul to justice, by which our well-being and the concord of society are confirmed.

Such is its usefulness, and many are the pleasures of heart and mind that are derived from it. Curiosity is an innate feeling with the man of culture and with the savage. At the famous Olympic games the noise died down, and the masses preserved silence around Herodotus reading the traditions of the ages. Even before knowing the use of letters, the nations love history: the old man points out to the youth the elevated tomb and narrates to him the deeds of the hero resting in it. The first experiments of our ancestors in the art of writing were devoted to religion and history; shrouded by a dense cloud of ignorance, the people listened eagerly to the accounts of the chroniclers. Even fiction pleases, but to get a full pleasure out of it we must deceive ourselves and imagine that it is true. By opening the graves, raising the dead, putting life into their hearts and words upon their lips, by recreating kingdoms from the dust and presenting to the imagination a series of the ages with their several passions, customs, acts,--history expands the limits of our own existence. By its creative power we live with the men of all times, see and hear them, love and hate them; before we think of usefulness, we revel in the contemplation of the various occurrences and of the characters that entertain the mind or nurture our sensibilities.

If every history, even the inartistically written, may be pleasing, as Pliny says,--how much more that of our native land! A true cosmopolite is a metaphysical being or so unusual a phenomenon that there is no need of speaking of him, neither to praise nor to condemn him. We are all citizens,--in Europe and in India, in Mexico and in Abyssinia; the personality of each is closely bound up with his country: we love it because we love ourselves. The Greeks and the Romans may captivate our imagination: they belong to the family of the human race and are no strangers to us in their virtues and in their weaknesses, in their glory and in their calamities; but the name of a Russian has a special attraction for us: my heart beats more strongly for Pozhárski[2] than for Themistocles or Scipio. Universal history by its great recollections embellishes the world in our eyes, but Russian history embellishes our country in which we live and feel. How attractive are to us the banks of the Vólkhov, Dnieper, Don, when we know what has taken place upon them in remote antiquity! Not only Nóvgorod, Kíev, Vladímir, but even the cabins of Eléts, Kozélsk, Gálich, become interesting monuments, and mute objects grow eloquent. The shadows of bygone centuries everywhere draw pictures before us.

Outside of their special value for us, sons of Russia, its annals have an universal interest. Let us cast a glance at this unique Empire: thought staggers! Rome in all her majesty, ruling from the Tiber to the Caucasus, to the Elbe and to the African sands, could never equal it. Is it not wonderful how a land that is disrupted by eternal barriers of Nature, by immeasurable deserts and impenetrable forests, by cold and hot climates, how Astrakhán and Lapland, Siberia and Bessarabia, could have formed one empire with Moscow? And is that mixture of its inhabitants less wonderful, that composite and heterogeneous mass of varying degrees of civilisation? Like America, Russia has its savages; like other countries of Europe, it displays the fruits of a protracted civil existence. One need not be a Russian, one need only think, in order to read with curiosity the traditions of a nation that by daring and courage has obtained the dominion over the ninth part of the world, has discovered countries, heretofore unknown, has entered them in the universal system of geography and history, and has enlightened them through God-sent faith, without violence, without atrocities practised by the other devotees of Christianity in Europe and America, but merely by dint of good example.

We shall admit that the deeds described by Herodotus, Thucydides, Livy, are in general more interesting to others than to Russians, representing as they do more force of character and a more vivid play of the passions, since Greece and Rome were world powers and more enlightened than Russia; yet we may boldly assert that certain incidents, pictures, characters, of our history are not less curious than those of antiquity. Such are the exploits of Svyatosláv, the scourge of Batý, the popular rising under Donskóy, the fall of Nóvgorod, the taking of Kazán, the victory of the civic virtues in the time of the interregnum. The giants of the early dawn, Olég and the son of Ígor; the simple-minded knight, blind Vasílko; the friend of his country, virtuous Monomákh; the brave Mstislávs, terrible in war and an example of meekness in peace; Mikhaíl of Tver, so famed for his magnanimous death; the ill-fated, truly courageous Aleksándr Névski; the youthful hero, the vanquisher of Mamáy,--the slightest sketch of them acts powerfully on the imagination and on the heart. The reign of Iván III. alone is a rare treasure of history; at least I know of no monarch more worthy to live and shine in its sanctuary. The rays of his glory fall upon the cradle of Peter, and between these two autocrats are the remarkable Iván IV. and Godunóv, who merited his good fortune and his reverses; the strange False Demetrius; and, after a host of valiant patriots, boyárs, and citizens, the mentor of the enthroned, Patriarch Filarét with his august son, the light-bearer in the darkness of our country’s woes; and Tsar Alexis, the wise father of the Emperor whom Europe has called the Great. Either all modern history must be silent, or that of Russia has a right to be heard.

[2] The liberator of Russia, during the interregnum of the False Demetrius.

Iván Andréevich Krylóv. (1768-1844.)

Krylóv’s biography is not satisfactory. It is known that he was the son of a poor army officer, and that he lost his father early in life. He received only the scantiest education, and while still a boy became acquainted with practical life. He served in various capacities in the government offices of St. Petersburg and the province. Then he disappeared from public view for a number of years, though it is surmised that he passed much of that time gambling at cards, to which he was passionately addicted. In 1812 he received an appointment at the Imperial (later the Public) Library, which gave him ample leisure to devote himself to literature, though his innate laziness made him very unproductive. Krylóv first entered the literary career before the age of twenty, by a series of mediocre comedies. From 1789 he edited a number of periodicals, the first of which, _The Spirit Post_, was in the manner of the older satirical journals. It was here that he began to develop the fine satirical vein for which his fables later became so famous. In 1809 appeared the first small collection of his fables. Most of his subjects he borrowed from the older writers, especially from La Fontaine, but he not only gave them a Russian surrounding, but invested them with such an artistic atmosphere as to make them the possession of all times and all nations. His fables have been translated into all the European and some of the Asiatic languages.

