The humour of Russia

by Unknown

With Shchedrìn (Saltykòv) we are in presence of the greatest satirist the Slavonic race has produced. He is a man of our time, Russia having lost him only a few years ago. For about fifty years he was the moral leader of liberal Russia, having devoted his life to the awakening of the national conscience by all the ways and methods which his incomparable genius could suggest. He was the political chronicler of his time, reproducing in rough caricatures, which made the whole of reading Russia roar with laughter, the principal events which took place in the country. At the same time, in his more elaborate works, as the “Story of the Golovlevs,” and others, he equals Dostoyèvsky in the power of creating weird, gloomy, strikingly original figures, as well as in the subtle delineation of the whole man from the inner side.

When the boldness of some idea or the virulence of some attack rendered it impossible for Shchedrìn (on account of the censorship) to speak plainly, he resorted to what he himself used to call the “slave’s language,” employing the Oriental form of the fable, the allegory, the fairy tale.

The best of Shchedrìn’s works are not translated into English, and probably will never be. His unrivalled wit and humour are untranslatable, because they depend chiefly upon the marvellous skill in using the Russian language. This is not inferiority, but difference in the quality of the talent. Rudyard Kipling’s military stories, to quote an English example, are certainly very fine samples of genuine humour. But what would remain of them if stripped of their racy idiom? And how many second and third-rate authors are just as good (or as bad) in any decent translation?

Our great satirist stands at the head of those authors who must be read in their own tongue. The translator has shown much discernment in choosing as samples of Shchedrìn’s art three minor works of his, in which the language is of lesser importance. One is a burlesque, “The Recollections of Onésime Chenapan,” which is an amusing caricature of the Russian “administrators.” The other two are fables—“The Self-Sacrificing Rabbit,” in which the satirist boldly ridicules nothing less than the feeling of loyalty under a régime which consists of brutal violence erected into a system, and “The Eagle as Mecænas,” a skit on the Tzar himself.

The gloomy author of Crime and Punishment once relieved his mind with a queer, semi-fantastic little story, “The Crocodile,” which amuses by its incongruities and contrasts. It has not been before translated, so far as I know, into any foreign language, and the English admirers of Dostoyèvsky will be the first to read it.

But the object of the translator was not merely to make a collection of the best humoristic works of the best Russian authors. She wanted to give samples of all kinds of Russian humour, and her list includes the two Uspènskys, Glyeb and Nikolai, V. Slyeptzòv, and even some sketches by Gorbounòv. There is hardly a name worth mentioning that could be added to these. As to translation, it is as good as it possibly could be. Only a person with the translator’s exceptional knowledge of the Russian language could have overcome the difficulties inherent in a work of such a kind. Yet, with all that, I doubt whether the English will make a fair estimate of the above-mentioned authors, though among them there is one—Glyeb Uspènsky—who enjoys an enormous and well-merited popularity among the very exacting and discriminating Russian public.

What has been said about the untranslatableness of Shchedrìn applies à fortiori to the minor humorists. Their charm depends in a still greater degree upon the language. The unique flexibility, richness, and freedom of the Russian idiom allows those few who have got the mastery over it to obtain with it truly wonderful effects. Some authors do this at the expense of more substantial qualities. With our younger humorists the language runs riot. They are like those injudicious painters who, having a great command over the colouring, neglect to give the necessary correctness and fulness to the lines, which alone know of no decay and are preserved through time and space. The translation is like the plain black and white reproduction of a picture. Only the substantial, unperishable part of the work is preserved, the rest being lost almost entirely. And in regard to the examples taken here from our minor humorists,—if English readers enjoy the humour of “A Trifling Defect in the Mechanism,” or “The Porridge,” it will be as high a compliment to the translator as to the authors.

A trifle of my own—“The Story of a Kopeck”—has been kindly included by the translator in the present collection. It is quite a youthful production, and will not, I am afraid, be of much credit to Russian humour. But in view of the catholicity of the translator’s choice, which includes even Gorbounòv, I thought it might stand where it is.

Whatever be the reader’s opinion of the merit of separate stories, the translator, as well as the publishers, deserve the thanks of the lover of Russian literature for bringing out this collection.

The smile is the most characteristic trait of a human face. We do not really know what a face is like before we have seen it smiling. Now with a nation its humour is what a smile is with an individual.