QUESTIONS FOR REVIEW

"There was once a Skinflint, who had a vast amount of money.And, as he was wont to say, he had grown rich,Not by crooked deeds. Not by stealing or ruining men.No, he took his oath to that: That God had sent all this wealth to his house,And that he feared not, in the least, to be convicted of injustice towards his neighbor.And to please the Lord for this, His mercy,And to incline Him unto favors in time to come—Or, possibly, just to soothe his conscience—The Skinflint took it into his head to build a house for the poor.The house was built, and almost finished. My Skinflint, gazing at it,Beside himself with joy, cheers up and reasons with himself.How great a service he to the poor hath rendered, in ordering a refuge to be built for them!Thus was my Skinflint inwardly exulting over his house.Then one of his acquaintances chanced along.The Skinflint said, with rapture, to his friend,'I think a great lot of the poor can be housed here!''Of course, a great many can live here;But you cannot get in all whom you've sent wandering homeless o'er the earth!'"

One of Khémnitzer's most intimate friends, and also one of the most notable members of Derzhávin's circle (being related to the latter through his wife), was Vasíly Vasílievitch Kápnist (1757-1824), whose ancestors had been members of an Italian family, the Counts Capnissi. He owed his fame chiefly to his ode on "Slavery" (1783); to another, "On the Extirpation in Russia of the Vocation of Slave by the Empress Katherine II." (1786); and to a whole series celebrating the conquests of the Russian arms in Turkey and Italy. But far more important are his elegies and short lyrics, many of which are really very light and graceful; and his translations of "The Monument," from Horace, which was quite equal to Derzhávin's, or even Púshkin's. His masterpiece was the comedy "Yábeda" (Calumny), which was written probably at the end of Katherine's reign, and was printed under Paul I., in 1798. It contains a sharp condemnation of the morals in the provincial courts of justice, and of the incredible processes of chicanery and bribery through which every business matter was forced to pass. The types which Kápnist put on the stage, especially the pettifogger Právoloff, and the types of the presiding judge and members of the bench, were very accurately drawn, and can hardly fail to have been taken from life. Alarmed by the numerous persecutions of literary men which took place during the last years of Katherine II.'s reign, Kápnist dared not publish his comedy until the accession of theEmperor Paul I., when he dedicated it to the Emperor, and set forth in a poetical preface the entire harmlessness of his satire. But even this precaution was of no avail. The comedy created a tremendous uproar and outcry from officialdom in general; the Emperor was petitioned to prohibit the piece, and to administer severe punishment to the "unpatriotic" author. The Emperor is said to have taken the petition in good faith and to have ordered that Kápnist be dispatched forthwith to Siberia. But after dinner his wrath cooled (the petitioners had even declared that the comedy flagrantly jeered at the monarchical power), and he began to doubt the justice of his command. He ordered the piece to be played that very evening in the Hermitage Theater (in the Winter Palace). Only he and the Grand Duke Alexander (afterwards Alexander I.), were present at the performance. After the first act the Emperor, who had applauded incessantly, sent the first state courier he could put his hand on to bring Kápnist back on the instant. He richly rewarded the author on the latter's return, and showed him favor until he died. Another amusing testimony to the lifelikeness of Kápnist's types is narrated by an eye-witness. "I happened," says this witness, "in my early youth, to be present at a representation of 'Calumny' in a provincial capital; and when Khvatáïko (Grabber), sang,

'Take, there's no great art in that;Take whatever you can get;What are hands appended to us forIf not that we may take, take, take?'

all the spectators began to applaud, and many of them, addressing the official who occupied the post corresponding to that of Grabber, shouted his name in unison, and cried, 'That's you! That's you!'"

Towards the end of Katherine II.'s reign, a new school, which numbered many young writers, arose. At the head of it, by reason of his ability as a journalist, literary man, poet, and savant, stood Nikolái Mikháilovitch Karamzín (1766-1826). Karamzín was descended from a Tatár princeling, Karamurza, who accepted Christianity in the days of the Tzars of Moscow. He did much to disseminate in society a discriminating taste in literature, and more accurate views in regard to it. During the first half of his sixty years' activity—that under Katherine II.—he was a poet and literary man; during the latter and most considerable part of his career—under Alexander I.—he was a historian. His first work to win him great renown was his "Letters of a Russian Traveler," written after a trip lasting a year and a half to Germany, Switzerland, France, and England, begun in 1789, and published in the "Moscow Journal," which he established in 1791. For the next twelve years Karamzín devoted himself exclusively to journalism and literature. It was his most brilliant literary period, and during it his labors were astonishing in quantity and varied in subject, as the taste of the majority of readers in that period demanded. During this period he was not only a journalist, but also a poet, literary man, and critic. His poetical compositions are rather shallow, and monotonous in form, but were highly esteemed by his contemporaries. They are interesting at the present day chiefly because of their historical and biographical details, as a chronicle of history, and of the heart of a profoundly sincere man. Their themes are, generally, the love of nature, of country life,friendship; together with gentleness, sensibility, melancholy, scorn for rank and wealth, dreams of immortality with posterity. His greatest successes with the public were secured by "Poor Liza," and "Natálya, the Boyár's Daughter," which served as much-admired models for sentimentalism to succeeding generations. Sentimentality was no novelty in Russia; it had come in with translations from English novels, such as Richardson's "Clarissa Harlowe," and the like; and imitations of them in Russia. "Sensibility" was held to be the highest quality in human nature, and a man's—much more a woman's—worth was measured by the amount of "sensibility" he or she possessed. This new school paid scant heed to the observation and study of real life. An essential tenet in the cult consisted of a glorification of the distant past, "the good old times," adorned by fancy, as the ideal model for the present; the worship of the poor but honest country folk, the ideal of equality, freedom, happiness, and nearness to nature.

