RUSSIAN WRITERS.

Dominion, Volume 5, Issue 1354, 3 February 1912, Page 9

RUSSIAN WRITERS.

The London "Times" in the bulky "Russian Supplement," which it published on December -1, had an arucie on "Modern Russian Literature." The writer, described as "A Russian Correspoudent," suvs in part: Tire great patriotic war ot ISI2 was a turning [joint tor Russia that had its effect on every side of her national life. Till then the only active element in social and political matters had been the aristocracv, which was centred round tho Court, anil which was entirely under the influence ot' Western Europe, -rills intluence did not touch tho-provincial gentry, still , less tho peasantry, until the invasion of Napoleon awakened the. whole country from its stato of passive slumber to a dogged and determined resistance. Russia was not politically conquered by Napoleon, but nevertheless tho continuance of the war in Europe and the taking of Paris hnd the effect of a conquest over the minds of a wliolo section of the people that had hitherto been unfamiliar with Western ideas and customs, and there was no such feeling of hatred and enmity towards these ideas as Prussia and Austria had felt, because the name ot their foremost representative—France— was not - combined in Russia with any idea of degradation. There was therefore no obstacle to the freo inflow of •Western ideas, and they were nojlonger confined to a small Court set, bu,t gave an impulse to the whole of educated society.

The romantic school at once found imitators and followers in Russia, though purely national traits were never absent, and lent their work a distinct colouring. Russia's greatest poet, Pushkin (17991837), usually considered . of this school, sought inspiration, like his Western compeers, in the Middle Ages. But that period of Russian history offers very little that can satisfy a craving for the heroic, and Pushkin next turned to the East, always so near to Russia in more senses than one, which inspired some of his most beautiful poems. Soon, however, contemporary Russian becamo his study, and Pushkin immortalised his name by his vivid pictures of the conflict between the strong individual and the trivial conditions of social life. 'In

"Eugene Oneguin," Pushkin gives two types of men that were, so to say, the forefathers of most of the heroes of Russian novelists: the "blase," pessimistic Oneguin, full of contempt for all men'and • all things, too disdainful to fight for reform. tho iypo that has largely stood in Russia for strength; and Lensky, the gentle introspective poet, .with his fatal absence of will power, who bears a striking resemblance to Turgeniev's 'superfluous man." There was no break in th«' continuity of Russian literature at the end of the thirties, as was the case in Western Europe, for the Russian romantic school had never been wniihiiJ? in ft healthy realism, and had all along kept in touch with the national life and ideals, and it may be said of Gogol, therefore, that he did not revolutionise Russian literature by directing his attention to provincial life and insignificant types, but rather that he was developing the germs that were to be found in Pushkin and Lermontov. He gives a very full picture of IlusI sian life in his "Dead Souls," which unfortunately he never finished, describing all possible types of small gentry and landowners with a few strokes of his pen —telling in every detail, so great is the understanding of the author. Whero Gogol took a few lines Goncharov (18121691) took volumes to describe the types ho selected. His heroes are alive and convincing when he writes of the Slay introspection and wan] - , of sustained effort. What ho saw he reproduced brilliantly, but the actuality he lived in was negative, and his desire for positive types made him create wooden crcatures, who aro dull, selfish raisonneurs.

Oblomov, his sweet-natured and utterly will-less hero, has become a byword in Russian life, and denominates ail that is well-intentioned and ineffective.

None of the authors of this period touched directly on the greatest evil in Russia—serfdom. Tho curse of it was vaguely felt in contemporary, works, but it was veiled over.. Indeed, the real life of the masses was not well known and understood by society, and so much the greater was the effect of Turgeniev's "A Sportsman's Note Book" )vhich appeared in 1817. Turgeniev did not set out to show the horror of slavery,-nor did he try to make his peasants typical by lending them words and expressions generally supposed to be peculiar to the class, lie showed the peasant to be human, with all human feelings and longings; in the tew stories where serfdom was held up to scornful hatred the restraint shown was more effective than could bo any piling up of horror. The influence this book had in hastening the liberation of tho serfs was undoubtedly considerable. Turgeniev is perhaps tho most popular of Russian authors in Europe; and not (ho least of his charms is his intense feeling for Nature, and the ties that, unite man to her. He lived abroad chiefly, but never lost touch with Russia, and the history of Russian social life could be reconstructed by his books alone, so quick was he to recognise and depict every now phenomenon. His favourite hero is the "Superfluous Man," who appears in his "The Hamlet of Stchegroy," "T|ie Diary of a Superfluous Man," "Faust," "Rudin," "Assia," etc. As a realist Turgeniev had to describe reality, and reality in Russia offered liim no "positive" great men, no men of action, only men of words. His heroes .arc all conquered by life; they age rapidly and submit to tho surrounding apathy with hardly a struggle. They do not even dare . take personal happiness (Rudin, Lavretskyi, for they do not believe in its possibility. His portraits of women are exquisite, but his heroines are all young girls. Turgeniev cannot bear the dust of life to touch them, and even motherhood seems abhorrent to him.

