The Gloom and Glory of Russian Literature.

THE OPEN COURT. 390 position to men of proven worth. In the United States candidates are restricted, by Constitutional provision, to local constituencies. In consequenqe the quality of our leadership suffers. Politically it is a great Constitution, one of which we are rightly It might, however, easily be improved any longer interested in politics. proud. —were the world THE GLOOM AND GLORY OF RUSSIAN LITERATURE.^ BY MAXIMILIAN J. RUDWIN. Russian Literature the Lady of Sorrozvs of Holy Russia. '* A BANDON all hope, ye who enter here." These fateful words of Dante might well be inscribed on the fly-leaf of every i\ The foreign reader of Russian literature walks in Russian book. the Valley of Shadow. He is overwhelmed by a wealth of woe. He is steeped in gloom. The Tragedy of Russian Life. Russian literature is a faithful record of the history of Russia. In her literature, hapless and helpless, Russia has recorded her grief and sorrow. In her song and story she has uttered her heaven- rending cry of anguish. Russia's fiction the sufferings of her people. is the direct outcome of The misfortunes of Russia are darker and deeper, her shrieks of agony are louder and longer than those of any other country. Her literature is sadder and gloomier that that of any land. It is the literature of a country which is always "complaining and sighing and wailing." If the joys of Russia are bitterly ignored in her literature, be said to exist. it is because in truth they cannot The humorous details in Russian literature often hide a most tragical background, w^hich all of a sudden breaks In this essay pre-revolutionary literature only will be considered. With the overthrow of the czaristic regime,' the literature of Russia enters upon a new phase. It is impossible to overestimate the effect which the Russian revolution will have upon Russian literature. Russian literature under the old regime was but an incomplete reflex of the life and character of the country. It was but that part of the whole which succeeded in It was a fragment. escaping governmental authority. It was circulated for the most part in manuscript form just as if Johann Gutenberg had never lived. It was born in prison and was but the echo of the sighs which were heaved in gloomy dungeons. The Russian revolution opened the gates of prison for Russian literaliterature finally set free will gradually wipe ture as well as for its makers. out the traits which it acquired in the house of bondage. It will in the course of time rid itself of its grief and gloom. It is to be koped that it will not lose its glory. 1 A : THE GLOOM AND GLORY OF RUSSL\N LITERATURE. through. 391 Russian Hterature is indeed a faithful reflex of the life and character of the land and the people. When Gogol read to Pushkin the manuscript of his novel Dead Souls, Pushkin exclaimed "My God, how sad our Russia is!" In speaking later of this novel to others, Pushkin added: "Gogol invents nothing; it is the simple truth." Nor did any of the later novelists, following in the footsteps of their master, invent anything. They told the simple truth, the terrible truth about the fate of their country, and about their own fates. The Tragedy of Russian Literature. The same adverse fate which has brooded over Russia has in In the writers of a like manner inexorably pursued her writers. Russia are mirrored the life and character of their country. They on their part reflect in their works their own sad lives. In the own sufferings, creations of their imagination they reproduce their and fears. With many a Russian author it is as though he had dipped his pen in his own blood. Le malheur d'etre poete is not wholly a Russian trait. Sappho and Tasso are classical examples of the tragic fate of a poet. In all lands have the writers drunk of life's cup of bitterness, have they been bruised by life's sharp corners and torn by life's pointed thorns. Chill penury, public neglect, and ill health have been the lot of many an author in countries other than Russia. But in the land of the Czars men of letters had to face problems and perils which were peculiarly their own, and which have not been duplicated in any other country on the globe. It was a great misfortune in Russia to possess a talent. "The devil," cried Pushkin in despair, "has caused me to be born in this country with a talent and a heart." The literary career was especially filled with danger in Russia. Every man of letters was under suspicion. The government of Russia treated every author as its natural enemy, and made him frequently feel the weight of its heavy. hand. The wreath of laurels on the brow of almost every poet was turned by the tyrants of his country into a crown of thorns. griefs Social Discontent in Russian Literature. The hatred of the rulers of Russia against writers had its good reason. They saw in them their literary chastisers. Russian authors were enthusiastic supporters of the dream of social justice. They were, indeed, fighters for liberty on a battlefield where the pen was a sword. Russian literature in the last century was actuated more than any other by a powerful social instinct. It reflects more than THE OPEN COURT. 392 any other the main tendencies of the social and political movements In Russia more than in any other country, literature was a vehicle for social ideas. A country without free speech and free press must needs turn to literature for the discussion of its social and political problems. In its literature at first did it try to solve in an ideal way the problems which it hoped would some day be solved in reality. A novel, a story, a poem, an essay on literature, when reading between the lines was not neglected, was a political manifesto. The Russian expected to see in the work of every writer of note a new program of social and political reform. He was accustomed to regard a good writer as a prophet. The best of the Russian authors became indeed the guides of their people. They were not only writers, but apostles and martyrs, who in the cause of Holy Russia faced imprisonment, exile and death. Oppression and persecution bred demigods. "The madness and pride to starve and to die will never be wanting me," writes Belinsky not merely of himself, for it was true of any of the best Russian of the day. men of letters. is Their history is, indeed, a catalog of tragedies. It hard to mention a single great writer in Russia, who was not con- demned to death, or sent as a convict prisoner to the mines of Siberia, or put as a conscript into a disciplinary battalion, or was not exiled to remote provinces, or interned on his estate, or silenced by the censor. Of all the men of letters of the world, those of Russia can surely boast of the greatest number of martyrs. Alexan- der Herzen calculated that during the reign of Nicholas I, the most typical and the most determined adversary of the freedom of the press that Europe ha (...truncated)