There are several translations of Krylóv in English: _Krilof and his Fables_, by W. R. S. Ralston, London, 1869 (4th edition, 1883; several of the poems had been published before, in 1868 and 1870, in _Good Words_); _Krilof’s Fables, Illustrating Russian Social Life_, translated from the Russian for the Calcutta Weekly “Englishman” [by J. Long], Calcutta, 1869; _Kriloff’s Original Fables_, translated by I. H. Harrison, London, 1883. Separate fables have been translated by Sir John Bowring in his _Specimens of the Russian Poets_, Part I. (from the manuscript furnished him by Krylóv); three poems, given below [by W. D. Lewis] in the National Gazette and Literary Register, Philadelphia, 1825; in _Russian Fabulists, with Specimens_, in Fraser’s Magazine, 1839 and 1842; in Chambers’s Journal, vol. V., 1856; by Sutherland Edwards, in _The Russians at Home_, London, 1861; by R. Garnett, in The University Magazine, 1879 (_Fables from Krilof_); by C. T. Wilson, in _Russian Lyrics_, London, 1887; by John Pollen, in _Rhymes from the Russian_, London, 1891.

The Ass And The Nightingale

Chancing a Nightingale to meet, Thus did an Ass the songstress greet:-- “Whither in such a hurry winging? I ’m told, my dear, you ’re famed for singing. My curiosity I fain would satisfy, So if you ’ll condescend to gratify,-- Come! for a specimen of your rare skill, And let me hear how featly you can trill!” Forthwith the Nightingale began, And through her cadences she ran, Now tender and most soft, Anon her voice she raised aloft; While all around in silence hushed Listened to her melting strain, As its music sweetly gushed, And floated over dale and plain; Hardly breathed the enraptured swain As drank his ear of sound the stream, And as he mused on the varying theme. Ceased the songstress, the critic Ass His sentence thus began to pass:-- “Upon my word, ’t is not amiss! Yet you should hear Friend Chanticleer. From him some lessons you ’d do well to take. His mode of singing well I know, Nor can there finer be, I trow. Yes! He is clever; And you, my dear, should by all means endeavour Like him to crow! He has a voice--a shake-- That really keeps folks quite awake. Yet after all you do not sing amiss.” On hearing this, Far away the song-bird flew.

--From _Russian Fabulists, with Specimens_, in Fraser’s Magazine, 1842.

The Quartette

The tricksy Monkey, the Goat, the Ass, and bandy-legged Míshka the Bear, determine to play a quartette. They provide themselves with the necessary pieces of music--with two fiddles, and with an alto and counter-bass. Then they sit down on a meadow under a lime-tree, prepared to enchant the world by their skill. They work away at their fiddlesticks with a will; and they make a noise, but there is no music in it.

“Stop, brothers, stop!” cried the Monkey, “wait a little! How can we get our music right? It ’s plain, you must n’t sit as you are. You, Míshka, with your counter-bass, face the alto. I will sit opposite the fiddle. Then a different sort of music will begin: we shall set the very hills and forests dancing.”

So they changed places, and recommenced; but the music is just as discordant as ever.

“Stop a little!” exclaims the Ass; “I have found out the secret. We shall be sure to play in tune if we sit in a row.”

They follow its advice, and form in an orderly line. But the quartette is as unmusical as ever. Louder than before there arose among them squabbling and wrangling as to how they ought to be seated. It happened that a Nightingale came flying that way, attracted by their noise. At once they all entreat it to solve their difficulty.

“Be so kind,” they say, “as to bear with us a little, in order that our quartette may come off properly. Music we have; instruments we have: tell us only how we ought to place ourselves.”

But the Nightingale replies:

“To be a musician, one must have a quicker intelligence and finer ear than you possess. You, my friends, may place yourselves just as you like, but you will never become musicians.”

--From W. R. S. Ralston’s _Krilof and his Fables_.

Damian’S Fishsoup

“Well, neighbour, now you are a brick! Come, try some more.” “Neighbour, I ’m bursting quite.”--“No humbug, quick-- One plateful let me pour: Real fishsoup, see what soup, done to a _t_.”-- “But that ’s my third.”--“Hush! here we count nor plates nor glasses-- With a good appetite all passes: Digestion ’s good for sleep, you see. ’T is tempting, ’t is a very jelly; Look at the amber that its surface coats, Indulge, old chum, unto thy heart’s content! See there, ’t is bream, here sterlet choice that floats! That liver there for thee was meant. Another spoonful!--Wife, thy reverence make!-- One small one more, and for my sake!” Thus feasted Damian once his old friend Neddy; No time to breathe or talk, kept to it steady. Down Neddy’s face had long been trickling rain, But, yielding unto fate, his plate he hands again; And, summoning his strength remaining, He swallows all.--“Now, that a friend I call,” Exulting Damian cries; “why on excuses fall To spare my cheer? Then once more show your training!” Then hapless Neddy, who Doted on fish, at this aggression new, Seizing his coat, Stick, and capote, Ran straight and swiftly to his own street door, And ne’er set foot in Damian’s parlour more.

Good author, happy thou in gift beyond dispute; But, if thou hast not learned yet to be mute, Boring unwilling ears to suit Nor time nor place, be sure--thy verse or prose More sickening e’en than Damian’s fishsoup grows.

--From I. H. Harrison’s _Kriloff’s Original Fables_.

The Swan, The Pike, And The Crab

Whene’er companions don’t agree, They work without accord; And naught but trouble doth result, Although they all work hard.

One day a Swan, a Pike, a Crab, Resolved a load to haul. All three were harnessed to the cart, And pulled together all. But though they pulled with all their might, That cart-load on the bank stuck tight.

The Swan pulled upwards to the skies, The Crab did backwards crawl, The Pike made for the water straight: This proved no use at all.

Now, which of them was most to blame ’T is not for me to say, But this I know,--the load is there Unto this very day.

--From J. Pollen’s _Rhymes from the Russian_.

The Lion And The Wolf

A hungry Lion on a lamb was feeding, When a poor dog passed by, And, with a patient look of meekness pleading, Shared in the banquet, while the royal beast Smiled at his ignorant simplicity. A Wolf looked on, and said: “And surely I May have a portion of the prey,--at least, Indeed, I ’ll try.” He came,--came boldly: when the Lion saw His purpose, he upraised his kingly paw, Smote him to earth, and left him there to die. There ’s some excuse for inexperience; But none for daring, insolent pretence.

--From National Gazette and Literary Register, Philadelphia, September 3, 1825.

