A Survey of Russian Literature, with Selections Part 18

_Poor Folk._ _Crime and Punishment._ _Humbled and Insulted._ (The last two abbreviated are translated by F. Wishaw.) F. M.

Dostoevsky.

_What is to be Done? A Vital Question._ (Two translations of the same work.) N. G. Tchernyshevsky.

FOOTNOTES:

[31] Meaning the faith of the Holy Catholic Apostolic Church of the East. A great many Russians believe this, and that Russia's mission on earth is a moral and spiritual one, founded upon precisely this basis.

[32] The narrator, in "Notes from a Dead House," is a.s.sumed to be a prisoner named Alexander Petrovitch Goryantchikoff.

CHAPTER XII

SEVENTH PERIOD: DANILeVSKY, SALTYKoFF, L. N. TOLSToY, GoRKY, AND OTHERS.

Under the influence of the romantic movement in western Europe, in the '30's of the nineteenth century, and in particular under the deep impression made by Sir Walter Scott's novels, historical novels and historical studies began to make their appearance in Russia, and in the '50's underwent two periods of existence, which totally differed from each other.

During the first period the romance-writers, including even Pushkin, treated things from a governmental point of view, and dealt only with such epochs, all more or less remote, as the censors.h.i.+p permitted. For example, Zagoskin, the best known of the historical novelists, wrote "askold's Grave," from the epoch of the baptism of the Russians, in the tenth century, and "Yury Miloslavsky," from the epoch of the Pretender, early in the seventeenth century; while Lazhetchnikoff wrote "The Mussulman," from the reign of Ivan III., sixteenth century, and "The Last Court Page," from the epoch of Peter the Great's wars with Sweden.

The historical facts were alluded to in a slight, pa.s.sing way, or narrated after the fas.h.i.+on of Karamzin, in lofty terms, with artificial patriotic inspiration. As the authors lacked archaeological learning, the manners and accessories of the past were merely sketched in a general, indefinite way, and often inaccurately, while the pages were chiefly filled with the sentimental love-pa.s.sages of two or three virtuous heroes of stereotyped patterns, who were subjected to frightful adventures, perished several times, and were resuscitated for the purpose of marrying in ordinary fas.h.i.+on at the end.

In the '50's people became far too much interested in the present to pay much heed to the past. Yet precisely at that time the two finest historians came to the front, Sergyei M. Solovieff and N. I.

Kostomaroff, and effected a complete revolution in historiography.

Solovieff's great history brings the narrative down to the reign of Katherine II. Kostomaroff dealt with periods, giving a complete picture of each one; hence each study, while complete in itself, does not of necessity always contain the whole career of the personages who figure in it. But both writers are essentially (despite Kostomaroff's not very successful attempts at historical novels) serious historians.

As we have already seen, the novels of the two Counts Tolstoy, "War and Peace" and "Prince Serebryany," stand quite apart, and far above all others.

But among the favorites of lesser rank are Grigory Petrovitch Danilevsky (born in 1829), whose best historical novel is "Mirovitch," though it takes unwarrantable liberties with the personages of the epoch depicted (that of Katherine II.) and those in the adjacent periods. Less good, though popular, is his "Princess Tarakanoff," the history of a supposed daughter of the Empress Elizabeth.

Half-way between the historians and the portrayers of popular life, and in a measure belonging to both ranks, are several talented men. The most famous of them was Pavel Ivanovitch Melnikoff (1819-1883), whose official duties enabled him to make an exhaustive study of the "Old Ritualists"[33] along the middle Volga.

His two novels, "In the Forests" and "On the Hills" (of the eastern and western banks of the Volga, respectively), are utterly unlike anything else in the language, and are immensely popular with Russians. They are history in that they faithfully reproduce the manners and beliefs of a whole cla.s.s of the population; they are _genre_ studies of a very valuable ethnographical character in their fidelity to nature. Long as they are, the interest never flags for a moment, but it is not likely that they will ever appear in an English translation. Too extensive and intimate a knowledge of national ways and beliefs (both of the State Church and the schismatics) are required to allow of their being popular with the majority of foreigners who read Russian; for the non-Russian reading foreigner an excessive amount of explanatory notes would be required, and they would resemble treatises. But they are two of the most delightful books of the epoch, and cla.s.sics in their way. Melnikoff wrote, for a long time, under the pseudonym of "Andrei Petchersky."

