A Survey of Russian Literature, with Selections Part 7

Despite the burdens of his official life, Derzhavin wrote a great deal; towards the end of his life, much dramatic matter; yet he really belongs to the ranks of the lyric poets. He deserved all the fame he enjoyed, because he was the first poet who was so by inspiration, not merely by profession or ambition. Even in his most insignificant works of the stereotyped sort, with much sound and very little thought and feeling, the hand of a master is visible, and talent is perceptible; while many pa.s.sages are remarkable for their poetic figures, melody of versification, and beauty and force of expression. No poet previous to Pushkin can be compared to him for talent, and for direct, independent inspiration. His poetry is chiefly the poetry of figures and events, of solemn, loudly trumpeted victories and feats, descriptions of banquets, festivals, noisy social life, and endless hymns of praise to the age of Katherine II. It is not very rich in inward contents or in ideas. But he possessed one surpa.s.sing merit: he, first of all among Russian poets, brought poetry down from its lofty, cla.s.sical flights to the every-day life of his fatherland at that age, and to nature, and freed Russian poetry from that monotonous, stilted, tiresome, official form which had been introduced by Lomonosoff and copied by all the latter's followers.

Derzhavin's language is powerful, picturesque, and expressive, but still harsh and uneven, the ordinary vernacular being mingled with Church-Slavonic, and frequently obscuring the meaning; also, and owing to his deficient education, he often had recourse to inelegant, tasteless forms. If we compare him with Lomonosoff and Sumarokoff, it is evident that Russian poetry had made a great stride in advance under him, both as to external and internal development, in that he not only brought it nearer to life, but also perfected its forms, to a considerable degree, and applied it to subjects to which his predecessors would never have dreamed of applying it. His famous ode "G.o.d" will best serve to ill.u.s.trate his style:

G.o.d[5]

O Thou eternal One! whose presence bright All s.p.a.ce doth occupy, all motion guide; Unchanged through time's all-devastating flight; Thou only G.o.d! There is no G.o.d beside!

Being above all beings! Three in One!

Whom none can comprehend and none explore; Who fill'st existence with _thyself_ alone: Embracing all,--supporting,--ruling o'er,-- Being whom we call G.o.d--and know no more!

In its sublime research, philosophy May measure out the ocean deep, may count The sands or the sun's rays--but G.o.d! for Thee There is no weight nor measure:--none can mount Up to Thy mysteries; Reason's brightest spark, Though kindled by Thy light, in vain would try To trace Thy counsels, infinite and dark: And thought is lost ere thought can soar so high, Even like past moments in eternity.

Thou from primeval nothingness didst call, First chaos, then existence. Lord! on Thee Eternity had its foundation; all Sprung forth from Thee:--of light, joy, harmony, Sole origin:--all life, all beauty Thine.

Thy word created all, and doth create; Thy splendor fills all s.p.a.ce with rays divine.

Thou wert, and art, and shalt be! Glorious! Great!

Light-giving, life-sustaining Potentate!

Thy chains the unmeasured universe surround: Upheld by Thee, by Thee inspired with breath!

Thou the beginning with the end has bound, And beautifully mingled life and death!

As sparks mount upwards from the fiery blaze, So suns are born, so worlds spring forth from Thee; And as the spangles in the sunny rays Shine round the silver snow, the pageantry Of heaven's bright army glitters in Thy praise.

A million torches lighted by Thy hand Wander unwearied through the blue abyss: They own Thy power, accomplish Thy command; All gay with life, all eloquent with bliss.

What shall we call them? Piles of crystal light-- A glorious company of golden streams-- Lamps of celestial ether burning bright-- Suns lighting systems with their joyous beams?

But Thou to these art as the noon to night.

Yes, as a drop of water in the sea, All this magnificence in Thee is lost:-- What are ten thousand worlds compared to Thee?

And what am _I_ then? Heaven's unnumber'd host, Though multiplied by myriads, and array'd in all the glory of sublimest thought; Is but an atom in the balance weighed Against Thy greatness; is a cypher brought Against infinity! What am I, then? Naught!

Naught! But the effluence of Thy light divine, Pervading worlds, hath reach'd my bosom, too; Yes! In my spirit doth Thy spirit shine As shines the sunbeam in a drop of dew.

Naught! But I live, and on hope's pinions fly Eager towards Thy presence; for in Thee I live, and breathe, and dwell; aspiring high, Even to the throne of Thy divinity.

I am, O G.o.d! and surely _Thou_ must be!

Thou art! directing, guiding all, Thou art!

Direct my understanding then to Thee: Control my spirit, guide my wandering heart: Though but an atom midst immensity, Still I am something fashioned by Thy hand!

I hold a middle rank 'twixt heaven and earth, On the last verge of mortal being stand, Close to the realms where angels have their birth, Just on the boundaries of the spirit-land!

