Among the considerable number of romances already mentioned, those exhibiting scenes of private life and domestic interest have not been neglected. Kaláshnikoff wrote "The Merchant Jáloboff's Daughter," and the "Kamtchadálka," both describing the scenery and manners of Siberia; the former painting various parts of that wild and interesting country, the latter confined more particularly to the Peninsula of Kamtchátka. Besides Gógol, whose easy and prolific pen has presented us with so many humorous sketches of provincial life, we cannot pass over Begitchéff, whose "Khólmsky Family" possesses much interest; but the delineations of Gógol depend so much for their effect upon delicate shades of manner, &c., that it is not probable they can ever be effectively reproduced in another language.
Mentioning Peróffsky, whose "Monastírka" gives a picture of Russian interior life, we pass to Gretch, an author of some European reputation. His "Trip to Germany" describes, with singular piquancy, the manners of a very curious race—the Germans of St Petersburg; and "Tchérnaia Jénstchina," "the Black Woman," presents a picture of Russian society, which was welcomed with great eagerness by the public.
The object of these pages being to invite the attention of British readers to a very rich field, in a literature hitherto most unaccountably neglected by the English public, the present would not be a fit occasion to enter with any minuteness into the history of Russian letters, or to give, in fact, more than a passing allusion to its chief features; the translator hopes that he will be excused for the meagreness of the present notice.
He will be abundantly repaid for his exertions, by the discovery of any increasing desire on the part of his countrymen to become more accurately acquainted with the character of a nation, worthy, he is convinced, of a very high degree of respect and admiration. How could that acquaintance be so delightfully, or so effectually made, as by the interchange of literature? The great works of English genius are read, studied, and admired, throughout the vast empire of Russia; the language of England is rapidly and steadily extending, and justice, no less than policy, demands, that many absurd misapprehensions respecting the social and domestic character, no less than the history, of Russia, should be dispelled by truth.
The translator, in conclusion, trusts that it will not be superfluous to specify one or two of the reasons which induced him to select the present romance, as the first-fruit of his attempt to naturalize in England the literature of Russia.
It is considered as a very good specimen of the author's style; the facts and characters are all strictly true;[10] besides this, the author passed many years in the Caucasus, and made full use of the opportunities he thus enjoyed of becoming familiar with the language, manners, and scenery of a region on which the attention of the English public has long been turned with peculiar interest.
The picturesqueness as well as the fidelity of his description will, it is hoped, secure for the tale a favourable reception with a public always "novitatis avida," and whose appetite, now somewhat palled with the "Bismillahs" and "Mashallahs" of the ordinary oriental novels, may find some piquancy in a new variety of Mahomedan life—that of the Caucasian Tartars.
The Russian language possessing many characters and some few sounds for which there is no exact equivalent in English, we beg to say a word upon the method adopted on the present occasion so to represent the Russian orthography, as to avoid the shocking barbarisms of such combinations as zh, &c. &c., and to secure, at the same time, an approach to the correct pronunciation. Throughout these pages the vowels a, e, i, o, y, are supposed to be pronounced as in French, the diphthong ou as in the word you, the j always with the French sound.
With respect to the combinations of consonants employed, kh has the gutteral sound of the ch in the Scottish word loch, and gh is like a rather rough or coarse aspirate.
The simple g is invariably to be uttered hard, as in gun or gall.