A History of Russian Literature: From the Earliest Times to the Death of Dostoyevsky (1881)

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A HISTORY OF RUSSIAN LITERATURE

STUDIES IN LITERATURE FROM THE BORZOI LIST

European Literature in the Nineteenth Century By Benedetto Croce Ideals and Realities in Russian Literature By P. Kropotkin

A New Survey of English Literature By Benjamin Brawley Ireland's Literary Renaissance By Ernest Boyd Contemporary Russian Literature By Prince D. S. Mirsky Contemporary Spanish Literature By Aubrey F. G. Bell Contemporary French Literature By René Lalou

A

HISTORY

RUSSIAN

OF

LITERATURE

From the Earliest Times to the Death of Dostoyevsky (1881)

BY PRINCE D. S. MIRSKY Lecturer in Russian Literature at King's College, London

NEW YORK · ALFRED · A • KNOPF · MCMXXVII

COPYRIGHT 1927 , BY ALFRED A. KNOPF , INC .

MANUFACTURED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

To

JANE ELLEN HARRISON

PREFACE This book is planned so as to lead up to and form one whole with Contemporary Russian Literature ( 1881-1925 ) . But, covering as it does a much larger stretch of time and only a slightly greater number of pages, the present volume is on a somewhat less detailed scale than its companion. It is continued to a date which may be regarded as the end of the "classical " age of the Russian novel and which coincides with the death of Dostoyevsky and Turgenev and the conver sion of Tolstoy. No hard and fast divisions being possible in the complex fabric of history, the dividing line between the two volumes is not in all points strictly chronological.

Some

writers who produced much of their best work before 1880, but are not typical of the age, have been included in Con temporary Russian Literature . Leontiev, and Sluchevsky. tween the two books.

This is the case with Leskov,

Tolstoy has been cut in two be

In a few cases there is a slight over

lapping. In writing of the literature of a country whose history is very little known abroad I was all the time under the tempta tion of enlarging on general historical and cultural topics . But for fear of making the book too hideously long ( and, as it is, I had too little time at my disposal to make it as short as I should have liked to ) I have cut out all this general informa tion. I am forced to presume a certain general knowledge of the history of Russian civilization on the part of my readers, a presumption all the more justifiable as the same publishers have recently brought out an excellent general history of Russia by Sir Bernard Pares. The same considerations of space ( as well as of my own

insufficient knowledge ) have prevented me from including chapters on Russian folk-lore, a subject vast enough to make vii

viii

PREFACE

any size of book by itself ; and on Ukrainian literature, which, though in many ways strikingly different, is closely linked with that of the Great-Russians. Some passages of the paragraphs on Avvakum, on Gri boyedov, and on Lermontov originally appeared in prefaces to English translations of their works. They are here re produced with the kind permission of the proprietors of the Hogarth Press (Avvakum) and of the editors of the Slavonic Review (Griboyedov and Lermontov ) . I owe my thanks to Professor Pares for permission to quote an unpublished trans lation by him of a fable of Krylov. D. S. MIRSKY. London June 1926.

CONTENTS

TRANSLITERATION

xiii

CHAPTER I The Literature of Old Russia

1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11.

The Literary Language Literary Conditions Survey of Translated Works The Kievian Period The Chronicles The Campaign of Igor, and its Family Between Kiev and Moscow The Muscovite Period Muscovite Histories The Beginnings of Fiction The End of Old Muscovy : Avvakum

3 4 6 10 13 17 25 28 31 33 37

CHAPTER II The 1. 2. 3. 4. 5.

Passing of Old Russia The South-Western Revival The Transition in Moscow and Petersburg The First Literary Verse The Drama Fiction and Chap-Books

44 45 48 49 51

CHAPTER III The 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8.

Age of Classicism Cantemir and Trediakovsky Lomonosov Narrative and Lyrical Poetry after Lomonosov Derzhavin The Drama Eighteenth-Century Prose Karamzin Contemporaries of Karamzin ix

55 57 62 65 69 74 79 84

CONTENTS

X

9. Krylov 10. The Novel

88 93

CHAPTER IV

The 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14.

Golden Age of Poetry General Characteristics Zhukovsky Other Poets of the Older Generation Pushkin Minor Poets Baratynsky Yazykov Metaphysical Poets The Theatre Griboyedov The Poets ' Prose The Rise of the Novel The Prose of Pushkin The Growth of Journalism

95 97 102 106 127 129 134 136 139 140 145 147 150 154

CHAPTER V

The 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14.

Age of Gogol The Decline of Poetry Koltsov Tyutchev Lermontov The Poetry of Reflection The Drama The Novelists of the Thirties Gogol Lermontov's Prose The First Naturalists The Petersburg Journalists The Moscow "Circles" The Slavophils Belinsky

157 160 163 168 177 179 181 183 198 202 203 203 207 210

CHAPTER VI The 1. 2. 3.

Age of Realism : The Novelists ( I) Origin and Character of Russian Realistic Novel The Early Work of Dostoyevsky Aksakov

216 220 225

CONTENTS 4. 5. 6. 7. 8.

Goncharov Turgenev The Sentimental Philanthropists Pisemsky Novelists of Provincial Character

xi

231 236 253 254 260

CHAPTER VII

The Age of Realism : Journalists, Poets, and Playwrights 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15.

Criticism after Belinsky Apollon Grigoriev Herzen The Radical Leaders Slavophils and Nationalists The Eclectic Poets

Alexey Tolstoy Fet Realistic Poets Nekrasov The Utter Decline of Poetry The Drama, General Survey ; Turgenev Ostrovsky Sukhovo-Kobylin, Pisemsky, and Minor Dramatists The Costume Play

263 264 269 276 281 283 286 289 294 295 302 303 305 312 315

CHAPTER VIII The Age of Realism : The Novelists (II) 1. Tolstoy (Before 1880) 2. Dostoyevsky (After 1849) 3. Saltykov-Shchedrin 4. The Decline of the Novel in the Sixties and Seventies 5. The "Plebeian" Novelists

319 340 358 362 365

BIBLIOGRAPHY 1. English 2. French and German 3. Russian INDEX

371 375 376

879

TRANSLITERATION

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