Anthology of Russian Literature From the Earliest Period to the Present Time

By Leo Wiener Assistant Professor of Slavic Languages at Harvard University

IN TWO PARTS

From the Tenth Century to the Close of the Eighteenth Century

G. P. Putnam’s Sons New York and London The Knickerbocker Press 1902

Copyright, 1902 BY LEO WIENER

Published, June, 1902

The Knickerbocker Press, New York

TO MY FRIEND AND COLLEAGUE ARCHIBALD CARY COOLIDGE THIS WORK IS GRATEFULLY DEDICATED

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PREFACE

The time is not far off when the Russian language will occupy the same place in the curriculum of American universities that it now does in those of Germany, France and Sweden. A tongue that is spoken by more than one hundred million people and that encompasses one-half of the northern hemisphere in itself invites the attention of the curious and the scholar. But the points of contact between the Anglo-Saxon and Slavic races are so many, both in politics and literature, that it is a matter of interest, if not yet of necessity, for every cultured person of either nationality to become well acquainted with the intellectual and social life of the other. In Russia, the English language is steadily gaining in importance, and not only the universities, but the gymnasiums as well, offer courses in English. In England and America there are many signs of a similar interest in their Russian neighbour, though at present it expresses itself mainly in the perusal of Russian novels in translations that rarely rise above mediocrity. There is also a growing demand

for a fuller treatment of Russian Literature as a whole, which even Prince Wolkonsky’s work cannot satisfy, for the reason that only a small fraction of the nineteenth-century writers, and hardly anything of the preceding periods, is accessible to the reader for verification. It is the purpose of this Anthology to render a concise, yet sufficient, account of Russian Literature in its totality, to give to the English reader who is not acquainted with any other language than his own a biographical, critical and bibliographical sketch of every important author, to offer representative extracts of what there is best in the language in such a manner as to[Pg vi] give a correct idea of the evolution of Russian Literature from its remotest time. The selections have been chosen so as to illustrate certain important historical events, and will be found of use also to the historical student.

In the preparation of this work, I have availed myself of many native sources, to which I shall express my indebtedness by a general declaration that I have with profit perused the monumental works of Pýpin and the authors on whom he has drawn in the preparation of his history of Russian Literature. To give variety, I have reproduced such of the existing translations as are less objectionable. In my own translations, for which alone I am responsible, I have attempted to render minutely the originals, with their different styles, not excepting their very imperfections, such as characterise particularly the writers of the eighteenth century. Only where the diction is inexpressibly crude, as in Pososhkóv’s writings, or the text corrupt, as in the Word of Ígor’s Armament, have I made slight deviations for the sake of clearness.

Russian words are transliterated differently by every translator: some attempt to give English equivalents, which, even if they were correctly chosen (they seldom are), cannot possibly give an idea of the phonetic values in Russian; others follow the simpler method of an etymological transliteration of letter by letter, but needlessly encumber the words with diacritical marks and difficult consonant combinations. The method pursued here, though far from ideal, recommends itself for its simplicity. Where the Russian and English alphabets are practically identical, the corresponding letters are used; in the other cases, the combinations are made with h, for which there is no corresponding sound in Russian; for the guttural vowel y is used, which does also the duty of the English y in yes. There can be no confusion between the two, as the guttural y before or after a vowel is extremely rare. It is useless for anyone without oral instruction to try to pronounce Russian words as the natives do. The nearest approach will be attained if the consonants be pronounced

as in English (g always hard, zh as z in azure, r always rolled, kh, guttural like German ch in ach), and the vowels[Pg vii] always open as in Italian (a as a in far, e as e in set, o as o in obey, or a little longer when accented, u as oo in foot, or a little longer when accented, y between consonants is guttural, which it is useless to attempt and had better be pronounced like i: i. e., like i in machine or bit, according to the accent). The accents are indicated throughout the work. Accented é is frequently pronounced as yó, but it would be useless to indicate all such cases. It has not been found practicable to spell Russian names uniformly when their English forms are universally accepted.

