A Survey of Russian Literature, with Selections

by Isabel Florence Hapgood

Under the brilliant sway of Katherine II. (1762-1796) literature and literary men in Russia first began to acquire legitimate respect and consideration in the highest circles—the educated minority, which ruled tastes and fashions. Wealthy patrons of literature had existed even in the Empress Elizabeth's day it is true; and a taste for the theater had been implanted or engendered, partly by force, as we have seen. Western ideas had made much progress in a normal way, through the close contact with western European nations, brought about by Elizabeth's great political genius, which had made St. Petersburg the diplomatic center and law-giver; and Katherine's own interest in literature before her accession to the throne had also had much to do with raising the standard and the respect in which literature and writers were held, and in preparing the ground for the new era. During her reign, life and literature may be said to have come into close contact for the first time. Katherine II. herself may be placed at the head of the writers of her day, in virtue not only of her rank and her encouragement of literature, at home and abroad, but because of her own writings. One of her comedies, "O, Ye Times! O, Ye Manners!" is still occasionally given on the stage. Her own Memoirs and her Correspondence with Voltaire, Diderot, and others, furnish invaluable pictures of contemporary views and manners. Her satires, comedies, and journalistic work and polemical articles are most important, however, because most original. In 1769 she began to publish a newspaper called "All Sorts of Things" (or "Varieties"), to which she personally contributed satirical articles attacking abuses—chiefly the lack of culture, and superficiality of education. It was extremely popular with the public, and imitators started up, which the Empress eventually suppressed, because of their virulent attacks on her own journal. She ceased journalistic work in 1774, and then introduced on the stage, in her comedies, the same types and aspects of Russian life which she had previously presented in her satirical articles.

Of the fourteen comedies, nine operas, and seven proverbs which she wrote, in whole or in part (she had the skeletons of some filled out with choruses and verses according to her own plans), up to 1790, eleven comedies, seven operas, and five proverbs have come down to us. The comedies are not particularly artistic, but they are important in a history of the national literature, as noteworthy efforts to present scenes and persons drawn from contemporary life—the first of that sort on the Russian stage—the most remarkable being the one already referred to, and "The Gambler's Name-day" (1772). The personages whom she copied straight from life are vivid; those whom she invented as ideals, as foils for contrast, are lifeless shadows. Her operas are not important. Towards the close of her literary activity she once more engaged in journalism, writing a series of satirical sketches, "Facts and Fiction" (published in 1783), for a new journal, issued on behalf of the Academy of Sciences by the Princess Dáshkoff, the director of that academy, and chairman of the Russian Academy, founded in that year on the Princess's own plan.

This Princess Ekaterína Románovna Dáshkoff (born Vorontzóff, 1743-1810) was a brilliantly educated woman, with a pronounced taste for political intrigue, who had a great share in the conspiracy which disposed of Peter III., and placed Katherine II. on the throne. Katherine richly rewarded the Princess, but preserved her own independence and supremacy, which offended Princess Dáshkoff, the result being a coldness between the former intimate friends. This, in turn, obliged the Princess to leave the court and travel at home and abroad. During one trip abroad she received a diploma as doctor of laws, medicine, and theology from Edinburg University. Her Memoirs are famous, though not particularly frank, or in agreement with Katherine II.'s statements, naturally. The Empress never ceased to be suspicious of her, but twenty years later a truce was patched up between them, and Katherine appointed her to the offices above mentioned—never held before or since by a woman.

Princess Dáshkoff wrote much on educational subjects, and in the journal referred to above, she published not only her own articles and Katherine II.'s, but also the writings of many new and talented men, among them, Von Vízin and Derzhávin. This journal, "The Companion of the Friends of the Russian Language," speedily came to an end when the Princess-editor took umbrage at the ridicule heaped on some of her projects and speeches by the Empress and her courtiers.

If Katherine II. was the first to introduce real life on the Russian stage, Von Vízin was the first to do so in a manner sufficiently artistic to hold the stage, which is the case with his "Nédorosl," or "The Hobbledehoy." He is the representative of the Russian type, in its best aspects, during the reign of Katherine II., and offers a striking contrast to the majority of his educated fellow-countrymen of the day. They were slavish worshipers of French influences. He bore himself scornfully, even harshly, towards everything foreign, and always strove to counteract each foreign thing by something of native Russian origin.