Nikolai s.e.m.e.novitch Lyeskoff (1837-1895), who long wrote under the pseudonym of "M. Stebnitzky," is another author famous for his portraits of a whole cla.s.s of the population, his specialty being the priestly cla.s.s. He was of n.o.ble birth, and was reared in luxury, but was orphaned and ruined at a very early age, so that he was obliged to earn a hard living, first in government service, then as traveler for a private firm. This extensive traveling afforded him the opportunity of making acquaintance with the life of all cla.s.ses of the population. He began to write in 1860, but a few incautious words, in 1862, raised a storm against him in the liberal press, which accused him of instigating the police to their attacks upon young people. As Count Tolstoy remarked to me, this incident prevented Lyeskoff ever receiving the full meed of recognition which his talent merited; a large and influential section of the press was permanently in league against him. This, eventually, so exasperated and embittered Lyeskoff that he really did go over to the conservative camp, and the first result of his wrath was the romance "No Thoroughfare," published in 1865. Its chief characters are two ideal socialists, a man and a woman, recognized by contemporaries as the portraits of living persons. Both are represented as finding so-called socialists to be merely crafty nihilists. This raised another storm, and still further embittered Lyeskoff, who expressed himself in "To the Knife" (in the middle of the '70's), a mad production, wherein revolutionists (or "nihilists," as they were then generally called) were represented as condensed incarnations of the seven deadly sins. These works had much to do with preventing Lyeskoff from taking that high place in the public estimation which his other works (a ma.s.s of novels and tales devoid of political tendency) and his great talent would have otherwise a.s.sured to him. Of his large works, "The Cathedral Staff,"

with its sympathetic and life-like portraits of Archpriest Savely Tuberosoff and his athletic Deacon Achilles, and his "Episcopal Trifles"

rank first. The latter volume, which consists of a series of pictures setting forth the dark sides of life in the highest ecclesiastical hierarchy, created a great sensation in the early '80's, and raised a third storm, and the author fell into disfavor in official circles.

Perhaps the most perfect of his works is one of the shorter novels, "The Sealed Angel," which deals with the ways and beliefs of the Old Ritualists (though in the vicinity of Kieff, not in Melnikoff's province), and is regarded as a cla.s.sic, besides being a pure delight to the initiated reader. Count L. N. Tolstoy greatly admired (he told me) Lyeskoff's "At the End of the World," a tale of missionary effort in Siberia, which is equally delightful in its way, though less great.

Towards the end of his career, Lyeskoff was inclined to mysticism, and began to work over ancient religious legends, or to invent new ones in the same style.[34]

The direct and immediate result of the democratic tendency on Russian thought and attraction to the common people during this era was the creation of a school of writers who devoted themselves almost exclusively to that sphere, in addition to the contributions from Turgeneff, Tolstoy, Dostoevsky. Among these was a well-known woman writer, Marya Alexandrovna Markovitch, who published her first Little Russian Tales, in 1859, under the name of "Marko Vovtchek." She immediately translated them into Russian, and they were printed in the best journals of the day. I. S. Turgeneff translated one volume into Russian (for her Little Russian language was not of the supreme quality that characterized Shevtchenko's, which needed no translating), and Dobroliuboff, an authoritative critic of that period, expressed himself in the most flattering manner about them. But her fame withered away as quickly as it had sprung up. The weak points of her tales had been pardoned because of their political contents; in ten years they had lost their charm, and their defects--a too superficial knowledge of the people's life, the absence of living, authentic coloring in portraiture, its restriction to general, stereotyped types, such as might have been borrowed from popular tales and ballads, and excess of sentimentality--became too apparent to be overlooked by a more enlightened public.