It will not be uninteresting to summarise all that Englishmen and Americans have done to acquaint their countrymen with the language and literature of Russia.

When Russia was rediscovered by England in the middle of the sixteenth century and the Muscovy Company established itself at Moscow, there was naturally a demand for Englishmen who could speak Russian. There are frequent references in native reports to Englishmen who spoke and wrote Russian fluently and who were even used as ambassadors to the Muscovite Tsars. It was also an Englishman, Richard James, who, in 1619, made the first collection of Russian popular songs. In 1696, the first Russian grammar was published by the Oxford University Press, though its author, Ludolf, was not an Englishman by birth. In the eighteenth century, there seems to have been in England no interest in Russia except as to its religion, which received consideration from certain divines. An exception must be made in the case of W. Coxe, who in his Travels in Poland, Russia, Sweden and Denmark, 1st edition, London, 1784, gave an excellent account of Russian Literature from German and French sources. In 1821, Sir John Bowring startled his countrymen with his Specimens of the Russian Poets, which

for the first time revealed to them the existence of a promising literature. Though his knowledge of Russian was quite faulty, as his translations prove, yet he put the poems into such pleasing verses that they became deservedly popular. A second edition followed the same year, and a second part two years later.

[Pg viii]

The impulse given by Sir John Bowring found a ready response in the periodic press of that time. In 1824 the Westminster Review brought out an article on Politics and Literature of Russia, which gave a short review of eighteenth-century literature. In 1827, R. P. Gillies gave a good sketch of Russian Literature in vol. i of the Foreign Quarterly Review, based on the Russian work of Grech. The same year, the Foreign Review brought out a short account, and the next year an elaborate article on Russian Literature and Poetry, also after Grech, which for some decades formed the basis of all the articles and chapters dealing with the same subject in the English language. The Foreign Quarterly Review brought out similar matter in vol. viii, xxi, xxiii, xxix, xxx. But more interesting than these, which are nearly all fashioned after some Russian articles, are the excellent literary notes in every number, that kept the readers informed on the latest productions that appeared in Russia. There seems hardly to have been a public for these notes in England, and indeed they get weaker with

the twenty-fourth volume, and die of inanity in the thirtieth. This early period of magazine articles is brought to an end by Russian Literary Biography, in vol. xxxvi (1841) of the Westminster Review.

The example set by Sir John Bowring found several imitators. We have several anthologies, generally grouping themselves around Púshkin, for the first half of the century: W. H. Saunders, Poetical Translations from the Russian Language, London, 1826; [George Borrow], The Talisman, with Other Pieces, St. Petersburg, 1835; W. D. Lewis, The Bakchesarian Fountain, and Other Poems, Philadelphia, 1849. The Foreign Quarterly Review brought out in 1832 translations from Bátyushkov, Púshkin, and Rylyéev, and in Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine for 1845 T. B. Shaw gave some excellent translations of Púshkin’s poems. Other articles, treating individual authors, will be mentioned in their respective places.

While these meagre accounts of Russian Literature, at second hand, and the scanty anthologies were appearing,[Pg ix] there was published in the Biblical Repository of Andover, Mass., in 1834, the remarkable work by Talvi, the wife of Dr. Edward Robinson, entitled: Historical View of the Languages and Literatures of the Slavic Nations, and this was republished in book-form, and enlarged, in New York, in 1850. Though there existed some special works by Slavic scholars, Talvi’s was the first to encompass the whole field in a scholarly and yet popular manner. It is authoritative even now in many departments that have not been overthrown by later investigations, and it is a matter of surprise that none of the later English writers should have based their Russian Literatures on this important work, or should have proceeded in the path of Slavic studies which she had so beautifully inaugurated. There is no excuse for G. Cox’s translation of F. Otto’s History of Russian Literature, with a Lexicon of Russian Authors, which appeared at Oxford

in 1839, and adds a number of its own inaccuracies to the blunders of the German original. Nor is there any notice taken of Talvi in [C. F. Henningsen’s] Eastern Europe and the Emperor Nicholas, London, 1846, which gives a chapter on Russian Literature, mainly on Púshkin.

