N. M. Karamzin: A Russian sentimentalist 9783111393773, 9783111031248

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N.M. K A R A M Z I N A R U S S I A N SENTIMENTALIST

S LAVI STIC PRINTINGS AND REPRINTINGS

edited by

C. H. VAN SCHOONEVELD Indiana University

LX

1967

MOUTON & CO. THE H A G U E · PARIS

Ν. M. KARAMZIN A Russian Sentimentalist

by H E N R Y M. NEBEL, Jr. Northwestern University

m 1967

MOUTON & CO. THE HAGUE · PARIS

© Copyright 1967, Mouton & Co., Publishers, The Hague, The Netherlands. No part of this book may be translated or reproduced in any form by print, photoprint, microfilm, or any other means, without written permission from the publishers.

Printed in The Netherlands by Mouton & Co., Printers, The Hague.

To S., for all those delightful days in woods and fields

FOREWORD

Nikolaj Mixajlovic Karamzin (1766-1826) achieved outstanding success in two different careers. After winning renown as a literary man in the early part of his life, he turned to historical research and devoted his last twenty-five years to a history of Russia. In 1818, the first eight volumes of Istorija gosudarstva rossijskago (History of the Russian State) were published by the Emperor's own printer and received by the Russians with great acclaim. Before this success as an historian, Karamzin gained distinction in the field of literature as the leading representative of sentimentalism in Russia. The significance of his contribution to this movement has always been recognized by Russian literary scholars. Karamzin did not introduce sentimentalism into Russia, but he was the first to express it fully in his work and to exemplify its main tenets in his poetry and prose. In so doing, he evolved a literary language eminently suited to convey the emotional subtleties of sentimentalism. Theoretically, Karamzin advocated the use in literature of the conventional idiom of the educated Russian nobility. Actually, this idiom was "prettified" somewhat by a conscious effort to make it attractive to the feminine "soul". Finally, much of his prose, poetry, translations, and journalistic endeavors were in the best tradition of the Russian Enlightenment and, as such, rendered a positive service to cultural progress in the eighteenth century. Recognition of Karamzin's significance, however, has been confined by and large to Russia. Even comprehensive European and American studies of preromanticism all but ignore the Russian scene and its most interesting representative, Karamzin.1 This monograph is an attempt to 1

Paul van Tieghem devotes less than ten sentences to Karamzin in his otherwise excellent study, Le préromantisme, I (1924), Π (1930). An American scholar, Stuart Pratt Atkins makes only passing reference to Karamzin in his study of the Werther theme's influence upon European literature, The Testament of Werther

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FOREWORD

remedy the neglect by introducing the man and describing his works. The specific purpose of this study is to analyze Karamzin's prose and poetry so as to define the nature of his sentimentalism. While my approach to this problem is literary-historical, biographical facts will receive attention because they are relevant and because there is no monograph of Karamzin's life available in English.2 His only Russian biographer, M. Pogodin, amassed a great fund of information a century ago but did not evaluate either the man or his work successfully.3 In the first and second chapters, I have examined the important external facts of Karamzin's life, his literary activities and intellectual interests, the chronology of his work, and his social and literary contacts. The influential masonic years and the period of his literary creativity are treated circumstantially; the years of historical research and publication are spanned quickly. The rationale for this uneven concentration has been the desire to provide such information which would apply most directly to the material of the succeeding chapters. The third and fourth chapters, "Preromantic Developments Before Karamzin", draw together the varied, and often disparate, elements of Russian preromanticism. The material is organized by genre; the general import of each genre is described and, then, its impact upon Russian literature discussed. The date of translation of the more important preromantic literature is given in the appendices. In this fashion I hope to deal with the basic themes of western sentimentalism, note their transmission through Russian translations, and analyze the appearance of these themes in Russian literature. The purpose of this presentation is to trace the steady growth of preromanticism in the years preceding Karamzin's literary debut. While Karamzin was not interested primarily in the drama, I have included a section on its developments in Russia because some of the important aspects of the preromantic movement are particularly apparent in the drama. The biography of Karamzin and the descriptive analysis of prein Poetry and Drama (1949). To expand the list would only repeat the basic complaint: Karamzin and the Russian preromantic movement are generally ignored by European and American specialists of the eighteenth century. 2 Two recent works in English contain short descriptions of Karamzin's life: Leon Stilman, "Introduction", Letters of a Russian Traveler, translator Florence Jonas (New York, Columbia University Press, 1957); Richard Pipes, "The Background and Growth of Karamzin's Political Ideas down to 1810", Karamzin's Memoir on Ancient and Modern Russia (Cambridge, Massachusetts, Harvard University Press, 1959). 3 Nikolaj Mixajlovii Karamzin (2 vols.; Moscow, Mamontov, 1866).

FOREWORD

9

romanticism provide a referential background for the literary-historical study of his poetry and prose. In the concluding chapters, I have divided Karamzin's writing into genres, tracing their historical origin in Russian, the foreign influences discernible in his practice, and, finally, his imprint upon them. Karamzin's sentimentalism has a certain cohesive quality about it. He was susceptible to the literary influences of different writers at different times but, very frequently, he maintained a significant uniformity in his choice of themes and method of treatment. I have tried to reveal in these chapters the aesthetic standards which directed and controlled his literary efforts. This is only a different formulation, I believe, of the monograph's main purpose, namely, to define the nature of Karamzin's sentimentalism.

CONTENTS

Foreword

7

I. Moscow: Apprenticeship

13

II. Moscow and St. Petersburg A. Moscow: The Journals B. St. Petersburg: The History III. Preromantic Developments before Karamzin A. Introduction B. The Poetry 1. Significance of preromantic poetry . 2. Russian developments

36 36 45 .

.

.

.

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50 50 53 53 55

.

IV. Preromantic Developments before Karamzin (Cont.) . A. The Novel 1. Significance of the new novel 2. Russian developments B. The Drama 1. Significance of the new drama 2. Russian developments

.

68 68 68 69 75 75 77

V. Poetry: The Theory A. Introduction B. Aesthetic Poems

84 84 86

VI. Poetry: The Practice

98

VII. Prose: "Poor Liza", Language VIII. Prose: Historical, Moral, and Romantic Tales IX. Letters of a Russian Traveler Conclusion

117 .

.

.

132 154 171

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CONTENTS

Appendices A. Russian Translations of Preromantic Poetry . B. Russian Translations of the New Novel . . . . C. Russian Translations of the New Drama . .

.

177 177 178

Bibliography

180

Index

185

I MOSCOW: APPRENTICESHIP

According to legend, an eagle soaring over a small island in the Neva river, where Peter the Great was laying the first stone of a new fortress, Petersburg, was brought to earth by a Russian archer. The Emperor, who had prophesized earlier that a town would rise on this site, carried the wounded eagle away, eager to accept the incident as a sanguine omen that nature's turbulent forces would submit to Russian control.1 In the eighteenth century, St. Petersburg's continuous growth in power, prestige, and wealth fulfilled the prophesy and the omen. After defeating Charles XII at the Battle of Poltava (1709), the tsar felt secure on the shores of the Neva and began to construct the new town in earnest. Many administrative offices were moved to St. Petersburg in 1713 and, except for a brief interlude in Peter Ill's reign (17271730), it was accepted as the official capital of "AH the Russias". Empress Anna further consolidated this attitude by transferring the Royal Court to the shores of the Neva in 1732. St. Petersburg remained the official residence of tsarist and communist rulers for the next two centuries. The "glaring mistake of Peter the Great",2 in Karamzin's words, became the center of Russian political and cultural life. On the periphery of the Empire, St. Petersburg yearned for Europe and, like a brazen courtesan, that which it could not seduce to its shores, it bought outright: sculptures of Paulo, Irelli, and Baratta; statuary from Rome and urns from Sweden. France, languishing in the soft afterglow of the Sun King's reign, proved most attractive. The Summer Garden of St. Petersburg as well as the habits and decorum of the court were modelled on Versailles; French classicism of the seventeenth century pro1

M. I. Pyljaeva, Staryj Petersburg [Old Petersburg] (St. Petersburg, A. S. Suvorin, 1903), 3rd ed., p. 10. 2 Karamzin's Memoir on Ancient and Modern Russia, trans. Richard Pipes (Cambridge, Massachusetts, Harvard University Press, 1959), p. 126.

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vided forms and ideas for Russian classicism of the eighteenth century. St. Petersburg seemed to become - as its name suggests - a non-Russian city, closer in spirit to Europe than to Russia. Permeated by an alien mood and frequently ruled by foreign nobility and even an alien empress,8 St. Petersburg provoked distrust and suspicion in many Russian minds. Moscow, on the other hand, was simply and unfeignedly Russian: Its past was tightly intertwined with the history of the Russian people and its churches, streets, and buildings - and the ruins upon which these buildings were erected - silently testified to the blood and suffering that had created a nation. The center of the Orthodox Faith, the repository of miracle-working icons, the home of legendary heroes, Moscow proudly and stubbornly clung to the past, to the old manners and habits, and seemed determined to apotheosize all things Russian in opposition to the foreign and foppish ways of St. Petersburg. It is not surprising that a social and cultural rivalry arose between patriarchal Moscow and the brash upstart, St. Petersburg. The tensions of this rivalry were particularly apparent in the last decades of the eighteenth century. St. Petersburg was viewed by the Moscow nobility then in much the same way as the arch-conservative views Washington, today: As a center of bureaucratic and autocratic power intent upon curtailing the individual's rights and privileges. Faced by this hostility and disturbed by the old Muscovite ways which were foreign to her, Catherine II responded in kind. "I don't like Moscow at all", she observed early in her reign and proceeded to demonstrate this dislike in literary satire and political actions. The Empress pokes fun at Muscovite superstition and ignorance in her comedy, O Vremja (O Time), and she rarely graced Moscow with her presence. Instead, a trusted subordinate, drawn from the upper bureaucratic levels and responsible directly to her, was placed in charge. In turn, Moscow provided a haven for those who disagreed with Catherine's policies and programs. Such dignitaries as the Princes G. G. and A. G. Orlov and Count P. I. Panin, settled there and contributed to the city's conservative tone where the upper nobility zealously sought to preserve their traditions and privileges against the encroachments of the throne. This rivalry was even more sharply expressed in the cultural orientation of these two "capitals". In manners, speech, and social behavior, the Court had been much influenced by the French. A mincing gait, 9

One can refer to the rule of the Baltic nobility in the reign of Anna Ivanovna and to Catherine the Great, the former princess of Anhalt-Zerbst.

