I pass in silence several writers of the same epoch, namely, Bogdanóvitch (1743-1803), the author of a pretty and light poem, Dushenka; Hemnitzer (1745-1784), a gifted writer of fables, who was a forerunner of Krylóff; Kapníst (1757-1829), who wrote rather superficial satires in good verse; Prince Scherbátoff (1733-1790), who began with several others the scientific collecting of old annals and folk-lore, and undertook to write a history of Russia, in which we find a scientific criticism of the annals and other sources of information; and several others. But I must say a few words upon the masonic movement which took place on the threshold of the nineteenth century.
THE FREEMASONS: FIRST MANIFESTATION OF POLITICAL THOUGHT.
The looseness of habits which characterised Russian high society in the eighteenth century, the absence of ideals, the servility of the nobles, and the horrors of serfdom, necessarily produced a reaction amongst the better minds, and this reaction took the shape, partly of a widely spread Masonic movement, and partly of Christian mysticism, which originated in the mystical teachings that had at that time widely spread in Germany. The freemasons and their Society of Friends undertook a serious effort for spreading moral education among the masses, and they found in Nóvikoff (1744-1818) a true apostle of renovation. He began his literary career very early, in one of those satirical reviews of which Catherine herself took the initiative at the beginning of her reign, and already in his amiable controversy with “the grandmother” (Catherine) he showed that he would not remain satisfied with the superficial satire in which the empress delighted, but that, contrary to her wishes, he would go to the root of the evils of the time: namely, serfdom and its brutalising effects upon society at large. Nóvikoff was not only a well-educated man: he combined the deep moral convictions of an idealist with the capacities of an organiser and a business man; and although his review (from which the net income went entirely for philanthropic and educational purposes) was soon stopped by “the grandmother,” he started in Moscow a most successful printing and book-selling business, for editing and spreading books of an ethical character. His immense printing office, combined with a hospital for the workers and a chemist’s shop, from which medicine was given free to all the poor of Moscow, was soon in business relations with booksellers all over Russia; while his influence upon educated society was growing rapidly, and working in an excellent direction. In 1787, during a famine, he organised relief for the starving peasants—quite a fortune having been put for this purpose at his disposal by one of his pupils. Of course, both the Church and the Government looked with suspicion upon the spreading of Christianity, as it was understood by the freemason Friends; and although the metropolitan of Moscow testified that Nóvikoff was “the best Christian he ever knew,” Nóvikoff was accused of political conspiracy.
He was arrested, and in accordance with the personal wish of Catherine, though to the astonishment of all those who knew anything about him, was condemned to death in 1792. The death-sentence, however, was not fulfilled, but he was taken for fifteen years to the terrible fortress of Schüsselberg, where he was put in the secret cell formerly occupied by the Grand Duke Ivan Antonovitch, and where his freemason friend, Doctor Bagryánskiy, volunteered to remain imprisoned with him. He remained there till the death of Catherine. Paul I. released him, in 1796, on the very day that he became emperor; but Nóvikoff came out of the fortress a broken man, and fell entirely into mysticism, towards which there was already a marked tendency in several lodges of the freemasons.
The Christian mystics were not happier. One of them, Lábzin (1766-1825), who exercised a great influence upon society by his writings against corruption, was also denounced, and ended his days in exile. However, both the mystical Christians and the freemasons (some of whose lodges followed the Rosenkreuz teachings) exercised a deep influence on Russia. With the advent of Alexander I. to the throne the freemasons obtained more facilities for spreading their ideas; and the growing conviction that serfdom must be abolished, and that the tribunals, as well as the whole system of administration, were in need of complete reform, was certainly to a great extent a result of their work. Besides, quite a number of remarkable men received their education at the Moscow Institute of the Friends—founded by Nóvikoff—including the historian Karamzín, the brothers Turguéneff, uncles of the great novelist, and several political men of mark.
Radíscheff (1749-1802), a political writer of the same epoch, had a still more tragic end. He received his education in the Corps of Pages, and was one of those young men whom the Russian Government had sent in 1766 to Germany to finish there their education. He followed the lectures of Hellert and Plattner at Leipzig, and studied very earnestly the French philosophers. On his return, he published, in 1790, a Journey from St. Petersburg to Moscow, the idea of which seems to have been suggested to him by Sterne’s Sentimental Journey. In this book he very ably intermingled his impressions of travel with various philosophical and moral discussions and with pictures from Russian life.
He insisted especially upon the horrors of serfdom, as also upon the bad organisation of the administration, the venality of the law-courts, and so on, confirming his general condemnations by concrete facts taken from real life. Catherine, who already before the beginning of the revolution in France, and especially since the events of 1789, had come to regard with horror the liberal ideas of her youth, ordered the book to be confiscated and destroyed at once. She described the author as a revolutionist, “worse than Pugatchóff”; he ventured to “speak with approbation of Franklin” and was infected with French ideas! Consequently, she wrote herself a sharp criticism of the book, upon which its prosecution had to be based. Radíscheff was arrested, confined to the fortress, later on transported to the remotest portions of Eastern Siberia, on the Olenek. He was released only in 1801. Next year, seeing that even the advent of Alexander the First did not mean the coming of a new reformatory spirit, he put an end to his life by suicide. As to his book, it still remains forbidden in Russia. A new edition of it, which was made in 1872, was confiscated and destroyed, and in 1888 the permission was given to a publisher to issue the work in editions of a hundred copies only, which were to be distributed among a few men of science and certain high functionaries.[7]
THE FIRST YEARS OF THE NINETEENTH CENTURY.
These were, then, the elements out of which Russian literature had to be evolved in the nineteenth century. The slow work of the last five hundred years had already prepared that admirable, pliable, and rich instrument—the literary language in which Púshkin would soon be enabled to write his melodious verses and Turguéneff his no less melodious prose. From the autobiography of the Non-conformist martyr, Avvakúm, one could already guess the value of the spoken language of the Russian people for literary purposes.
Tretiakóvskiy, by his clumsy verses, and especially Lomonósoff and Derzhávin by their odes, had definitely repelled the syllabic form that had been introduced from France and Poland, and had established the tonic, rhythmical form which was indicated by the popular song itself. Lomonósoff had created a popular scientific language; he had invented a number of new words, and had proved that the Latin and Old Slavonian constructions were hostile to the spirit of Russian, and quite unnecessary. The age of Catherine II. further introduced into written literature the forms of familiar everyday talk, borrowed even from the peasant class; and Nóvikoff had created a Russian philosophical language—still heavy on account of its underlying mysticism, but splendidly adapted, as it appeared a few decades later, to abstract metaphysical discussions. The elements for a great and original literature were thus ready. They required only a vivifying spirit which should use them for higher purposes. This genius was Púshkin. But before speaking of him, the historian and novelist Karamzín and the poet Zhukóvskiy[8] must be mentioned, as they represent a link between the two epochs.