In the sixties W. R. Morfill began to translate some poems from the Russian, and towards the end of that decade, but especially in the next, Ralston published his excellent studies on the Folksongs and Folktales and Krylóv, and in the Contemporary Review, vols. xxiii and xxvii, two articles on the Russian Idylls. The magazines that in the seventies reviewed Russian Literature got everything at second hand, and are of little value: National Quarterly Review, vol. xxiv (1872); Catholic World, vol. xxi (1875); Harper’s Magazine, 1878. Of books there were issued: Sutherland Edwards’s The Russians at Home, London, 1861, a very useful work for contemporary literature, and F. R. Grahame’s The Progress of Science, Art and Literature in Russia, London [1865], which contains a great deal of interesting material badly arranged and ill-digested. The chapter on Literature in O. W. Wahl’s The Land of the Czar, London, 1875, is unimportant.

[Pg x]

Since the eighties there have appeared a number of translations from good foreign authors bearing on Russian Literature: Ernest Dupuy, The Great Masters of Russian Literature in the Nineteenth Century, translated by N. H. Dole, New York [1886]; E. M. de Vogüé, The Russian Novelists, translated by J. L. Edmands, Boston [1887]; Dr. George Brandes, Impressions of Russia, translated by S. C. Eastman, New York, 1889; E. P. Bazán, Russia: Its People and its Literature, translated by F. H. Gardiner, Chicago, 1890.

The following more or less original works will be found useful: W. R. Morfill, Slavonic Literature, London, 1883, and The Story of Russia, New York and London, 1890; also his The Peasant Poets of Russia (Reprint from Westminster Review), London, 1880; C. E. Turner, Studies in Russian Literature, London, 1882, and before, in Fraser’s Magazine for 1877; Ivan Panin, Lectures in Russian Literature, New York and London, 1889; Memorials of a Short Life: A Biographical Sketch of W. F. A. Gaussen (chapter on The Russian People and their Literature), London, 1895; Prince Serge Wolkonsky, Pictures of Russian History and Russian Literature (Lowell Lectures), Boston, New York and London, 1897; K. Waliszewski, A History of Russian Literature, New York, 1900, but this work must be used with extreme caution, on account of the many inaccuracies it contains. W. M. Griswold’s Tales Dealing with Life in Russia, Cambridge, 1892, is a fair bibliography of all the prose translations that have appeared in the English language before 1892. But few anthologies have of late seen daylight: C. T. Wilson,

Russian Lyrics in English Verse, London, 1887; John Pollen, Rhymes from the Russian, London, 1891 (a good little book); E. L. Voynich, The Humour of Russia, London and New York, 1895. The periodical “Free Russia,” published in London since 1890, contains some good translations from various writers and occasionally some literary essay; but the most useful periodic publication is “The Anglo-Russian Literary Society,” published in London since 1892, and containing valuable information on literary subjects,[Pg xi] especially modern, and a series of good translations from contemporary poets. Nor must one overlook the articles in the encyclopedias, of which those in Johnson’s Cyclopedia are especially good.

Very exhaustive statements of the modern literary movement in Russia appear from year to year in the Athenæum. More or less good articles on modern literature, mainly the novel, have appeared since 1880 in the following volumes of the periodical press: Academy, xxi and xxiii; Bookman, viii; Chautauquan, viii and xxii; Critic, iii; Current Literature, xxii; Dial, xx; Eclectic Magazine, cxv; Forum, xxviii; Leisure Hours, ccccxxv; Lippincott’s, lviii; Literature, i; Living Age, clxxxv; Nation, lxv; Public Opinion, xx; Publisher’s Weekly, liv; Temple Bar, lxxxix.

In conclusion, I desire to express my gratitude to my friends and colleagues who have aided me in this work: to Prof. A. C. Coolidge, for leaving at my disposal his collection of translations from the Russian, and for many valuable hints; to Dr. F. N. Robinson, for reading a number of my translations; to Prof. G. L. Kittredge, to whom is largely due whatever literary merit there may be in the introductory chapters and in the biographical sketches. I also take this occasion to thank all the publishers and authors from whose copyrighted works extracts have been quoted with their permission.