Denís Ivánovitch Von Vízin (1744-1792), as his name suggests, was the descendant of an ancient German family, of knightly rank. An ancestor had been taken prisoner in the reign of Iván the Terrible, and had ended by settling in Russia and assuming Russian citizenship. The family became thoroughly Russified when they joined the Russian Church. Von Vízin was of a noble and independent character, to which he added a keen, fine mind, and a caustic tongue. His father, he tells us, in his "A Frank Confession of Deeds and Thoughts" (imitated from Rousseau's "Confession"), was also of an independent character in general, and in particular—contrary to the custom of the epoch—detested extortion and bribery, and never accepted gifts. "Sir!" he was accustomed to say to persons who asked favors of him in his official position, "a loaf of sugar affords no reason for condemning your opponent; please take it away and bring legal proof of your rights."

Denís Von Vízin received a thorough Russian education at home—which was unusual at that era of overwhelming foreign influence; and his inclination for literature having manifested itself in his early youth, while still at the University School for Nobles, he made various translations from foreign languages before entering the Moscow University, at the age of fifteen. During a visit which he made to St. Petersburg, while still a student at the University, he saw the theater for the first time, and soon made acquaintance with F. G. Vólkhoff (already mentioned), and one of the actors. These things exerted a great influence upon him. During a visit of the Court to Moscow, in 1755, he was appointed translator to the Foreign College (Office), with the inevitable military rank, and went to live in the new capital. After divers vicissitudes of service, he wrote "The Brigadier," which he was promptly asked to read before royalty and in society. It won for him great reputation with people who were capable of appreciating the first play which was genuinely Russian in something more than externals. It jeers at ignorance coated over with an extremely thin veneer of pretentious foreign culture. The types in "The Brigadier" (written about 1747) had long been floating about in literature, and as it were, awaiting a skillful pen which should present them in full relief to the contemporary public. Von Vízin set forth these types on the stage in a clearer, more vivid manner than all previous writers who had dealt with them, as we have seen, in satires and dramas, from Kantemír to Katherine II. The characters, as Von Vízin depicted them, were no longer abstract monsters, agglomerations of evil qualities, but near relations to everybody. Moreover, the drama was gay, playful—not even the moral was gloomy—with not a single depressing line.

Totally different is "The Hobbledehoy" ("Nédorosl," 1782), which is even more celebrated, and was written towards the close of a long career in the service, filled with varied and trying experiences—part of which arose from the difficulties of the author's own noble character in contact with a different type of men and from his attacks on abuses of all sorts—after a profound study of life in the middle and higher classes of Russian court and diplomatic circles. The difference between "The Brigadier" and "The Hobbledehoy" is so great that they must be read in the order of their production if the full value of the impression created by the earlier play is to be appreciated. "The Hobbledehoy" was wholly unlike anything which had been seen hitherto in Russian literature. Had the authorities permitted Von Vízin to print his collection of satires, he would have stood at the head of that branch of literature in that epoch; as it was, this fine comedy contains the fullest expression of his dissatisfaction at the established order of things in general. The merits of the play rest upon its queer characters from life, who are startlingly real, and represent the genuine aims and ideas of the time. The contrasting set of characters, whom he introduced as the exponents of his ideals, do not express any aims and ideas which then existed, but merely what he personally would have liked to see. Katherine II., with whose comedies Von Vízin's have much in common, always tried to offset her disagreeable real characters by honorable, sensible types, also drawn from real life as ideals. But Von Vízin's ideal characters are almost hostile in their bearing towards his characters drawn from real life. Altogether, Von Vízin must be regarded as the first independent, artistic writer in Russia, and therefore epoch-making, just as Feofán Prokópovitch must be rated as the first Russian secular writer, and Sumarókoff as the first Russian literary man and publicist in the modern meaning of the words. It is worth noting (because of a tendency to that sort of thing in later Russian writers down to the present day) that towards the end of his life a stroke of paralysis, in 1785, and other unfortunate circumstances, threw Von Vízin into a gloomy religious state of mind, under the influence of which he judged himself and his works with extreme severity, and condemned them with excessive harshness.

