Demon,' are those inspired by Caucasian legends. He however, better known to English readers as the auth of a novel translated under the title 'A Hero of o Times.' The scene is laid at Piatigorsk, a fashional inland watering-place at the foot of the Caucasi mountains, much frequented by Russians of the upp class. The hero Petchorin is of the usual type. military dandy, well-born, intellectual, cynical, a inconstant, his love-affairs end in satiety, and the sto closes in the vein of melancholy characteristic of Russi novels. After Pushkin and Lermontov, the whole range Russian literature widens out. Literary stars appe not singly but in groups and constellations, and th light penetrates to the lowest planes of the social sca The general tendency and character of Russian literatu in recent times may be defined as realistic, psychologic and pessimistic. The most uncompromising realism evident in the studies of actual life taken from all class of people. Idealism, as we understand it, is practica absent; while the psychology of the Russian school fiction is carried far deeper than anywhere in Engli literature. Turguenev, in his 'Sportsman's Tales,' which are p sented as light sketches of country life, incidental exposes the cruelty and selfishness of the landlord cla and the miseries of the serf. Gogol, his senior by ni years, had undermined the whole fabric of Russi society by attacking the serf-owner; and Tolstoy, aft apparently acquiescing in the status quo of rich and po in 'War and Peace,' and 'Anna Karenina,' became t greatest iconoclast of these three. These great pillars the Temple of Russian literature undoubtedly prepar the way for a social revolution, by sweeping aside t glamour that surrounded an hereditary landed aristocrac and, not satisfied with arraigning the ruling section the community, poured unmeasured scorn upon th idlers, the futile dreamers and ineffectual altruists who flow of talk achieved no tangible result whatever. In Turguenev's principal novels we find a successio of Onéguines and Petchorins. Let us take Rudin in th novel of that name. Rudin associates with the nobilit on terms of equality, without having an assured positio C B pe al, Le Rus ange ap ปะ erate logis THE MEANING OF RUSSIAN LITERATURE 111 of his own. He is lazy, ill-educated, luxurious, and fond of displaying his gifts of eloquence and social charm. f He goes from house to house, and finds enthusiastic listeners in every drawing-room he enters. He is incapable of any definite course of action and is lamentably lacking in will and character, yet he pleads the cause of patriotic endeavour with so much eloquence that he himself is woefully disappointed that nothing comes of it. Rudin is Turguenev's finest psychological study. Other personalities, less carefully drawn but true to type, are Daria Lasunsky, the lady with a country-place who entertains lavishly and is secretly detested by those of lesser position, who regard her as 'haughty, overbearing, and immoral'; Lejnev, also of the landlord class, honest-hearted, simple, and with a limited range of ideas; and Natalia, the embodiment of goodness, moral courage, and steadfastness. The plot of Dmitri Rudin,' like those of so many Russian novels, is little more than an essay in psychology, amplified by pictures of so-called good society. Rudin, the social favourite and to all appearance master of the situation, realises the falseness of his position the moment he aspires to marriage with Natalia, the daughter of his hostess. He has no means, no position, and the pride of the Russian aristocrat of fifty years ago rises in arms against such a mésalliance. Rudin, incapable of resistance to opposing forces, resigns his love without a struggle, but yet with a certain dignity which inspires respect. His weakness has been unsparingly exposed throughout; but, as age and misfortune close in upon him, the author sums him up in the words of his one loyal friend, with the sympathy that Russians invariably show towards failure and moral laxity. lis cla ctics hoot Eng re ent 1 Y me E repa side toc ction ОД П 'It is not the spirit of idle restlessness, it is the flame of the love of truth that burns in you, and clearly, in spite of your failings; it burns in you with greater fire than in many who do not consider themselves egoists, and dare to call you a humbug perhaps . . . and you have not even been embittered, Dmitri. You are ready, I am sure, to-day, to set to some new work again like a boy.' Rudin is shot down at the barricades in Paris in 1848. Again, in A House of Gentlefolk,' Turguenev makes a study of the men and women of his own standing and generation, and introduces us to Panshin, a smart young bureaucrat, bent on a career, and Lavretsky, the scion of a noble house who returns from his travels to live among his peasants, seeking to gain their confidence and spread the democratic views he has acquired abroad. But Turguenev, for all his sympathy with the oppressed moujik and serf, is not able to place himself on their level. He writes, glancing downwards from above, with pity but hardly with complete understanding. The same, at the outset of his career as a writer, might be said of Leo Tolstoy. War and Peace' is a novel of high society. Levine, it is true, is a philan thropic landlord, who lives on his estate and seeks to help and benefit his peasants by every means in his power; but Levine is subsidiary to Pierre, the natural son of a nobleman, and Prince André, a young officer whose fastidious and arrogant spirit reflects the disposi tion of Tolstoy himself in early manhood. Anna Karenina' is similarly a novel devoted to the old exclusive, aristocratic and official class which disdained to associates with the merchants or even with the Intellectuals-the 'Intelligentsia' as