Before studying those contemporary writers who alone will reveal to us the true Russian spirit and character, we must devote a little attention to their predecessors, in order to understand the Russian literature in its prolonged infancy, and its bearing upon that of the present day. We shall see how everything conspired to retard its development. Russian literature may be divided into four distinct epochs. The first, ending with the accession of Peter the Great, was in fact its mediæval age. In this epoch a wealth of national traditions had accumulated in its popular poetry and barbarous essays. The second period embraces the last century, from Peter the Great to Alexander I., and, although seemingly progressive, was the least fruitful one, because its literature was but a servile imitation of that of the Occident. The third, the short epoch of romanticism, produced a brilliant set of poets, whose works were of value to the general world of letters. But they were hot-house blooms, produced by a culture imported from abroad, and give but little idea of the true properties of their native soil.
Forty years ago a new epoch began. Russia has finally produced something spontaneous and original. In the realistic novel, Russian genius has at last come to a realizing sense of its own existence; and, while bound indissolubly to the past, it already lisps and stammers the programme of its future. We shall see how this genius has soared from darkness and obscurity, acting already a part in history, although continually repressed by history’s cruel wrongs and injustice and its brusque changes of situation. We must recall too the intellectual origin of this race and its moral peregrinations, and then we can make more allowance for what there is of gloom, irresolution, and obscurity in its literature.
The Russian people are afflicted with a national, a historical malady, which is partly hereditary, partly contracted during the course of its existence. The hereditary part is that proclivity of the Slavonic mind towards that negative doctrine which to-day we call Nihilism, and which the Hindu fathers called Nirvâna. In fact, if we would understand Russia well, we must recall to our minds what she has learned from ancient India.
Many philosophers of the present day in Russia fully accept the doctrines of Buddha, and boast with pride of the purity of their Aryan blood, bringing forward many arguments in support of this claim. First, there is the fact that the physical type is very marked in families in which the Tartar blood has never mingled. Many a Moscow student or peasant from certain provinces might, except for his light complexion, easily pass in a street of Lahore or Benares for a native of the valley of the Ganges. Moreover, they have strong philological arguments. The old Slavonic dialect is declared by linguists to more nearly approach the Sanscrit than does the Greek of the very earliest epochs. The grammatical rules are identical. Speak of the Vêda to any Russian peasant, and you will find he needs no explanation; the verb vêdat is one in constant use by him. If he should mention the word “fire,” it will be the original one used by his ancestors who worshipped that element. Numberless examples could be quoted to prove this close relation to the original Sanscrit; but this is still more strongly shown by an analytical study of the Russian mind and character. The Hindu type of mind may be easily recognized in the Slavonic intellectual type. By studying the revolutions of India one could easily understand possible convulsions in Russia. The most able authors state the Buddhist revolution to have arisen from a social rather than a religious reaction of the popular sentiment against the spirit of caste, against the fixed organizations of society. Like Christianity in the West, Buddhism was in the extreme East the revelation, the personification of charity and meekness, of moral and social freedom, which were to render life more tolerable to multitudes of human beings bowed under the yoke of an implacable theocracy.
The best doctrines, in order to succeed, must permit certain exaggerations for the fanciful and imaginative, and tolerate certain errors which attract minds warped by prolonged sufferings. To the latter, Christianity offers asceticism; Buddhism promises them the joys of annihilation, the Nirvâna. Nihilism is the word invented by Burnouf as a translation of Nirvâna. Max Müller says that the Sanscrit word really means “the action of extinguishing a light by blowing it out.” Will not this definition explain Russian Nihilism, which would extinguish the light of civilization by stifling it, then plunge back into chaos.
Undoubtedly, numerous and more recent causes have acted upon the national mind producing this peculiar state of discouragement, which in violent natures has developed into a furious desire to destroy every existing condition, because all are bad. Moreover, Christianity has lent a new formula to what there was of good in the old instincts. Its influence has been profound, accounting for the spirit of fraternity and self-sacrifice so admirable in this people. But I cannot help thinking that with this stolid race we must go back to the habits of thought of very ancient times in order to realize what their natural inclinations and difficulties would be.
We shall now see how these have been aggravated or modified by a series of accidents. I know of no people which has been so overwhelmed by its own fate; like a river which has changed its course over and over again, or the life of one of those men who seem fated to begin several different careers in life and succeed in none.
The Western nations have developed under much more favorable conditions. After the forced establishment and final withdrawal of Islamism, they enjoyed a long period of comparative peace, several centuries in which they could work out the problem of life. Constant revolutions and wars did not wholly throw them off the track which they had marked out for themselves from the outset.
Russia, on the contrary, seems to have offered a free field for the most radical experiments, in which its poor people have been involved every two or three hundred years, just as they were well started in a new direction. Plunged into the most barbarous and heathenish anarchy, different tribes waged war there for two or three centuries after these had wholly ceased in France. Then Christianity came, but from a Byzantine, the least pure source; a vitiated Christianity, enervated by oriental corruption. The Russian people were fated to become wholly Greek in religion, laws, and government, thus commencing a new epoch in history. Would this germ of a new life have time to develop?