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15

foppish dress, French, immorality, and vice, were often the mark of the Petersburg courtier and dandy, so rudely satirized in eighteenthcentury literature.4 Nikolaj I. Novikov, one of the outstanding representatives of the Russian Enlightenment, dramatically divorced himself from this influence by moving from St. Petersburg to Moscow in 1779. He described life in Catherine's city as "Voltairian" and understood the term to mean skepticism, atheism and immorality.® Novikov did not of course find Moscow life dominated by dogmatism, theism and morality but he found - and helped to develop further - a different cultural climate, still the result of the westerly winds, but rising from sentimental and mystical' currents in German and English culture. The preromantic movement of England and Germany had been making its way into Russia from the 1760's on: James Thomson and Edward Young, Salomon Gessner and Albrecht von Haller, Samuel Richardson, Fielding, Goethe, Meissner, Lillo, Lessing are some of the poets, novelists, and playwrights who were translated (or were available to the Russians in French translations). While such writers formed the subsoil from which the Russian preromantic movement developed, it must be remembered that this development needed a receptive and meliorative social environment for it even to take root. If the English and German sentimental and preromantic movements had their economic base in the increasing egalitarian pressures and cultural base in the rise of a less aristocratic, and, consequently, less restricted intellectual class, then for a similar movement to develop in Russia, approximately the same economic, social, and cultural conditions should obtain. In the last decades of the eighteenth century, Moscow's economic growth, the increasing importance of certain segments of the lower classes coupled with the spread of egalitarian ideas among certain segments of the gentry, and the rise of a rudimentary intelligentsia from this union, made this city, more than any other in Russia, par4

A fine example is Knjaznin's Neicastie ot karety [Unhappiness from a Carriage] (1779), where the Francophile, Firjulin, changes the peasants names to French because Russian hurts his ears and allows the peasants, Anjuta and Luk'jan, to marry because they know a few French expressions. 5 V. Bogoljubov, N. I. Novikov i ego vremja [N. I. Novikov and His Time] (Moscow, M. and S. Sabasnikov, 1916), pp. 258 and 272-3. This interpretation of Voltaire overlooks the fact that he was deist, a believer in God if not in Providence, and an impudent skeptic who was always guided by a prudent common sense. Voltaire was known in Russia primarily through his Lettres Philosophiques (1734), whose irreverent satire of the clergy and religion helps explain this Russian view of the great Frenchman.

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ticularly susceptible to those sentimental and mystical tendencies imported from Germany and England. In "Bednaja Liza" (Poor Liza), Karamzin writes with pride of the economic role of Moscow, where " . . . heavy barges ply their way from the most fertile lands of the Russian Empire to provide greedy Moscow with grain".® Indeed, the single most important facet in the city's cultural renaissance in the second half of the century, was the continuing development and expansion in her economic life. Deserted to some extent by the administration and court, Moscow did not stagnate. Karamzin points out only one economic factor: the population increase (1735: 138,792; 1792: 175,000) which created a need for more produce and manufactures. He does not mention the traditional role of Moscow as an intermediary, a middleman, between the agricultural and industrial sectors of the country. This role expanded significantly, especially after the opening up of the southeast areas of the Empire in the 1730's and the abolition of domestic custom houses in 1753, which greatly facilitated trade. From distant parts of the nation, cattle, fish, wine, and grain, moved more freely to and through Moscow and, toward the end of the century, the period described by Karamzin, over 1,000 vessels docked annually to unload their produce in Moscow. Commerce and industry are to a certain extent democratizing forces. Different social classes are brought into daily contact, a rudimentary education is required, and profit and loss are based ideally on economic training and acumen rather than social prerogatives. While statistics are not completely available, the commercial and industrial growth of Moscow seems to have led to the embourgeoisement of segments of the lower classes and the petty nobility. The population of Moscow increased by one third during the latter part of the century, with the largest increment occuring in the peasant class. Quite obviously these people made up the labor force of the burgeoning industrial and commercial enterprises and, to a minor degree, assumed entrepreneurial responsibilities.7 Some passed into the merchant class; some managed by hook or crook to attend the University of Moscow,8 and some ' For a detailed description of this development and expansion see Ε. I. Zaozerskaja "Melkaja promySlennost' i manufaktura" [Light industry and manufacturing] and E. I. Kuseva, "Rost torgovli" [The Growth of Trade] Istorija Moskvy [A History of Moscow] (Moscow, Akademija nauk SSSR, 1953), II, pp. 233-68, 268-304. 7 P. G. Ryndzjunskij and Κ. V. Sivkov "Izmenija ν sostave naselenija" [Changes in the composition of the population], ibid., p. 308. 8 E.g., a serf of Prince A. M. Golicyn, who attended the University at the dispensation of the director.

MOSCOW: APPRENTICESHIP

17

undertook careers in poetry (Ε. I. Kostrov, the translator of Homer and Ossian and official poet of the University of Moscow) or prose (Matvej Komarov, author of the popular adventure novel, Van'ka Kain). The number of merchants and raznocincy (non-noble functionaries of some education from the merchant, clerical, or peasant class), remains fairly constant throughout the century, but their wealth and, perhaps, power, is indicated by the fact that in the seventies, they owned 5560% of all the houses in Moscow. A special high school associated with the University of Moscow was established to educate the children of the raznocincy in 1756; in 1775-1787, the number of children enrolled in this school outnumbered the children enrolled in the nobles' high school. Many raznocincy participated in the cultural life of Moscow as teachers (Professor N. N. Popovskij, the translator of Pope's "Essay on Man"), poets (V. P. Petrov), dramatists (M. I. Popov) and journalists (V. S. Podsivalov). Taltented and energetic people can of course arise from an illiterate, amorphous mass in any place and at any time. What was being created at this time and from this mass was a more broadly-based reading public, interested in cultural, commercial, and economic news because such information was pertinent and valuable to them. The number of journals and newspapers published in Moscow increased significantly in the last quarter of the century: While only four publications appeared during the third quarter of the century, Novikov, alone, was responsible for the publication of ten literary journals and four scientific magazines in 1779-1789. Novikov, in the words of one critic "undertook the difficult task of propagating reading and education among the middle class, of awakening everywhere a quick consciousness of enlightenment as a source of firm moral principles".9 In his Moscow journals, written in an easy style and an accessible language, he kept his public informed of cultural events as well as the economic details of Muscovite life. I. I. Dmitriev, a close friend of Karamzin and a poet of the preromantic movement, noted the growth of this reading public and observed in 1789 that not only "educated people but also merchants, soldiers, serfs and even gingerbread and bread salesmen" read.10 While it is important to note the rise of a more broadly based reading public in Moscow, the fact is insignificant in itself unless it is combined 9

N. S. Tixonravov, "Novikov", Socinenija [Works] (Moscow, M. and S. Sabaänikov, 1898), III, p. 131. 10 Vzgljad na moju zizn' [Glance at My Life] (Moscow, V. Got'e, 1866), p. 34.

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with the establishment of a rudimentary intelligentsia. The men chiefly responsible for the Russian Enlightenment, the freemasons, University professors, representatives of various Moscow cultural organizations, the individual poets, playwrights, and prose-writers, were drawn by and large from the nobility, which found the climate of Moscow most salubrious. In her memoirs, Catherine the Great ruefully observes that "it is quite deserted in Petersburg. A large part of the well-to-do live here because of their obligations not through their own desires. When the court returns from Moscow almost all the courtiers take leaves in order to remain there, some for a year, some for six months, some for a month or several weeks." 11 These dignitaries did indeed prefer Moscow. Far removed from the seat of autocratic power, the traditionally informal way-of-life and the cheaper cost-of-living, appealed to them. However, it was not only the upper nobility that was attracted to Moscow. In late autumn, the provincial gentry from neighboring regions descended upon Moscow - especially after the decree of 1762 which freed the nobility from obligatory state service and consequently allowed them to live where they pleased and could make a profit to stay until early spring. While the basic reason for the influx "was Moscow's role as the economic and administrative center of aristocratic Russia",12 the provincial gentry came also to attend to the education of their children (in the University of Moscow or the many pensions established in the seventies and eighties), to visit the theatres (where the bourgeois drama and comédie larmoyante were quite successful), operas, private concerts, and the English Clüb, which was established in 1770. But the gentry participated in a significant measure in the city's economic life, some merely as customers, eager to buy finished wares, some as entrepreneurs, retailing the produce of their estates, and some, a small group, as administrators of industrial enterprises. The economic and social ferment, cross-pollinating Moscow society, was the base of the cultural renaissance of the last quarter of the century. At the center of the renaissance was an institution, the University of Moscow, and a social-cultural movement, the Moscow freemasons. The young intellectuals, who gravitated about the institution and the movement, achieved a remarkably similar intellectual indoctrination. This is not surprising for the University of Moscow and the 11 Zapiski Ekateriny II [Memoirs of Catherine II] (St. Petersburg, n.p., 1906), p. 85. 12 Ryndzjunskij, op. cit., p. 330.

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masonic movement were closely intertwined and both were partially oriented to a new literary taste originating in Germany, and, ultimately, England. Many of the professors of the University were either Germanophile Russians or Germans,13 who introduced their students to contemporary German philosophy, aesthetics and literature. The Moscow masons had been influenced by mystical developments within the German masonic movement and, through their publications and activities, zealously propagated these ideas. To meet the need for teachers, doctors, and civil functionaries, the doors of the University of Moscow were opened in January 1755. Strongly influenced by the German university system, the lecture courses were large, conducted in Latin (until 1767, when Russian was used), and highly theoretical and abstract. At a period when Russia needed a well-developed system of secondary schools, a very fine institution of higher education was established. Perhaps as a counterbalance to this impractical idealism - for the Russians at this time - of the abstruse formal curriculum, many societies formed, dissolved, and regrouped about the university in the seventies and eighties. They differed in their subject of interest, ranging from history, "Vol'noe rossijskoe obscestvo" (Free Russian Society), to pedagogy, "Pedagogiceskaja seminarija" (Pedagogical Seminar), and belles-lettres, "Sobranie universitetskix pitomcev", (Assembly of University Nurselings), but were unified by the practical and pragmatic training provided for the future historian, teacher, poet and journalist. The Assembly of University Nurselings illustrates the nature and function of such groups. Organized in March 1781 by Johann G. Schwartz (1751-1784), a professor of German in the University and a prominent mason, the "Assembly" trained university students for writing, editing, and translating careers. At the meetings, members read and defended their own works, while University professors served as their mentors and moderated the meetings. A small cadre of journalists, editors, and translators was formed from this group to meet the cultural demands of the period. And these demands were great. In 1779 Nikol'aj Novikov assumed control of the Moscow University Printing House under a ten-year lease. Novikov had been a remarkably successful editor of several St. Petersburg magazines,14 and, when he began his publishing activities 13

E.g., Professor J. M. Schaden and J. G. Schwartz, see below, Chapter I. The two most famous were Truteri [The Drone] (1769), and Zivopisec [The Artist] (1772). 14

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in Moscow, he retained his earlier formula: Magazines written in an easy, simple style appealing primarily to the middle and lower classes. This approach was even more successful in Moscow. In the first three years of his tenure, he published and sold more books than had been published during the previous twenty-five years of the Printing House's existence. He also increased the number of subscribers to the semiofficial Moskovskie vedomosti [Moscow News] from 600 to 4000 during the eighties by considerably enlarging its content with political and literary articles. Supplied with trained or partially-trained young men from the University societies, and financed and helped by the Moscow masons, Novikov proceeded to publish a series of magazines, almost 900 books - which made up approximately thirty percent of all the books published in Russia in this period - and to open bookstores in Moscow and other cities, e.g., Poltava, Simbirsk, and Tambov. In the sense of getting educational material into the hands of a wide mass of people, Novikov was the Russian Enlightenment. Schwartz was closely associated with Novikov in these publishing and training endeavors, and, indeed, it is difficult to distinguish which individual was most responsible for initiating and executing these projects. Whatever the final judgment Russia must consider herself fortunate in attracting Schwartz to the University of Moscow. He was a man of practical mind who correctly evaluated the Russian need for sound basic training in fundamental areas of teaching, philology, and just plain prose-writing. Schwartz had come from Germany in 1776 and had been appointed a professor of German literature and the chairman of several projects to improve the University's teaching methods.15 The Pedagogical Seminar, founded in November 1779 by Schwartz and supervised by him, resulted from his investigation of university teaching. Originally, six students were in this informal course but, as funds were raised, as many as thirty were training to become teachers and translators. The young members of the Assembly of University Nurselings absorbed Schwartz' concept of writing as a precise and direct communication of an idea. In this area also, Schwartz found himself in agreement with Novikov, and it should be pointed out that the creation of a literary language of simplicity, clarity, and directness, generally attributed to Karamzin, originates with these men and with their societies. Karamzin, trained in this tradition, simply carried out their basic postulates. 15

For details of his responsibility, see Tixonravov, "K istorii Moskovskogo universiteta" [On the History of the University of Moscow], op. cit., pp. 61 f.

