A Survey of Russian Literature, with Selections Part 1

A Survey of Russian Literature, with Selections.

by Isabel Florence Hapgood.

PREFACE.

In this volume I have given exclusively the views of Russian critics upon their literature, and hereby acknowledge my entire indebtedness to them.

The limits of the work, and the lack of general knowledge on the subject, rendered it impossible for me to attempt any comparisons with foreign literatures.

ISABEL F. HAPGOOD.

NEW YORK, June 6, 1902.

RUSSIAN LITERATURE

CHAPTER I

THE ANCIENT PERIOD, FROM THE EARLIEST TIMES TO THE INTRODUCTION OF CHRISTIANITY IN 988.

Whether Russia had any literature, or even a distinctive alphabet, previous to the end of the tenth century, is not known.

In the year 988, Vladimir, Grand Prince of Kieff, accepted Christianity for himself and his nation, from Byzantium, and baptized Russia wholesale. Hence his characteristic t.i.tle in history, "Prince-Saint-equal-to-the-Apostles." His grandmother, Olga, had already been converted to the Greek Church late in life, and had established churches and priests in Kieff, it is said. Prince Vladimir could have been baptized at home, but he preferred to make the Greek form of Christianity his state religion in a more decided manner; to adopt the gospel of peace to an accompaniment of martial deeds. Accordingly he compelled the Emperors of Byzantium, by force, to send the Patriarch of Constantinople to baptize him, and their sister to become his wife. He then ordered his subjects to present themselves forthwith for baptism.

Finding that their idols did not punish Vladimir for destroying them, and that even great Perun the Thunderer did not resent being flung into the Dniepr, the people quietly and promptly obeyed. As their old religion had no temples for them to cling to, and nothing approaching a priestly cla.s.s (except the _volkhve_, or wizards) to encourage them in opposition, the nation became Christian in a day, to all appearances. We shall see, however, that in many cases, as in other lands converted from heathendom, the old G.o.ds were merely baptized with new names, in company with their wors.h.i.+pers.

Together with the religion which he imported from Byzantium, "Prince-Saint" Vladimir naturally imported, also, priests, architects, artists for the holy pictures (_ikoni_), as well as the traditional style of painting them, ecclesiastical vestments and vessels, and--most precious of all--the Slavonic translation of the holy Scriptures and of the Church Service books. These books, however, were not written in Greek, but in the tongue of a cognate Slavonic race, which was comprehensible to the Russians. Thus were the first firm foundations of Christianity, education, and literature simultaneously laid in the cradle of the present vast Russian empire, appropriately called "Little Russia," of which Kieff was the capital; although even then they were not confined to that section of the country, but were promptly extended, by identical methods, to old Novgorod--"Lord Novgorod the Great," the cradle of the dynasty of Rurik, founder of the line of sovereign Russian princes.

Whence came these Slavonic translations of the Scriptures, the Church Services, and other books, and the preachers in the vernacular for the infant Russian nation? The books had been translated about one hundred and twenty-five years previously, for the benefit of a small Slavonic tribe, the Moravians. This tribe had been baptized by German ecclesiastics, whose books and speech, in the Latin tongue, were wholly incomprehensible to their converts. For fifty years Latin had been used, and naturally Christianity had made but little progress. Then the Moravian Prince Rostislaff appealed to Michael, emperor of Byzantium, to send him preachers capable of making themselves understood. The emperor had in his dominions many Slavonians; hence the application, on the a.s.sumption that there must be, among the Greek priests, many who were acquainted with the languages of the Slavonic tribes. In answer to this appeal, the Emperor Michael dispatched to Moravia two learned monks, Kyrill and Methody, together with several other ecclesiastics, in the year 863.

Kyrill and Methody were the sons of a grandee, who resided in the chief town of Macedonia, which was surrounded by Slavonic colonies. The elder brother, Methody, had been a military man, and the governor of a province containing Slavonians. The younger, Kyrill, had received a brilliant education at the imperial court, in company with the Emperor Michael, and had been a pupil of the celebrated Photius (afterwards Patriarch), and librarian of St. Sophia, after becoming a monk. Later on, the brothers had led the life of itinerant missionaries, and had devoted themselves to preaching the Gospel to Jews and Mohammedans. Thus they were in every way eminently qualified for their new task.

