Historical View of the Languages and Literature of the Slavic Nations Part 24

Goetze, in the introduction to his German translation of Russian popular ballads, observes: "In the Russian love songs we meet with more _softness_ of feeling than romantic delicacy." We do not perceive any marked difference in that respect, between the character of Russian and of other Slavic erotic songs; and apply therefore his remark to the whole race. _Romantic_ delicacy we must not, in fact, expect to find; but often all the natural delicacy of warm, tender, devoted love; all the freshness of youthful, unsophisticated feelings; all the burning pa.s.sion of Spanish love, with the same strong tincture of sensuality; though seldom, very seldom, that depth, that infiniteness of the same feeling, so affectingly expressed in more than one popular ballad of the Scandinavians, Germans, and British,--that love which reaches far beyond the grave, and chains souls to each other even in different worlds. Russian lovers, who are compelled by circ.u.mstances to leave their mistresses, give frequently the following or similar advice:

Weep not, weep not, O sweet maid!

Choose, O choose another love!

_Is he better, thou'll forget me_; Is he worse, thou'lt think of me, Think of me, sweet soul, and weep!

Love, among the Slavi, more than among any other Christian race, seems to be a _dream of youth_. Among unmarried persons of both s.e.xes, free and easy intercourse is kept up. But nothing can favour less a free and lasting affection, than the national mode of contracting marriages. Among those Slavic nations, who have lived long in connection with the Teutonic races, the national manners have of course partly changed in this respect, as in others; especially among the higher cla.s.ses. But among the Servians, the old Asiatic custom, according to which a marriage is agreed on by the parents of the parties, often without these knowing each other, is kept up in its fullest extent; and, even among all Slavic nations, strong traces of this custom are still left. Affianced Slavic girls often do not see their intended husbands before the wedding-day. Thus a girl, even in attaching herself to a youth, must early familiarize herself with the thought, that the time may come when she will have to take back her heart at her parent's bidding. Illegitimate love is rare; and is considered as the highest crime. Of the Russian popular songs, no small portion describe lovers taking leave of each other, because the youth or the maid must marry another; in another considerable portion, young married women are represented lamenting their miserable fate.

The following popular ballad will afford the reader a characteristic specimen of the whole tenderness of such a Russian parting scene.

THE FAREWELL.

Brightly s.h.i.+ning sank the waning moon, And the sun all beautiful arose;

Not a falcon floated through the air, Strayed a youth along the river's brim.

Slowly strayed he on and dreamingly, Sighing looked unto the garden green, Heart all filled with sorrow mused he so: "All the little birds are now awake, All, embracing with their little wings, Greeting, all have sung their morning songs.

But, alas! that sweetest doveling mine, She who was my youth's first dawning love, In her chamber slumbers fast and deep.

Ah! not even her friend is in her dreams, Ah! no thought of me bedims her soul, While my heart is torn with wildest grief, That she comes to meet me here no more."

Stepped the maiden from her chamber then; Wet, O! wet with tears her lovely face, All with sadness dimmed her eyes so clear, Feebly drooping hung her snowy arms.

'T was no arrow that had pierced her heart, 'T was no adder that had stung her so; Weeping, thus the lovely maid began: "Fare thee well, beloved, fare thee well, Dearest soul, thy father's dearest son!

I have been betrothed since yesterday; Come, to-morrow, troops of wedding-guests; To the altar, I, perforce, must go!

I shall be another's then; and yet Thine, thine only, thine alone till death."

P.[18]

But the warm and tender hearts of the Slavic women, nevertheless, find means to satisfy that natural want of the female breast, to pour out on certain objects the whole blessing of love. _Family_ connections are among no other race regarded as so holy, the ties of relations.h.i.+p are nowhere so cherished, as among the Slavi. Maternal tenderness is the subject of very many songs; and is set by comparisons in the most s.h.i.+ning light. In the Russian ballad above adduced,[19] we have seen how slightly the poet thinks of the love of the wife; her tears are dried up by the sun, like the morning dew; while the mother's tears gush out incessantly like the waters of the mountain stream. In a Servian ballad, a youth wounds his hand. The Vila, a malicious mountain-nymph, offers to cure him. But she exacts a high price,--from his mother, her right hand; from his sister, her hair; and from his wife, her necklace of pearls. The mother willingly gives her right hand, and the sister her hair, but the wife refuses the necklace. The love of a mother is often described by the image of swallows, clinging to their own warm nest; or of tender doves, bereft of their young ones. The rights of a mother are respected with true filial piety, even by the barbarian hero Marko, who never fails to pay his aged mother filial respect.

