RUSSIAN LITERATURE.*

ENGLISH readers have had to wait a long time for a fall and authoritative history of Russian literature. Of partial studies, dealing with individual authors and schools, not a few have appeared, for the most part in translations, and during the last few years two or three valuable summaries of the literature as a whole have been written in English. But so far no English student of Russian literature has treated the subject with the authority and searching penetration that distinguish every page of Professor Briickner's Geschichte der russischen Literatur. Mr, Fisher TJnwin has therefore been well advised in including this work in his "Library of Literary History," where it can fraternise with another translated masterpiece, The Literary History of France, by M. Emile Faguet.

At the outset of his work Professor Bruckner remarks with

perfect truth that "a knowledge of the conditions under which the modern Russian spirit (Reassentunt) has developed is an indispensable preliminary to a just appreciation of its literature." This, of course, may be said of any literature, but it applies with special force to the literature of Russia. Elsewhere literature is but one of several means of expression ; in Russia it has been the one voice of a country's aspirations, too often a voice broken with tears, the cry of a nation's soul. "Hence," says Professor Bruckner, "the striking partiality, nay, unfairness, displayed by Russians towards the most perfect works of their own literature where these did not answer to the aims or the expectations of their party or their day. A purely aesthetic handling of the subject would not gain it full acceptance." Of what other country's literature can this be said P To attempt to understand the political and cultural history of Russia during the nineteenth century without having read deeply in the works of its novel-writers, its essayists, its dramatists, and its poets were as futile as to attempt to write the history of England during the saint. period without glancing at a single newspaper.

Professor Bruckner, as a Pole, might naturally be expected to show a bias in his treatment of the early period of Russian history, in which Poland played so prominent a part. This bias exists, but is not allowed to disable seriously the' historian's judgment. We have here no mere catalogue of authors' names with summaries of and quotations from their works. Such a catalogue has a value of its own, but our author has a higher aim. It is the history of Russian culture, of the gradual freeing of the Russian mind from its bonds, that he undertakes to write. He points out causes and influences, giving to each its due weight ; he follows the main current of the national mental life, with occasional excursions into the affluents.

The author devotes only sixty pages, or but one-ninth part of the whole book, to the literary history of Russia up to the end of the seventeenth century, but in these sixty pages he gives a masterly survey of origins, passing in review the early promise of the Russian communities, their decay under the Tartar-Mongol Empire, the rise of the Moscow despotism on the ruins of that Empire, the incredible stagnation of thought, the blighting influence of a Church enslaved to the temporal power, and at last the first glimmer of light filtering in from the West. "Byzantine observance of forme in religion and knowledge, blind senseless obedience to every command or arbitrariness, the killing of all pride or higher feeling and the tabooing of all thought," such were the guiding principles of Russian autocracy in State and Church up to the end of the seventeenth century. Before this, literature can hardly be said to have existed at all in the Muscovite borders, unless we dignify with the name a few uncouth translations and adapta- tions of Polish translations and adaptations of Western originals. If a Russian desired knowledge, he had to know Polish ; and Kiev then, and for some time afterwards, was the chief channel of Western culture. Professor Briickner enables us to realise very clearly the nature of the gigantic task undertaken by Peter the Great, conditioned by the intel- lectual narrowness and arrogance of the higher clergy, the • A Li ',vary History of Bustin. By A. Brilekner, Professor of Slavonia Languages and Literature in the University of Berlin. Edited by Ellis H. Minns, M.A. Translated by H. Havelock, ?LA. London : T. Risher Unwin. [12s. 61. net.]

barbaric apathy of nobles and peasants alike. Peter's reforms, however, merely followed paths already opened; it was the frantic pace he set that permanently strained the social fabric. He did not merely pour wine into old skins, he pumped it in.

The upper class, previously one with the lower in spirit and traditions, was now squeezed into a foreign mould, and hence- forth a chasm yawned between the official and the peasant. To this day there are two distinct races among the Russians themselves, apart from aliens. As our author points out, Peter's interest in literature was crudely practical; hence little

else but translations of Western books were produced, on subjects which Peter thought of prime importance for his plans, such as political history and applied science. Belles- lettres he ignored, save that he turned the drama to account after a fashion of his own. "Thus the first quarter of the

century was a mere period of transition which only laid the foundation for the mental emancipation of Russia" (p. 67).