Turgeniev said of Tolstoy that ho was head and shoulders above all his contemporaries, and called him "tho great writer of the Russian Land." And indeed Tolstoy seems to have found chords in his heart that responded to every phase of the life of his country. lie has not the kindly contempt of his predecessors for the Superfluous Man; his contempt is rather for the man of action, and his best-loved heroes-Levin and Pierre—fake no part in political or municipal matters, and arc not clever business men. They are not even polished in manners, or socially successful, and Tolstoy docs not hesitate .to place them frequently in ridiculous positions. But he is so positive himself that the richness of tho inner life, a seeking after truth and moral development, arc all that matter in the world, that having endowed hi? favourites with these qualities he makes the reader lovo them and forgive nil the foolish and petty sides in tlicm nhich he ruthlessly depicts.

At tho end of his "Talcs of Sebastflpol" he writes:—"Tho hero of tiiv stories, whom I love with all my heart, iriiich I hare tried to port raj in ill iU beauty,

and which always was, is. nnd "ill ho beautiful—is Truth." . And in a loiter to his wife written during a period of ill-health he wnwv>i"l seo tilings just as they are. I . "<> longer see right, through them, ail illuminated with love." In these two purio-os Tolstov gives us the linvuot.o to all ms work.' And in handling his cliariicters he is never wanling iu sympathy lo them, lie declares in another lei-tei.

"It is impossible to describe any one unless vou love liim." Tolstoys renunciation of belles lettits, his didactic wnllugs, and the inner struggle he wont through would Iwrdly belong to l.he usloin ol literature had not that l>enod o is career given us "Wesurreetion, and sml pearls as the ".Master and .Alan, I'•« Death of Ivan lliteh." mid "The Power of Darkness.. Hut he s best known abroad" lor his iiiai\ epopee of lliissian lite in the beginning of the Illtli century, .'War '} m ' 1 - l ;, and by "Anna luironimi, the sto ; or two families, one embmlyinff " ' tion then held by-Tolstoy of what fan life should be: the other showing I t to seek personal satisfaction and pleasii e or forget duly ill married lite can onl> load to ruin ami doafh. , The third great writer of the period who is so often quale;) m comparison with or in cotit.ra.~l to t°)f ,H . v l;! , skv, whose first, book, "Poor I eop e. gave him sudden lame. Hut ~ls , t ;..' "l was turned into-an entirely new oh.mml (jv the terrible fate that awaited him. lie. was condemned to death, and actually led up to the gallows, there to learn that his sentence was romiuulril to a long term of work in the mines ot His life was saved; he lived through the imprisonment anil returned to tvussia, where he continued to write. But ho had been through the horror of death, and it stamped all his subsequent, work. He was full of a gentle resignation and a love for the snnplo Russian peasant that no recognition ol Ins faults could niAr. Dostopvsky was blind neither to the paltriness of surroundings nor to tho moral defects of tho hussiau people, but for him there are no criminals, only unhappy brothers who have fallen, who must be forgiven and helped onward. But though man must love and help man, the individual sinner must pav the price of his sin and redeem it by suffering, for only thus can he attain pea.ee of mind* Dostoovslcy believed that the salvation and renovation of Russia were to come from the people themselves and not from foreign teaching or influence; from the merciful tenderness and lovingness of the Russian heart. His great faith in the Russian people he held in common with the Slavophil group of writers who attained fame in the forties, and who had so great an influence that no study of Russian literature would be complete without mentioning it. The school accepted the teachings of Schilling and Ilegol—that each nation is the expression of some definite idea, the importance or insignificance of the nation, and that tlir majority of nations can express but a one-sided idea and only the elect can unito all phases of the truth into one great synthesis. Hegel, of course, ascribed to Germany this all important mission—the Slavophils ascribed it to Russia. The wliolo school was imbued with a love of Russian traditions and customs, and a deep religious feeling. Homiakov, one of the most celebrated of tho Slavophils, declared the whole difference between Enstern and Western Europe to lie in Russia's acceptance of Christianity not from Rome but from Byzantium, where no'centralisation was known, where each Church kept its liberty, and was united to nil other Churches through the councils. Thus tho Eastern Church possessed what the Church of Rome had never had—a combination of liberty and unity. The Slavophils considered also that the political unity of Russia was attained not by conquest but by the flee recognition of power, without any guarantees being asked or given, and they hated the reforms of Peter as breaking the peaceful development of communistic labour and patriarchal government. Needless to say that their view of Russia before Peter's reign was far from correct.

The greatest writer of Iho 'eighties is of course, Chekhov, whose tender humour and power o£ clever definition attracted public attention to him at the outset of his career. His heroes have lost all faith in themselves and in life; those who retain ideals—who attempt to act or create —are dashed ruthlessly into the rut by the force of circumstances. For the practical business man Chekhov has an illconcealed dislike.

'A new note was sounded by Gorki, who presented a whole series of new types. The tramp, the thief, the drunkard," jvro often his subjects. Some of his longer novels deal with the provincial merchant class. But all his heroes have one trait in common—the invincible freedom of sonl that recognises no shackles and no conventions, and that makes them frequently perform acts bordering on madness. There is a wild hunger in them, a hunger to live and express themselves that finds no outlet but dare-devil pranks and drunken incoherence. Nevertheless, the note of Gorki is more reassuring than that of his immediate predecessors. Whatever the delect.4 of his men and women, ho makes one feel that there is a force in • them that has not yet found its object, but that is capable of moro than the wretched resignation of Chekhov's people. To prophesy about men still living, still writing, is always a difficult matter, bnt if the contemporary writers of Russia continue to write in their present vein, it 6«ems probable that they will not live as artists, and that their work for future generations will only have a historical value as portraying the blackest mood of pessimism, Piussia has yet known.