More remarkable, however, in Slavic popular poetry, is the peculiar relation of the sister to the brother. This remark holds especially good of Servia. Sisters cling to their brothers with a peculiar warmth of feeling. These are their natural protectors, their supporters. They swear by the head of their brothers. To have no brother is a misfortune, almost a disgrace. A mourning female is represented in all Slavic poetry under the constant image of a cuckoo; and the cuckoo, according to the Servian legend, was a sister who had lost her brother. Numerous little songs ill.u.s.trate the great importance which a Servian girl attaches to the possession of a brother. Those who have none, think even of artificial means for procuring one. This is exhibited in a pretty little ballad, where two sisters, who have no brother, make one out of white and pink silk wound around a stick of box-wood; and, after putting in two brilliant black stones as eyes, two leeches as eyebrows, and two rows of pearls as teeth, put honey in his mouth, and entreat him "to eat and to speak." In another ballad, of a more serious description, "George's young wife" loses at once in battle her husband, her brideman (_paranymphos_, in Servia a female's legitimate friend through life), and her brother. The gradations of the poetess in her description of the widow's mourning are very characteristic, and give no high idea of conjugal attachments in Servia.

For her husband, she has cut her hair; For her brideman she has torn her face; For her brother she has plucked her eyes out.

Hair she cut, her hair will grow again; Face she tore, her face will heal again; But the eyes, they'll never heal again, Nor the heart, which bleedeth for the brother.

After having thus attempted to point out to the reader what we consider as the _general_ characteristic features of Slavic popular poetry, we proceed to add a few remarks on the _distinguis.h.i.+ng_ traits of the different nations of the Slavic race individually, so far as our limits permit.

And here it is among the nations of the EASTERN STEM that we must look for our princ.i.p.al harvest. We follow the same order as in the former parts of this work.

The RUSSIANS have very few ballads of high antiquity; and, even in this small number, hardly any one has reference to the heroic prose tales, which are the delight of Russian nurseries.

The Russians have indeed nursery tales (_skazki_) of all descriptions; and we have often heard, that, during the first decennium of the present century, still many an old-fas.h.i.+oned country squire, many a country gentlewoman brought up among her female slaves like an oriental princess, were in the habit of having themselves lulled to sleep by them. They are almost invariably told in the same words; and as much as possible with the same intonation of voice. One _Skazkochnik_, or _Skazkochnitza_, adopts this manner from another.

The traditions of Vladimir and his giant heroes are the favourite, but not the exclusive subjects of these tales. They are also printed and sold separately; with a coa.r.s.e wood-cut on the upper part of every page, representing the scene described, and the back of the page empty. We are told that they are mostly got up by "Deacons," a cla.s.s of the lower clergy, in their leisure hours. It is probable that these traditions formerly existed also in the shape of popular ballads; but no trace has been left of them. In the beginning of this century the work of Kirscha Danilof, of which we have spoken in our view of Russian literature,[20] was first published, containing the ancient traditions; written in the national prosodic measure, but without any poetical spirit; replete with anachronisms and absurdities, without the _naivete_ which can alone make these latter tolerable. They were, besides, full of interpolations; and were evidently the productions of a man from the people who had acquired half an education. For this reason they have never gained popularity in this shape.

The more modern heroic ballads of the Russians are of a remarkably tame character. Lawless and rebellious deeds are sometimes their subjects; but they end mostly with an act of retributive justice. We shall give a specimen of this species before we part with the Russians.

By far the largest portion of Russian popular songs is of the erotic kind. According to Russian authorities, even their oldest ballads, to judge from the language,[21] cannot be traced further than to the last quarter of the sixteenth century; and the number even of these is very small. Most of those now current among the people are derived from the beginning of the middle of the last century. According to Goetze, the reign of Peter the First was very favourable to popular poetry.[52]

His daughter, the empress Elizabeth, was a successful poetess herself; and her ditties had a perfectly popular character. If we may draw a conclusion from the frequency with which modern historical events have given birth to popular ballads, one must suppose that many ancient ones are lost. The victories of Peter the First are celebrated in many popular ballads, some of which are of no inconsiderable merit; as the reader will judge for himself from the specimen we give below. The French invasion also, of 1812, which aroused the Russian nation so powerfully, gave rise to not a few patriotic songs, of many of which the authors were peasants and common soldiers.