The Slavonians in the Byzantine empire, and the cognate tribes who dwelt nearer the Danube, like the Moravians, had long been in sore need of a Slavonic translation of the Scriptures and the Church books, since they understood neither Greek nor Latin; and for the lack of such a translation many relapsed into heathendom. Kyrill first busied himself with inventing an alphabet which should accurately reproduce all the varied sounds of the Slavonic tongues. Tradition a.s.serts that he accomplished this task in the year 855, founding it upon the Greek alphabet, appropriating from the Hebrew, Armenian, and Coptic characters for the sounds which the Greek characters did not represent, and devising new ones for the nasal sounds. The characters in this alphabet were thirty-eight in number. Kyrill, with the aid of his brother Methody, then proceeded to make his translations of the Church Service books. The Bulgarians became Christians in the year 861, and these books were adopted by them. But the greatest activity of the brothers was during the four and a half years beginning with the year 862, when they translated the holy Scriptures, taught the Slavonians their new system of reading and writing, and struggled with heathendom and with the German priests of the Roman Church. These German ecclesiastics are said to have sent pet.i.tion after pet.i.tion to Rome, to Pope Nicholas I., demonstrating that the Word of G.o.d ought to be preached in three tongues only--Hebrew, Greek, and Latin--"because the inscription on the Cross had been written by Pilate in those tongues only." Pope Nicholas summoned the brothers to Rome; but Pope Adrian II., who was reigning in his stead when they arrived there, received them cordially, granted them permission to continue their preaching and divine services in the Slavonic language, and even consecrated Methody bishop of Pannonia; after which Methody returned to Moravia, but Kyrill, exhausted by his labors, withdrew to a monastery near Rome, and died there in 869.

The language into which Kyrill and Methody translated was probably the vernacular of the Slavonian tribes dwelling between the Balkans and the Danube. But as the system invented by Kyrill took deepest root in Bulgaria (whither, in 886, a year after Methody's death, his disciples were banished from Moravia), the language preserved in the ancient transcripts of the holy Scriptures came in time to be called "Ancient Bulgarian." In this connection, it must be noted that this does not indicate the language of the Bulgarians, but merely the language of the Slavonians who lived in Bulgaria. The Bulgarians themselves did not belong to the Slavonic, nor even to the Indo-European race, but were of Ural-Altaic extraction; that is to say, they belonged to the family now represented in Europe by the Finns, Turks, Hungarians, Tatars, and Samoyeds. In the seventh century, this people, which had inhabited the country lying between the Volga and the Don, in southeastern Russia, became divided: one section moved northward, and settled on the Kama River, a tributary of the Volga; the other section moved westward, and made their appearance on the Danube, at the close of the seventh century. There they subdued a considerable portion of the Slavonic inhabitants, being a warlike race; but the Slavonians, who were more advanced in agriculture and more industrious than the Bulgarians, effected a peaceful conquest over the latter in the course of the two succeeding centuries, so that the Bulgarians abandoned their own language and customs, and became completely merged with the Slavonians, to whom they had given their name.

When the Slavonic translations of the Scriptures and the Church Service books were brought to Russia from Bulgaria and Byzantium, the language in which they were written received the name of "Church Slavonic,"

because it differed materially from the Russian vernacular, and was used exclusively for the church services. Moreover, as in the early days of Russian literature the majority of writers belonged to the ecclesiastical cla.s.s, the literary or book language was gradually evolved from a mixture of Church Slavonic and ancient Russian; and in this language all literature was written until the "civil," or secular, alphabet and language were introduced by Peter the Great, at the beginning of the eighteenth century. Books were written in "Kyrillian"

characters until the sixteenth century, and the first printed books (which date from that century) were in the same characters. The most ancient ma.n.u.scripts, written previous to the fourteenth century, are very beautiful, each letter being set separately, and the capital letters often a.s.suming the form of fantastic beasts and birds, or of flowers, or gilded. The oldest ma.n.u.script of Russian work preserved dates from the middle of the eleventh century--a magnificent parchment copy of the Gospels, made by Deacon Grigory for Ostromir, the burgomaster of Novgorod (1056-1057), and hence known as "the Ostromir Gospels."

But before we deal with the written and strictly speaking literary works of Russia, we must make acquaintance with the oral products of the people's genius, which antedate it, or at all events, contain traces of such h.o.a.ry antiquity that history knows nothing definite concerning them, although they deserve precedence for their originality. Such are the _skazki_, or tales, the poetical folk-lore, the epic songs, the religious ballads. The fairy tales, while possessing a.n.a.logies with those of other lands, have their characteristic national features.

While less striking and original than, for example, the exquisite Esthonian legends, they are of great interest in the study of comparative folk-lore. More important is the poetical folk-lore of Russia, concerning which neither tradition nor history can give us any clue in the matter of derivation or date. One thing seems reasonably certain: it largely consists of the relics of an extensive system of sorcery, in the form of fragmentary spells, exorcisms, incantations, and epic lays, or _byliny_.

Song accompanies every action of the Russian peasant, from the cradle to the grave: the choral dances of spring, summer, and autumn, the games of the young people in their winter a.s.semblies, marriages, funerals, and every phase of life, the sowing and the harvest, and so forth. The kazak songs, robber songs, soldiers' songs, and historical songs are all descendants or imitators of the ancient poetry of Russia. They are the remains of the third--the Moscow or imperial--cycle of the epic songs, which deals with really historical characters and events. The Moscow cycle is preceded by the cycles of Vladimir, or Kieff, and of Novgorod.

Still more ancient must be the foundations of the marriage songs, rooted in the customs of the ancient Slavonians.

The Slavonians do not remember the date of their arrival in Europe.

Tradition says that they first dwelt, after this arrival, along the Danube, whence a hostile force compelled them to emigrate to the northeast. At last Novgorod and Kieff were built; and the Russians, the descendants of these eastern Slavonians, naturally inherited the religion which must at one time, like the language, have been common to all the Slavonic races. This religion, like that of all Aryan races, was founded on reverence paid to the forces of nature and to the spirits of the dead. Their G.o.ds and G.o.ddesses represented the forces of nature.