The chain of being is complete in me: In me is matter's last gradation lost, And the next step is spirit--Deity!

I can command the lightning, and am dust!

A monarch, and a slave; a worm, a G.o.d!

Whence came I here, and how? so marvelously Constructed and conceived? Unknown! This clod Lives merely through some higher energy; For from itself alone it could not be!

Creator, yes! Thy wisdom and thy word Created me! Thou source of light and good!

Thou spirit of my spirit, and my Lord!

Thy light, Thy love, in their bright plenitude Fill'd me with an immortal soul, to spring O'er the abyss of death, and bade it wear The garments of eternal day, and wing Its heavenly flight beyond this little sphere, Even to its source--to Thee--its author there.

O thoughts ineffable! O visions blest!

Though worthless our conceptions all of Thee, Yet shall Thy shadowed image fill our breast, And waft its homage to Thy Deity.

G.o.d! Thus alone my lowly thoughts can soar; Thus seek Thy presence--Being wise and good!

Midst Thy vast works admire, obey, adore; And when the tongue is eloquent no more, The soul shall speak in tears of grat.i.tude.

But the literary activity of Katherine II.'s reign was not confined to its two most brilliant representatives--Von Vizin and Derzhavin; many less prominent writers, belonging to different parties and branches of literature, were diligently at work. Naturally, there was as yet too little independent Russian literature to permit of the existence of criticism, or the establishment of a fixed standard of taste.

Among the worthy writers of the second cla.s.s in that brilliant era, were Kheraskoff, Bogdanovitch, Khemnitzer, and Kapnist.

Mikhail Matvyeevitch Kheraskoff (1733-1801), the author of the epic "The Rossiad," and of other less noteworthy works, was known during his lifetime only to the very restricted circle of his friends. In his convictions and views on literature he belonged to the epoch of Lomonosoff and Sumarokoff; by birth and education to the highest n.o.bility. More faithfully than any other writer of his century does Kheraskoff represent the pseudo-cla.s.sical style in Russian epic, lyric, and dramatic poetry, for he wrote all sorts of things, including sentimental novels. To the cla.s.sical enthusiasts of his day he seemed the "Russian Homer," and his long poems, "The Rossiad" (1789) and "Vladimir" (1786), were confidently believed to be immortal, being the first tolerable specimens of the epic style in Russian literature. In twelve long cantos he celebrates the capture of Kazan by Ivan the Terrible in "The Rossiad." "Vladimir" (eighteen cantos) celebrates the Christianizing of Russia by Prince-Saint Vladimir.

Ippolit Feodorovitch Bogdanovitch (1743-1803), who was developed under the immediate supervision and patronage of Kheraskoff, belonged, by education and his comprehension of elegance and of poetry, to a later epoch--on the borderland between pseudo-cla.s.sicism and the succeeding period, which was ruled by sentimentalism. His well-known poem, "Dushenka" ("Dear Little Soul"), was the first light epic Russian poem, with simple, intelligible language, and with a jesting treatment of a gay, playful subject. This subject Bogdanovitch borrowed from La Fontaine's novel, "The Loves of Psyche and Cupid," which, in turn, was borrowed from Apuleius.

The third writer of this group, Ivan Ivanovitch Khemnitzer (1745-1784), the son of a German physician, was unknown during his lifetime; enjoyed no literary fame, and cared for none, regarding his capacities and productions as unworthy of notice. In 1779, at the instigation of his friends, he published a collection of his "Fables and Tales." At this time there existed not a single tolerable specimen of the fable in Russian; but by the time literary criticism did justice to Khemnitzer's work, Karamzin, and Dmitrieff had become the favorites of the public, and Khemnitzer's productions circulated chiefly among the lower cla.s.ses, for whom his Fables are still published. His works certainly aided Dmitrieff and Kryloff in handling this new branch of poetical literature in Russia. His "The Metaphysician" still remains one of the greatest favorites among Russian fables for cultivated readers of all cla.s.ses.

Briefly told, the contents of "The Metaphysician" are as follows: A father, who had heard that children were sent beyond sea to be educated, and that those so reared were more respected than those brought up at home, determined, being wealthy, to send his son thither. The son, despite his studies, from being stupid when he went, returned more stupid than before, having fallen into the clutches of educational quacks, of whom there is no lack. Aforetime, he had babbled stupidities simply, but now he began to expound such things in learned wise; aforetime, only the stupid had failed to understand him, now he was beyond the comprehension of the wise. The whole house, and town, and world were bored to death with his chatter. He was possessed with a mania for searching out the cause of everything. With his wits thus woolgathering as he walked, he one day suddenly tumbled into a pit. His father, who chanced to be with him, rushed off to get a rope, wherewith to drag out "his household wisdom." Meanwhile, his thoughtful child, as he sat in the pit, reasoned with himself as to what might be the cause of his fall, and came to the conclusion that it was an earthquake; also, that his sudden flight into the pit might create an atmospheric pressure, from the earth and the pit, which would wipe out the seven planets. The father rushed up with a rope. "Here's a rope for you," says he, "catch hold of it. I'll drag you out; look out that you don't fall off!" "No, wait; don't pull me out yet; tell me first, what sort of a thing is a rope?" "Although the father was not learned, he was gifted by nature with common sense," winds up the fable.