There are, however, various indications, which seem to justify the belief, that several of the Russian ballads still current among the people are, in fact, more ancient than they appear, or perhaps even than they actually are in their present shape. We have not room here to dwell on this subject. We remark only, that from one circ.u.mstance alone we may draw the safe conclusion, that the Russians have ever been a _singing_ race. We allude to their custom of attaching verses full of allusions and sacred meaning to every festival, nay, to every extraordinary event of human life, and thus of fettering the flying hours with the garland chains of poetry and song. They have to this very day their wedding songs, Pentecost and Christmas carols, and various other songs, named after the different occasions on which they are chanted, or the game which they accompany. Although these songs, also, have been modernized in language and form, they seem always to have been regarded with a kind of pious reverence, and appear to have been altered as little as possible. Most of their allusions are, for that reason, unintelligible at the present day. That their groundwork is derived from the age of paganism, is evident from the frequent invocations of heathen deities, and from various allusions to heathen customs.

Nearly related to these songs are the various ditties of a social kind, which peasant girls and lads are in the habit of singing on certain, stated occasions; for instance, walking songs, dancing songs, and the like. They consist mostly of endless repet.i.tion, often of words or single syllables, apparently without meaning; and the tune, in which these fragmentary poems are sung, is after all the best part of it. Yet not seldom a spark of real poetry s.h.i.+nes through that melodious tissue of unmeaning words. What is most remarkable in these songs, which have now been more than a century the exclusive property of the common people, is the utter absence of coa.r.s.eness and vulgarity, even in the wedding songs.

The Russian songs, like the Russian language, have a peculiar tenderness, and are full of caressing epithets. These are even frequently applied to inanimate objects. A Russian postilion, in a simple and charming song, calls the tavern, which he never can make up his mind to pa.s.s without stopping, "his dear little mother." The words _Matushka, Batushka, Starinka_, which we may venture to give in English by _motherling, fatherling, oldling_, are in Russian favourite terms of endearment. The post-boy's song may stand here as eminently characteristic of the cheerful, childlike, caressing disposition of the nation. It is translated in the measure of the original, as nearly as it could be imitated in English.

THE POSTILION.

Tzarish Tavern, thou Our good motherling, So invitingly Standest by the way!

Broad highway, that leads Down to Petersburg; Fellows young as I, As they drive along, When they pa.s.s thee by, Always will turn in.

Ah, thou bright sun-light, Red and bright sun-light, O'er the mountain high, O'er the forest oaks; Warm the youngster's heart, Warm, O warm me, sun; And not me alone, But my maiden, too.

Ah, thou maiden dear, Fairest, dearest maid, Thou my dearest child, Art so kind and good!

Black those brows of thine, Black thy little eyes, And thy lovely face All so round and white; Without painting, white, Without painting, red!

To thy girdle rolls Fair and braided hair; And thy voice is soft, Full of gentle talk.

P.

Russian lovers are quite inexhaustible in fondling and caressing expressions. "My s.h.i.+ning moon, my bright sun, my nourisher (_Kormiletz_), my light, my hope, my white swan," together with all those epithets common to all languages, as, _dove, soul, heart_, etc.

are current terms In Russia. Especially favourable to this affectionate manner of address is the abundance of diminutives which the language possesses. Not only "little soul," "little heart,"

_Dus.h.i.+nka, Serdzinka_, etc. are favourite expressions of Russian lovers; but we find even _YaG.o.dka_, "little berry," and _Lapushka_, "little paw," etc. Love is ingenious in inventing new diminutives for the beloved object.

This exquisite tenderness in the Russian love-songs is united with a deep, pensive feeling, which indeed pervades the whole Russian popular poetry. Were we to describe the character of this in one expression, we should call it _melancholy-musical_. Even the more frivolous and equivocal songs have a tincture of this pensiveness. While the Servian songs of this description are the ebullitions of merry and petulant youth, the Russian are frequently not without a spice of sentimentality. Girls are often represented painting the unhappy consequences of their weakness with a very suspicious mixture of penitence and pleasure; so that the hearer remains undecided, whether the former or the latter is predominant.