Of this style, Karamzín's "Poor Liza" is the most perfect and admired specimen. Liza, a poor country lass, is "beautiful in body and soul," supremely gifted with tenderness and sensibility. Erást, a wealthy noble, possessed of exceptional brains and a kind heart, but weak and trifling by nature, falls in love with her. He begins to dream of the idyllic past, "in which people strolled, care-free, through the meadows, bathed in crystal clear pools, kissed like turtle-doves, reposed amid roses and myrtle, and passed their days in happy idleness." So he feels himself summoned to the embrace of nature, and determines to abandon the high society, for a while at least. He even goes so far as to assure Liza that it ispossible for him to marry her, despite the immense difference in their social stations; that "an innocent soul, gifted with sensibility, is the most important thing of all, and Liza will ever be the nearest of all persons to his heart." But he betrays her, involuntarily. When she becomes convinced of his treachery, she throws herself into a pond hard by, beneath the ancient oaks which but a short time before had witnessed their joys.

"Natálya, the Boyár's Daughter," is a glorification of a fanciful past, far removed from reality, in which "Russians were Russians"; and against this background, Karamzín sets a tale, even simpler and more innocent, of the love of Natálya and Alexéi, with whom Natálya falls in love, "in one minute, on beholding him for the first time, and without ever having heard a single word about him." These stories, and Karamzín's "Letters of a Russian Traveler," already referred to, had an astonishing success; people even learned them by heart, and the heroes of them became the favorite ideals of the young; while the pool where Liza was represented as having drowned herself (near the Simónoff Monastery, in the suburbs of Moscow) became the goal for the rambles of those who were also "gifted with sensibility." The appearance of these tales is said to have greatly increased the taste for reading in society, especially among women.

Although Karamzín did not possess the gift of artistic creation, and although the imaginative quality is very deficient in his works, his writings pleased people as the first successful attempts at light literature. In his assumption that people should write as they talked, Karamzín entirely departed from Lomonósoff's canons as to the three styles permissible, and thereby imparted the finalimpulse to the separation of the Russian literary language from the bookish, Church-Slavonic diction. His services in the reformation and improvement of the Russian literary language were very important, despite the violent opposition he encountered from the old conservative literary party.6

When Alexander I. ascended the throne, in 1801, Karamzín turned his attention to history. In 1802 he founded the "European Messenger" (which is still the leading monthly magazine of Russia), and began to publish in it historical articles which were, in effect, preparatory to his extended and famous "History of the Russian Empire," published in 1818, fine in style, but not accurate, in the modern sense of historical work.

Karamzín's nearest followers, the representatives of the sentimental tendency in literature, and of the writers who laid the foundations for the new literary language and style, were Dmítrieff and Ózeroff.

Iván Ivánovitch Dmítrieff (1760-1810), and Vladisláff Alexándrovitch Ózeroff (1769-1816), both enjoyed great fame in their day. Dmítrieff, while under the guidance of Karamzín, making sentimentalism the ruling feature in Russian epic and lyric poetry, perfected both the general style of Russian verse, and the material of the light, poetical language. Ózeroff, under the same influence and tendency, aided in the final banishment from the Russian stage of pseudo-classical ideals and dramatic compositions constructed according to theoretical rules. Dmítrieff'smost prominent literary work was a translation of La Fontaine's Fables, and some satirical writings. Ózeroff, in 1798, put on the stage his first, and not entirely successful, tragedy, "Yáropolk and Olég."7His most important work, both from the literary and the historical points of view—although not so regarded by his contemporaries—was his drama "Fingal," founded on Ossian's Songs, and is a triumph of northern poetry and of the Russian tongue, rich in picturesqueness, daring, and melody. His contemporaries regarded "Dmítry Donskóy" as his masterpiece, although in reality it is one of the least noteworthy of his compositions, and it enjoyed a brilliant success.