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In the early eighties, Schwartz had tried to create a broadlyorganized society to support Novikov's publishing venture but, unfortunately, he could not raise the necessary funds.1" In 1781 he met and interested several wealthy Maecenases;17 with their council and contributions, Schwartz established the "Druzeskoe ucënoe obscestvo" (Friendly Learned Society). Its many accomplishments and varied activities exceeded even Schwartz's most sanguine hopes. The Society was opened in the spring of 1782 and the presence of many dignitaries, e.g., Count Z. G. Cernysev, the governor-general of Moscow, and Metropolitan Platon, attest to its importance in the eyes of Moscow. And the city was not disappointed, for the Friendly Learned Society contributed in a real and vital way to Russian cultural developments. To create a cadre of translators for Novikov's publishing activities, a "Perevodiceskaja seminarija" 18 [Translating Seminar] was established in June of that year and as many as thirty-five trainees were enrolled at one time in this course. To develop an intellectual cadre, needy university students received stipends, and some were even sent abroad to continue their studies. And finally, to circulate Novikov's publications widely, the first public library was opened in Moscow. The Friendly Learned Society also carried out different philanthropic activities (which aroused the ire of Catherine the Great who viewed them as an assumption of rights reserved to the government): Drug stores and hospitals were opened for the poor and, during the meager harvests of 1786 and 1787, grain was distributed to the needy. In word and deed, the members of the society worked indefatigably to spread learning, humane ideals, and education, among the Russians. To an extent, they succeeded. More important, however, this Society established in the minds of the young intellectuals ideals which remain part of the Russian intellectual heritage to our time: A selfless devotion to moral principles either combined with a search for individual perfection or with a struggle for the redress of social wrongs. The Moscow masonic movement was closely allied with the University and its intellectual circles. Many administrators and faculty members were masons, (e.g. M. M. Xeraskov, and I. I. Melissino, both curators, and Professor Schwartz); conversely, many masons played Ibid., p. 70. The chief contributors were P. A. Tatiäiev, Prince A. A. Cerkasskij, and Prince Ν. B. Trubeckoj. 18 Also known as the FililogiÈeskaja seminarija (Philological Seminar). 16

17

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an active role in University life, e.g., Novikov, the leader of the movement, was the director of the University Printing House. The masonic philosophy was a most significant factor in the drift toward mysticism, occultism, and obscurantism marking Moscow intellectual life in the late seventies and eighties. In the sixties and seventies the Russian Masonic movement had been strongly influenced by the deistic philosophy and political liberalism of English freemasonry.19 These early masons espoused the cult of reason, rational morality, and a natural religion opposed to the religion of revelation and miracle. However, in the seventies, the spirit of rationalism seems to have been cast out by the devil of philosophical shallowness, cynicism, and a playing with atheism and self-serving ostentation. The term "Voltairian", in its peculiar Russian sense, became almost synonymous with a mason,20 and Novikov could berate the brethren who "played with freemasonry as a toy; they gathered together . . . , spoke much but knew little".21 The disillusionment with reason and rationality was a reflection of contemporary European masonic developments. By the seventies, some influential systems of European freemasonry, especially in Germany,22 had disavowed the earlier rational tenets and accepted occultism, theosophy, and cabalism as a means of communing with a Supreme Being.23 The Rosicrucian order, which gained prominence in Germany 19

Freemasonry appeared in Russia in the thirties of the eighteenth century. However, it did not acquire social respectability until the fifties when many powerful political and literary figures joined the order, e.g., R. Voroncov, an important magnate, SSerbatov, the historian, and Sumarokov, the poet and dramatist, all belonged to a Petersburg lodge. According to G. Vernadskij, Russkoe masonstvo ν carstvovanie Ekateriny Π [Russian Masonry in the Reign of Catherine II], "Zapiski istoriko-filologiCeskogo fakul'teta" [Notes of the HistoricalPhilological Faculty], Vol. CXXXII (Petrograd, Akcionernoe obSSestvo, 1917), p. 6, of an Imperial Council Staff of eleven members, four were masons; of nineteen senators, five were masons; of thirty-two chamberlains, eleven were masons. The movement continued to expand in the following decades and, by the end of the seventies, there were nearly 100 lodges with some 2,500 members. 20 The members of these early lodges were "almost all Voltairians, and, by the same token, among the Russian admirers of Voltaire in the seventies, almost all were masons", ibid., pp. 104-5. 21 As quoted in Ν. K. Piksanov, "Masonskaja literatura" [Masonic Literature], Istorija russkoj literatury [History of Russian Literature], eds. G. A. Gukovskij and V. A. Desnickij (Moscow-Leningrad, Akademija nauk S.S.S.R., 1947), IV, Part 2, p. 57. 22 Zinnendorf system; system of Strict Observance. 29 Heinrich Schneider, Quest for Mysteries (Ithaca, New York, Cornell University Press, 1947), pp. 95-105.

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in the seventies, reflects this mystical orientation in many respects. Its brethren were interested in magic, alchemy, mystical cures for illnesses, theosophy and cabalism, and preferred seeking truth through occult practices and magical knowledge rather than through moral perfection. The man most responsible for the transferrai of these mystical and occultist tendencies to the Moscow masonic circle was Schwartz, who in 1781 was sent abroad by the masons to study German pedagogical methods. While in Berlin, Schwartz received the acts for a Rosicrucian order from Wolner, the leader of the Prussian Rosicrucians and a member of the entourage of the future king, Frederick William, and was appointed " . . . the supreme representative of this degree [the theoretical degree of the Rosicrucian order] in all the Russian state and its lands . . . " 2 4 Upon his return to Moscow he proceeded to establish a Rosicrucian order there. In 1782, Schwartz defined the new system in a conversation with Novikov as "the cognition of God, nature, and man by the shortest and truest path".25 Unfortunately, the twists and turns in the path caused the Moscow group great difficulties. The "shortest and truest path" to God was essentially that of divine revelation, which was allowed the morally perfect man. However, only members of the order could achieve such perfection. This doctrine of divine revelation mystical in concept, promising contact between man and God - could and did lead to many abuses, for, occasionally, one of the brethren in the ecstasy of communion would glimpse not God but the Devil.M The path to a "cognition of . . . nature" led to even greater difficulties. The Moscow masons turned back to the knowledge of the Middle Ages, alchemy and magic, to unlock nature's secrets. In further pursuit of such knowledge, they dispatched several members to Germany for training in alchemy and a field closely allied with it at that time, chemistry.27 Despite this mysticism and occultism, the Moscow masons provided eminently practical training in translating, writing, and journalism for their young associates. Many of the University intellectual groups had been organized, directed, and financed by the masons. Efforts were made to find young Russians who would participate actively in the 24

Vernadskij, op. cit., p. 68. A s quoted by Bogoljubov, ibid., p. 259. 26 Baron Schroeder, a representative of the German order in Moscow, speaks of such occurrences in his diary, ibid., pp. 244-6. 27 A. M. Kutuzov in 1787; Bagrjanskij, Kokol'nikov, and Nevzorov in 1788. 25

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intellectual labors of the masonic movement and, thus, perpetuate their ideas and propagate their philosophy. One of the finest products of this intellectual ferment is Nikolaj Mixajloviò Karamzin, whose life and literary career are indissolubly connected with the city of Moscow and its intellectual circles. Here in the seventies he received his early education; here in the eighties he served his literary apprenticeship; and it was here, in the nineties, that he published in his own journals and almanacs his most important prose and poetry. In the last years of Karamzin's life, when he had to leave Moscow and settle in St. Petersburg, a steady refrain of yearning for his "beloved Moscow" runs through the letters to his friends. The peculiar qualities of this "city of the golden cupolas" could not but strongly influence Karamzin. Karamzin was born on December 1, 1766, the second of four children,28 on his father's estate Mixajlovka, near Buzuluko on the Samara river. His family was reputedly descended from a Tatar prince, Kara-Murza, who had been granted land in return for service to the throne. After a military career marked by an abhorrence of violence, Mixail Egorovic, Karamzin's father, had retired to his main estate, Karamzinka, located near Simbirsk and, here, married a local maiden, Ekaterina Petrovna Pazuxina. Simbirsk had been founded in the seventeenth century as one of a series of fortresses to protect the Russians against nomadic incursions and in the sixties of the eighteenth century it still retained many frontier features. Despite the primitive conditions, the nobility of Simbirsk tried to provide their children with an education along western standards and to expose them to western culture.29 Karamzin's father - his mother died when Karamzin was only three - was typical in this respect. As a child, Karamzin was tutored in German, allowed to read Russian translations of French romances, and, when he was old enough, attend first a pension in Simbirsk and, then, one in Moscow. The Moscow pension to which Karamzin was sent in 1777 was supervised by a University professor of rhetoric, poetry, and mythology, Johannes Matthias Schaden, and was typical of the many private pensions which flourished in this city in the seventies and eighties. 28

Vasilij, Fëdor, and Ekaterina. I. I. Dmitriev was also born in this region. In his Vzgljad na moju zizn', he speaks of his early tutors, his pension years, and his readings in Western literature. By the time he was ten, he had read 1001 Nights, Scarron's humorous tales, Robinson Crusoe, and Prévost's novels. 29