The general outline of "The Hobbledehoy" is as follows: Mrs. Prostakóff (Simpleton), a managing woman, of ungovernable temper, has an only child, Mitrofán (the Hobbledehoy), aged sixteen. She regards him as a mere child, and spoils him accordingly. He is, in fact, childish in every way, deserving his sobriquet, and is followed about everywhere by his old nurse, Eremyéevna. Mr. Simpleton has very little to say, and that little, chiefly, in support of his overbearing wife's assertions, and at her explicit demand. She habitually addresses every one, except her son, as "beast," and by other similar epithets. She has taken into her house, about six months before the play opens, Sophia, a fairly wealthy orphan, and a connection of hers by marriage, whom she ill-treats to a degree. She is on the point of betrothing her to Skotínin (Beastly), her brother, who frankly admits that he cares nothing for the girl, and not very much for her estate, which adjoins his own, but a very great deal for the extremely fine pigs which are raised on it—a passion for pigs, which he prefers to men, constituting his chief interest in life. Mr. Beastly, who says that he never goes to law, no matter what losses he may suffer, no matter how much his neighbors injure him, because he simply wrings the deficit out of his peasants, and that ends it, declares that Sophia's pigs, for which he expresses a "deadly longing," are so huge that "there is not one of them which, stood up on its hind legs, would not be a whole head taller than any one of us," is eager for the match. While this is under discussion (Sophia being entirely ignorant of their intentions), the young girl enters, and announces that she has received good news: her uncle, who has been in Siberia for several years in quest of fortune, and is supposed to be dead, has written to inform her of his speedy arrival. Mrs. Simpleton takes the view that he is dead, ought to be dead; and roughly tells Sophia that the latter need not try to frighten her into giving her her liberty, and asserts that the letter must be from the officer who has been in love with her, and whom she wishes to marry. Sophia offers her the letter, in proof of innocence, saying, "Read it yourself." "Read it myself!" cries Mrs. Simpleton; "no, madam, thank God, I was not brought up in that way. I may receive letters, but I always order some one else to read them," whereupon she orders her husband to read it. Her husband gives it up as too difficult, and Mr. Beastly, on being asked, replies, "I! I have never read anything since I was born, my dear sister! God has delivered me from that boredom." Právdin (Mr. Upright), an official charged with inspecting the condition of the peasants, also empowered to put under arrest cruel proprietors, and under guardianship of the state those who have been ill-treated, enters and reads the letter to them. When Mrs. Simpleton learns from it that Uncle Starodúm (Oldidea) has a large income, and that Sophia is to inherit it, she immediately overwhelms Sophia with flattery and affection, and decides to marry her to her precious "child," Mitrofán. This leads to violent quarrels during the rest of the play between her and her brother, who wants the pigs; and to violence from the latter to Mitrofán, who declares that he has long wished to marry, and intends to have Sophia. In the mean time a company of soldiers, on the march to Moscow, arrives, and is quartered in the village, while their commanding officer, Mílon, a friend of Mr. Upright, makes his appearance at the house, where to his surprise, he finds his lady-love, Sophia, who promptly explains to him the situation of affairs.

Mitrofán is still under teachers, consisting of Vrálman (Liar), a former gunner, who is supposed to be teaching him French and all the sciences; Tzýfirkin (Cipherer), a retired army-sergeant, who instructs him in arithmetic, and Kutéikin, who, as his name implies, is the son of a petty ecclesiastic, and teaches him reading and writing, talking always in ecclesiastical style, interlarded with old Church-Slavonic words and phrases. He is always doing "reviews," never advancing to new lessons, and threatens to drown himself if he be not allowed to wed Sophia at once. There is a most amusing lesson-scene. The teacher of arithmetic sets him a problem: three people walking along the road find three hundred rubles, which they divide equally between them; how much does each one get? Mitrofán does the sum on his slate: "Once three is three, once nothing is nothing, once nothing is nothing." But his mother exclaims, that if he finds such a sum, he must not divide it, but keep it all, and that arithmetic, which teaches such division, is a fool of a science. Another sum is worked out in equally absurd style, with equally intelligent comments from the mother. Kutéikin then takes his turn, and using a pointer, makes Mitrofán repeat after him a ridiculously appropriate sentence from the Psalms, in the "Tchasoslóff," the "Book of Hours," or first reader. Vrálman enters, meddles with everybody, in a strong foreign accent, and puts an end to the lessons, as quite unnecessary for the precious boy; for which, and his arrogance (when Mrs. Simpleton and the Hobbledehoy have retired), the other teachers attack him with slate and book.