The Cloud

Over the thirsty plains a pregnant Cloud Rolled on its forward way; Scorning the cliffs whose summit proud Beneath it lay; While to the overflowing sea It poured its waters forth rejoicingly. “Am I not liberal?” to the Mountain cried The Cloud, while the swift torrents swelled the tide. “Liberal! The panting field and sun-dried plain Asked for one drop, one single drop, in vain,” Exclaimed the Mountain; “liberal, indeed, To those who asked no favour,--felt no need!”

--_Ib._

The Shipwrecked Sailor And The Sea.

The waves had whelmed the venturous bark, And dashed the shipwrecked seaman to the shore; He turned himself, impatient at the roar, And cried, “Perfidious Sea! Why didst thou lure me, smiling tranquilly, To such a fate, so desolate and dark?” The Ocean-god awoke, and frowning said: “Hurl not thy vain reproaches at my head; My waters calmly ebb and flow, Till the land-warring tempests break their rest, Go! to the storm-winds be thy plaints addressed, Go! to the whirlwind, go!”

--_Ib._

Aleksándr Efímovich Izmáylov. (1779-1831.)

Izmáylov was for a short time vice-governor of Tver and Arkhángelsk. He published several periodicals, to which he contributed sentimental novels in Karamzín’s style. He wrote a number of fables in a somewhat coarse manner, which earned for him the title of “an author not for ladies.”

_The Drunkard’s Vow_ is given in _Russian Fabulists_, in Fraser’s Magazine, vol. xxv., 1842; _The Drunkard’s Answer_, _The Ladder_, _The Donkey and the Horse_ are given in Wilson’s _Russian Lyrics_. An epigram is translated by V. E. Marsden in The Anglo-Russian Literary Society, No. 9.

The Drunkard’S Vow

A toper made a solemn vow he never more would touch, Or punch, or grog, or spirits mixed, or any compounds such. Yet though to make ’t was easy, to keep so strict a vow, To prove an easy matter was not likely, you ’ll allow. Soon after was our tippler seen reeling ’long the street. “How now!” a neighbour cried, “why, you scarce can keep your feet. I thought you had forsworn for ever punch and grog?” “And so I have, nor do I now touch either, you dull dog; But I keep my vow unbroken by drinking spirits _neat_.”

--From _Russian Fabulists_, in Fraser’s Magazine, vol. xxv.

The Canary And The Nightingale

In a beautiful cage near the window in the garden was a Canary who sang the livelong day alone. At some distance, where an avenue of birches led to a bramble bush, a lonely Nightingale sang through the nights and early in the mornings. Both man and beast and bird, and all that have blood, feel all-powerful love in spring. The two singers made each other’s acquaintance, and forthwith the Canary forgot the naughty Parrot in his foppish green uniform for the sake of the Nightingale. No sweeter bird, in all the world, for her than the Nightingale, and what a charming voice he had!

The Nightingale, the favourite of the roses, frequently left at night his fragrant birches, and flitted near the window over the flower bed, and in the hope of a reward serenaded her in the lilac bushes, for he loved the Canary with all his heart. At first, like the artist he was, he appeared awkward and timid, but at last he made up his mind and, sighing, explained his burning passion for her. The sentimental daughter of the Canary Islands, who was yellower than straw and lemons, blinking, sang out in semitones that the best of singers was dear to her. The lovers agreed to fly into the distant forest (they had forgotten to close the cage); so, the heavens favouring them, the bridegroom and bride started for the wished-for woods. They flew for a long while, and at last, late in the evening, alighted in a thicket; they kissed each other and began to sing,--but they had not eaten since morning. So the bride said to her husband:

“How nice it is to listen to your singing! But, could I not have a bite of something?”

“Right away, my angel!” and the Nightingale flew away, as if pursued by a hawk, and returned a minute later:

“O friend of my soul! Here are little ants, they are very good! Here are some ant eggs----”

“Sir, that is no food for a bird brought up in the capital! Bring me crackers and candy!”

“Alas, there are none in the woods!”

“No? Do you expect me to starve?”

“Maybe I shall find some kernels in the field!”

“What? Do you expect me to peck kernels?”

And she began to scold her husband, broke her relations with him, and transferred herself to the Parrot in the garden.

Inexperienced bridegrooms! If you are charmed by a _cultivated_ maiden who has never been away from the luxurious capital,--read with her my verses; if she will agree to eat _forget-me-not soup_, you may safely marry her.

The Two Cats

Vánka the Cat and Váska were two brothers; they were both born and lived in the same house. Vánka was so lean that it would frighten you to look at him,--in truth, he was not rounder than a plank; whereas Váska was as fat as the steward, and could barely waddle on account of his obesity; his fur had the sheen of velvet.

“We have not the same luck, though we are of one mother,” said the skeleton to him. “You know no cares; you are never without meat, not even on week-days. You are free to eat meat, while with me it is always Lent; you sleep long, while I hardly know of sleep, preserving the whole house from mice and rats,--yet, with all my zeal, I am hungry----”

“And stupid!” the fat one interrupted him. “Brother, come to your senses! Take me for an example, if you want to be fatter.”

“Pray, what am I to do?”

“Amuse your master, walk on your hind legs in his presence, dance, leap over his arm when he stretches it out, and learn all my amusing tricks. Believe me, you will be loved as well as have your hunger satisfied. Know, silly one, that he who pleases people in trifles and foolish things never loses by doing so; but he who labours for their benefit and passes sleepless nights often stays hungry.”

Vasíli Trofímovich Naryézhny. (1780-1825.)

Naryézhny was born but a short distance from Gógol’s native place. In 1801 he graduated from the Moscow University, and entered the army. After that he served in various departments, rising to the post of Chief of Department. He wrote a tragedy, _The False Demetrius_, which was published in 1804; in 1814 appeared the first three volumes of _The Russian Gil Blas_: the last three volumes did not get the censor’s imprimatur. There is much in the manner of this Little-Russian author that reminds of Gógol, who availed himself not only of the genre of his predecessor, but also of the very subject-matter for his classical creations. The very titles of Naryézhny’s later works, _The Seminarist: A Little-Russian Story_, and _The Two Iváns; or, The Passion for Litigation_, recur in a modified form in Gógol’s works. It was only a short time ago that this relation of the two authors was pointed out.