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Serving as training schools for the nobility, their purpose was to prepare the student for entrance into the University or, failing that, to assume their responsibilities as nobles in society. In this pension Karamzin continued the sentimental education which had begun, in childhood, with the reading of French romans d'aventure, an education that fitted well with the rising tide of sensibility. The pension director used the fables and lectures of the German moralist, Christian Fürchtegott Geliert, who mixed liberal amounts of religion and morality into his educational primers. Utilizing these works, Schaden tried to develop within his young pupils a sense of morality, piety, a love of virtue and an abhorrence of evil.30 He attacked rationalism and materialism as false sources of wisdom and as hypocritical standards by which man might live. In addition to this philosophical orientation, Karamzin continued his study of German, began to study French, was introduced to English literature, and in the last years of his studies, attended lectures in the University of Moscow. Lessons on the primacy of the emotions and the voice of conscience, benevolence, compassion, would seem well suited to make the young nobleman decide upon some peaceful career. This seems to have been Karamzin's intent for in his letter of July 14, 1789 in Pis'ma russkago putesestvennika [Letters of a Russian Traveler], he intimates that he wanted, after finishing his studies in Schaden's pension, to continue his studies in Leipzig. However, he had been enrolled at birth by his father in the elite Preobrazenskij Regiment, and upon finishing his schooling, he was called to active duty in St. Petersburg. In the "city of Peter's making", Karamzin renewed an acquaintance with a compatriot from Simbirsk, I. I. Dmitriev (1760-1837), who had already published several translations in contemporary journals. Dmitriev recalls this period in his memoirs: "We were inseparable for almost a year; our predilection for literature and, perhaps, a similarity in our moral make-up, strengthened the ties each day." 31 This companionship proved mutually beneficial. Karamzin had been introduced 30 We know some of his ideas from his speeches: God exists and is the chief truth; all laws must have this concept as their base (Speech 1). A monarchy is superior to a republic and the chief duty of a monarch is to spread learning and art among his subjects; education makes people more sensitive (Speech 2). Religion is the backbone of any educational system; each state must educate its children to conform to its own needs (Speech 3). Our conscience is a mirror of God (Speech 5). The aristocracy in a monarchy must be educated (Speech 6). The vivifying force of a monarchy is its moral strength (Speech 7). See Tixonravov, "K istorii . . . " , op. cit., pp. 54-8. 31 Op. cit., p. 39.

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to German literature in Schaden's pension and he proceeded to acquaint Dmitriev with it, but his command of French was still so weak that he preferred German translations of French literature to the originals. Dmitriev knew and loved French literature, especially the light verse of Claude-Joseph Dorat. He also admired the light verse of the Russian poets, V. I. Majkov, M. N. Murav'ëv, A. P. Sumarokov and M. M. Xeraskov.32 Karamzin read these poets, and, inspired by his friend's publications, promptly translated a poem from the German.83 In the same year, Karamzin's first published work appeared, a translation of Gessner's idyll, "Das hölzerne Bein". With the death of his father in 1784, Karamzin retired from the army as a lieutenant and returned to Simbirsk. Here, he seems to have led an aimless social existence, the easy lot of so many young nobles. Dmitriev describes Karamzin's activities during this period: "I stayed with him for a while and found him playing the role of a self-confident socialite, decisive at whist, amiable and attentive to women and politic with fathers, who, while not accustomed to listening to young people, listened to him." 34 Some years later, in recalling that period, Karamzin described it differently. In a letter to J. C. Lavater, the prominent Swiss phrenologist and mystic with whom Karamzin began a correspondence in 1786, he rails against petty provincial life and relates how a "beneficient Providence" saved him from "ultimate destruction" by sending succor: "A worthy man opened my eyes and I recognized my unhappy situation. Suddenly, all was renewed within me. I began reading once more and felt a deep quiet in my soul. . . ." 35 This "worthy man" was I. P. Turgenev, a prominent mason and intellectual, who had been impressed by the eighteen-year old Karamzin. A successful Simbirsk merchant and a friend of Novikov and Schwartz, Turgenev was active in the manifold ventures of the Moscow masons and always eager to recruit young Russians. He urged the young man to go to Moscow and, there, be of service to humanity. Turgenev struck a benevolfent chord, for, early in 1785, Karamzin 32

For information on some of these poets see below, Chapter III. For information on Dmitriev's tastes, ibid., pp. 23-4. The title was "A Conversation of Maria Theresa with the Empress Elisabeth in the Elysian Fields", according to Dmitriev, ibid., p. 40. « Ibid. 55 Ν. M. Karamzin, Perepiska Karamzina s Lafaterom [Correspondence of Karamzin with Lavater] ( = Zapiski Imperatorskoj akademii nauk [Notes of the Imperial Academy of Sciences]), Vol. LXXIII, ed. Ja. Grot (St. Petersburg, Akademija nauk, 1894), p. 6. 33

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dutifully moved to Moscow, settled down in an old stone house of the Friendly Learned Society near the Mensikov Tower, and began a period of literary and journalistic study under masonic guidance. He eventually withdrew "amicably" from this circle in 1789, but not before the brethren had stabilized his intellectual interests and set the course of his future intellectual development. Since Karamzin had some experience as a translator of German, he naturally began his activities in the Friendly Learned Society in this capacity. After approximately a year of labor his first masonic contribution appeared, a lengthy - and a rather poor - translation of the work of the German poet C. C. Stürm (1760-1786).8β The young translator, quite probably, did not select the poem, himself, but, rather, executed a "social command" of the masonic editorial board for Stürm's work is full of religious, mystical ideas and consonant with the prevailing masonic mood. From Stürm, he turned to a more important poet while remaining within this same masonic tradition. Albrecht von Haller's "Über den Ursprung des Übels", 1734, attempts to show how evil can be recondled with a beneficient God. Karamzin translated it in 1786,37 affixing several notes to reflect further the anti-rational spiritual and mystical masonic influences: The material world can not make man happy if he does not possess a spiritual peace which derives from his conscience; the mind is the source of evil; the function of the will is to reconstitute man's lost paradise. Such translations were typical of much of Novikov's publishing activities: He worked to expand the Russian Enlightenment along Christian moral principles, and, consequently, the majority of the published works were Christian primers, e.g., selections from the Gospels and the lives of Church fathers.38 Karamzin's initial translations were in this tradition of Christian moralizing but his later translations differed on aesthetic as well as moral grounds. He avoided dull, moralizing tracts in favor of an appealing, well-wrought tale, play, or 36 According to Dmitriev, op. cit., p. 43, Karamzin published "two or three volumes of Stiirm's 'Meditations' under the title . . . Ά conversation with God . . . ' ". 37 It was published in three parts in 1787. For a chronology of Karamzin's works, see S. I. Ponomarëv, Materialy dlja bibliografii literatury ο Ν. M. Karamzine [Material for a Bibliography of Literature on Ν. M. Karamzin] ( = Sbornik otdelenija russkago jazyka i slovesnosti Imperatorskoj akademii nauk [Collection of the Department of Russian Language and Literature of the Imperial Academy of Sciences], Vol. XXXII, No. 8 (St. Petersburg, Akademija nauk, 1883). 38 He also published moralistic novels, textbooks, and some of Voltaire's satires. For a detailed list of his publications, see Bogoljubov, op. cit., pp. 333-4.

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poem. In this transition, perhaps Karamzin simply rejected the didacticism and Christian mysticism that marked the Moscow masons in the eighties and reverted to Novikov's earlier ideal: to create a literature that would amuse as well as edify. Or, perhaps, the childhood reading of romances, the pension introduction to Gellert's delightful moralizing, the adolescent acceptance of light verse, made Karamzin very aware that literature could be delightful and still not demoralizing. Whatever the cause, already in the late eighties it was apparent that Karamzin's understanding of the Enlightenment differed from the narrow masonic view to include that which was culturally and aesthetically significant. Even while the young mason was translating these poems, he was busy with something dearer to his heart, a translation of Shakespeare's Julius Caesar.3* Already in May 1785, Karamzin's roommate and close friend, Aleksandr A. Petrov (1767-1793), wrote to the "Russian Shakespeare" and inquired about this translation.40 In 1787, Julius Caesar was published and perhaps, conscious that this work differed from his other masonic translations, Karamzin justifies his selection by stressing in a preface the Bard's happy union of art and moral utility: "When he [Shakespeare] wants to present the splendor of virtue, his paintings are powerful and his colors, dazzling."41 Karamzin found somewhat the same justification for his translation of Emilia Galotti, which he published the following year: Lessing "studied [humanity] as few men do; nature gave him a real feeling for truth and it makes the author and the man, great".42 This attempt to balance the moral and pleasure principles of literature is also exemplified in Karamzin's journalistic activities. In 1785, Novikov had begun publishing the journal, Detskoe ctenie dlja serdce i razuma (Readings for Children for their Hearts and Minds), whose announced purpose was to make "Historical, . . . moral, and other 39

Karamzin's urge to translate a Shakespearian play may have arisen from his friendship with Jacob Michael Reinhold Lenz, the poet and dramatist of the German "Storm and Stress" movement. After wandering about Europe, Lenz came to St. Petersburg in 1780 as a private secretary. The following year he moved to Moscow and taught in a pension. Lenz lived out his last days in Moscow and it was there that Karamzin met him. 40 Letter of May 20, 1785 in Russkij arxiv [Russian Archives], ed. Peter Bartenev (1863, 2nd ed.; Moscow, A. Mamontov, 1866), p. 889. 41 N. M. Karamzin, Izbrannyja stixotvorenija i razsuzdenija [N. M. Karamzin, Selected Poems and Discourses], ed. A. A. Silov (Moscow, Pol'za, 1914), p. 77. 42 From Karamzin's review published in Moskovskij zurnal [Moscow Journal]; excerpts in M. Pogodin, Nikolaj MixajloviS Karamzin (Moscow, Mamontov, 1866), I, pp. 175-83.

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pieces . . . " available to its young readers.43 In 1785 and 1786, under Novikov's editorship, the magazine contained moral pieces, hortatory tales, and letters on ethical behavior in addition to historical works. Each number began with a long quotation from the Old or New Testament. In 1787, Petrov and Karamzin assumed editorial responsibility for the journal. From this time until its termination in 1789, the contents of the magazine changed considerably. The historical articles disappeared, the Biblical quotations were shortened, and only two moral tales were published. Under the editorial directions of the young masons, the earlier moralizing tendency of the journal gave way to an emphasis primarily on literary and artistic pieces. Karamzin translated the moral tales of Madame de Genlis44 and Thomson's The Seasons and published some original works for the first time: an anacreontic poem and two prose pieces, "Progulka" [A Stroll] and "Evgenij i Julija" 45 [Eugene and Julia]. The masonic journals published under Novikov's aegis are extremely important as the first concentrated presentation in Russia of significant preromantic themes and they shed some light on the genesis of Karamzin's sentimental views. Novikov's first masonic venture was Utrennij svet [Morning Light], a "philosophical-literary journal", which dawned upon the Russian world in September 1777. While not a complete product of his association with the Moscow masons - only the issues of 1779 and 1780 are - it is extremely important as a repository of those ideas which are to be repeated in the later journals. "Let the soul and the spirit be our only objects",46 proclaimed Novikov in his foreword to the Morning Light, and this intense preoccupation with man's inner world and subjective experiences remained constant throughout the remaining issues. A respect and appreciation for the beauties of nature also runs through the pages. One anonymous writer ecstatically observes, "The universe in all its beauty and order . . . is a wonder we can gaze on unceasingly."47 Nature provides man with principles which can be used for a moral purpose. As in nature, so also in art. Instead of catering to a transient desire for pleasure, art 43 P. N. Berkov, Istorija russkoj zurnalistiki XVIII veka [History of Russian Journalism of the XVHI Century] (Moscow-Leningrad, Akademija nauk SSSR, 1952), p. 424. 44 These tales were taken from Les Veillées du Château, Nouveaux contes moraux et nouvelles historiques. 45 The poem, "Anakreontiíeskie stixi A. A. P.", in part 18, 1789; and the two prose pieces in the same issue. « As quoted in Bogoljubov, op. cit., p. 267. 47 As quoted, ibid., p. 270.