But the most extreme and talented disciples of the Karamzín school were Vasíly Andréevitch Zhukóvsky (1783-1852) and Konstantín Nikoláevitch Bátiushkoff (1786-1855), who offer perfectly clear examples of the transition from the sentimental to the new romantic school, which began with Púshkin. Everything of Zhukóvsky's that was original, that is to say, not translated, was an imitation, either of the solemn, bombastic productions of the preceding poets of the rhetorical school, or of the tender, dreamy, melancholy works of the sentimental school, until he devoted himself to translations from the romantic German and English schools. He was not successful in his attempts to create original Russian work in the romantic vein; and his chief services to Russian literature (despite the great figure he played in it during his day) must be regarded as having consisted in giving romanticism a chance to establish itself firmly on Russian soil; and in having, by his splendid translations, among them Schiller's "Maid of Orleans," Byron's "The Prisoner of Chillon," and de la Mott Fouqué's "Undine," brought Russian literature into close relations with a whole mass of literary models, enlarged the sphere of literary criticism, and definitively deprived pseudo-classical theories and models of all force and influence.

Zhukóvsky's own history and career were romantic. He was the son of a wealthy landed proprietor named Búnin, who already had eleven children; when his peasants, on setting out for Rumyántzoff's army as sutlers, asked their owner, "What shall we bring thee from the Turkish land, little father?" Búnin replied, in jest, "Bring me a couple of pretty Turkish lasses; you see my wife is growing old." The peasants took him at his word, and brought two young Turkish girls, who had been captured at thesiegeof Bender. The elder, Salkha, aged sixteen, first served as nurse to Búnin's daughters. In 1783, shortly after seven of his children had died within a short time of each other, she bore him a son, who was adopted by one of his friends, a member of the petty nobility, Búnin's daughter standing as godmother to the child, and his wife receiving it into the family, and rearing it like a son, in memory of her dead, only son. This baby was the future poet Zhukóvsky. When Búnin died, he bequeathed money to the child, and his widow and daughters gave him the best of educations. Zhukóvsky began to print bits of melancholy poetry while he was still at the university preparatory school. When he became closely acquainted with Karamzín (1803-1804), he came under the latter's influence so strongly that the stamp remained upon all the productions of the first half of his career, the favorite "Svyetlána" (Amaryllis), written in 1811, being a specimen. In 1812 Zhukóvsky served in the army, andwrote his poem "The Bard in the Camp of the Russian Warriors,"8which brought him more fame than all his previous work, being adapted to the spirit of the time, and followed it up with other effusions, which made much more impression on his contemporaries than they have on later readers. But even in his most brilliant period, the great defect of Zhukóvsky's poetry was a total lack of coloring or close connection with the Russian soil, which he did not understand, and did not particularly love. His poetical "Epistle to Alexander I. after the Capture of Paris, in 1824," he sent in manuscript to the Emperor's mother, the Empress Márya Feódorovna. The result was, that the Empress ordered it printed in luxurious style, at government expense, had him presented to her, and made him her reader. He was regarded as a great poet, became a close friend of the imperial family, tutor to the Grand Duchess Alexándra Feódorovna (wife of Nikolái Pávlovitch, afterwards the Emperor Nicholas I.), and his fortune was assured. His career during the last twenty-five years of his life, beginning with 1817, belongs to history rather than to literature. In 1853, wealthy, loaded with imperial favors, richly pensioned, he went abroad, and settled in Baden-Baden, where he married (being at the time sixty years of age, while his bride was nineteen), and never returned to Russia. During the last eleven years of his semi-invalid life, with disordered nerves, he approached very close to mysticism.9

Bátiushkoff, as a poet, was the exact opposite of Zhukóvsky, being the first to grasp the real significance of the mood of the ancient classical poets, and to appropriate not only their views on life and enjoyment, but even their plastic and thoroughly artistic mode of expression. While Zhukóvsky removed poetry from earth and rendered it ethereal, Bátiushkoff fixed it to earth and gave it a body, demonstrating all the entrancing charm of tangible reality. Yet, in language, point of view, and literary affiliations, he belongs, like Zhukóvsky, to the school of Karamzín. But his versification, his subject-matter are entirely independent of all preceding influences. In beauty of versification and plastic worth, Bátiushkoff had no predecessors in Russian literature, and no competitors in the school of Karamzín. He was of ancient, noble family, well educated, and began to publish at the age of eighteen.