From “The Two IVáNs; Or, The Passion For Litigation”

The day was inclining to its fall, but the merriment in the house of the hospitable host did not abate. A large number of visitors were not a burden to him. He feasted the men, and his wife the women. Pan Kharitón took the guests around in the garden, though the September winds had already brought half of the leaves to the ground; to the barn, where he figured out how much brandy every stack of rye would give him; to the cattle yard, where he had occasion to boast of his bulls and cows, goats and wethers. His spouse showed her friends from the window the flocks of chickens, geese, ducks and turkeys, telling them in detail of the peculiarities of every cock and hen. Is not that charming?

When all had gathered again in the room, where the table was set with earthen wine-jugs filled with steaming spiced brandy, and the host and guests had placed their cups at random before them, they heard in the yard the rattle of wheels and the tramp of horses, and soon appeared in the assembly a thick-set man of some fifty years, expansive about his abdomen and broad in his shoulders. His bald head shone like the full moon. Who was that guest? The scribe of the hundred-court, Pan Anúri. All rose respectfully, and the host gave him a friendly embrace, offered him his seat, and set before him his cup of mulled brandy. They all looked into his eyes, eagerly caught every word of his, and laughed uproariously when that fool smiled at his own witticisms.

When three cups had found their way into his entrails, he stood up akimbo and announced: “What will you give me, Pan Kharitón, for the good news which I bring you from town? The judge of the hundred-court said to me, as he handed me this batch of papers: ‘Go, my friend, and place these papers into the personal hands of Pan Kharitón!’ From this I conclude,” proceeded Anúri, “that they are favourable, for I am seldom wrong in my conclusions.”

“I understand, I understand!” said Pan Kharitón, and went out smiling. Anúri had barely gotten away with the fourth cup, when Pan Kharitón appeared with some gifts and offered him a new hat of the best cowhide, new boots, permeated by the purest tar, and a clay pipe, the work of the first Poltáva potter. Pan Anúri received the offerings with condescension and hastened to his two-wheeled cart to deposit them there, after which he entered the room with a large sealed batch of papers, handed it respectfully to Pan Kharitón, and seated himself in his old place. Pan Kharitón cursorily glanced at every paper and said: “After all the troubles I have had, my eyes have grown dim. Be so kind, Pan Anúri, as to read them. The decree of the hundred-court is no secret.”

Pan Anúri took the documents with much dignity, selected from them the judgment, put on his eyeglasses, and began to read: “Pan Kharitón Zanóza appears as the plaintiff against Pan Iván Zúbar and Pan Iván Khtára, claiming that they had burnt down his dove-cots with all the pigeons, of which there were more than two hundred; the two Pans Iván, however, declare that the apiary of the elder Iván, containing not less than fifty hives, has been destroyed.

“The hundred-court, having taken into consideration all circumstances, as is meet, decrees:

1. “Granting that during the fire of Pan Kharitón’s dove-cot all the pigeons, of which there were more than two hundred, _i. e._, two hundred and one, have perished, and estimating the price of each pigeon at the maximum of a farthing, his damage amounts to fifty kopeks and a farthing. But since the two Pans Iván declare under oath that they have used as food only twenty birds, the real damage which they have done amounts only to five kopeks; the rest of the pigeons either flew away, or were burnt. Whereas nobody tied any of the aforesaid pigeons or cut their wings, they might have flown away, and thus they were roasted by their own free will.

2. “Pan Iván the elder has lost fifty hives that at the time were full of honey. Upon inquiry it is found that such a hive is worth sixty kopeks, and thus his damage amounts to thirty roubles. Excluding from that sum five kopeks, Pan Kharitón has caused to Pan Iván the elder a real damage of twenty-nine roubles and ninety-five kopeks, which sum is without delay to be turned over within three days to Scribe Anúri. Of this sum twenty-eight roubles and ninety-five kopeks will be retained for the necessary expenses of the hundred-court; the remaining rouble is to be turned over to Pan Iván the elder, he signing a receipt for it.”

Who will describe Pan Kharitón’s fury! He cracked the knuckles of his fingers, stamped the floor with his feet, and rolled his eyes terribly. Finally he jumped up like one beside himself, ran to the perplexed scribe, grabbed the fatal judgment out of his hands, tore it to shreds, and threw it into the eyes of the ambassador of the hundred-court. On all sides was heard a noise and murmuring. Pan Kharitón paid no attention to anything; he shouted to the scribe: “Why have you been riding about upon my horses? Eh? Why have you been tilling your soil with my steers, and sowing it with my grain? Eh? Why have you been devouring my sheep and wethers, and making fur coats out of their hides? Eh? Why have you been taking my money, you destroyers of souls, good-for-nothings, robbers? Why have you been extorting money from me, I say, if you had no intention to stand by me? Eh?”

With these words, to the horror of all the guests and their families,--for at the thunderous roar of Pan Kharitón all the women and daughters of the guests had made their appearance,--he pulled Pan Anúri by his collar, dragged him out into the yard, lifted him up, banged him into his cart, jammed the reins into his hands, gave him two mighty blows in his occiput, raised from the ground a birch club and began to belabour, now the horse, now Anúri. The poor animal flew out of the yard into the road as fast as it could, and Pan Kharitón ran out after the cart and shouted to the scribe: “Tell the fool of a hundred-judge and the good-for-nothing members of the hundred-court that they are transgressors of the law, and that I shall go to-morrow to Poltáva to cite them before the regimental chancery!”

Having obtained such a famous victory over their worst enemy in the matter of the burnt-down dove-cot and destroyed apiary, the two Pans Iván were travelling in triumph from the town to their abode, when they espied in the middle of the road near the tavern the cart, and they immediately knew to whom it belonged.

“That ’s fortunate,” said Iván the elder: “we ’ll take the rouble that belongs to us from Anúri and will give him a good treat.”

They entered the tavern and sure enough saw Pan Anúri sitting over a cup, but in a most dejected attitude. “What ’s the matter, Pan Anúri?” cried out Iván the elder: “The cup is at your very mouth, and you look so sad,--those things do not fit together. Jew, give us two more cups, of anything you please, so it ’s of the best spirits! Really, you, Pan Anúri, are a great fellow and pretty slick! Who would have thought you could manage in so short a time that riotous head of worthless Zanóza?”

“I should say I did manage!” said Anúri with a bitter smile and, filling his cup, drank from it with unmistakable disgust. The two Iváns looked at his strange action in wonderment, and pressed him with all kinds of questions.

