A Survey of Russian Literature, with Selections Part 9

14. Give examples of them.

15. What incidents show the effect of his comedy "Calumny"?

16. Give an account of the life of Karamzin.

17. Give examples of the character of some of his sentimental tales.

18. What real services did he render to Russian literature?

19. What importance had Dmitrieff and ozeroff?

20. How did the translations of German and French writers, made by Zhukovsky, affect the literary ideals of his time?

21. Give the chief facts in the life of Kryloff.

22. Give examples of his fables.

23. Describe the ancestry and early life of Pushkin.

24. What is his position in Russian literature?

25. How were his talents shown in Evgeny Onyegin?

26. What is the character of the soliloquy from Boris G.o.dunoff?

BIBLIOGRAPHY

_The Memoirs of the Empress Katherine II._ Written by herself.

_The Princess Dashkoff._ Memoirs written by herself, and containing letters of the Empress Katherine II.

_Original Fables._ Kryloff. (The translation by Mr. Harrison, London, 1884, is regarded as the best of the twelve translations of Kryloff's works.)

_Specimens from the Russian Poets._ 2 volumes. By Sir John Bowring. Specimens of poetry from Lomonosoff through Zhukovsky.

_Prose Tales._ Alexander Pushkin. Translated by T. Keane.

_Translations from Pushkin, in Memory of the Hundredth Anniversary of the Poet's Birthday._ C. E. Turner.

FOOTNOTES:

[5] I take this translation from Sir John Bowring's "Specimens of the Russian Poets," rather than attempt a metrical translation myself. It is reasonably close to the original--as close as most metrical translations are--and gives the spirit extremely well. Sir John Bowring adds the following footnote: "This is the poem of which Golovnin says in his narrative, that it has been rendered into j.a.panese, by order of the emperor, and hung up, embroidered in gold, in the Temple of Jeddo. I learn from the periodicals that an honor somewhat similar has been done in China to the same poem. It has been translated into the Chinese and Tartar languages, written on a piece of rich silk, and suspended in the imperial palace at Pekin." There are several editions of Sir John's book, the one here used being the second, 1821; but the author admits that in the first edition he stretched the poetic license further than he had a right to do, in this first verse. The book is now rare, but this statement will serve as a warning to those who may happen upon the first edition.

[6] Karamzin's youngest daughter, by his second marriage, was alive when I was in Russia,--a charming old lady. She gave me her own copy of her "favorite book," a volume (in French) by Khomyakoff, very rare and difficult to obtain; and in discussing literary matters, wound up thus: "They may say what they will about the new men, but no one ever wrote such a beautiful style as my dear papa!" I also knew some of ozeroff's relatives.

[7] p.r.o.nounced Alyog.

[8] A translation of this--which is too long to quote here--may be found in Sir John Bowring's "Specimens of the Russian Poets," Vol. II.

[9] These imperial favors and pensions were continued to his children.

His son, an artist, regularly visited Russia as the guest of Alexander III. I met him on two occasions and was enabled to judge of his father's charms of mind and manner.

[10] This building still exists, with its garden alluded to in the "Memories." But though it still bears its name, it is connected by a glazed gallery with the old palace, famous chiefly as Katherine II.'s residence, across the street; and it is used for suites of apartments, allotted for summer residence to certain courtiers. The exact arrangement of the rooms in Pushkin's day is not now known.

[11] "The Stone Guest" is founded on the Don Juan legend, like the familiar opera "Don Giovanni." Musorgsky set it to music, in sonorous, Wagnerian recitative style (though the style was original with him, not copied from Wagner, who came later). It is rarely given in public, but I had the pleasure of hearing it rendered by famous artists, accompanied by the composer Balakireff, at the house of a noted art and musical critic in St. Petersburg.

[12] The reference is to G.o.dunoff's presumptive share in the murder, at uglitch, of Ivan the Terrible's infant heir, the Tzarevitch Dmitry.

CHAPTER VIII

SEVENTH PERIOD, FROM PuSHKIN TO THE WRITERS OF THE FORTIES.

Even Karamzin's vast influence on his contemporaries cannot be compared with that exercised by Pushkin on the literature of the '20's and '30's of the nineteenth century; and no Russian writer ever effected so mighty a change in literature as Pushkin. Among other things, his influence brought to life many powerful and original talents, which would not have ventured to enter the literary career without Pushkin's friendly support and encouragement. He was remarkably amiable in his relations with all contemporary writers (except certain journalists in St. Petersburg and Moscow), and treated with especial respect three poets of his day, Delvig, Baratnsky, and Yazykoff. He even exaggerated their merits, exalting the work of the last two above his own, and attributing great significance to Delvig's most insignificant poems and articles. Hence their names have become so closely connected with his, that it is almost impossible to mention him without mentioning them.