We now come, chronologically, to a writer who cannot be assigned either to the old sentimental school of Karamzín, or to the new romantic school of which Púshkin was the first and greatest exponent in Russian literature; to a man who stood apart, in a lofty place, all his own, both during his lifetime and in all Russian literary history; whose name is known to every Russian who can read and write, and whose work enjoys in Russia that popularity which the Odyssey did among the ancient Greeks. Iván Andréevitch Krylóff (1763-1844) began his literary work almost simultaneously with Karamzín, but was not, in the slightest degree, influenced by the style which the latter introduced into Russian literature; and bore himself in no less distant and hostile a manner to the rising romantic school of Púshkin. He was the son of an army officer, who was afterwards in the civil service, a very competent, intelligent man, who left his family in dire poverty at his death. At the age of fifteen, Krylóff produced his first, and very creditable, specimen of his future talent, though obliged, by extreme need, to enter government service at the age of fourteen, at his father's death. He filled several positions in different places at a very meager salary, until the death of his mother (1788), when he resigned and determined to devote himself exclusively to literature. He engaged in journalistic work, became an editor, and soon published a paper of his own. But his real sphere was that of fabulist. In 1803 he offered his first three fables, partly translated, partly worked over from La Fontaine, and from the moment of their publication, his fame as a writer of fables began to grow. But he wrote two comedies and a fairy-opera before, in 1808, he finally devoted himself to fables, to which branch of literature he remained faithful as long as he lived. By 1811-1812 his fables were so popular that he was granted a government pension, and became a member of the Empress Márya Feódorovna's circle of court poets and literary men. From 1812-1840, or later, Krylóff had an easy post in the Imperial Public Library, and in the course of forty years, wrote about two hundred fables. He is known to have been extremely indolent and untidy; but all his admirers, and even his enemies, recognized in him a power which not one of his predecessors in the literary sphere had possessed—a power which was thoroughly national, bound in the closest manner to the Russian soil. His fables bear an almost family likeness to the proverbs, aphorisms, adages, and tales produced by the wisdom of the masses, and are quite in their spirit. All the Russian poets had tried their hand at that favorite form of poetic composition—the fable—ever since its introduction from western Europe, in the eighteenth century; and Krylóff's success called forth innumerable imitators. But up to that time, out of all the sorts of poetry existing in Russian literature, only the fable, thanks to Krylóff, had become, in full measure, the organ of nationality, both in spirit and in language; and these two qualities his fables possess in the most profound, national meaning of the term. His language is peculiar to himself. He was the first who dared to speak to Russian society, enervated by the harmonious, regular prose of Karamzín, in the rather rough vernacular of the masses, which was, nevertheless, energetic, powerful, and contained no foreign admixture, or any exclusively bookish elements. One of the most popular of his fables, to which allusion is often made in Russian literature and conversation, is "Demyán's Fish-Soup." The manner in which the lines are rhymed in the original is indicated by corresponding figures.

DEMYÁN'S FISH-SOUP

"Neighbor, dear, my light! (1)Eat, I pray thee." (2)"Neighbor, dear, I'm full to the throat,"—"No matter. (1)Another little plateful; hearken: (2)This fish soup, I assure you, is gloriously cooked." (3)"Three platefuls have I eaten."—"O, stop that, why keep count, (4)If only you feel like it, (4)Why, eat and health be yours: eat to the bottom! (3)What fish-soup! and how rich in fat (3)As though with amber covered. (3)Enjoy yourself, dear friend! (5)Here's tender bream, pluck, a bit of sterlet here!Just another little spoonful!Come, urge him, wife!"In this wise did neighbor Demyán neighbor Fóka entertain.And let him neither breathe nor rest;But sweat from Fóka long had poured in streams.Yet still another plateful doth he take,Collects his final strength—and cleans up everything."Now, that's the sort of friend I like!"Demyán did shout: "But I can't bear the stuck-up; come, eat another plateful, my dear fellow!"Thereupon, my poor Fóka,Much as he loved fish-soup, yet from such a fate,In his arms seizing his girdle and his cap—Rushed madly, quickly home,And since that day, hath never more set foot in Demyán's house.Writer, thou art lucky if the real gift thou hast,But if thou dost not know enough to hold thy peace in time,And dost not spare thy neighbor's ears,Then must thou know, that both thy prose and verse,To all will prove more loathsome than Demyán's fish-soup.

Another good specimen is called:

THE SWAN, THE PIKE, AND THE CRAB

When partners cannot agree, their affair will not work smoothly,And torment, not business, will be the outcome.Once on a time, the Swan, the Crab, and the Pike,Did undertake to haul a loaded cart,And all three hitched themselves thereto;They strained their every nerve, but still the cart budged not.And yet, the load seemed very light for them;But towards the clouds the Swan did soar,Backwards the Crab did march,While the Pike made for the stream.Which of them was wrong, which right, 'tis not our place to judge.Only, the cart doth stand there still.

We have seen that Lomonósoff began the task of rendering the modern Russian language adaptable to all the needs of prose and verse; and that the writers who followed him, notably Karamzín, contributed their share to this great undertaking. Púshkin practically completed it and molded the hitherto somewhat harsh and awkward forms into an exquisite medium for every requirement of literature. Alexánder Sergyéevitch Púshkin (1799-1837), still holds the undisputed leadership for simplicity, realism, absolute fidelity to life, and he was the first worthy forerunner of the great men whose names are world-synonyms at the present day for those qualities. Almost every writer who preceded him had been more or less devoted to translations and servile copies of foreign literature. Against these, and the mock-classicism of the French pattern, which then ruled Europe, he waged relentless battle. He vitalized Russian literature by establishing its foundations firmly on Russian soil; by employing her native traditions, life, and sentiment as subjects and inspiration, in place of the worn-out conventionalities of foreign invention. The result is a product of the loftiest truth, as well as of the loftiest art.