Anúri told them all in detail. Having listened with undisguised attention to this incident which had been unheard of in Little-Russia from its beginning, the two Iváns were heartily glad, and the elder one clapped his hands. Anúri showed a very dissatisfied look and asked:

“Is it possible that you, whom I regarded as my friends, can rejoice at my having had my occiput boxed and at the descent of full-weighted blows upon my back?”

“Not at all,” answered Iván the elder: “we rejoice and are merry not because you, our friend and go-between, have received a fine drubbing, but because it has been administered to the worshipful scribe of the hundred-court by the bold hand of furious Zanóza. We hope that this wrongdoing will be his surer undoing than massacred coneys, maimed geese, ducks, sheep and, finally, the destroyed apiary! It is no trifling matter to dare box the occiput and warm up ten times with a birch rod Pan Anúri, a man grown grey and bald among papers, ink, and pens!”

“He ’s warmed me up just twelve times,” said Pan Anúri proudly, “and though he missed me the thirteenth time, it ought to be counted a blow all the same. Besides, he has disgraced the judge and the hundred-court with the foulest curses, and in the presence of an immense throng of noblemen and ladies; he dragged me through the whole room, which is the same as if he dragged me through the whole house;--then by my collar which reaches up to my occiput, hence it is the same as if he had pulled me along by my hair. O Pans Iván! If you rejoice because Kharitón Zanóza will be repaid for this godless deed with interest, I am glad! Oh, if he had twice the property he possesses, it would not be enough to pay me for the disgrace and battery. No! he will have to become acquainted with the city prison and find out the taste of stale bread and water. I give you my hand that this will happen, and before long!”

Vasíli Andréevich Zhukóvski. (1783-1852.)

Zhukóvski was the son of a landed proprietor of Túla, by the name of Búnin, and of a captive Turkish woman, but received his own name from his godfather, who happened to be living at Búnin’s house. After the death of his father he was adopted by Mrs. Búnin, who cared for him as for her own son. He was first educated in the public school of Túla, but was requested to be removed on account of dulness. He was then privately brought up in the house of his godmother, where, at the age of twelve, he composed and acted two dramas--one of them from Roman history. In 1796 he was taken to Moscow to be placed in the boarding-school that was connected with the Moscow University. He there came in contact with a number of talented young men who later made their mark in literature, and under the inspiring influence of the school began, at the early age of fourteen, to contribute poems to the periodical press. His earliest verses contained frequent references to death and the cemetery, and when, a few years later, he lost a friend, he remembered him by translating Gray’s _Elegy_. That was the beginning of his literary fame. He then translated a large number of poetical productions from the German, French, and English, invariably choosing melancholy subjects, as more adapted to his sentimental, reflective nature.

It was chiefly Zhukóvski who transplanted the German Romanticism to Russia, but his deserts are not only in having abandoned the pseudo-classic style of poetry: he was the first to recognise the important educational value of poetry, and its moral power, which made it the equal of religion, or, as Zhukóvski put it, “Poetry is the terrestrial sister of heavenly religion,” and “Poetry is virtue.” He achieved his fame by his ballad _Svyetlána_. The _Minstrel of the Russian Camp_ was written by him at the campfires during the War of 1812: it produced a tremendous outburst of enthusiasm among the whole army. He soon became a great favourite at the Court, and in 1817 was chosen as teacher of Russian to the German bride of Crown Prince Nicholas. In 1841 he left Russia never to return, and died in Baden-Baden in 1852. His body was taken to Russia, where he was buried by the side of Karamzín.

Sir John Bowring gives in _Specimens of the Russian Poets_, Part I.: _The Mariner_, _Æolus’s Harp Song (Say, ye gentle breezes, say)_, _Romance_; in Part II.: _The Minstrel in the Russian Camp_, _Svyetlána_ (under the name of _Catherine_), _Theon and Æschines_, _The Bard_; a prose version of _Svyetlána_, under the name of _Christmas Omens_, by W. D. Lewis, was given in The Atlantic Souvenir, Philadelphia, 1828; another translation, under the title of _The Eve of St. Silvester_, from the Russian of Tzobovsk (?), by J. C. M., was given in Dublin University Magazine, vol. xxxi., 1848; C. T. Wilson, in _Russian Lyrics_, gives _The Flower_, extract from _The Minstrel in the Russian Camp, Svyetlána_; in the Library of the World’s Best Literature are given N. H. Dole’s translations of _Happiness in Slumber_ and _The Coming of Spring Night_.

SvyetláNa[3]

St. Silvester’s evening hour Calls the maidens round: Shoes to throw behind the door, Delve the snowy ground. Peep behind the window there, Burning wax to pour; And the corn for chanticleer Reckon three times o’er. In the water-fountain fling Solemnly the golden ring, Earrings, too, of gold; Kerchief white must cover them While we ’re chanting over them Magic songs of old.

Feebly through the vapours shine Moonbeams on the hill; Silently sat Catherine, Sorrowful and still. “Maiden, why so pensive? We Fain thy voice would hear-- Come and join our revelry! Take the ring, thou dear! Sing, ‘Make haste and melt, and bring, Goldsmith! Come with golden ring, Golden wreath for Kate! Ring to deck her hand of snow, Wreath to bloom upon her brow At the altar-gate.’”

“I can sing no choral song While my love ’s away, For my days are sad and long,-- Gloomier every day. Left alone,--a year is past,-- Not a line to send,-- Oh, my life is but a waste, Severed from my friend! Hast thou then forgotten me? Tell me, wanderer! can it be? Where ’s thy dwelling, where? See, I pine ’neath secret smart: Guardian angel! Watch my heart,-- Listen to my prayer!”

Covered with a napkin white, Stood a table there, Where a mirror, clear and bright, Shone amidst the glare. Vacant seats for two were placed,-- “Look within, O look! ’T is the hour of spirits,--haste! Read Fate’s opening book: To the mirror turn thy eye, And the door shall silently Open,--list, ’t is he! Gently shall thy lover glide, Seat him by his maiden’s side, And shall sup with thee.”

Cath’rine sat before the glass,-- All alone was she, Watching all the shades that pass, Shuddering inwardly. But the glass is dark and drear, Still as death the room; Scarce a fading taper there Flitted midst the gloom. Oh, how fear her bosom shook! Backwards then she dared not look! Dread had dimmed her sight: And the dying taper’s noise, And the cricket’s chirping voice, Cried,--“’T is middle-night!”