The only other woman writer of this period who acquired much reputation may be mentioned here, although she cannot be cla.s.sed strictly with portrayers of the people: Nadezhda Dmitrievna Khvoshtchinsky, whose married name was Zaiontchkovsky, and who wrote under the pseudonym of "V. Krestovsky" (1825-1889). She published a great many short stories of provincial town life, rather narrow as to their sphere of observation.

Her best work was "The Great Bear" (referring to the constellation), which appeared in 1870-1871.[35]

When literature entered upon a fresh phase of development in the '70's of the last century, the careful study of the people, two men headed the movement, Glyeb Ivanovitch Uspensky and Nikolai Nikolaevitch Zlatovratsky. Uspensky (1840) took the negative and pessimistic view.

Zlatovratsky (1845) took the positive, optimistic view.[36]

Like many authors of that period, adverse conditions hindered Uspensky's march to fame. Shortly after his first work, "The Manners of Rasteryaeff Street," began to appear in "The Contemporary," that journal was stopped. He continued it in another journal, which also was stopped before his work was finished, and that after he had been forced to cut out everything which gave a hint at its being a "continuation," so that it might appear to be an independent whole. He was obliged to publish the mangled remains in "The Woman's News," because there was hardly any other journal then left running. After the Servian War (generally called abroad "the Russo-Turkish War") of 1877-1878, Uspensky abandoned the plebeian cla.s.ses to descend to "the original source" of everything--the peasant. When he published the disenchanting result of his observations, showing to what lengths a peasant will go for money, there was a sensation. This was augmented by his sketch, "Hard Labor"; and a still greater sensation ensued on the publication of his "'Tis Not a Matter of Habit" (known in book form as "The Eccentric Master"). In "Hard Labor"

he set forth, contrary to all theoretical beliefs, that the peasants of villages which had belonged to private landed proprietors prior to the emanc.i.p.ation, were incomparably and incontestably more industrious and moral than the peasants on the crown estates, who had always been practically free men.[37]

Readers were still more alarmed by the deductions set forth in his "An Eccentric Master." The hero is an educated man, Mikhail Mikhailovitch, who betakes himself to the rural wilds with the express object of "toiling there exactly like the rest, as an equal in morals and duties, to sleep with the rest on the straw, to eat from one pot with them" (the Tolstoyan theory, but in advance of him), "while the money acquired thus by general toil was to be the property of a group of people to be formed from peasants and from actually ruined former members of the upper cla.s.ses." But the peasants, not comprehending the master's lofty aims, treated him as an eccentric fool, and began to rob him in all directions, meanwhile humoring him to the top of his bent in all his instincts of master. It ends in Mikhail Mikhailovitch becoming thoroughly disillusioned, dejected, and taking to drink after having expended the whole of his capital on the ungrateful peasants. This will serve to ill.u.s.trate Uspensky's pessimistic point of view, for which he certainly had solid grounds.

While Uspensky never sought artistic effects in his work, and his chief strength lay in humor, in ridicule which pitilessly destroyed all illusions, Zlatovratsky never indulges in a smile, and is always, whether grieving or rejoicing, in a somewhat exalted frame of mind, which often attains the pitch of epic pathos, so that even his style a.s.sumes a rather poetical turn, something in the manner of hexameters.

Moreover, he is far from despising the artistic element. He established his fame in 1874 by his first large work, "Peasant Jurors."

As Zlatovratsky (whose father belonged to the priestly cla.s.s) regards as ideal the commune and the peasant guild (_artel_), with their individualistic, moral ideals of union in a spirit of brotherly love and solidarity, both in work and in the enjoyment of its products, his pessimism is directed against the Russian educated cla.s.ses, not excepting even their very best representatives. This view he expresses in all his works which depict the educated cla.s.ses: "The Golden Heart,"

"The Wanderer," "The Kremleff Family," "The Karavaeffs," "The Hetman,"

and so forth. In these he represents educated people--the better cla.s.ses, called "intelligent" people by Russians--under the guise of sheep who have strayed from the true fold, and the only thing about them which he regards as a sign of life (in a few of the best of them) is their vain efforts to identify themselves with the common people, and thus, as it were, restore the lost paradise[38].