Another, called "The Skinflint," runs thus:

"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 G.o.d 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 Khemnitzer's most intimate friends, and also one of the most notable members of Derzhavin's circle (being related to the latter through his wife), was Vasily Vasilievitch Kapnist (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 Derzhavin's, or even Pushkin's. His masterpiece was the comedy "Yabeda" (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 pa.s.s. The types which Kapnist put on the stage, especially the pettifogger Pravoloff, 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, Kapnist dared not publish his comedy until the accession of the Emperor 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 pet.i.tioned to prohibit the piece, and to administer severe punishment to the "unpatriotic" author. The Emperor is said to have taken the pet.i.tion in good faith and to have ordered that Kapnist be dispatched forthwith to Siberia. But after dinner his wrath cooled (the pet.i.tioners 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 Kapnist 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 Kapnist'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 Khvatako (Grabber), sang,

'Take, there's no great art in that; Take whatever you can get; What are hands appended to us for If 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 Nikolai Mikhailovitch Karamzin (1766-1826). Karamzin was descended from a Tatar 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 Karamzin devoted himself exclusively to journalism and literature. It was his most brilliant literary period, and during it his labors were astonishing in quant.i.ty 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 "Natalya, the Boyar'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, Karamzin's "Poor Liza" is the most perfect and admired specimen. Liza, a poor country la.s.s, is "beautiful in body and soul,"

supremely gifted with tenderness and sensibility. Erast, a wealthy n.o.ble, 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 pa.s.sed 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 a.s.sure Liza that it is possible 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.

"Natalya, the Boyar's Daughter," is a glorification of a fanciful past, far removed from reality, in which "Russians were Russians"; and against this background, Karamzin sets a tale, even simpler and more innocent, of the love of Natalya and Alexei, with whom Natalya 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 Karamzin'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 Simonoff 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 Karamzin 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 a.s.sumption that people should write as they talked, Karamzin entirely departed from Lomonosoff's canons as to the three styles permissible, and thereby imparted the final impulse 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, Karamzin 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.

Karamzin'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 Dmitrieff and ozeroff.

Ivan Ivanovitch Dmitrieff (1760-1810), and Vladislaff Alexandrovitch ozeroff (1769-1816), both enjoyed great fame in their day. Dmitrieff, while under the guidance of Karamzin, 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. ozeroff, under the same influence and tendency, aided in the final banishment from the Russian stage of pseudo-cla.s.sical ideals and dramatic compositions constructed according to theoretical rules.

Dmitrieff's most prominent literary work was a translation of La Fontaine's Fables, and some satirical writings. ozeroff, in 1798, put on the stage his first, and not entirely successful, tragedy, "Yaropolk and Oleg."[7] His 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 "Dmitry Donskoy" 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 Karamzin school were Vasily Andreevitch Zhukovsky (1783-1852) and Konstantin Nikolaevitch Batiushkoff (1786-1855), who offer perfectly clear examples of the transition from the sentimental to the new romantic school, which began with Pushkin. Everything of Zhukovsky'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 Fouque's "Undine," brought Russian literature into close relations with a whole ma.s.s of literary models, enlarged the sphere of literary criticism, and definitively deprived pseudo-cla.s.sical theories and models of all force and influence.

Zhukovsky's own history and career were romantic. He was the son of a wealthy landed proprietor named Bunin, who already had eleven children; when his peasants, on setting out for Rumyantzoff's army as sutlers, asked their owner, "What shall we bring thee from the Turkish land, little father?" Bunin replied, in jest, "Bring me a couple of pretty Turkish la.s.ses; 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 the siege of Bender. The elder, Salkha, aged sixteen, first served as nurse to Bunin'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 n.o.bility, Bunin's daughter standing as G.o.dmother 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 Zhukovsky. When Bunin died, he bequeathed money to the child, and his widow and daughters gave him the best of educations. Zhukovsky began to print bits of melancholy poetry while he was still at the university preparatory school. When he became closely acquainted with Karamzin (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 "Svyetlana" (Amaryllis), written in 1811, being a specimen. In 1812 Zhukovsky served in the army, and wrote his poem "The Bard in the Camp of the Russian Warriors,"[8]