they are called in Russia. I need not describe the characters in Anna Karenina,' a novel: almost as well known to English as to Russian readers. Suffice to say that it is an admirable and faithful picture of a régime that is past and gone, and which had even then reached the verge of its downfall. Not only the unrest that lay below the surface was working towards revolution, but the modern development of a middle class was changing the whole aspect of Russian life. A great industrial advance manifested itself when Russia recovered from the shock and strain of the Napoleonic invasion. Factories rapidly increased in number; banks and commercial enterprises of all kinds multiplied. Merchants and tradesfolk grew rich, and could no longer be left out of the reckoning. Their sons thronged the gymnasiums and colleges, fired by the desire for culture and expansion, and swelled the ranks of the Intelligentsia, a term which includes without distinction all men who devote themselves to literary pursuits. The old noble families were beginning to disintegrate. In many cases their estates passed out of their hands, or were preserved by means of intermarriage e w elop aspe feste strain rease of s The y th his with the sons and daughters of self-made men. Fiction ceased to concern itself principally with the doings of a privileged few, and presented an entirely new gallery of portraits. The lower ranks of the bureaucracy, the professional men, the trading community, in fine the 'bourgeois,' occupy the first places in these novels of the transition period. Tolstoy wrote a short, pathetic story of a poor little clerk, whose idea of happiness had been to possess a furcoat. He arrives at the moment when his savings suffice for the purchase, only to have it stolen from him, after which he loses heart for the struggle of life and dies for want of anything to live for. Later, Chekhov and Saltikov and Sologub, all masters of the art of the short story, devoted themselves almost exclusively to studies of intellectuals and bureaucratic underlings. Saltikov, during exile in Viatka, a remote provincial town, wrote the series of of 'Provincial Sketches' which made his name famous throughout Russia. They constituted a formidable attack on the administration of local government, of which few men could be better judges, since he had occupied every official position in town-life, from clerk to governor. Saltikov had many imitators; and, step by step, the novel with a purpose came into being, as the sole outlet for the ventilation of grievances and for giving forth the aspirations of the progressive section of the nation. Chekhov, a greater artist than Saltikov, is preeminently the novelist of the Intelligentsia. He views his own class as a weak minority, seeking a breathingspace between highly placed reactionaries and stagnating peasantry, and deplores their lack of energy and force of character. His novels are models of penetrating, incisive criticism in the guise of fiction, the best known among them being perhaps The Duel,' The Valet,' and 'Room No. 6,' and the play entitled 'Uncle Vanya.' The leading part in Uncle Vanya' is played by a learned professor named Serebriakov, who is worshipped by his whole family on account of his genius. brother-in-law manages his estate for him and, like the rest, makes sacrifices to provide him with money. The professor spends his time in writing a book on the sacred mission of art, regardless of the wants and His pleasures of any one. His is the life of pure egotism given up to the phrasing of beautiful sentences. Finally he gets tired of living in the country, and proposes to go abroad. To accomplish this he wishes to sell the estate which in reality belongs to his daughter Sonia. He communicates his intention to his family, whose eye! are at last opened to the egoism of their idol, and ar estrangement ensues. But shortly afterwards matter are adjusted and a reconciliation takes place. Sonya who is the heroine of the drama, devotes herself to the village and its needs, while she shows herself willing an ready to face work. She is the one character in th drama who keeps firm hold of her father, in spite o personal unhappiness and disappointed love, and prevent those around her from being overwhelmed by despair. Thus it may be seen that idealism is not in reality absent from the Russian novel, although it is of character totally different from what we understand by that word. The Russian writer's idealism show itself in a continual search for inner truth and for the highest pinnacle of justice. In Dostoevsky this search is everywhere evident; and he does not scruple to put his best and most elevated thoughts into the mouths of the fallen and the wretched. But Dostoevsky, one feels great as he is, may be almost left out of the category He is a psycho-pathologist of universally acknowledged genius, who devotes himself to the abnormal. Healthy commonplace human nature is rare in his pages. His people are Russians, but Russians seen in a mirror which gives to those it reflects an appearance of malformation My concern here is chiefly to choose from the vast mass of Russian literature studies of national types from highest to lowest, that are at once critical and just. Such a writer is Ostrovsky, whose plays, few in number, must be numbered among the finest productions of the 19th century. His characters are mainly drawn from the newly-enriched merchant class. The elders are harsh, domineering, and unscrupulous; the young of both sexes are weak and subservient or silently strong. and inwardly rebellious. There is rarely a scene in which love triumphs over an evil destiny, except by escaping, like Catherine in 'The Storm,' by the gateway of death. The heroines are either, as she is, under the |