Baron Anton Antonovitch Delvig (1798-1831) the descendant of a Baltic Provinces n.o.ble, was one of Pushkin's comrades in the Lyceum, and published his first collection of poems in 1829.

Evgeny Abramovitch Baratnsky (1800-1844) came of a n.o.ble family of good standing. His poetry was founded on Byronism, like all European poetry of that day, and was also partly under the influence of the fantastic romanticism introduced by Zhukovsky. He never developed beyond a point which was reached by Pushkin in his early days in "The Prisoner of the Caucasus," "The Gypsies," "The Fountain of Baktchesarai," and the first chapters of "Evgeny Onyegin." He wrote one very fine poem, devoted to Finland.

Nikolai Mikhailovitch Yazykoff (1803-1846) was of n.o.ble birth, and published a number of early poems in 1819. One of his best and longest, published about 1836, was a dramatic tale of "The Fire Bird." Between 1837-1842 his "The Lighthouse," "Gastun," "Sea Bathing," "The s.h.i.+p,"

"The Sea," and a whole series of elegies, are also very good. Yazykoff's poetry is weaker and paler in coloring than Delvig's or Baratnsky's, yet richer than all of theirs in really incomparable outward form of the verse, and in poetical expression of thought; in fact, he was "the poet of expression," and rendered great service by his boldness and originality of language, in that it taught men to write not as all others wrote, but as it lay in their individual power to write; in other words, he inculcated individuality in literature.

The only one of the many poets of Pushkin's epoch in Russia who did not repeat and develop, in different keys, the themes of their master's poetry, was Alexander Sergyeevitch Griboyedoff (1795-1829). He alone was independent, original, and was related to the Pushkin period as Kryloff was to the Karamzin period--merely by the accident of time, not by the contents of his work. Griboyedoff was the first of a series of Russian poets who depicted life in absolutely faithful, but gloomy, colors; and it was quite in keeping with this view, that he did not live to see in print the comedy in which his well-earned fame rested, at the time, and which still keeps it fresh, by performances on the stage at the present day.

There was nothing very cheerful or bright about the social life of the '20's in the nineteenth century to make Russian poets take anything but a gloomy view of matters in general. Griboyedoff, as an unprejudiced man, endowed with great poetical gifts, and remarkable powers of observation, was able to give a faithful and wonderfully complete picture of high life in Moscow of that day, in his famous comedy "Woe from Wit" ("Gore ot Uma"), and introduce to the stage types which had never, hitherto, appeared in Russian comedy, because no one had looked deep enough into Russian hearts, or been capable of limning, impartially and with fidelity to nature, the emptiness and vanity of the characters and aims which preponderated in Russian society.

He was well born and very well educated. After serving in the army in 1812, like most patriotic young Russians of the day, he entered the foreign office, in 1817. There he probably made the acquaintance of Pushkin, but he never became intimate with him, as he belonged to a different literary circle, which included actors and dramatic writers.

His first dramatic efforts were not very promising, though his first comedy, "The Young Married Pair," was acted in St. Petersburg in 1816.

In 1819 he was offered the post of secretary of legation in Persia, which he accepted; and this took him away from the gay and rather wild society existence which he was leading, with bad results in many ways.

In Persia, despite his multifarious occupations, and his necessary study of Oriental languages, Griboyedoff found time to plan his famous comedy in 1821, and in 1822 he wrote it in Georgia, whither he had been transferred. But he remodeled and rewrote portions of it, and it was finished only in 1823, when he spent a year in Moscow, his native city.

When it was entirely ready for acting, he went to St. Petersburg, but neither his most strenuous efforts, nor his influence in high quarters, sufficed to secure the censor's permission for its performance on stage, or to get the requisite license for printing it. But it circulated in innumerable ma.n.u.script copies, and every one was in raptures over it.

Even the glory of Pushkin's "Evgeny Onyegin," which appeared at about the same time, did not overshadow Griboyedoff's glory. Strange to say, Pushkin, who had magnified Delvig, Baratnsky, and Yazykoff far above their merits, and in general, was accustomed to overrate all talent, whether it belonged to his own friends or to strangers, was extremely severe on Griboyedoff's comedy, and detected many grave defects in it.