His ancestors were nobles who occupied important posts under Peter the Great. His mother was a granddaughter of Hannibal, the negro of whom Púshkin wrote under the title of "Peter the Great's Arab." This Hannibal was a slave who had been brought from Africa to Constantinople, where the Russian ambassador purchased him, and sent him to Peter the Great. The latter took a great fancy to him, had him baptized, and would not allow his brothers to ransom him, but sent him, at the age of eighteen, abroad to be educated. On his return,Peter kept his favorite always beside him. Under the reign of the Empress Anna Ioánnovna he was exiled to Siberia, in company with other court favorites of former reigns; and like them, returned to Russia, and was loaded with favors by Peter's daughter, the Empress Elizabeth. His son was a distinguished general of Katherine II.'s day. Púshkin, the poet, had blue eyes, and very fair skin and hair, but the whole cast of his countenance in his portraits is negro. His father was a typical society man, and in accordance with the fashion of the day, Púshkin was educated exclusively by French tutors at home, and his first writings (at the age of ten) were in French, and imitated from writers of that nation. When his father retired from the military service, he settled in Moscow, and the boy knew all the literary men of that day and town before he was twelve years of age, and there can be no doubt that this literary atmosphere had a great influence upon him. When, at the age of twelve, he was placed in the newly founded Lyceum,10at Tzárskoe Seló (sixteen miles from St. Petersburg), whence so many famous men were afterwards graduated, he and the other pupils amused themselves in their play hours by writing a little newspaper, and by other literary pursuits. Here the lad was compelled to learn Russian, and the first use he made of it was to write caustic epigrams. At the school examination in 1815, the aged poet Derzhávin was among the visitors; and when he heard the boy read his "Memories of Tzárskoe Seló," he at once predicted hiscoming greatness. As is natural at his age, there was not much originality of idea in the poem; but it was amazing for its facility and mastery of poetic forms. Karamzín and Zhukóvsky were not long in adding their testimony to the lad's genius, and the latter even acquired the habit of submitting his own poems to the young poet's judgment.

Púshkin was an omnivorous reader, but his parents had never been pleased with his progress in his studies, or regarded him as clever. The praise of competent judges now opened their eyes; but he had a good deal to endure from his father, later on, in spite of this. At this period, Púshkin imitated the most varied poetical forms with wonderful delicacy, and yielded to the most diverse poetical moods. But even then he was entering on a new path, whose influence on later Russian literature was destined to be incalculably great. While still a school-boy, he began to write his famous fantastic-romantic poem, "Ruslán and Liudmíla" (which Glínka afterwards made the subject of a charming opera), and here, for the first time in Russian literary history, a thoroughly national theme was handled with a freedom and naturalness which dealt the death-blow to the prevailing inflated, rhetorical style. The subject of the poem was one of the folk-legends, of which he had been fond as a child; and when it was published, in 1820, the critics were dumb with amazement. The gay, even dissipated, society life which he took up on leaving the Lyceum came to a temporary end in consequence of some biting epigrams which he wrote. The Prefect of St. Petersburg called him to account for his attacks on prominent people, and transferred him from the ministry of foreign affairs to southern Russia—in fact,to polite exile—giving him a corresponding position in another department of the government.

For four years (1820-1824) he lived chiefly in southern Russia, including the Crimea and the Caucasus, and wrote, "The Prisoner of the Caucasus," "The Fountain of Baktchesarái," "The Gypsies," and a part of his famous "Evgény Onyégin," being, at this period, strongly influenced by Byron, as the above-mentioned poems and the short lyrics of the same period show. Again his life and his poetry were changed radically by a caustic but witty and amusing epigram on his uncongenial official superior in Odessa; and on the latter's complaint to headquarters—the complaint being as neat as the epigram, in its way—Púshkin was ordered to reside on one of the paternal estates, in the government of Pskoff. Here, under the influence of his old nurse, Arína Rodiónovna, and her folk-tales, he became thoroughly and definitively Russian, and entered at last on his real career—poetry which was truly national in spirit. His talents were now completely matured. His wonderfully developed harmony of versification has never been approached by any later poet, except, in places, by Lérmontoff. Quite peculiar to himself, at that day—and even much later—are his vivid delineations of character, and his simple but startlingly lifelike and truthful pictures of every-day life. If his claim to immortality rested on no other foundation than these, it would still be incontestable, for all previous Russian writers had scorned such commonplaces.

In 1826 he returned to the capital, having been restored to favor, and resumed his gay life, which on the whole, had a deleterious influence on his talents. In 1831 he married a very beautiful and extravagant woman, afterwhich he was constantly in financial distress, his own social ambitions and lavish expenditure being equally well developed with the same tastes in his wife. His inclination to write poetry was destroyed. He took to historical research, wrote a "History of Pugatchéff's Rebellion," and a celebrated tale, "The Captain's Daughter" (the scene of the latter being laid in the same epoch), and other stories. In these, almost simultaneously with Gógol, he laid the foundations for the vivid, modern school of the Russian novel. He was killed in a duel with Baron George Hekkeren-Dantes, who had been persecuting his wife with unwelcome attentions, in January, 1837. Baron Hekkeren-Dantes died only a year or two ago.