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A SKETCH OF RUSSIAN LITERATURE

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I.—THE OLDEST PERIOD

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Of the many Slavic nations and tribes that at one time occupied the east of Europe from the Elbe and the headwaters of the Danube to Siberia, and from the Ionic Sea to the Baltic and White Seas, some have entirely disappeared in the ruthless struggle with a superior German civilisation; others, like the Bulgarians and Servians, have paled into insignificance under the lethargic influence of the Crescent, to be fanned to life again within the memory of the present generation by a breath of national consciousness, which is the result of the Romantic Movement in European literature; others again like the Bohemians and Poles, rent asunder by fraternal discord and anarchy, have forfeited their national existence and are engaged in an unequal battle to regain it. Of all the Slavs, Russia alone has steadily gathered in the lands of the feudal lords, to shine at last as a power of the first magnitude among the sisterhood of states, and to scintillate hope to its racial brothers as the “Northern Star.”

The unity of the Russian land was ever present to the minds of the writers in the earliest days of the appanages. The bard of the Word of Ígor’s Armament and Daniel the Palmer made appeals to the whole country and prayed for all the princes in the twelfth century, and for upwards of four centuries Moscow has been the centre towards which the outlying districts have been gravitating. Yet, in spite of so continuous and well-defined a political tendency, Russia is the last of the Slavic nations to have evolved a literature worthy of the name. Bohemia had a brilliant literature[Pg 4] of the Western stamp as early as the thirteenth century; Bulgaria had made a splendid start three centuries before, under the impulse of the newly introduced religion; the Servian city of Ragusa, receiving its intellectual leaven from its Italian vicinage, invested Petrarch and Dante with Servian citizenship in the fifteenth century, and, shortly after, gloried in an epic of a Gundulić, and in a whole galaxy of writers; Poland borrowed its theology from Bohemia, took

an active part in the medieval Latin literature, and boasted a golden age for its native language in the sixteenth century. Russia produced an accessible literature only in the second half of the eighteenth century, became known to Western Europe not earlier than the second quarter of the next, and had not gained universal recognition until within the last twenty-five years.

In the case of the Western and Southern Slavs, a community of interests, whether religious or social, has led to an intellectual intercourse with their neighbours, from whom they have received their models for imitation or adaptation. Without a favourable geographical position, or some common bond with the external world, no nation can have a healthy development, especially in the incipient stage of its political existence. Blatant Slavophiles of fifty years ago heaped reproach on the reforms of Peter the Great, on the ground that they were fashioned upon Western ideals, and that he had retarded the evolution of Russia according to its inherent Slavic idea. There still survive men of that persuasion, though a comparative study of Russian literature long ago demonstrated that every step in advance has been made by conscious or unconscious borrowings from abroad. If there was a Russian literature previous to the introduction of Christianity, it certainly stood in some kind of relation to the literatures of the neighbours. The few extant treaties

with the Greeks for that period show unmistakable Byzantine influences, and the Russian Code of Yarosláv, with its purely Norse laws, dates from a time when the Varyágs had not yet disappeared in the mass of the Slavic majority.

With the introduction of Christianity, Russia, instead of[Pg 5] entering into closer communion with the rest of the world, was separated from it even more securely than before, and soon after, an intellectual stagnation began that lasted very nearly to the end of the seventeenth century. Various causes combined to produce this singular effect. Chief of these was its geographical position. Living in the vast eastern plain of Europe, which in itself would have been productive of a larger life, the Russian tribes had civilised neighbours on one side only. On the north they were separated from the Swedes by rude Finnish tribes; on the south, they had for centuries to contend against all the nomads, Pechenyégs, Cumanians, Khazars, who slowly proceeded from Asia to central Europe to become lost in the nations to the south of the Carpathians and in the Balkan peninsula; in the east the Finns of the north met the Tartars of the south, and behind them lay unprofitable Asia. On the north-west, it is true, was the civilised Teutonic Order, but the inveterate hatred between these Germans