Griboyedoff was greatly irritated by his failure to obtain proper public recognition of his comedy. He expressed his feelings freely, became more embittered than ever against mankind in general, and went back to Georgia, in 1825, where he added to his previous poems, and took part in the campaign against Persia, in which he rendered great services to the commander-in-chief. As a reward, he was sent to St. Petersburg (1828), to present the treaty of peace to the Emperor. He was promptly appointed minister plenipotentiary to Persia, and on his way thither, in Tiflis, married a Georgian princess. His stern course of action and his disregard of certain rooted Oriental customs aroused the priesthood and the ignorant ma.s.ses of Teheran against him, and a riot broke out. After a heroic defense of the legation, all the Russians, including Griboyedoff, were torn to pieces. His wife had been left behind in Tabreez and escaped. She buried his remains at a monastery near Tiflis, in accordance with a wish which he had previously expressed.

There is not much plot to "Woe from Wit." Moltchalin, Famusoff's secretary, a cold, calculating, fickle young man, has been making love to Famusoff's only child, an heiress, Sophia, an extremely sentimental young person. Famusoff rails against foreign books and fas.h.i.+ons, "destroyers of our pockets and our hearth," and lauds Colonel Skalozub, an elderly pretender to Sophia's hand, explaining the general servile policy of obtaining rank and position by the Russian equivalent of "pull," which is called "connections." He compares his with Tchatsky, to the disadvantage of the latter, who had been brought up with Sophia, and had been in love with her before his departure on his travels three years previously, though he had never mentioned the fact. Tchatsky gives rise to this diatribe by returning from his travels at this juncture, asking for Sophia's hand, and trying to woo the girl herself with equal unsuccess. Tchatsky's arraignment of the imitation of foreign customs then everywhere prevalent, does not win favor from any one. Worse yet, he expresses his opinion of Moltchalin; and Sophia, in revenge, drops a hint that Tchatsky is crazy. The hint grows apace, and the cause is surmised to be a bullet-wound in the head, received during a recent campaign. Another "authority" contradicts this; it comes from drinking champagne by the gobletful--no, by the bottle--no, by the case. But Famusoff settles the matter by declaring that it comes from knowing too much. This takes place at an evening party at the Famusoffs, and Tchatsky returns to the room to meet with an amazing reception.

Eventually, he discovers that he is supposed to be mad, and that he is indebted to Sophia for the origin of the lie; also, that she is making rendezvous with the low-minded, flippant Moltchalin. At last Sophia discovers that Moltchalin is making love to her maid through inclination, and to her only through calculation. She casts him off, and orders him out of the house. Tchatsky, cured of all illusions about her, renounces his suit for her hand, and declares that he will leave Moscow forever. Tchatsky, whose woe is due to his persistence in talking sense and truth to people who do not care to hear it, and to his manly independence all the way through, comes to grief through having too much wit; hence the t.i.tle.

Not one of Pushkin's successors, talented as many of them were, was able to attain to the position of importance which the great poet had rendered obligatory for future aspirants. It is worth noting that Pushkin's best work, in his second, non-Byronic, purely national style, enjoyed less success among his contemporaries than his early, half-imitative efforts, where the characters were weak, lacking in independent creation, and where the whole tone was gloomy. This gloomy tone expressed the sentiments of all Russia of the period, and it was natural that Byronic heroes should be in consonance with the general taste. At this juncture, a highly talented poet arose, Mikhail Yurievitch Lermontoff (1814-1841), who, after first imitating Pushkin, speedily began to imitate Byron--and that with far more success than Pushkin had ever done--with great delicacy and artistic application to the local conditions. Thus, as a vivid, natural echo of this epoch in Russian life, the poet became dear to the heart of Russians; and in the '40's they regarded him as the equal of the writers they most loved.

Lermontoff, the son of a poor but n.o.ble family, was reared by his grandmother, as his mother died when he was a baby, and his father, an army officer, could not care for him. The grandmother did her utmost to give him the best education possible at that time, and to make him a brilliant society man. The early foreign influence over Pushkin was, as we have seen, French. That over Lermontoff was rather English, which was then becoming fas.h.i.+onable. But like many another young Russian of that day, Lermontoff wrote his first poems in French, imitating Pushkin's "The Fountain of Baktchesarai" and Byron's "The Prisoner of Chillon." He finished the preparatory school with the first prize for composition and history, and entered the University, which he was soon compelled to leave, in company with a number of others, because of a foolish prank they had played on a professor. In those days, when every one was engrossed in thoughts of military service and a career, and when the few remaining paths which were open to a poor young man had thus been closed to him, but one thing was left for him to do--enter the army.

Accordingly, in 1832, Lermontoff entered the Ensigns' School in St.

Petersburg; but during his two years there he did not abandon verse-making, and here he first began to imitate Byron. A couple of poems, "Ismail Bey" (1832) and "Hadji Abrek" (1833) were published by a comrade, without Lermontoff's knowledge, at this time. In general, it may be said of Lermontoff at that period that he cared not in the least for literary fame, and made no haste to publish his writings, as to which he was very severe. Many were not published until five or six years after they were written.