Breathless terror chilled her o’er, And she shades her brow:-- List! a knock is at the door, And it opens now: To the mirror then she turned, Stupefied with fear; There two brilliant eyeballs burned, Ever bent on her. Horror heaved her breast, when lo! Gentle accents, sweet and slow, Glided on her ear: “All thy wishes are fulfilled,-- All thy spirit’s sighs be stilled,-- ’T is thy lover, dear!”

Cath’rine looked--her lover’s arm Was around her thrown: “Maiden! Banish all alarm, We are ever one! Come! the priest is waiting now, Life with life to blend; Torches in the chapel glow, Bridal songs ascend.” Cath’rine smiled,--her lover led,-- O’er the snow-clad court they sped, And the portals gain; There a ready sledge they found,-- Two fleet coursers stamp the ground, Struggling with the rein.

Onwards! Like the wind they go, When the storm awakes, Scattering round them clouds of snow, While the pathway shakes. All was dark and wild as night, Terrible and new; Mist-wreaths dimmed the pale moon’s light, Plains were drenched in dew. Fear again possessed the maid, And in gentlest tones she said, “Speak, my lover true!” He was silent then, but soon Turned him to the wintry moon,-- Pale and paler grew.

Through the snow, a mountain’s height, Next the wild steeds passed; And a church appeared in sight, Midst a gloomy waste; Then a whirlwind burst the door-- Men are there who mourn; Clouds of incense rolling o’er, Wax and taper burn. Lo! a black sepulchral shroud-- “Dust to dust!” the priest aloud Chants,--the horses flew Tow’rds the door,--her agony Rose,--he spoke no word,--but he Pale and paler grew.

Clouds of snow ascend again-- Lo! the coursers fly; And a raven on the plain Croaks and passes by; ’T was an awful, ominous sound! And the moonlight wanes; Darkness wraps the desert round O’er the steaming manes. See! a glimmering light is there, And upon the heather bare Stands a humble shed. Swifter, swifter flew the car, Whirled the snow around it far, But no farther sped.

At the door they stopped anon, There, a moment stood:-- Steeds, sledge, bridegroom,--all are gone: All is solitude. Cath’rine on the waste was left, Midst dense clouds of snow, Of her lover now bereft, To commune with woe: But she hears a footstep now, Turns, and sees a taper glow, Crosses her, and stalks Trembling to the door, and knocks:-- Of itself the door unlocks,-- In the maiden walks.

There, upon a winding-sheet, Lay a mortal bier; Christ’s bright image at its feet Shone resplendent there. Whither, whither art thou come, Maiden, all unblest? Thou hast sought a wretched home, Art a hapless guest! Cath’rine to the image flies, Wipes the snow-dust from her eyes, Bends her down and weeps; Presses to her breast the cross,-- Thoughts of heaven her soul engross, And she silence keeps.

All is still!--The storm is hushed, Faint the tapers beam, Light across the chamber rushed,-- Momentary gleam:-- All is wrapped in silence deep As when visions come. List! what gentle rustlings sweep Through the hallowed room: Lo! a dart of silvery white, Soft and still, with eyes of light, Tow’rds the mourners springs: For a moment hovers there, Then upon her bosom fair Flaps its beauteous wings.

Silence reigned again.--Can all, All illusion be? Lo! the corpse beneath the pall Shudders fearfully: Burst the mantling bier of death, Throws his shroudings by: On his brow he wore a wreath, Frozen was his eye: From his lips a murmur breaks, With his hand a sign he makes, Pointing to the maid: Trembling she,--she dared not move,-- But the bright and silver dove On her bosom played;

Fanned her with its gentle wing:-- To the dead man’s breast Then she saw her sweet dove spring,-- There it seemed to rest. Heaved the icy corpse a sigh, As in dark despair, Gnashed his teeth in agony, Turned his eyes on her. Paler waxed those lips so pale; And the fixed eye told the tale That life’s film was broke. Cath’rine! Lift thy drooping head! All is o’er,--thy lover’s dead!-- God!--and she awoke.

Where?--within the selfsame room Where the mirror stood:-- Morn was chasing twilight’s gloom With its golden flood; Chanticleer had clapped his wing, Sung his early song: All is bright,--the matin rings,-- Oh, thy dream was long! Long indeed, and dreadful too; And my spirit long shall rue The dread prophecy! Tell me, Future’s misty night, Shall my fate be dark or bright, Bliss or misery?

Cath’rine in the window sat, Sorrowful and still: Tell me, tell me what is that?-- Mist-cloud on the hill? In the sunbeams shines the snow; Leaps the frozen dew: List! I hear the bells below, And the horses too. Lo! they come, the sledge is near,-- Now the driver’s voice I hear,-- They have passed the grove:-- Fling the gates wide open, fling-- Who ’s the guest the coursers bring? Who?--’T is thou, my love!

Cath’rine, tell me now! The dream-- Is the dream forgot? Youths may faithful be who seem Faithless,--may they not? When the light of love hath lent Brightness to his eye; When his lips are eloquent;-- Timid maid! Reply! Open now the temple-gate, Spring on wings of joy elate, Truth, we honour thee! Pour the glass, and join the hymn, Ne’er may days of darkness dim Youth’s fidelity.

Thou dost smile, sweet maid! But deem, Deem it worth a thought, For that memorable dream Stores of wisdom brought. Thou dost smile again,--but know, It had lessons holy: Fame, it told thee, was but--show; Worldly wisdom--folly. This my song was meant to say, Hope and trust should guide our way, Maid! there ’s no mistaking: This the genuine moral seems, Miseries are only dreams. Joy--is the awaking.

O my Cath’rine! never dwell On that dream of gloom: Heaven! build up her citadel, There may grief ne’er come, Not a cloud her joy o’ershade, Not a joy decay; Holy is that gentle maid As the light of day. Ne’er be it obscured by woe, Let her days of comfort flow Like a forest river! And let joy, with smiles serene, Be as it hath ever been, Her bright guide for ever!

--From Sir John Bowring’s _Specimens of the Russian Poets_, Part II.

[3] Changed by Sir John Bowring in the poem to Catherine.