In perfect harmony with this melancholy is the Russian national music.

The expressive sweetness of the Russian melodies has long been the admiration of those foreign composers, to whom circ.u.mstances had made them known. The history of these melodies is just as uncertain as that of the verses; they seem always to have been united; no one knows where they came from. In respect to popular tunes and songs, the answer which the Ashantees gave to Mr. Bowditch has often occurred to us: "They were made when the country was made." The Russian tunes are richer and more varied than are popular airs in general. Of most of the songs only the first two verses are set to the melody; all the following being repeated in the same tune. But there are some which extend further. Some of these airs include more than a whole octave in their notes; while the national melodies of most other nations move in general among a few notes.

To account for the melancholy character of the Russian music and poetry, and to reconcile it with the well-known cheerful disposition of the nation, has been attempted by several Russian critics. "The peculiarities of a nation," Karamzin remarks, "may always be explained by the circ.u.mstances which have operated on it; although the grandchildren may have some of the virtues and some of the vices of their ancestry, even if they are differently situated. Perhaps the present character of the Russians may exhibit faults, which it contracted during the barbarism of the Mongolian subjugation." The pensiveness which pervades the Russian songs has also been considered as a remnant of that gloom, necessarily impressed on the Russian character during two centuries of the most cruel oppression. There is no doubt that the Russians before, during, and after their subjugation by the Mongols, had a thousand causes of discouragement and disasters; b.l.o.o.d.y civil wars, the most barbarian despotism, the plague, slavery,[23] and the like. But it is just as certain, that notwithstanding all the causes of sorrow, the Russians are still the most cheerful and light-hearted people on earth; with all their hearts and senses enjoying the scanty pleasures of life; though deprived of all civil privileges, and even of many social rights. The truth is, that it is with nations as with individuals. Neither in the one case nor in the other must we expect always to see them deposit their _habitual_ feelings in their poetry. It is a well-known fact that Moliere was a man of a most serious disposition. Cowper, immediately before writing his "John Gilpin," was in a mood bordering on despair.

Young, while composing his melancholy Night Thoughts, enjoyed his life as well as any man. The Russians do not sing their every-day sentiments, but their holiday feelings. That sweet pensiveness, which thrills so affectingly through their music and poetry, is to them a species of luxury. A soft, melancholy emotion, not deep enough indeed to cause suffering, and slumbering in every-day life in the recesses of the poet's soul, awakes in the hour of inspiration and spreads a gentle shadow over his habitual suns.h.i.+ne. The peculiar melancholy _resignation_ of Slavic lovers we have already attempted to explain.

Indeed, it is to their love songs, princ.i.p.ally, that the general remark on the pensiveness of Russian songs and airs is applicable.

We here subjoin some specimens of them. The first is extant in a great many versions, differing somewhat from each other. We choose the one we like best, as given by Sacharof:[24]

A PARTING SCENE.

"Sit not up, my love, late at evening hour, Burn the light no more, light of virgin wax, Wait no more for me till the midnight hour; Ah, gone by, gone by is the happy time!

Ah, the wind has blown all our joys away, And has scattered them o'er the empty field.

For my father dear, he will have it so, And my mother dear has commanded it, That I now must wed with another wife, With another wife, with an unloved one!

But on heaven high two suns never burn, Two moons never s.h.i.+ne in the stilly night; And an honest lad never loveth twice!

But my father shall be obey'd by me, And my mother dear I will now obey; To another wife I'll be wedded soon, To another wife, to an early death, To an early death, to a forced one."

Wept the lovely maid many bitter tears, Many bitter tears, and did speak these words: "O beloved one, never seen enough, Longer will I not live in this white world, Never without thee, thou my star of hope!

Never has the dove more than one fond mate, And the female swan ne'er two husbands has, Neither can I have two beloved friends."

No more sits she now late at evening hour, But the light still burns, light of virgin wax; On the table stands the coffin newly made; In the coffin new lies the lovely maid.

THE DOVE.

On an oak tree sat, Sat a pair of doves; And they bill'd and coo'd And they, heart to heart, Tenderly embraced With their little wings; On them, suddenly, Darted down a hawk.