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must serve the moral purpose of educating man in virtue by exemplifying beauty and order. The idea of a rationally conceived natural world furnishing maxims of art and morality and the idea of an intense concentration on the individual's subjective experiences, are essentials of Karamzin's philosophy. The former idea was elaborated in Charles Bonnet's Contemplation de Nature, 1764, from a philosophical point of view and in Abbé Batteux' Les beaux arts réduit à un même principe, 1746, from an aesthetic point of view. Karamzin became familiar with both writers while with the masons and drew upon these works to elaborate upon ideas which had been afloat in the masonic atmosphere. The literary section of the Morning Light under the direction of M. M. Xeraskov, did much to introduce English and European sentimental authors to the Russians. Xeraskov had already in the seventies been attracted to this literature. He was the first to acquaint the Russians with Young and Gessner and among the first to write original tearful comedies (see below, Chapter IV). As the director of the literary section, it would be natural for him to impose his own tastes upon it. Consequently, translations of Young, Geliert, and Gessner are to be found in the Morning Light, as well as original contributions which helped "elaborate a new aesthetics preparing the way for Karamzin and his school".48 The contributors were close friends of Xeraskov and, later, became intimates of Karamzin. Aleksej Mixajlovic Kutuzov (1749-1797) had entered the masonic order in 1772 and, in the eighties, found himself more and more entangled in the web of mysticism spun by the Rosicrucians, eventually being sent to Berlin to continue his "chemical labors".49 For the Morning Light he translated Young's Night Thoughts and a German novel in the style of Sterne and Jacobi. He was the first Russian to attempt to define the "cult of melancholy", so popular among the European sentimentalists. In 1781, he published an important essay, "O prijatnosti grusti" [On the Pleasure of Grief] in another masonic journal, Moskovskoe ezemesjacnoe izdanie [Moscow Monthly Publication], In it, he discusses the "tortuous joy" of melancholy and belabors the dry, judicious rationalist who fails to understand its exquisite delight. And Kutuzov avers that sorrow allows man to "enter 48

G. Makogonenko, Nikolaj Novikov i russkoe prosveicenie XVIII veka [Nikolaj Novikov and the Russian Enlightenment of the XVIII Century] (MoscowLeningrad, Gosudarstvennoe izdatel'stvo, 1951), p. 344. 40 Vernadskij, op. cit., p. 72, footnote 5.

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. . . his own heart", appreciate his imagination, and esteem his ego. It causes a sweet suffering which must never be relinquished. "I feel that in losing it, both the concepts of my own achievements and the minor advantages of other people will have lost their force, and, consequently, I will never allow myself to be deprived of this sorrow. I have begun to love it." 50 Another associate of Xeraskov in the literary section of the Morning Light was M. N. Murav'ëv (1757-1807), a member of the Friendly Learned Society who later became a close friend of Karamzin and helped him gain a government stipend to write his history. The poetry of Murav'ëv is personal and lyrical with a subtle realistic touch that often brings his scenes to life (see below, Chapter III). In two essays published in the Morning Light, he, first, praises Laurence Sterne for his interest not in the impersonal life of society but in the personal life of the individual and, then, describes his introspective reaction to a sunrise, which makes him want to surrender "to the delightful contemplation of the self".51 The masonic journals followed one another in rapid succession in the eighties and each succeeding journal had a more pronounced mystical cast. The last two numbers of the Morning Light contained several such articles.52 The Moscow Monthly Publication, 1781, praises in its foreword ancient authors as being closer to nature and privy, therefore, to eternal truths.53 The most complete expression of this mystical and occultist tendency is to be found in the Vecernjaja zarja [Evening Light], which began publishing in 1782. This date explains the decidedly theological-mystical cast of the last magazine, for Schwartz, who had only returned from Germany, participated in the editorship and was responsible for the philosophical orientation. His mystical views as propagated in the Evening Light can be briefly summarized: Man must look within, where the great truths are still hidden; he must study nature, which is a reflection of God; and he must study the Holy Scriptures, which contain answers to the mysteries of life.54 50

As quoted by Makogonenko, ibid., p. 444. In "DScicy dlja zapisyvanija" [Tablets for Notations], and in "Vosxozdenie solnca" [Sunrise], as quoted, ibid., p. 344. 52 E.g., "O mudrosti drevnix" [On the Wisdom of the Ancients]. 53 The foreword is summarized by Bogoljubov, op. cit., p. 286. Another article was devoted to a universal cure for illness, and it was asserted that such a cure was known to early man, ibid., p. 288. 54 Schwartz had been influenced by the mysticism of Jacob Boehme and Louis51

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When Karamzin severed his connections with the masons in 1789, he advanced the mysticism of the circle as one of his reasons for leaving.55 The scorn of mysticism might have been true of Karamzin in the last stages of masonic journey, but, certainly, not of the intermediate. Petrov, Karamzin's close friend, had also been much influenced by this mood and his letters witness a search for some answer to the complex problems of man's spiritual nature. Questions of a life beyond the grave, the union of the body and soul, "What I am and what I shall be", agitated young Petrov.56 Karamzin's correspondence with Johann Kaspar Lavater,57 shows that Karamzin had also succumbed to this state of mind.58 He tries to find answers to the same problems that bothered Petrov, problems of the spiritual nature of man. Unfortunately, but not unexpectedly, the Swiss mystic could not resolve these inquiries and answered in petulant self-vindication that no creature on earth could. Aleksandr Petrov, the young mason with whom Karamzin shared an apartment in the house of the Friendly Learned Society, was the most direct contact for these masonic and preromantic ideas. He had been trained in the Pedagogical Seminar upon his graduation from the University. In 1782, he attended a course of lectures given by Schwartz and remained an ardent admirer of the man. Indeed, on the wall in Petrov's section of the apartment there was a crucifix draped in black and, beneath it, a plaster bust of Schwartz. Petrov's attended Schwartz' lectures on aesthetics, in which the theories of Aristotle, Cicero, Horace, Boileau, Batteux, and Baumgarten were analyzed and their practical application to literature demonstrated. Given this impetus, Petrov became seriously interested in aesthetic problems, and, later, he transferred his interest to the young neophyte Claude de Saint-Martin. The latter's book, Des Erreurs et de la Vérité, was first published in 1775 and created a sensation. It was a frank and vigorous defense of mysticism. Schwartz was particularly influenced by Saint-Martin's concept of the world as an emanation of godly spirit, in which man occupies a middle position between the animal level and the pure level of spirit. Schwartz used Boehme's book, Mysterium magnum, to formulate the relation between man's emotional life and the supernatural. 55 "I could not share their [the masons'] conviction that some sort of mystery was necessary . . . to find truth", as quoted by Pogodin, op. cit., I, pp. 68-9. This is cited from a conversation of Karamzin with Ν. I. Gre6. 56 Russkij arxiv, p. 891. 57 Karamzin's knowledge of Lavater probably came through Petrov, who, in turn, had heard Schwartz mention him in his lecture on aesthetics, see below, Chapter I. 58 Perepiska s Lafaterom, pp. 16, 22.

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from Simbirsk. Petrov was amazed at how quickly his pupil mastered the material, for he wrote in 1785 to Karamzin: You write about translations, your own works, about Shakespeare, tragic characters, about unjust criticism of Voltaire... Your first letter seriously shook my opinion of my own scholarly superiority; your second letter knocked it over with a powerful blow.59 In turn, Karamzin acknowledges his serious debt to Petrov in this respect: In the sincere communion of our souls, I acquired an aesthetic taste, so necessary for a devotee of literature. The true taste of my friend, which with great delicacy distinguished the mediocre from the elegant, the elegant from the excellent, the studied from the natural, the false from the true contribution, was a light for me in art and poetry.80 Karamzin's "aesthetic taste" was to prove far more important to Russian literature than that of his friend. Already in the eighties, the elements of this taste were present, exemplified in his translations and in his original prose and poetry. A predilection for the new bourgeois drama and Shakespeare, a delight in descriptive poetry, and a willingness to recount in poetry his personal experiences, all markedly influenced Russian literary developments. The first critical defense in Russian of Shakespeare's violation of the "rules" occurs in Karamzin's preface to his translation of Julius Caesar.91 Karamzin singles out the emotional range of the characters, the bard's inventiveness, variety, and imagination "which cannot be bound by any prescriptions". He summarizes Voltaire's criticism of Shakespeare and acidly remarks, "I consider it superfluous now to refute these ideas at length . . . " Karamzin's opening attack upon the influence of the French neo-classical drama was amplified in the nineties in his theatrical reviews published in the Moscow Journal, in his own drama, Sofija (Sophia), 1791, and in the Letters of a Russian Traveler (see below, Chapter IX). A heightened interest in nature and a willingness to find Divine correspondence in the woods and the waters, represent another important aspect of Karamzin's aesthetics; it is reflected in a love of descriptive poetry, which he considered a special gift of English poetry 59

Russkij arxiv, p. 889. "Cvetok na grob moego Agatona" [A Flower on the Grave of My Agathon], Ν. M. Karamzin, Socinenija Karamzina [Works of Karamzin] (St. Petersburg, Karl Kraj, 1848), III, p. 362. 61 Ν. M. Karamzin, Izbrannyja stixotvorenija ..., pp. 75-8. 60

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and Thomson, its most splendid exponent. 62 However, the moody introspection of Young's Night Thoughts, the emphasis of the masonic journals upon man's inner world, and the lyrical poetry of Karamzin's close friend, Murav'ëv, were more important, predisposing Karamzin to describe his own subjective world in his poetry. Karamzin's poetry of 1787 deals with man's relation to God, the suffering of mortals, and the deep significance of poetry.®3 In the following year, these elevated themes disappear and his poems become far more personal, praising Dmitriev in jocular fashion, abominating war, spelling out the meaning of melancholy, or recounting his poetic experiments in humorous anacreontic verse.64 This interest in usual, even commonplace, experiences so long as they were deeply felt and truthfully described, became one of Karamzin's major contributions to Russian poetic developments. Undoubtedly, it is a reaction against the turgid poetry of the classical odists, with their pompous language and elevated subject matter, and entirely in keeping with Karamzin's later profession of poetic faith: " . . . the true poet finds the poetic side in the most usual things; his object . . . is to adorn a common feeling with imagination and show the nuances hidden from other's eyes. . . . " 6 5 In his letter of May 1785, Petrov noted the ease with which Karamzin picked up the literary knowledge of the masonic circle. Some four years later, Karamzin had mastered the material and could go no further: He had received an intensive training in editorial and journalistic work, gained valuable insights in translating, and, most important of all, read widely in Russian and European prose and poetry of sensibility, from which he derived the techniques, themes, and the "language of the heart" to be applied in his own creations of the nineties. Karamzin had exhausted the limited experience of the masons and, now, turned toward the unlimited vistas of Europe. His early dream 92

