William Richard Morfill

“ Very little of merit has been produced since the great trilogy (1866–69) of Alexis Tolstoy dealing with the reign of Ivan the Terrible—full of picturesque horrors for the dramatist—and the bourgeois comedies of Ostrovskiy.
If we turn to history, in which the Russians have always shown considerable talent, we can cite some really good work. We cannot here find room to discuss the memoirs and other documents which appear in the Russian Antiquary (Russkaya Starina) , the Historical Messenger (Istoricheskiy Viestnik) and other journals, the name of which is legion. ”

“ The Cossack songs, written in the Little Russian language, dwell upon the glories of the sech, the sufferings of the people from the invasions of the Turks and Mongols, the exploits of the Haidamaks and, lastly, the fall of the Cossack republic. Besides these, the Russians can boast of large collections of religious poems, many of them containing very curious legends. In them we have a complete store of the beliefs of the Middle Ages. A rich field may be found here for the study of comparative mythology and folk-lore. ”

“ Dostoievskiy, Pisemskiy, Turgeniev, Goncharov, Ostrovskiy and Saltikov followed each other to the grave in rapid succession. Leo Tolstoy alone remained, a veritable patriarch, whose views on life gave him a world-interest beyond even the contributions of his great prose fiction. ”

“ Among the better known productions of Lazhechnikov are The Heretic and The Palace of Ice. A flashy but now forgotten writer of novels was Thaddeus Bulgarin (1789–1859) author of Ivan Vyshigin, a work which once enjoyed considerable popularity.
The first Russian novelist of great and original talent was Nicholai Gogol (1809–1852) (q.v.) . In his Dead Souls he satirized all classes of society, some of the portraits being wonderfully vivid. Being a native of Little Russia, he describes its scenery and the habits of the people, especially in such stories Gogol. ”

“ Besides the byliny or legendary poems, the Russians have large collections of skazki or folk-tales, which have been gathered together by Sakharov, Afanasiev and others. They also are full of valuable materials for the study of comparative mythology.
Leaving, the popular and oral literature, we come to what has been committed to writing. The earliest specimen of Earliest written literature. Russian, properly so called, must be considered the Ostromir Codex, written by the diak Gregory at the order of Ostromir, the posadnik or governor of Novgorod. ”

“ Count A. Tolstoy (1817–1875) , also famous as a dramatist; and greater than all these Ivan Turgeniev (1819–1883) , and Count L. Tolstoy (1828–1910) , the last of whom ranks as much more than a man of letters.
In Vissarion Belinski the Russians produced their best critic. For thirteen years (1834–47) he was the Aristarchus of Russian literature and exercised a healthy influence. In his later days he addressed a withering epistle to Gogol on the newly adopted reactionary views of the latter.
Since the time of Karamzin the study of Russian history has made great strides. ”

“ In moral and mental philosophy the Russians have produced but few authors. We meet with some good mathematicians, Lobachevskiy among others, and in natural science the publications of the Society for Natural History at Moscow have attracted considerable attention.
Recent Literature.—The death of Nekrasov in 1877 deprived Russia of her most eminent poet since the days of Pushkin and Lermontov. During the last generation of the 19th century most of the Titans of her literature departed, and cannot be said to have left successors of equal merit. ”

“ An excellent Tolkovi Slovar Velikorusskago Yazîka (“Explanatory Dictionary of the Great Russian Language”) was compiled by Vladimir Dahl. Alexander Hilferding published some valuable works on ethnology and philology, among others on the Polabs, an extinct Slavonic tribe who once dwelt on the banks of the Elbe. The Russians have not exhibited many works in the field of classical or other branches of philology. ”

“ Apollon Maikov (1821–1847) at one time enjoyed great popularity as a poet; he is a kind of link with Pushkin, of whose elegance of versification he is an imitator. Another poet of a past generation was Prince Viazemskiy (1792–1878) . Graceful lyrics were written by Mei, Fet (whose name would apparently prove Dutch extraction, Veth) , Stcherbina, and, going a little further back, Yazykov, the friend of Pushkin, and Khomiakov, celebrated for his Slavophile propensities. To these may be added Mdlle Zhadovskaya, Benediiktov, Podolinskiy and Tiutchev. ”