The Minstrel In The Russian Camp

Now silence wraps the battlefield! The tents with lights are gleaming; And lo! the bright moon’s silver shield In the calm heaven is beaming. Fill, fill the glass of rapture yet In unity full-hearted; In wine the bloody strife forget, The grief for the departed! The glasses’ ruby stream to drain Is glory’s pride and pleasure-- Wine! conqueror thou of care and pain, Thou art the hero’s treasure.

Now to the warriors of old time, The strong in fight and glory! These warriors and their deeds sublime Are lost in distant story! The grave hath gathered up their dust, Their homes,--the storm hath razed them; Their helmets are devoured by rust, And silent those who praised them: But in their children live their fires, We tread the land that bore them, And see the shadows of our sires With all their triumphs o’er them.

Oh, come! in all your brightness, come, And smile complacent, near us; Look from your high and misty home, Encourage us and hear us. O Svyatosláv! time’s injured son, Thy path an eagle’s flying: “There is no shame in dying--On! There is no shame in dying!” And Donskóy, thou! courageous man, Midst heathen foes we find thee; Destruction leading in thy van, And naught but death behind thee.

Thou, Peter! thou, the hero’s crown, “Poltáva!” is repeated: Thy foes have thrown their sabres down, Thee, all the world has greeted. What? Robbers, would you build your throne Upon our cities’ ruin? Thy horse and rider fell--begone! For vengeance is pursuing. Go hide thee in thy native woods, There by ambition smother; Fate drives thee to their solitudes, Yes! thou, the rebel’s brother.

Who is that white-haired hero, who That northern more than Roman? His penetrating glance looks through The phalanx of the foeman; From yonder clouds what shadowy rows Are tow’rds his footsteps turning? The spirits of the Alpine snows Are wailing loud and mourning. Franks and Sarmatians, at his view, Death’s icy paleness borrow; Well they may fear him, well may rue,-- It is the great Suvórov!

Hail, sons of ages long gone by! Your glories are recorded; We follow you to victory, Like you to be rewarded. We see your ranks,--they lead us on,-- The foe retreats before us; We scatter death, as ye have done, While ye are smiling o’er us. Drawn sword, and flowing glass, elate We look to our Creator! “And death for death, and hate for hate, And curses on the traitor.”

This glass then to our country’s joys, Ne’er may our hearts feel colder; The scenes of mirth while we were boys, Of love, when we grew older! Our country’s plains, our country’s sky, The streams that flow beneath it; The memories of infancy, And all the thoughts that wreathe it With joyous hopes and visions blest,-- Dear shrine of our affection, How glows our heart, how beats our breast, When beams the recollection!

That is our country, there our home, There wife and babes attend us; And oft their prayers towards us roam, And oft to Heaven commend us! There dwell our plighted, chosen ones; How bright their memory flashes! Our monarchs’ dust, our monarchs’ thrones, And there our fathers’ ashes. For them we fight, for them we rove, For them have all forsaken; And may our land’s undying love In our sons’ breasts awaken!

Now to the Tsar that rules the Russ, And be his sceptre glorious; His throne an altar is to us,-- We swear to be victorious. The oath is heard,--’t is stamped in blood,-- ’T is sworn,--there ’s no returning; Our swords shall make our promise good, Our hearts with love are burning. Each Russ a son of victory, To duty’s ranks we throng us; Let every craven coward fly, For fear was ne’er among us.

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One glass to vengeance! In the fray “Heaven for the right!” our voices, And “death or victory!” proudly say; And victory’s self rejoices. Oh, count not on your numbers, foe! In vain ye boast your numbers; Our march is like the torrent’s flow, Which never, never slumbers. We have no treasures, but we bring Our arrows and our lances, And round us desolation fling, And death is in our glances.

The Robber! he had spread his power Around our Moskvá’s borders; And from our Kremlin’s sacred tower He issued forth his orders. “I trample on the base-born clay, Which folly’s pride assembles, And prince and subject both obey.” Insulting one!--he trembles. For Vengeance wakes her from her rest, And arms her with her torches, Heaves ruin on the tyrant’s breast, And drives him from our porches.

Now bring thy slavish princes, now, To our ice-girded nation; And lead them o’er our paths of snow To horror and starvation. Come, Winter! rouse thee from thy bed, And close our country’s portals. Oh, see! he strews the land with dead, With piles of frozen mortals. Now, Robber! look what thou hast done; Come, for the strife prepare thee! The land we fight on is our own,-- God’s vengeance, wretch, is near thee!

--From Sir John Bowring’s _Specimens of the Russian Poets_, Part II.

Iván Ivánovich Kozlóv. (1779-1840.)

After having served for some time in the army, Kozlóv in 1798 entered the Civil Service, living in Moscow and later in St. Petersburg. In 1818 he was struck by paralysis, which deprived him of the use of his legs, and three years later he became totally blind. Though he had long been on friendly terms with Zhukóvski, he never thought of devoting himself to literature. But the calamity that had overtaken him compelled him to concentrate himself, and the result was the evolution of his poetical genius. He had learned French and Italian before, and, though blind, acquired the German and English languages so perfectly that he could recite by heart whole pages from the great writers, whom he also translated into Russian. His first poetical efforts were some verses in praise of Zhukóvski and Byron, but he gained his great reputation by his _The Black Monk_, written in 1824, which enjoyed the same popularity among the sentimental souls of the twenties that _Poor Líza_ (see p. 27) had had in the beginning of the century. This was soon followed by _Princess Natálya Borísovna Dolgorúki_ (see vol. i., p. 233) and a large number of minor poems that are distinguished for their elegiac and deep religious tone.

In W. D. Lewis’s _The Bakchesarian Fountain_, Philadelphia, 1841, is given his _Solitude_; T. B. Shaw translated his _Kíev_ in Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine, 1844; in C. T. Wilson’s _Russian Lyrics_ are given _The Village Orphan_, _The Wreck_, _The Dream of the Betrothed_, and _Chernetz (The Black Monk)_; in the Library of the World’s Best Literature is N. H. Dole’s translation of _The Vesper Bells_.