There are many others who have written sketches and more ambitious works founded on a more or less intimate study and knowledge of the peasants.

On one of these we must turn our attention, briefly, as the author of one famous and heartrending book, "The Inhabitants of Podlipovo." Feodor Mikhailovitch Ryeshetnikoff (1841-1871) was one of three middle-cla.s.s ("plebeian" is the Russian word) writers who made a name, the others being Alexander Ivanovitch Levitoff and Nikolai Ivanovitch Naumoff. For in proportion as culture spread among the ma.s.ses of society, and the center of the intellectual movement was transferred from the n.o.ble cla.s.s to the plebeian, in the literary circles towards the end of the '50's there appeared a great flood of new forces from the lower cla.s.ses. The three writers above mentioned, as well as Uspensky and Zlatovratsky, belonged to the priestly plebeian cla.s.s. Ryeshetnikoff's famous romance--rather a short story--was the outcome of his own hards.h.i.+ps, sufferings, and experiences. He was scantily educated, had no aesthetic taste, wrote roughly, not always grammatically, and always in excessively gloomy colors, yet he had the reputation of being a pa.s.sionate lover of the people, despite the fact that his picture of the peasants in his best known work is generally regarded as almost a caricature in its exaggerated gloom, and he enjoys wide popularity even at the present time.

The spirits of people rose during the epoch of Reform (after the Emanc.i.p.ation of the serfs in 1861) and the general impulse to take an interest in political and social questions was speedily reflected in literature by the formation of a special branch of that art, which was known as "tendency literature," although its more accurate t.i.tle would have been "publicist literature." The peculiarity of most writers of this cla.s.s was their pessimistic skepticism. This publicist literature was divided into three cla.s.ses: democratic, moderately liberal, and conservative.

At the head of the democratic branch stood the great writer who const.i.tuted the pride and honor of the epoch, as the one who most profoundly and fully reflected it, Mikhail Evgrafovitch Saltykoff (1826-1889). He was the son of landed proprietors, of an ancient family, with a famous name of Tatar descent. He finished his education in the Tzarskoe Selo Lyceum, which, from the time of Pushkin on, graduated so many notable statesmen and distinguished men. The authorities of the Lyceum were endeavoring to exterminate the spirit of Pushkin, who had died only the year before, and severely repressed all scribbling of poetry, which did not in the least prevent almost every boy in the school from trying his hand at it and dreaming of future fame. Thus incited, Saltykoff, from the moment of his entrance, earned the ill-will of the authorities by his pa.s.sionate love of verse writing and reading, and when he graduated, in 1844, it was in the lower half of his cla.s.s, and with one rank lower in the civil service than the upper half of the cla.s.s.

In 1847 he published (under the name of "M. Nepanoff") his first story, "Contradictions," and in 1848 his second, "A Tangled Affair," both in "The Annals of the Fatherland." When the strictness of the censors.h.i.+p was augmented during that same year, after "the Petrashevsky affair,"

all literary men fell under suspicion. When Saltykoff asked for leave of absence from the service to go home during the holidays, he was commanded to produce his writings. Although these early writings contained hardly a hint of the satirical talents which he afterwards developed, the person to whom was intrusted the task of making a report of them (and who was a sworn enemy to the natural school and "The Annals of the Fatherland") gave such an alarming account of them that the Count Tchernysheff was frightened at having so dangerous a man in his ministerial department. The result was, that in May, 1848, a posting-troka halted in front of Saltykoff's lodgings, and the accompanying gendarme was under orders to escort the offender off to Vyatka on the instant.