As a school-boy he had instinctively turned into a new path, that of national Russian literature. For this national service, and because he was the first to realize the poetic ideal, his countrymen adored him. To the highest external elegance and the most exquisite beauty, he fitly wedded inward force and wealth of thought, in the most incomparable manner. His finest effort, "Evgény Onyégin" (1822-1829), exhibits the poet in the process of development, from the Byronic stage to the vigorous independence of a purely national writer. The hero, Evgény Onyégin, begins as a society young man of the period; that is to say, he was inevitably a Byronic character. His father's death calls him from the dissipations of the capital to the quiet life of a country estate. He regards his neighbors as his inferiors, both in culture and social standing, and for a long time will have nothing to do with them. At last, rather accidentally, he strikes up a friendship with Lénsky, a congenial spirit, a young poet, who has had the advantage of foreign education, the son of one of theneighbors. Olga Lárin, the young daughter of another neighbor, has long been betrothed to Lénsky, and the latter naturally introduces Onyégin to her family. Olga's elder sister, Tatyána, promptly falls in love with Onyégin, and in a letter, which is always quoted as one of the finest passages in Russian literature, and the most perfect portrait of the noble Russian woman's soul, she declares her love for him. Onyégin politely snubs her, lecturing her in a fatherly way, and no one is informed of the occurrence, except Tatyána's old nurse, who, though stupid, is absolutely devoted to her, and does not betray the knowledge which she has, involuntarily, acquired. Not long afterwards, Tatyána's name-day festival is celebrated by a dinner, at which Onyégin is present, being urged thereto by Lénsky. He goes, chiefly, that no comment may arise from any abrupt change of his ordinary friendly manners. The family, ignorant of what has happened between him and Tatyána, and innocently scheming to bring them together, place him opposite her at dinner. Angered by this, he revenges himself on the wholly innocent Lénsky, by flirting outrageously with Olga (the wedding-day is only a fortnight distant), and Olga, being as vain and weak as she is pretty, does her share. The result is, that Lénsky challenges Onyégin to a duel, and the seconds insist that it must be fought, though Onyégin would gladly apologize. He kills Lénsky, unintentionally, and immediately departs on his travels. Olga speedily consoles herself, and marries a handsome officer. Tatyána, a girl of profound feelings, remains inconsolable, refuses all offers of marriage, and at last, yielding to the entreaties of her anxious relatives, consents to spend a season in Moscow. As a wall-flower, ather first ball, she captivates a wealthy prince, of very high standing in St. Petersburg, and is persuaded by her parents to marry him. When Onyégin returns to the capital he finds the little country girl, whose love he had scorned, one of the greatest ladies at the court and in society; and he falls madly in love with her. Her cold indifference galls him, and increases his love. He writes three letters, to which she does not reply. Then he forces himself into her boudoir and finds her reading one of his letters and weeping over it. She then confesses that she loves him still, but dismisses him with the assurance that she will remain true to her noble and loving husband. Tatyána is regarded as one of the finest, most vividly faithful portraits of the genuine Russian woman in all Russian literature; while Olga is considered fully her equal, as a type, and in popular sympathy; and the other characters are almost equally good in their various lines.

Besides a host of beautiful lyric poems, Púshkin left several dramatic fragments: "The Rusálka" or "Water Nymph," on which Dargomýzhsky founded a beautiful opera, "The Stone Guest,"11"The Miserly Knight," and chief of all, and like "Evgény Onyégin," epoch-making in its line, the historical dramatic fragment "Borís Godunóff." This founded a school in Russian dramatic writing. It is impossible to do justice in translation to the exquisite lyrics; but the following soliloquy, from "Borís Godunóff," will serve to show Púshkin's power in blank verse. Borís Godunóff, brother-in-law to the TzarFeódor Mikháilovitch, has at last reached the goal of his ambition, and mounted the throne, at what cost his own speech shows: Scene: The Imperial Palace. The Tzar enters:

I've reached the height of power;'Tis six years now that I have reigned in peace;But there's no happiness within my soul.Is it not thus—in youth we thirst and craveThe joy of love; but once that we have quenchedOur hungry heart with brief possession,We're tired, and cold, and weary on the instant!The sorcerers in vain predict long life;And promise days of undisturbed power.Nor power, nor life, nor aught can cheer my heart;My soul forebodeth heaven's wrath and woe.I am not happy. I did think to stillWith plenty and with fame my people here;To win for aye their love by bounties free.But vain are all my cares and empty toils:A living power is hated by the herd;They love the dead alone, only the dead.What fools we are, when popular applause,Or the loud shout of masses thrills our heart!God sent down famine on this land of ours;The people howled, gave up the ghost in torment;I threw the granaries open, and my goldI showered upon them; sought out work for them.Made mad by suffering, they turned and cursed me!By conflagrations were their homes destroyed;I built for them their dwellings fair and new;And they accused me—said I had set the fires!That's the Lord's judgment;—seek its love who will!Then dreamed I bliss in mine own home to find;I thought to make my daughter blest in wedlock:Death, like a whirlwind, snatched her betrothed away,And rumor craftily insinuatesThat I am author of my own child's widowhood:—I, I, unhappy father that I am!Let a man die—I am his secret slayer.I hastened on the death of Féodor;I gave my sister, the Tzarítza, poison;I poisoned her, the lovely nun,—still I!Ah, yes, I know it: naught can give us calm,Amid the sorrows of this present world;Conscience alone, mayhap:Thus, when 'tis pure, it triumphsO'er bitter malice, o'er dark calumny;But if there be in it a single stain,One, only one, by accident contracted,Why then, all's done; as with foul plagueThe soul consumes, the heart is filled with gall,Reproaches beat, like hammers, in the ears,The man turns sick, his head whirls dizzily,And bloody children float before my eyes.12I'd gladly flee—yet whither? Horrible!Yea, sad his state, whose conscience is not clean.