“ He is more remarkable, however, as a translator than as an original poet. With him Romanticism began in Russia. He became reader to the empress and afterwards tutor to her children. In 1802 he published his version of Gray's Elegy, which at once became a highly popular poem in Russia. Zhukovskiy translated many pieces from the German (Goethe, Schiller, Uhland) and English (Byron, Moore, Southey) . One of his original productions, “The Poet in the Camp of the Russian Warriors,” was on the lips of every one at the time of the War of the Fatherland (Otechestvennaia Voina) in 1812. ”

“ Gogol was also the, author of a good comedy, The Reviser, wherein the petty pilfering of Russian municipal authorities are satirized. In his Memoirs of a Madman and Portrait, he shows a weird and fantastic power which proves him to have been a man of strong imagination. The same may be said of The Cloak, and the curious tale Vii (“The Demon”) , where he gives us a picture of Kiev in the old days. ”

“ From the commencement of the reign of Elizabeth Russian literature made great progress, the French furnishing models. Alexander Sumarokov (1718–1777) wrote prose and verse in abundance—comedies, tragedies, idyls, satires and epigrams. He is, perhaps, best entitled to remembrance Sumarokov.
Kniazhnin. for his plays, which are rhymed, and in the French style. His Dmitri Samozvanets (“Demetrius the Pretender”) is certainly not without merit. Some of the pieces of Kniazhnin had great success in their time, such as The Chatterbox, The Originals and especially The Fatal Carriage. ”

“ The scholars who have given their attention to these compositions have made the following division of them into cycles: (1) that of the older heroes; (2) that of Vladimir, prince of Kiev; (3) that of Novgorod; (4) that of Moscow; (5) that of the Cossacks; (6) that of Peter the Great; (7) the Peasant songs. modern period. These poems, if they may be so styled, are not in rhyme; the ear is satisfied with a certain cadence which is observed throughout. For a long time they were neglected, and the collection of them began only towards the conclusion of the 17th century. ”

“ During his short life (1799–1837) Alexander Pushkin produced many celebrated poems, which will be found enumerated in the article devoted to him (see Pushkin) . In Alexander Griboyedov (1795–1829) (q.v.) the Russians saw the writer of one of their most clever comedies (Gore ot Uma) , which may perhaps be translated “The Misfortune of being Too Clever” (lit. “Grief out of Wit”) . Ivan Kozlov (1774–1838) was author of some pretty original lyrics, and some translations from the English, among others Burns’s Cottar's Saturday Night. ”

“ Up to this time the Russians had acted only religious plays, such as those written by Simeon Polotzki. The reign of Catherine II. (1762–96) , herself a voluminous writer, saw the rise of a whole generation of court poets. Everything in Russia was to be forced like plants in a hot-house; she was to have Homers, Pindars, Horaces and Virgils. Michael Kheraskov (1733–1807) wrote besides other poems two Kheraskov. ”

“ Some of the penalties are whimsical: for instance, the man who uses tobacco is to have his nose cut off; this was altered by Peter the Great, who himself practised the habit and encouraged it in others.
In 1553 a printing press was established at Moscow, and in 1564 the first book was printed, an “Apostol, ” as it Introduction of printing. is called, i.e. a book containing the Acts of the Apostles and the Epistles. The printers were Ivan Feodorov and Peter Tirnofieiev ”

“ After he got into trouble (with Kostomarov and Shevchenko) for his political views, the late works of this author show him to have undergone a complete change. Other writers using the Little Russian language are Marko-Vovchok (that is, Madame Eugenia Markovich) and Yuri Fedkovich, who employs a dialect of Bukovina. Fedkovich, like Shevchenko, sprang from a peasant family, and served as a soldier in the Austrian army against the French during the Italian campaign. Naturally we find his poems filled with descriptions of life in the camp. ”

“ Luckily the story had been edited (after a fashion) by Count Musin-Pushkin, and a transcript was also found among the papers of the empress Catherine. The original was seen by several men of letters in Russia, Karamzin among the number. There is a mixture of Christian and heathen allusions, but there are parallels to this style of writing in such a piece as the “Discourse of a Lover of Christ and Advocate of the True Faith,” from which an extract has been given by Buslaev in his Chrestomathy. ”