In the Letters of a Russian Traveler, p. 315, he writes, "[England] is the home of descriptive p o e t r y . . . . 'Till now there has been nothing to compare to Thomson's Seasons." 63 "Casto zdes' ν judoli mraSnoj" [Often in this gloomy vale], "SSast' je istinno xranitsja" [Happiness is truly preserved] and "Poèzija [Poetry], N. Karamzin1. Dmitriev, izbrannye stixotvorenija [N. Karamzin-I. Dmitriev, Selected Poems] (= Biblioteka poèta osnovana M. Gor'kim [Library of the Poet, Founded by M. Gor'kij], Bol'saja serija [Large Series], ed. A. Ja. Kucerov (Leningrad, Sovetskij pisatel', 1953), pp. 55-6, 57-8, 59-65. « "K D." [To D(mitriev)], "Voennaja pesn' " [A Martial Song], "Vesennjaja pesn' melanxolika" [Spring Song of a Melancholy Person], "Anakreonticeskie stixi . . .", ibid., pp. 66-7, 68, 71-2, 73-5. 85 "Iz predoslovija ko vtoroj knizke 'Aonid' " [From the Preface to the Second Book of Aonides], N. M. Karamzin, Izbrannyja stixotvorenija . . . , p. 94.

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of studying in Leipzig had been transformed during the eighties into a grand tour in which he would commune personally with the sages of Europe. In May 1789, in his twenty-second year, the young Muscovite began a journey which would take him to the capitals of Europe and England. Armed with letters of introduction to the great - Herder and Kant - and the near great - Wieland, Weisse, Moritz, Bonnet, and Lavater - Karamzin intended to continue that sentimental education which had begun, as had his dream, in Schaden's pension in Moscow.

π MOSCOW AND ST. PETERSBURG

A.

MOSCOW: THE JOURNALS

The masonic period of Karamzin's literary apprenticeship coincided with a period of sharp hostility between St. Petersburg and Moscow, when the passive cultural competition threatened to break into open political conflict. These events are closely tied to the foreign liasons, putative and real, of the Moscow Rosicrucians. In 1786, Frederick William II succeeded to the Prussian throne. He was a Rosicrucian as were several members of his entourage. Earlier, Schwartz had contacted some of these people.1 Now, the Moscow Rosicrucians found themselves in a sort of "secret" alliance with a powerful faction of the Prussian government. In 1787, Russia's relations with Prussia had deteriorated. Together with Sweden, the Prussians were considering attacking Catherine while she was busy with the Turks in the south. Aware of this, Catherine was suspicious of any group which maintained relations, however tenuous, with the government of Frederick William II.2 She had long since been distrustful of the masons3 and now began harassing the order, increasing censorship of their publications, and

1

For example, Wolner, who became a high state functionary. To complicate matters further, in 1787 the Moscow masons blundered magnificently when they approached Catherine's son, Grand Duke Paul, and sought to convert him to their order. Catherine suspected that he had designs on her throne. When the Empress was apprised of this overture to her son, she interpreted it as vindication of a political conspiracy against her, Bogoljubov, op. cit., p. 199. 3 In the play of 1789, Tajna protivonelepago obscestva [Secret of a Society Opposing Absurdity], she ridiculed them. In 1782, she published a decree attempting to abolish "societies, associations, brotherhoods, and such similar gatherings . . . harmful to the general w e l f a r e . . . . " See Vernadskij, op. cit., p. 227. Her later play Obmanscik [The Deceiver], 1785, and Saman sibirskoj [Siberian Shaman], 1786, continued this hostility toward the masons. 8

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37

persecuting the masons themselves.4 Finally, in 1791 she forced Novikov to close his publishing house and, in the spring of 1792, had him arrested.5 He was imprisoned and several of his associates exiled. In this dangerous atmosphere of government suspicion and distrust, Karamzin's masonic period came to an end. In the spring of 1789 he stated that he could not "participate further in the meetings [of the masons] because of personal convictions. I had to bid them farewell." 6 And he concludes, "We parted amicably." How "amicable" the parting was is open to some doubt. The masons never did forgive his defection and always remained cold to him.7 Anastasia Plesceeva, whom Karamzin had met in 1786 through Kutuzov, in a letter to the latter berates the "scoundrel" and "Tartuffe" who was responsible for Karamzin's leaving Moscow.8 The "scoundrel" and "Tartuffe" remains unknown but Plesceeva's comment suggests some personal difficulty and casts doubt on the amicability of the farewell. While some unknown difficulty may have played a part in Karamzin's immediate break with the masons, a more significant explanation seems to lie in his own statement that "personal convictions" led him to part company with the brethren. The masons contributed a great deal to Karamzin's intellectual maturation but he never accepted their narrow religious-mystical orientation wholeheartedly. In addition to rejecting the mystical tendencies of the circle, he also rejected the masonic view that only literature of an extreme moral tendentiousness could exorcise the devils of skepticism, atheism and materialism abroad in the Russian land. Karamzin was a writer rather than a preacher and such tendencies served only to interfere with the pursuit of his own aesthetic interests. These "convictions" were reason enough during these years for him to follow his own bent more and the masonic ends less, and, eventually, to sever his connection with the circle. 4

Several books, published by Novikov, were proscribed and Novikov was subjected to a loyalty test, Bogoljubov, op. cit., pp. 388 ff. 5 In the investigation that followed, papers were discovered attesting to some contact with the Berlin Rosicrucians. In the examination of Novikov, every effort was made to prove the existence of some conspiracy but without success. See Bogoljubov, op. cit., pp. 420 ff. 6 Pogodin, op. cit., I, pp. 68-9. See footnote 44. 7 V. V. Sipovskij, Ν. M. Karamzin, Avtor "Pisem russkago puteSestvennika" [Ν. M. Karamzin, Author of the Letters of a Russian Traveler] (= Zapiski istoriko-filogileskago fakul'teta Imperatorskago s. petersburgskago universiteta [Notes of the Historical-Philological Faculty of the Imperial St. Petersburg University], Part XLIX (St. Petersburg, n.p., 1899), p. 142. 8 A s quoted, ibid., p. 144.

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Upon his return from Europe and England in September 1790, Karamzin began a new phase of his literary career. In the November issue of the Moskovskie vedomosti [Moscow News], Karamzin announced his intention "to publish a journal" of poetry and prose." It was further announced that the journal would be "published in Moscow, whence the title, Moscow Journal"; and that it would contain works translated from "German, English, and French journals, information on significant recently-published books and theatrical performances, and miscellany". In conclusion, the editor solicited from his readers any material except "theological, mystical, excessively scholarly, pedantic, dry pieces". While Karamzin was later to complain that the 300 subscribers barely paid the printing cost, the number far exceeded the circulation of all but two other journals in the last half of the century.10 This success was a personal triumph of the young editor and publisher. He correctly evaluated and was able to satisfy the cultural needs of his readers. Aware of the oppressive political climate, except for his ode "K milosti" [To Mercy], Karamzin carefully avoided articles or commentaries dealing with political problems.11 And in obvious reference to the masonic interests, he also avoided "theological, mystical . . . pieces." In general, the various sections of the Moscow Journal illustrate the young editor's interest in the aesthetic aspect of literature and his concept of what Russian culture needed at this stage of its development. Karamzin popularized the short tale 12 (povest') in his journals, and it remained the dominant prose genre until well into the twenties of the nineteenth century. Simple stories of virtuous people with no momentous or difficult problem left unresolved, these tales appealed to the unsophisticated young and old alike and, undoubtedly, helped develop a "reading habit" among the Russian public.13 » Berkov, op. cit., pp. 497-8. 10

Τruten' and Zivopisec which date back to 1769 and 1772, respectively. The early nineties were marked by political oppression. A. N. RadiSiev's book, Putesestvie iz Peterburga ν Moskvu [Journey from Petersburg to Moscow], 1790, a radical attack on serfdom, was ordered burned as " a work . . . infected with the French error" and its author was exiled. Novikov was imprisoned and sentenced to fifteen years in prison. "K milosti", Karamzin-Dmitriev, pp. 98-99, written soon after the arrest of Novikov, requested that Catherine show mercy to the downfallen. 12 "Frol Silin", 1791, "Bednaja Liza", 1791, "Natal'ja, bojarskaja doi' " [Natalie, the Boyar's Daughter], 1792, were all published in the Moskovskij zurnal. 15 Y. G. Belinsky, "Literary Reveries", Selected Philosophical Works, translator unknown (Moscow, Foreign Languages Publishing House, 1948), p. 45. 11

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39

The interest in European sentimental literature, which had so marked Karamzin's early years, continued to be evident in this journal. In 1791, he published his own translations of Macpherson's "Songs of Selma" and "Carthon", the first to be made directly from the English (see below, Chapter III). Karamzin also published two pieces from Sterne: "Maria", 1791, and "The Story of Le Fever", 1792." He also introduced a new genre, the ballad, to his readers in the Moscow Journal. Karamzin had become familiar with German adaptations of Spanish romanceros while in Weimar and he proceeded to develop this genre in Russian literature. He began by translating a rather unsentimental Spanish ballad, "Graf Gvarinos" (Count Guarinos), 1791, then created an original romantic ballad, "Raisa", 1791, in the style of G. A. Bürger's poems, and ended by developing a type of sentimental tale in verse, "Alina", 1797-1800. In these narrative poems, Karamzin moved steadily in the direction of greater complexity of characterization and greater verisimilitude of setting and action. The Moscow Journal lasted two years, 1791-1792, and the reasons for its termination are not clear.15 In the December issue of 1792, he announced his intention to cease publication and thanked his public for undertaking "the task of reading the Moscow Journal".16 The last years of Catherine's reign were gloomy and difficult for Karamzin. Petrov, his intellectual guide and friend, died in the beginning of 1793, and Karamzin's "eternal grief" took long to pass. Many of his masonic friends had suffered grievously at Catherine's hands: Novikov was imprisoned, Lopuxin, an intimate, was exiled, and Kutuzov languished abroad in self-imposed exile. In the spring of 1793, Karamzin moved to the country and, for the next several 14 Karamzin saw Sterne as an expert in analyzing the heart and man's subjective experiences. He was not aware that Sterne was, perhaps, a Rabelaisian humorist, spoofing the entire sentimental style. For a presentation of this aspect of Sterne, see Ernest Nevin Dilworth, The Unsentimental Journey of Laurence Sterne (Morningside Heights, New York, King's Crown Press, 1948). 15 In a letter to his readers published in November 1791 (quoted by Pogodin, op. cit., I, pp. 188-90) Karamzin complained that the income from his subscribers barely covered his printing costs. Consequently, financial difficulties may have forced him to cease publication. Another reason might have been certain difficulties with the authorities. Novikov was arrested in April 1792 and Karamzin's ode "K milosti" seems to have been censored before it could be published (see Petrov's letter of July 19, 1792 in Socinenija Karamzina [Works of Karamzin], ed. V. V. Sipovskij (Petrograd, Akademija nauk, 1917), p. 417. Karamzin's name came up in the governmental inquiry into the masonic affair with the harsh implication that he had been sent abroad for subversive reasons (see, Pogodin, op. cit., I, p. 213 for a description of this investigation and its relation to Karamzin). 16 A s quoted, ibid.