Our author's account of the awakening of men's minds to realities as well as to new forms in the reign of Catherine II.

is one of the best parts of the book. The unique personality of this ruler impressed itself powerfully on the literature of her reign. For, like her contemporary, Frederick the Great, she herself wrote literature, which, indeed, she valued for its influence on life. " The Mother of her Country," says Professor Bruckner, "differed from Peter in this respect, that she not only executed acts of state but also wrote of them." Of her use of the drama our author says:—

" Her comedies against the Freemasons are not merely the comical sallies of a reformer a la Nicolai at Berlin, but also the dull rolling of a storm which will soon break over the heads of the unfortunates; they proclaim the approach of the examining judge; behind the mere words stands genuine and boundless power" (p. 94).

What a ruler and what a people! An interesting fact is noted by Professor Briickner concerning the literature of the eighteenth century; much of it was circulated in manuscript among the authors' friends and sympathisers, and if printed at all, saw the light only after many years. The summing up of the tendencies and achievements in literature of the eighteenth century (pp. 135-38) is a model of what such a summary should be. "Enlightenment, humaneness, and virtue were taught by Catherine, as by the Freemasons ; Obscurantists and Slavophils had not raised their beads."

Our author has no love for Slavophils. It was an age of optimism, uncritical and imitative. "Literature was eliminated from general life and confined to a small circle, and really floated in the air, having struck no root in national soil" (p. 136). For a long time to come writers, who belonged almost exclusively to the upper class, were averse from publi- cation, regarding the profession of letters as beneath the dignity of a well-born man. A similar attitude is met with in our own literature just before the Elizabethan age.

We have dwelt on the earlier period of Russian literary history because it is less familiar to the general reader and is quite exceptionally well treated by Professor Bruckner. For the nineteenth century our guides are fairly numerous and not a few are trustworthy, but here, too, the Berlin Professor says the last and the weightiest word. The great writers appear in their true perspective. Pushkin, Nekrasov, Tar- genev, Tolstoi, and many another are seen to be not artists living for their art alone, but utterers of their country's longing for freedom, of its discouragement and its shame. So long as the state of Russia is rotten and the times out of joint, its literature will be quite different from that of other European countries. In this difference lies its overmastering charm, and happy the man who has the key to it.

The translation which we are reviewing is on the whole close, following the original with almost canine fidelity. It bears, however, numerous marks of baste. A careful revision would have removed many slight but irritating awkward- nesses of expression and lapses in translation and orthography. We give a few specimens of those occurring in the first hundred pages. On p. 47 " theokratisch " is rendered " theoretical " ; on p. 31 " unmoralisch " is

rendered by "immoral," whereas on p. 83 "Unmoral" is correctly translated "non-morality." We object to some renderings,—e.g., "Kreml " for the usual "Kremlin" (p. 41, el al.); "Middle Age" for "mediaeval" (p. 44); "pathos," "pathetic" for the German "Pathos," "pathetisch " (a common error); further, on p. 46, we find " Kievite," but on the following page " Kievans." Professor Bruckner writes (p. 41): "Anekdoten meist aus dam klassischen Altertum des Budny" ; the English version has : "anecdotes from the Classical Antiquity of Budny." Again, in speaking of Peter the Great, the German author writes: "Er konnte Heere europeisch eindrillen und Flotten aus dem Meerboden stampfen." This appears in the English as : "He could drill armies in the European fashion and stamp fleets out of the surface of the sea" (our italics). Even Peter was hardly equal to this feat. The editor, Mr. E. H. Minns, who, we understand, is, or was till recently, reader in Russian in Pembroke College, Cambridge, is responsible for a short introduction in the nature of a preface; for the accenting of the Russian names, which is done with accuracy, but in some cases omitted; for some half-dozen footnotes indicating English translations of Russian works ; and lastly, for verse renderings of the passages from Russian poets quoted in the text. These translations from the Russian originals are literal and bald, but the editor regards them as an improvement on the prose renderings in the German. A table of directions is given for pronouncing Russian names, but the directions might have been clearer. Take this for example : "r, strongly trilled, when soft between r and y, but not like ry." The index is meagre, as indexes so often are, and lacks the distinction which the inclusion of such names as Pushkin and Chekhov would have lent it. As a frontispiece a beautiful reproduction in colours is given of an illuminated page of the Ostromir Gospels MS., representing the Holy Ghost appearing to Luke in the form of a calf.

In spite of some signs of baste in its production, this translation will be warmly welcomed by that large circle of readers whose appetite for Russian literature has been sharpened by the excellent translations of the works of the great Russian novelists that have recently appeared, and will, we hope, go on appearing. It will take rank as the standard history of Russian literature in English until an Englishman, or, rather, an English-speaking man (or woman), shall do something as good or better, if better be possible.