A Note on Russian Studies
A few days ago—I am writing on the 7th of August, 1916—I read in the Times a long speech by one of our preter-pluperfect rulers, announcing the determination of the Government to encourage the study of Russian, on account of its glorious literature. I think the adjective was “glorious,” but, at any rate, it was some such word. Was there ever a better example of the danger of giving reasons? Had this illustrious gentleman deigned to glance at some such easily accessible book as Mr. Maurice Baring’s delightful little “Outline of Russian Literature,” he would have been saved from talking such nonsense.
We are told that upon one occasion Dr. Johnson declared that he could quote by heart a whole chapter of the Natural History of Iceland from the Danish of Horreboro, and immediately proceeded to show that it was no vain boast.
Chapter LXXII, Concerning Snakes.
There are no snakes to be met with throughout the whole island.
At the beginning of the nineteenth century literature in Russia was like the snakes in Iceland. Nor can it be said that the new development which took place early in that century was a rinascimento such as sprang into being in Italy, in France and in England. A new birth implies a previous state of existence, and it cannot be said that the old chronicles which the dryasdusts of Kiev—the old head-quarters of such monkish learning as existed—still less a few embryonic attempts at versification and dramatic writing, could be dignified by the inspiring title of literature. “The Russian language”—to quote Mr. Baring—“was, as has been said, like an instrument waiting for a great player to play on it, and to make use of all its possibilities.” The fables of Kryloff—a playwright whose dramas have long since been forgotten—were published in 1806, and these remain a classic. Out of the two hundred fables which he left at his death in 1844, forty were translations, or, rather, “recreations,” as Mr. Baring puts it, of La Fontaine; seven were suggested by Aesop; the remainder were original. As in all fables, these contain an element of satire; that here and there the satire should be tinged with even a spice of political acidity did not hinder their popularity. I should like to say, in passing, that the few pages which Mr. Baring devotes to his account of Krylov contain passages of great beauty—passages which could only have been written by a man gifted with the keenest appreciation of the poetry which is part of himself.
It was in 1816, that with Karamzin’s monumental work, “The Chronicles of Russia,” the literature of that country burst into existence, like Pallas Athene fully armed from the head of Zeus. “Not only were the undreamed-of riches of the Russian language revealed to the Russians in the style, but the subject matter came as a surprise.” Pushkin, the greatest Russian poet that ever lived, or probably ever will live, was the next great star that appeared upon the firmament, and he declared that Karamzin had revealed Russia to the Russians, just as Columbus discovered America. To Karamzin’s glorious prose and to Pushkin’s immortal verse belong the first honours in the belles-lettres of Russia.
Fifty years and more have passed since I read Gogol’s “Dead Souls” in the original. The strivings and hard work of a somewhat strenuous life have swept away the little that I knew of Russian authors and literature. I am now obliged to walk upon the crutches of translations, though now and then a faint memory is in some mysterious way awakened, and the interest, at any rate, has not faded.
Such names as Turgeniev, whom I once met, Dostoieffski, and the two Tolstoys, have still a magic charm for me. Besides, all the world can prate of them. Of the host of lesser novelists, mostly translated by ladies, in my judgment the less said the better. The work of obviously coarse, uninstructed men, they often, both in their narration and in their imagery, deal with subjects which are unwholesome and which common consent rejects as unsuitable. Literature does not scramble about in midden heaps.
And the great ones—what is their place in the history of the world’s achievements? I very much doubt whether there be any among the most patriotic enthusiasts who would claim even for his beloved Pushkin a seat on Parnassus beside Homer, Virgil, Dante, Shakespeare, Milton, Goethe, Voltaire. That Karamzin’s prose was of the very first order is proved by Pushkin’s appreciation of him. Unfortunately it can only appeal to a very small public. Twelve volumes of chronicles, essential to the Russian student of his own country’s story, will hardly be faced by the average foreigner.
Pushkin’s activities were phenomenal. That in the thirty-seven years of his tragically short life he should have wrought what he did, and that he should have been so uniformly good, invests him with a glamour which is all his own. He was a meteor, and, like a meteor, he appeared as it were for a moment in the sky, and then vanished into space. And yet half a century ago, among the men who were the leaders of thought in Petersburg, there was far less talk of Pushkin than there was of Dante, Shakespeare, or Voltaire—not to speak of many other foreign authors.
It has taken many years to create the revival of the interest of Russians in Russian work. It has come at last, and now the only danger is lest, under much flattery and patting on the back from abroad, the true advance of public taste should not be rather hindered than furthered. Pushkin, be it remembered, was highly cultivated, a man of wide reading. He recognized the fact that in order to write well a man must read well, and study the best models. Some of his criticisms of Shakespeare and of Byron, under whose influence he was until Shakespeare dethroned his idol, are masterpieces.
It seems to me that the State encouragement of Russian studies will be of high value as promoting facility of intercourse—especially in the case of the Services, naval, military and civil. A far higher, even world-wide importance attaches to the establishment of schools of modern languages all over Russia. It is of less moment that the literature of Russia, in its present condition, should travel westward than that the literature of the West should gradually influence the mind of the Slav. Just as in music the wild barbaric outbursts of his gayer moods, the tender sadness of his dirges, have been enshrined in the harmonies of his own classic masters without losing one spark of their fire, one sob of their pathos, so the untutored writer of to-day, chastened by study, will be able to give us the freshness and zest of a life which is not ours, shorn of all its crudities, not to give them a worse name. Let me not be misunderstood. What I think is of consequence is that the startling audacity, the rough ore of the Slav mind, should be passed through the purifying furnace of the higher education it was in Pushkin’s case—all honour to him—and then you will have something worthy of the praise which is being rained upon the shameless translations by ladies, themselves ill-equipped by classic culture, of the cubism of literary art.