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years, lived either on his estate near Simbirsk or in Znamenskoe, Anastasia Plesceeva's country seat near Moscow. It was a period of persecution, whether real or imagined. Karamzin's withdrawal from Moscow gave rise to rumors that he had been banished or that he was dead or exiled.17 Perhaps government suspicion of the masons, which still lingered, prompted these rumors. Perhaps the conduct of Catherine toward him set tongues wagging. She was not openly hostile but, rather, cold and aloof toward him, one of the foremost men-of-letters of that time. In the isolation of the country, Karamzin found ample time for literary pursuits. In his farewell message in the Moscow Journal, he wrote that he would devote his "free hours" to the composition of "some trifle; perhaps my friends will write something too": These f r a g m e n t s or complete pieces I intend t o publish in a magazine entitled Aglaja, o n e of the beloved Graces . . . Thus, Aglaja will replace the Moscow Journal. It will be distinguished f r o m the latter by the most precise choice of words, in general, the purest, i.e., a better style because I will not have to publish it o n schedule. 1 8

The first book of Aglaja appeared in 1794 and the second in 1795. His friends, Dmitriev and Xeraskov, had contributed three poems and Karamzin, the remainder of the material.19 The obscurantist repression that had followed in Russia after the French Revolution, had endangered the gains of the Russian Enlightenment. Karamzin, in several essays published in Aglaja,20 comes to the defense of learning, science, and art. Those who decry human knowledge and intellectual progress are labelled "misosophists", and 17

N. M. Karamzin, Pis'ma N. M. Karamzina k I. I. Dmitrievu [Letters of Ν. M. Karamzin to I. I. Dmitriev], eds. Ja. Grot and P. Pekarskij (St. Petersburg, Akademija nauk, 1866), pp. 59, 62. 18 As quoted, Pogodin, op. cit., I, pp. 215-16. 18 In addition to several poems, the first book contained several essays and a small piece celebrating the virtues of the lowly "Cto nuzno avtoru" [What is Necessary to an Author], "Neëto a naukax, iskusstvax i prosveSòenii" [Something on the Sciences, Arts, and Enlightenment]; the essay on virtue among the lowly: "Neznost' druzby ν nizkom sostojanii" [Tenderness of Friendship in Poor Circumstances], an excerpt from the Letters of a Russian Traveler, a short story reflecting Ossianic influences, "Ostrov Borngol'm" [The Island of Bornholm], and one reflecting the influence of Marmontel, "Julija" [Julia]. The second book included his romantic tale, "Sierra Morena", a continuation of the Letters of a Russian Traveler, and several essays and dialogues: an essay "Afinskaja zizn' " [Athenian Life] and two dialogues, "Melodor k Filaletu" [Melodorus to Philaletus], and "Filalet k Melodoru" [Philaletus to Melodorus], 20 The two dialogues referred to in footnote 19 are in Soc. Karamzina, III, pp. 436-45, 446-57. Also the important essay, "Necto o naukax, iskusstvax i prosveSCenii", ibid., pp. 373-403.

MOSCOW AND ST. PETERSBURG

41

Karamzin belittles their claims that all the world's calamities are the fault of the Enlightenment. It is quite the contrary, Karamzin maintains, for science and art are essentially moral in nature, acting to improve and perfect the individual and society. The Enlightenment creates a love for harmony, or the "good", within man, and an abhorrence of disharmony, or "vice". 21 At the end of 1795, Karamzin outlined another scheme to Dmitriev. "I am thinking of publishing an Almanac des Muses next year", he writes and adds that he hopes Xeraskov, Nel'edinskij-Meleckij, Derzavin, (see below, Chapter III), and others will contribute. Karamzin evidently pursued the project zealously for already in August 1796 the first volume was published, its Gallic title changed into Aonidy [Aonides], an echo of the Grecian Aglaja and the famous French Almanac des Muses. Catherine II died in November 1796 and Paul ascended the throne. Karamzin, perhaps remembering Paul's partiality toward the masonic movement, looked to the release of his imprisoned friends and an improvement in the political climate. He wrote to his brother in December 1796: The Sovereign wants to reign with truth and mercy and to show his subjects his beneficence. The Trubeckojs, I. V. Lopuxin, Novikov are to be rewarded for their sufferings. The first are to be made senators, Lopuxin, a secretary in the Emperor's retinue, and Novikov, it is said, will be the director of the University.22

Although one of the Trubeckojs and Lopuxin became senators and Novikov was freed, the events of Paul's regime quickly dispelled Karamzin's hopes. Only a month after he wrote the letter to his brother, Karamzin's close friend, Dmitriev, was placed under house arrest on charges of treason. He was quickly found innocent, but this event disturbed Karamzin deeply and he wrote to Dmitriev on January 5, 1797: I embrace you in tears, my dear friend. The thunder which roared over you resounded in my heart. What an occurence! I was beside myself with amazement. Your innocence cannot be long in doubt; but what a situation.23

Karamzin did not undertake any new or bold ventures during Paul's regime. He confined himself to a re-publication of material printed "

22

83

"Neíto o naukax . . i b i d . , p. 398. As quoted, Pogodin, op. cit., I, p. 262. Pis'ma Karamzina k Dmitrievu, p. 72.

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earlier. The Letters of a Russian Traveler, which had been published serially in the Moscow Journal and Aglaja, appeared in four volumes in 1797; because of difficulties with the censor, the fifth and final volume did not appear until 1801, after Paul's death. In August 1797, Karamzin published the second book of Aonides in a larger format and with more varied selections and, some three months later, he published an article in the Spectateur de Nord, a journal published in Hamburg in the French language. This article, "Un mot sur la littérature russe", a general survey of Russian literature, was made more significant by the announcement of the discovery of a Russian epic poem, Slovo o polku Igoreve, [Lay of the Host of Igor], which dates back to the twelfth century. In 1798 Karamzin was busy with a translation project, to be called Panteon [Pantheon], He was translating Cicero, Buffon, Rousseau for this work which was to consist of "all types of creations, important and unimportant. Consequently it will include tales, excerpts, and Arabian anecdotes . . ,".24 He submitted this material to the censor in July 1798, and when it was returned, it had been severely expurgated. The entire plan of the book was destroyed; the works of Demosthenes and Cicero were rejected because the authors were republicans. In a letter to Dmitriev, Karamzin berates a society where "we have an Academy, a University . . . and literature is under the counter!" 25 He made the changes called for and Pantheon was published in December, despite the censor who stood "as a black bear in my path". 28 Alexander I ascended the throne on March 12, 1801, and there was a promise of a more liberal era. Karamzin, as well as his contemporaries, believed they had already glimpsed this. Vigel', an interesting memoirist of the period, describes the mood somewhat rapturously: "I am not able to describe what took place at that time. Everyone experienced a sort of moral release. Everyone's looks became more gracious; their steps, more brisk; and their breathing, freer". 27 Karamzin now began a very happy period, which was not unmixed with sorrow. A month after the young Tsar ascended the throne of "All the Russias", Karamzin married Elizaveta Ivanovna Protasova, the youngest sister of Anastasia Ivanovna. An idyllic year of happiness followed but it soon became evident that his wife was suffering from a 24 25 28 27

Ibid., Ibid., Ibid., F. F.

p. 93. p. 97. p. 99. Vigel', Zapiski [Memoirs] (Moscow, n.p., 1891), I, p. 180.

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43

serious illness, perhaps tuberculosis, and a premonition of tragedy possessed Karamzin. Elizaveta Ivanovna soon became pregnant and, in March 1802, gave birth to a daughter, Sophia. The strain of childbirth was too much for her delicate constitution and, on April 4, 1802, she died, and her husband and small child were "deprived of the sweet angel.. .".28 The liberal promise of Alexander took positive form. Soon after his ascension, more tolerant instructions were issued to the censor: "Reasonable and modest research for truth, not only must not be subject to any censorship, however moderate, but must enjoy complete freedom of publication . . .".2β Contacts with foreigners, which had been prohibited during Paul's reign, were once more allowed. Foreign books could be mailed to Russia. Printing houses, closed by Paul, were reopened. In this promising liberal atmosphere Karamzin began a new journal with a significant title, Vestnik Evropy [European Herald], whose aim - Karamzin wrote in one of the later issues - will' be to "conform to its title, to contain all the major European news in literature and politics . . .".30 Thus, the European Herald differed from Karamzin's other publishing ventures. In the politically repressive atmosphere of Catherine's years, Karamzin confined his interests to literature, art, and drama. In the liberal climate of Alexander's early years, he introduced social and political' problems in his journal. In a series of articles, Karamzin again took up his defense of the Russian Enlightenment.31 He praises Novikov for expanding the book trade, requests the support of the nobility in helping needy students become teachers, waxes enthusiastic about Alexander's establishment of schools for the lower classes, and, finally, praises a series of science lectures in the University of Moscow for the edification of the general public. Karamzin's moral views are clearly illustrated in these articles. Education is a moral force and, for Russia to become a great power, 28

From a letter to his brother as quoted by Pogodin, op. cit., I, p. 180. A. K. Borozdin, Literaturnye xarakteristiki XIX veka [Literary Characteristics of the XIX Century] (St. Petersburg, n.p., 1903), I, p. 19. 30 Quoted by Pogodin, op. cit., I, p. 339. 31 "O Kniznoj torgovle . . . " , Soi. Karamzina, III, pp. 545-50; "O vernom sposobe imet' ν Rossii dovol'no uiitelej" [A Real Method for Having Sufficient Teachers in Russia], ibid., pp. 340-7; "O novom obrazovanii narodnago prosvesèenija ν Rossii" [On the New Form of Popular Enlightenment in Russia], ibid., pp. 348-58; "O publiinom prepodavanii nauk ν Moskovskom universitete" [On the Public Teaching of Sciences in Moscow University], ibid., pp. 611-17. 28