Solitude

Upon a hill, which rears itself midst plains extending wide, Fair flourishes a lofty oak in beauty’s blooming pride; This lofty oak in solitude its branches wide expands, All lonesome on the cheerless height like sentinel it stands. Whom can it lend its friendly shade, should Sol with fervour glow? And who can shelter it from harm, should tempests rudely blow? No bushes green, entwining close, here deck the neighbouring ground, No tufted pines beside it grow, no osiers thrive around. Sad e’en to trees their cheerless fate in solitude if grown, And bitter, bitter is the lot for youth to live alone! Though gold and silver much is his, how vain the selfish pride! Though crowned with glory’s laurelled wreath, with whom that crown divide? When I with an acquaintance meet he scarce a bow affords, And beauties, half saluting me, but grant some transient words. On some I look myself with dread, whilst others from me fly, But sadder still the uncherished soul when Fate’s dark hour draws nigh; Oh! where my aching heart relieve when griefs assail me sore? My friend, who sleeps in the cold earth, comes to my aid no more! No relatives, alas! of mine in this strange clime appear, No wife imparts love’s fond caress, sweet smile, or pitying tear; No father feels joy’s thrilling throb, as he our transport sees; No gay and sportive little ones come clambering on my knees;-- Take back all honours, wealth and fame, the heart they cannot move, And give instead the smiles of friends, the tender look of love!

--From W. D. Lewis’s _The Bakchesarian Fountain_.

KíEv

O Kíev! where religion ever seemeth To light existence in our native land; Where o’er Pechérski’s dome the bright cross gleameth, Like some fair star, that still in heaven doth stand; Where, like a golden sheet, around thee streameth Thy plain, and meads that far away expand; And by thy hoary well, with ceaseless motion, Old Dnieper’s foaming swell sweeps on to ocean.

How oft to thee in spirit have I panted, O holy city, country of my heart! How oft, in vision, have I gazed enchanted On thy fair towers,--a sainted thing thou art!-- By Lávra’s[4] walls or Dnieper’s wave, nor wanted A spell to draw me from this life apart; In thee my country I behold, victorious, Holy and beautiful, and great and glorious.

The moon her soft ray on Pechérski poureth, Its domes are shining in the river’s wave; The soul the spirit of the past adoreth, Where sleeps beneath thee many a holy grave: Vladímir’s shade above thee calmly soareth, Thy towers speak of the sainted and the brave; Afar I gaze, and all in dreamy splendour Breathes of the past,--a spell sublime and tender.

There fought the warriors in the field of glory, Strong in the faith, against their country’s foe; And many a royal flower yon palace hoary, In virgin loveliness, hath seen to blow. And Boyán sang to them the noble story, And secret rapture in their breast did glow; Hark! midnight sounds,--that brazen voice is dying,-- A day to meet the vanished day is flying.

Where are the valiant?--the resistless lances,-- The brands that were as lightning when they waved? Where are the beautiful, whose sunny glances Our fathers, with such potency, enslaved? Where is the bard, whose song no more entrances? Ah! that deep bell hath answered what I craved: And thou alone, by these grey walls, O river! Murmurest, Dnieper, still, and flow’st for ever.

--Transl. by T. B. Shaw, in Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine, 1844 (vol. lv).

[4] Name of certain monasteries.

From “The Black Monk”

I.--The Monastery

Beyond Kíev, where the broad Dnieper boils and booms between steep banks, near a grove, upon a high hill, stands the hermits’ abode. Around it is a crenelated wall, with four towers in the corners, and in the midst,--the temple of the Lord with gilded cupolas. A row of cells, a dark corridor, a chapel at the holy gates, with a miracle-working image, and nearby a spring of cool water, whose medicinal stream bubbles under the shade of a century linden tree.

The evening darkness is in the misty field; the twilight is dimming in the heavens; the song is not heard in the meadows; the flocks are not seen in the vales. The horn will not be blown in the forest,--no one will come; only at times the bell tinkles in the distance upon the highway; no fires are to be seen upon the fishermen’s boats on the Dnieper. The midnight moon has risen, and the bright stars are shining; the clearings, the woods, the waters are asleep. The fateful hour has struck upon the tower,--the hermitage is merged in sleep,--and all around is peace and quiet.

II.--The Confession Of The Black Monk

“I left my deserted country. Alone, in despair, in tears, I wandered around with my orphaned soul in distant defiles and woods. Gloomy clefts and mountains heard my groan, my wail, my plaints with terror, for seven years. Sullen, melancholy, wild, I pined away, dreaming an old dream, and sobbed for what is not. The shades of night, the mountain torrent, the whistling of the storm and the howl of the wind secretly united with my murky thought, with my unquenchable yearning. And sorrow was a delight, a sacred relic of former days; it seemed to me that through my suffering I did not altogether part from it.

“Where the heart loves, where it suffers,--there is also our merciful God; He gives the cross, and He also sends us hope with the cross. In these seven hard, stormy years there has flashed for me a consoling light. Once, at evening tide, I sat gloomy near the river; the star-flaming vault of heaven, the quiet glimmer of the moon, the rustling of the leaves, the plashing of the waves silvered by the moon, involuntarily held my soul captive. Everything attracted me by its mysterious beauty to a world of bliss.

“My crushed spirit awoke: ‘Creator of all! My babe with my unforgettable mate dwell in Thy holy abode, and, perchance, I shall be with them, and they there for ever mine!’ Love understands miracles: my heart trembled hopefully in some mysterious expectation. I lifted my eyes to the skies, dared to implore them with tears,--and it seemed to me that for an answer was given me that calm ocean with its imperishable stars. Since then, my father, have I found consolation in my misery itself, and I have hoped by my heavy cross to earn my union with her. Though still, at times, I shed tears, yet hope assuages them, and quiet grief has taken place of bitter sorrow. Flaming with faith, I have forgotten my misfortune and the villain: she with her babe in heaven appeared to my heart in dreams of paradise. My soul rose to her, and my mind was full of this: I wished to be as pure as she, and I gladly bid life farewell. But I wanted to die in my native home. I began to pine away in mountains of other lands. I wanted to cast my last glance upon our woods and our dales, to see the country which was full of her, and our village house, and the garden, and the blue waves of the Dnieper, and the church upon the mound where in the shade of the birches sleeps their dust, and the glowing evening sky over their quiet grave.

“Ah, what happened to my soul when suddenly, in all its sacred beauty, before me lay the landscape of my native Kíev fields! As before they were green, the waves of the Dnieper boomed as formerly, the same forest lay dim in the distance, the same songs were sung in the fields, and