FOOTNOTES:5I 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 Japanese, 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.6Karamzín'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 Khomyakóff, 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 Ózeroff's relatives.7PronouncedAlyóg.8A 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.9These 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.10This 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 Púshkin's day is not now known.11"The Stone Guest" is founded on the Don Juan legend, like the familiar opera "Don Giovanni." Músorgsky 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 Balakíreff, at the house of a noted art and musical critic in St. Petersburg.12The reference is to Godunóff's presumptive share in the murder, at Úglitch, of Iván the Terrible's infant heir, the Tzarévitch Dmítry.

5I 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 Japanese, 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.

6Karamzín'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 Khomyakóff, 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 Ózeroff's relatives.

7PronouncedAlyóg.

8A 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.

9These 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.

10This 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 Púshkin's day is not now known.

11"The Stone Guest" is founded on the Don Juan legend, like the familiar opera "Don Giovanni." Músorgsky 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 Balakíreff, at the house of a noted art and musical critic in St. Petersburg.

12The reference is to Godunóff's presumptive share in the murder, at Úglitch, of Iván the Terrible's infant heir, the Tzarévitch Dmítry.

Even Karamzín's vast influence on his contemporaries cannot be compared with that exercised by Púshkin 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 Púshkin. Among other things, his influence brought to life many powerful and original talents, which would not have ventured to enter the literary career without Púshkin'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, Délvig, Baratýnsky, and Yázykoff. He even exaggerated their merits, exalting the work of the last two above his own, and attributing great significance to Délvig'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 Antón Antónovitch Délvig (1798-1831) the descendant of a Baltic Provinces noble, was one of Púshkin's comrades in the Lyceum, and published his first collection of poems in 1829.

Evgény Abrámovitch Baratýnsky (1800-1844) came of a noble family of good standing. His poetry wasfounded on Byronism, like all European poetry of that day, and was also partly under the influence of the fantastic romanticism introduced by Zhukóvsky. He never developed beyond a point which was reached by Púshkin in his early days in "The Prisoner of the Caucasus," "The Gypsies," "The Fountain of Baktchesarái," and the first chapters of "Evgény Onyégin." He wrote one very fine poem, devoted to Finland.

Nikolái Mikháilovitch Yázykoff (1803-1846) was of noble 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," "Gastún," "Sea Bathing," "The Ship," "The Sea," and a whole series of elegies, are also very good. Yázykoff's poetry is weaker and paler in coloring than Délvig's or Baratýnsky'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 Púshkin's epoch in Russia who did not repeat and develop, in different keys, the themes of their master's poetry, was Alexánder Sergyéevitch Griboyédoff (1795-1829). He alone was independent, original, and was related to the Púshkin period as Krylóff was to the Karamzín period—merely by the accident of time, not by the contents of his work. Griboyédoff was the first of a series of Russian poets who depicted life in absolutely faithful, but gloomy, colors; andit 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. Griboyédoff, 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" ("Góre ot Umá"), 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 Púshkin, 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 Orientallanguages, Griboyédoff 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 manuscript copies, and every one was in raptures over it. Even the glory of Púshkin's "Evgény Onyégin," which appeared at about the same time, did not overshadow Griboyédoff's glory. Strange to say, Púshkin, who had magnified Délvig, Baratýnsky, and Yázykoff 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 Griboyédoff's comedy, and detected many grave defects in it.

Griboyédoff 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 Tiflís, married a Georgian princess. His stern course of action and his disregard of certain rooted Oriental customs aroused the priesthood and the ignorantmasses of Teheran against him, and a riot broke out. After a heroic defense of the legation, all the Russians, including Griboyédoff, were torn to pieces. His wife had been left behind in Tabreez and escaped. She buried his remains at a monastery near Tiflís, in accordance with a wish which he had previously expressed.