Thus Lado and Lada, who are frequently mentioned in these ancient songs, are probably the sun-G.o.d, and the G.o.ddess of spring and of love, respectively. Lado, also, is mentioned as the G.o.d of marriage, mirth, pleasure, and general happiness, to whom those about to marry offered sacrifices; and much the same is said of the G.o.ddess Lada. Moreover, in the Russian folk-songs, _lado_ and _lada_ are used, respectively, for lover, bridegroom, husband, and for mistress, bride, wife; and _lad_, in Russian, signifies peace, union, harmony. Nestor, the famous old Russian chronicler (he died in 1114), states that in ancient heathen times, marriage customs varied somewhat among the various Slavonian tribes in the vicinity of the Dniester; but brides were always seized or purchased. This purchase of the bride is supposed to be represented in the game and choral song (_khorovod_), called "The Sowing of the Millet." The singers form two choirs, which face each other and exchange remarks. The song belongs to the vernal rites, hence the reference to Lado, which is repeated after every line--_Did-Lado_, meaning (in Lithuanian) Great Lado:

First Chorus: We have sown, we have sown millet, O, Did-Lado, we have sown!

Second Chorus: But we will trample it, O, Did-Lado, we will trample it.

First Chorus: But wherewith will ye trample it?

Second Chorus: Horses will we turn into it.

First Chorus: But we will catch the horses.

Second Chorus: Wherewith will ye catch them?

First Chorus: With a silken rein.

Second Chorus: But we will ransom the horses.

First Chorus: Wherewith will ye ransom them?

Second Chorus: We will give a hundred rubles.

First Chorus: A thousand is not what we want.

Second Chorus: What is it then, that ye want?

First Chorus: What we want is a maiden.

Thereupon, one of the girls of the second choir goes over to the first, both sides singing together: "Our band has lost," and "Our band has gained." The game ends when all the girls have gone over to one side.

The funeral wails are also very ancient. While at the present day a very talented wailer improvises a new plaint, which her a.s.sociates take up and perpetuate, the ancient forms are generally used.

From the side of the East, The wild winds have arisen, With the roaring thunders And the lightnings fiery.

On my father's grave A star hath fallen, Hath fallen from heaven.

Split open, O dart of the thunder!

Damp Mother Earth, Fall thou apart, O Mother Earth!

On all four sides, Split open, O coffin planks, Unfold, O white shroud, Fall away, O white hands From over the bold heart, And become parted, O ye sweet lips.

Turn thyself, O mine own father Into a bright, swift-winged falcon; Fly away to the blue sea, to the Caspian Sea, Wash off, O mine own father, From thy white face the mold.

Come flying, O my father To thine own home, to the lofty terem.[1]

Listen, O my father, To our songs of sadness!

The Christmas and New-Year carols offer additional ill.u.s.trations of the ancient heathen customs, and mythic or ritual poetry. The festival which was almost universally celebrated at Christmas-tide, in ancient heathen times, seems to have referred to the renewed life attributed to the sun after the winter solstice. The Christian church turned this festival, so far as possible, into a celebration of the birth of Christ. Among the Slavonians this festival was called _Kolyada_; and the sun--a female deity--was supposed to array herself in holiday robes and head-dress, when the gloom of the long nights began to yield to the cheerful lights of the lengthening days, to seat herself in her chariot, and drive her steeds briskly towards summer. She, like the festival, was called Kolyada; and in some places the people used to dress up a maiden in white and carry her about in a sledge from house to house, while the _kolyadki_, or carols, were sung by the train of young people who attended her, and received presents in return. One of the _kolyadki_ runs as follows:

Kolyada! Kolyada!

Kolyada has arrived!

On the Eve of the Nativity, We went about, we sought Holy Kolyada; Through all the courts, in all the alleys.

We found Kolyada in Peter's Court.

Round Peter's Court there is an iron fence, In the midst of the Court there are three rooms; In the first room is the bright Moon; In the second room is the red Sun; And in the third room are the many Stars.

A Christian turn is given to many of them, just as the Mermen bear a special Biblical name in some places, and are called "Pharaohs"; for like the seals on the coast of Iceland, they are supposed to be the remnants of Pharaoh's host, which was drowned in the Red Sea. One of the most prominent and interesting of these Christianized carols is the _Slava_, or Glory Song. Extracts from it have been decoratively and most appropriately used on the artistic programmes connected with the coronation of the Emperor Nicholas II. This Glory Song is used in the following manner: The young people a.s.semble together to deduce omens from the words that are sung, while trinkets belonging to each person present are drawn at random from a cloth-covered bowl, in which they have been deposited. This is the first song of the series:

Glory to G.o.d in Heaven, Glory!

To our Lord[2] on this earth, Glory!

May our Lord never grow old, Glory!

May his bright robes never be spoiled, Glory!

May his good steeds never be worn out, Glory!

May his trusty servants never falter, Glory!

May the right throughout Russia, Glory!