In Saltykoff's case, as in the case of many another Russian writer, exile not only removed him from the distracting pleasures of life at the capital, but also laid the foundation for his future greatness. In Vyatka, Saltykoff first served as one of the officials in the government office, but by the autumn he was appointed the official for special commissions immediately attached to the governor's service. He was a valued friend in the family of the vice-governor, for whose young daughters he wrote a "Short History of Russia," and after winning further laurels in the service, he was allowed to return to St.

Petersburg in 1856, when he married one of the young girls, and published his "Governmental Sketches," with the materials for which his exile had furnished him. Two years later he was appointed vice-governor of Ryazan, then transferred to Tver, where he acted as governor on several occasions. In 1862 he retired from the service and devoted himself to literature, but he returned to it a couple of years later, and only retired definitively in 1868. These items are of interest as showing the status of political exiles in a different light from that usually accepted as the unvarying rule.

As we have said, Saltykoff's exile was of incalculable service to him, in that it made him acquainted with the inward life of Russia and of the people. This knowledge he put to unsparing use in his famous satires. In order fully to understand his works, one must be thoroughly familiar with the general spirit and the special ideas of the different periods to which they refer, as well as with Russia and its life and literature in general. Saltykoff (who wrote under the name of "Shtchedrin") was very keen to catch the spirit of the moment, and very caustic in portraying it, with the result that very often the names he invented for his characters clove to whole cla.s.ses of society, and have become by-words, the mere mention of which reproduces the whole type. For example, after the Emanc.i.p.ation, when the majority of landed proprietors were compelled to give up their parasitic life on the serfs, there arose a cla.s.s of educated people who were seeking fresh fields for their easy, parasitic existence. One of the commonest expedients, in the '70's, for restoring shattered finances was to go to Tashkent, where the cultured cla.s.ses imagined that regular gold mines awaited them. Saltykoff instantly detected this movement, and not only branded the pioneers in the colonization of Central Asia with the name of "Tashkentzians" (in "Gospoda Tashkentzy" Messrs. Tashkentzians), but according to his wont, he rendered this nickname general by applying it to all cultured cla.s.ses who had nothing in their souls but an insatiable appet.i.te. In other works he branded other movements and cla.s.ses with equal ineffaceableness.

His masterpiece (in his third and most developed period), the work which foreigners can comprehend almost equally well with Russians, is "Gospoda Golovlevy" ("The Messrs. Golovleff"[39]). It contains that element of the universal in humanity which his national satires lack, and it alone would suffice to render him immortal. The type of Iudiushka (little Judas) has no superior in all European literature, for its cold, calculating, cynical hypocrisy, its miserly ferocity. The book is a presentment of old ante-reform manners among the landed gentry at their worst.

The following favorite little story furnishes an excellent example of Saltykoff's (Shtchedrin's) caustic wit and satire:

THE STORY OF HOW ONE PEASANT MAINTAINED TWO GENERALS.

Once upon a time there lived and flourished two Generals; and as both were giddy-pated, by jesting command, at my desire, they were speedily transported to an uninhabited island.

The Generals had served all their lives in some registry office or other; they had been born there, reared there, had grown old there, and consequently they understood nothing whatever. They did not even know any words except, "accept the a.s.surance of my complete respect and devotion."

The registry was abolished as superfluous, and the Generals were set at liberty. Being thus on the retired list, they settled in Petersburg, in Podyatchesky (Pettifoggers) Street, in separate quarters; each had his own cook, and received a pension. But all of a sudden, they found themselves on an uninhabited island, and when they awoke, they saw that they were lying under one coverlet. Of course, at first they could not understand it at all, and they began to talk as though nothing whatever had happened to them.

"'Tis strange, your Excellency, I had a dream to-day," said one General; "I seemed to be living on a desert island."

No sooner had he said this than he sprang to his feet. The other General did the same.

"Heavens! What's the meaning of this? Where are we?" cried both, with one voice.

Then they began to feel each other, to discover whether this extraordinary thing had happened to them not in a dream, but in their waking hours. But try as they might to convince themselves that all this was nothing but a vision of their sleep, they were forced to the conviction of its sad reality.