BOOKS
MAURICE BARING. The Mainsprings of Russia. 1914. Nelson. 2s. net.
This is an excellent introduction to the subject, recording as it does the general impressions of an acute and sympathetic observer; it does not, of course, pretend to be comprehensive, and says nothing, for example, of the Jews, Poles, Finns, etc.
BERNARD PARES. Russia and Reform. 1907. 10s. 6d. net.
MILYOUKOV. Russia and its Crisis. 1905. 13s. 6d. net.
MAURICE BARING. The Russian People. 1911. 15s. net.
These three books may be consulted for the Revolution of 1905 and the events which led up to it. Professor Milyoukov's book was actually published before the Revolution, but its author was leader of the Cadet party in the First Duma, and it is therefore something in the nature of a liberal manifesto. Professor Pares' book, which is perhaps the most penetrating and well-balanced of all and contains most valuable chapters on the Intelligentsia, does not, unfortunately, deal with the years of reaction which followed the dissolution of the First Duma. Mr. Baring's book may be recommended especially for the later chapters which deal with the causes of the failure of the Revolution. All three contain a good deal of sound historical matter.
H.W. WILLIAMS. Russia of the Russians. 1914. 6s. net.
ROTHAY REYNOLDS. My Russian Year. 1913. 10s. 6d. net.
Two good books dealing with life in contemporary Russia. The first is the best and most comprehensive treatment of the new Russia which has emerged from the revolutionary period, and gives one not merely the political but also the social and artistic aspect. The other book is lightly and entertainingly written.
STEPHEN GRAHAM. Undiscovered Russia. 1911. 12s. 6d. net.
STEPHEN GRAHAM. Changing Russia. 1913. 7s. 6d. net.
STEPHEN GRAHAM. With the Russian Pilgrims to Jerusalem. 1913. 7s. 6d. net.
Mr. Stephen Graham may be said to have discovered the Russian peasant for English people, and his books give an extraordinarily vivid and sympathetic picture of Russian peasant-life by one who knows it from the inside. They afford also the best account of religion in Russia as a living force, while those who wish to know more of the Orthodox Church as an institution may be referred to chaps. xxvi. and xxvii. of Mr. Baring's Russian People; chap. viii. of the same writer's Mainsprings of Russia; and chap. vi. of Sir C. Eliot's (Odysseus) Turkey in Europe (7s. 6d. net). The second of Mr. Graham's books deals with the threatening industrial changes in Russia. The third is a fine piece of literature as well as being the only account in any language of one of the most characteristic figures in modern Russian life—the peasant-pilgrim.
SIR D.M. WALLACE. Russia. 2 vols. 1905. 24s. net.
Russia and the Balkan States. Reprinted from the Encyclopedia Britannica. 2s. 6d. net.
Both these accounts, though written many years ago, have now been brought up to date in view of present events.
R. NISBET BAIN. Slavonic Europe, 1447-1796. 1908. 5s. 6d. net.
F.H. SKRINE. The Expansion of Russia, 1815-1900. 1903. 4s. 6d. net.
W.R. MORFILL. Russia. 1890. 5s.
W.R. MORFILL. Poland. 1893. 5s.
Are all useful for the history of Russia, and of her relations with Poland, and Finland. Readers may also be referred to the Cambridge Modern History (vol. ix. chap. xvi.; vol. x. chaps. xiii., xiv.; vol. xi. chaps. ix., xxii.; vol. xii. chaps. xii., xiii.).
V O. KLUCHEFFSKY. A History of Russia. 3 vols. 1913. Dent. 7s. 6d. net each.
The standard economic and social history of Russia up to the reign of Peter the Great.
H.P. KENNARD. The Russian Year-Book. Eyre and Spottiswoode. 10s. 6d. net.
Excellent for facts and figures.
E. SÉMÉNOFF. The Russian Government and the Massacres. 1907. 2s. 6d. net.
An account of the pogroms in Russia from the Jewish point of view.
J.R. FISHER. Finland and the Tsars, 1800-1899. 1899. 12s. 6d.
The best account in English of the history of Finland's relations with
Russia up to the beginning of the reactionary period.
K.P. POBIEDONOSTSEV. Reflections of a Russian Statesman. 1898. 6s. For
Slavophilism.
P. KHOPOTKIN. Memoirs of a Revolutionist. 1907. 6s.
MAURICE BARING. Russian Literature. (Home University Library.) 1s.
A. BRÜCKNER. A Literary History of Russia. 1908. 12s. 6d. net.
MAURICE BARING. Landmarks in Russian Literature. 1910. 6s. net.
The last-named are the best available books in English on Russian literature. The works of the great Russian novelists are now accessible to English readers. Nothing helps one to understand Russia so well as reading the works of Tourgeniev, Tolstoi, and Dostoieffsky. The best translations are those of Mrs. Garnett. The following are recommended to those who are beginning the study of Russian literature and who are desirous of reading novels which throw light on the springs of Russian life and thought:—
TOURGENIEV. Fathers and Children. Heinemann. 2s. net.
A study of Russian Nihilism in the 'eighties, which may be read and compared with Kropotkin's Memoirs.
TOLSTOI. War and Peace. Heinemann. 3s. 6d. net. Anna Karenin.
Heinemann. 3s. 6d. net.
The first of these is perhaps the finest treatment of war in modern literature, the subject being the Russian campaign of Napoleon in 1812. No other book gives one a better idea of the way the Russians make war and of the essential greatness of the Russian national spirit.
DOSTOIEFFSKY. The Brothers Karamazov. Heinemann. 3s. 6d. net.
This, which is one of the greatest novels ever written, depicts, at once relentlessly and with infinite tenderness, the spiritual conflict which has agitated Russian society for at least fifty years past.
JOSEPH CONRAD. Under Western Eyes. 6s.
A powerful study of modern revolutionary types. Conrad, of course, is not a
Russian novelist, but he is of Polish origin.
GOGOL. The Inspector-General. Walter Scott. 1s. net.
A comedy first produced in Petrograd in 1836. Gogol is one of Russia's classics. This play is a humorous treatment of bureaucratic corruption and inefficiency.