There is not much plot to "Woe from Wit." Moltchálin, Famúsoff's secretary, a cold, calculating, fickle young man, has been making love to Famúsoff's only child, an heiress, Sophia, an extremely sentimental young person. Famúsoff rails against foreign books and fashions, "destroyers of our pockets and our hearth," and lauds Colonel Skalozúb, 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 Tchátsky, 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. Tchátsky 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. Tchátsky'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 Moltchálin; and Sophia, in revenge, drops a hint that Tchátsky 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 Famúsoff settles the matter bydeclaring that it comes from knowing too much. This takes place at an evening party at the Famúsoffs, and Tchátsky 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 Moltchálin. At last Sophia discovers that Moltchálin 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. Tchátsky, cured of all illusions about her, renounces his suit for her hand, and declares that he will leave Moscow forever. Tchátsky, 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 title.

Not one of Púshkin'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 Púshkin'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, Mikháil Yúrievitch Lérmontoff (1814-1841), who, after first imitating Púshkin, speedily began to imitate Byron—and that with far more success than Púshkin 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.

Lérmontoff, the son of a poor but noble 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 Púshkin was, as we have seen, French. That over Lérmontoff was rather English, which was then becoming fashionable. But like many another young Russian of that day, Lérmontoff wrote his first poems in French, imitating Púshkin's "The Fountain of Baktchesarái" 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, Lérmontoff 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 Lérmontoff's knowledge, at this time. In general, it may be said of Lérmontoff at that period that he cared not inthe 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.

Soon after leaving the military school Lérmontoff wrote a drama, "The Masquerade" (1834), and the fine poem, "Boyárin Órsha," but his fame began only in 1837, with his splendid poem on the death of Púshkin, "The Death of the Poet," beginning, "The poet perished, the slave of honor," in which he expressed his entire sympathy with the poet in his untimely death, and poured out all his bitterness upon the circle which was incapable of appreciating and prizing the genius. This, in a multitude of manuscript copies, created a great sensation in St. Petersburg. Soon afterwards, on hearing contradictory rumors as to the duel and Púshkin's death, he added sixteen verses, beginning, "And you, ye arrogant descendants." One of the prominent persons therein attacked having had his attention called to the matter in public by an officious gossip (he had probably known all about it before, and deliberately ignored the matter), felt obliged to report Lérmontoff. The result was that Lérmontoff was transferred as ensign to a dragoon regiment which was serving in Georgia, and early in 1837 he set out for the Caucasus. Through his grandmother's efforts he was permitted to return from the Caucasus about eight months later, to a hussar regiment. By this time people were beginning to appreciate him; he had written his magnificent "Ballad of Tzar Iván Vasílievitch, the Young Lifeguardsman, and the Bold Merchant Kaláshnikoff," which every one hailed as an entirely new phenomenon in Russian literature, amazing in its highly artistic pictures, full of power and dignity, combined with an exterior like that of the inartistic productions of folk-poetry. This poem was productive of all the more astonishment, because his "The Demon,"13written much earlier (1825-1834), was little known. "The Demon" is poor in contents, but surprisingly rich in wealth and luxury of coloring, and in the endless variety of its pictures of Caucasian life and nature.

In 1838, while residing in St. Petersburg, Lérmontoff wrote little at first, but in 1839 he wrote "Mtzyri," and a whole series of fine tales in prose, which eventually appeared under the general title of "A Hero of Our Times." This work, which has lost much of its vivid interest for people of the present day, must remain, nevertheless, one of the most important monuments of that period to which Lérmontoff so completely belonged. In the person of the hero, Petchórin, he endeavored to present "a portrait composed of the vices of the generation of which he was a contemporary," and he "drew the man of the period as he understood him, and as, unfortunately, he was too often met with." Lérmontoff admitted that in Petchórin he had tried to point out the "malady" which had attacked all Russian society of that day. All this he said in a preface to the second edition, after people had begun to declare that in the novel he had represented himself and his own experiences. Naturally Petchórin was drawn on Byronic lines, in keeping with the spirit of the '30's, when individuality loudly protested against the oppressive conditions of life. Naturally, also, all this now appears to be a caricature, true to the life of the highest Russian society as it was when it was written. Before he had quite completed this work, in February,1840, Lérmontoff fought a duel with the son of Baron de Barante, a well-known French historian, and was transferred, in consequence, to an infantry regiment in the Caucasus, whither he betook himself for the third time. A year later, after being permitted to make a brief stay in St. Petersburg, he returned to the Caucasus, and three months afterwards he was killed in a duel (on July 25, O. S., 1841) with a fellow officer, Martýnoff, and was buried on the estate in the government of Pénza, where he had been reared by his grandmother. The latest work of the poet, thus cut off almost before his prime, consisted of lyrics, which were full of power and perfection, and gave plain promise of the approaching maturity of the still young and not fully developed but immense talent.

His famous "Ballad of Tzar Iván Vasílievitch, the Young Lifeguardsman, and the Bold Merchant Kaláshnikoff" must be given in a summary and occasional quotations, as it is too long to reproduce in full. It lends itself better to dignified and adequate reproduction than do his lyrics, because it is not rhymed.14After a brief preface, the poet says: "We have composed a ballad in the ancient style, and have sung it to the sound of the dulcimer."

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