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education of the broad masses is necessary.32 At this time, he does not venerate the peasants as "children of nature". In the "Pis'mo sel'skago zitelja" 33 [Letter of a Country Dweller], he frankly states peasants are 'lazy by nature, habit, and by an ignorance of the advantages of industriousness"; only a strict, paternalistic control will help the peasant live a good life. This suspicious attitude toward the natural goodness of primitive man, reflects a decided moderation in Karamzin's sentimental views, which seem to have been affected by the frustrations and harassment of the nineties. In a series of anecdotal essays published in the European Herald, Karamzin derides the sentimental apotheosis of love, the blessing of solitude, and extreme emotional or rational characters. "Moja ispoved'" 3 4 [My Confession], 1802, an amusing lampoon upon the "confession" literature that followed Rousseau's great success, satirizes the sentimental idealization of love. The writer, Count N. N., a thoroughgoing materialist and skeptic, recounts his amatory adventures, chief of which is the amusingly cruel seduction of his exwife. He had moved into her household, been accepted "as a brother" by the Prince, her husband, and courted her by rationally playing upon her sentimental weaknesses. His ex-wife attempts to justify her own unfaithfulness by asserting the primacy of the emotions and, consequently, the nobility of her ignoble act. Another essay, "Anekdot", 35 [Anecdote] 1803, demonstrates that solitude may lead not to self-perfection but to a Hydra of debauchery. Liodor, the chief character, decides to retire to the country after the deaths, first, of his beloved, and, then, of his best friend. However, isolated from society he grows bored and commits an unspecified immoral act, for which he is exiled. Karamzin concludes with a warning against man's isolating himself from others, for it is "against the plan of Nature, one must not be dead to the world before death". The last essay, "Cuvstvitel'nyj i xolodnyj, dva xaraktera" 38 [The Emotional and the Cold, Two Characters] ridicules personality extremes and points out that the sentimental character can destroy himself through an excess 32

The glory of Switzerland and England lies in the education of the peasants, "O novom obrazovanii ", ibid., pp. 349-51. Cf. this idea with that of Schaden, Chapter I. « Ibid., pp. 567-80. « Ibid., pp. 504-21. 35 Ibid., pp. 538-55. 3 · Ibid., pp. 618-40.

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of emotions while the overly judicious individual, alien to sensitivity, can find no deep meaning to life. These various essays are a critique of sentimentalism - as presented in Karamzin's early stories - as well as a tentative exploration of the moral weakness within the materialist's outlook. A moral code, promising happiness, can not be predicated entirely on emotional responses; it has to be guided by reason. And, conversely, reason alone can not lead to a satisfaction of emotional needs, since it leads, more often than not, into an alley of evanescent desires, where pleasure depends on novelty and novelty is soon exhausted. The success of the European Herald - "one of the most interesting and widely circulated of all Russian journals of the period"37 - was due entirely to Karamzin's indefatigable efforts. For two years he wrote or translated almost every article. In simple and lucid prose, Karamzin discussed Bonaparte and Pitt, the Austrian coalition and French relations, elucidating, as well as commenting upon, the political scene and, thus, fulfilled the aims set down in his initial letter. Toward the end of 1803 and at the very height of the journal's success, he relinquished the editorship to P. A. Sumarokov, the son of the famous classicist, and began a new career as official historiographer of the Russian state.

B.

ST. PETERSBURG: THE HISTORY

In September 1803, Karamzin wrote to Murav'ëv, his close friend and former tutor to the Tsar, requesting a government stipend "to write a History, neither vulgar nor shameful. . . ." 38 Murav'ëv evidently pleaded successfully, for in about a month an Ukaz was published in Alexander's name granting Karamzin an annual stipend of 2,000 rubles to write a "complete history of our Fatherland".39 The last issue of the European Herald was published under Karamzin's aegis in February 1804, and he wrote to Murav'ëv: "I am now studying only that which pertains to History."40 In a letter to Murav'ëv, Karamzin calculated the course of his historical writing: "In five or six years I hope to reach the Romanovs 37

Marcelle Ehrhard, V. A. Joukovski et la préromantisme Ancienne Honore Champion, 1938), p. 67. ®8 As quoted by Pogodin, op. cit., II, p. 18. 38 Ibid., I, p. 397. 40 As quoted, ibid., II, p. 20.

russe (Paris, Librairie

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and, until I do, I do not intend to print anything.. . ." 41 Karamzin erred magnificently in his calculation. He worked assiduously for the next twenty-two years on his history and still had not reached the first Romanov, who ascended the throne of Moscow in 1613. The effect of the conservative political spirit of Moscow was clearly reflected in Karamzin's actions and writing of these years. In 1809, Count F. V. Rostopcin, the leader of the Moscow nobility, introduced Karamzin to the Emperor's sister, Grand Duchess Catherine Pavlovna. She was a woman of strong character, who had some influence on Emperor Alexander. He admired her greatly and listened to her opinions. Evidently Karamzin's views, as expressed in his conversations with the Grand Duchess, conformed to those of her aristocratic entourage, which for personal and political reasons, was hostile to M. M. Speranskiy Alexander's State Secretary and close advisor.42 The policies of Speranskij, a poor priest's son and a "parvenu" in the words of Karamzin's biographer,43 were considered potentially dangerous to the Russian aristocracy, who feared a diminution of their power if Speranskij's projected constitutional reforms were carried out. The Grand Duchess had encouraged Karamzin to write a paper summarizing the views he had expressed before her circle. This paper, "Zapiska o drevnej i novoj Rossii" [Memoir on Ancient and Modern Russia] was delivered personally to the Grand Duchess in February 1811, and proved to be a polemic not only directed against Speranskij but also against the Emperor himself, who had contributed many of the ideas found in the State Secretary's project.44 Karamzin saw in Speranskij's projected reforms an attempt to eradicate the Russian nobility, the bulwark and defender of the Russian state. Karamzin's entrance into court society was not completely voluntary. In his letters to his brother and Dmitriev in 1811, he rails against the "worldly vanity" of the court in Tver', where the Grand Duchess 41

As quoted by Pogodin, ibid., p. 24. The Grand Duchess' request for special favors had been turned down several times by Speranskij. The upper aristocracy also viewed Speranskij's measures as a veiled attempt to destroy it as a class. This group formed a sort of noble opposition in Moscow to the policies of Alexander I. For a discussion of Speranskij's reforms and projects, see: Marc Raeff, Michael Speransky (The Hague, Martinus Nijhoff, 1957), Chapter V "Plans of Reform", pp. 119-68. 43 Pogodin, op. cit., II, p. 60. 44 V. Kljucevskij, Kurs russkoj istorii [Course in Russian History] (Moscow, Gosudarstvennoe social'no-èkonomiSeskoe izdatel'stvo, 1937), V, p. 277. Speranskij drew up his reforms on the basis of materials which Alexander I gave him. This was in 1808. By the fall of that year, Speranskij submitted the reworked material to the Sovereign, who proceeded to revise it to conform to his own ideas. 42

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47

maintained an official residence, and the destruction of his peace and quiet as a result of his frequent trips there.45 Other, more tumultuous events soon further discomforted Karamzin. In June 1812, Napoleon crossed the Nieman and began the invasion which was to end in the devastation of Karamzin's beloved Moscow. For the next several years, Karamzin's life was insecure. In the spring of 1813, he moved his family to his wife's estate,46 and in the fall to Moscow. He continued to work on his history, completing the first eight volumes, up to the middle of the reign of Ivan IV (the Terrible), by the end of 1815. Early in 1816 he moved to St. Petersburg to arrange for the publication of these volumes. The Emperor greeted him warmly when he was presented on March 15, 1816 and agreed to print the first eight volumes in the military printing house in St. Petersburg. Karamzin transported his family to St. Petersburg in the spring, hoping to remain about two years guiding his volumes through the press and, then, to return to Moscow. But he was possessed by a strange premonition in the summer of 1816 that he would die in Petersburg, without ever returning to his "quiet Moscow".47 This premonition proved true. He stayed on in St. Petersburg, a reluctant celebrity invited to court functions and an eager editor working incessantly on his history but he never again returned to Moscow. Karamzin's social contacts in Petersburg were conditioned by the circumstances of his last years in Moscow. He was a controversial figure who continually eschewed controversy. In the first decade of the nineteenth century a linguistic dispute arose over the path of development of the Russian literary language. This dispute was not new but centered on one of the major cultural problems of the eighteenth century, the need to create a literary language of greater flexibility in style and expression. In general, there were two possible solutions to this problem: the resultant language could be oriented toward the Old Slavonic language and find its vocabulary for the more modern concepts in the Church texts, or it could reject the past entirely, raise the conversational language to a literary level, and borrow from modern foreign languages. Lomonosov, the odist, grammarian, and scientist, suggested a compromise around the middle of the century, favoring a 45

See his letter of April 9, Pis'ma Karamzina k Dmitrievu, p. 143; and his letter to his brother of April 12, 1811 as quoted in Pogodin, op. cit., II, p. 85. 4e In 1804, Karamzin married Catherine Andreevna Vjazemskaja, the daughter of an old friend, Prince Andrej IvanoviS Vjazemskij. 47 Pis'ma Karamzina k Dmitrievu, p. 193.

48

MOSCOW AND ST. PETERSBURG

circumspect use of the vocabulary of Church Slavonic and opposing indescriminate borrowings from foreign sources. Karamzin favored bringing the written language closer to the spoken language, avoiding archaic Slavonic expressions, and borrowing words and syntactical patterns from the French. In the beginning of the nineteenth century, Admiral A. S. Siskov, a linguist and future Minister of Education, decided that Karamzin's innovations were undermining Russia. They were anti-national and anti-religious, and it was all due to the French. "If Europe is now drinking a cup of bitterness, it is because, before she was vanquished by the arms of France, she had been conquered by the language", he indignantly exclaimed.48 He suggested a return to the older Slavonic, which had been used "from Nestor to Lomonosov, from the Igor Tale to Derzavin" to create unforgettable monuments of Russian literature.49 In 1803, he published an anonymous pamphlet, "Rassuzdenie o starom i novom sloge rossijskogo jazyka" [Dissertation on Old and New Styles of the Russian Language] in which he expounded these ideas and, in 1810, he helped form a literary society, "Beseda ljubitelej russkogo slova" [A Company of Lovers of the Russian Word], dedicated to a defense of the Russian tongue. A group of Karamzin's adherents defended his ideas as set forth in his poetry and prose of the nineties. On October 14, 1815, at the home of S. S. Uvarov, the "unknown literary men from Arzamas" 50 (i.e. "from the sticks") organized a literary circle and the first meeting of the group was held on October 22.51 The Arzamas society opposed the solemnity and formal pomp of the Beseda group. Their symbol was a goose, the chief product of the town of Arzamas; it was inscribed on their coat of arms and was the chief course of their weekly dinners. They had foolish nicknames for each other, and their ceremonies were

48

Quoted from Ehrhard, op. cit., p. 68. Ibid., p. 69. 50 From Bludov's poem, "Videnie ν kakoj-to ograde" [Vision within Some Sort of Enclosure], where a gathering of "obscure people" discuss literature while dancing. M. Dmitriev in Meloci iz zapasa moej pamjati [Trifles from the Storehouse of my Memory] (Moscow, 1869) pp. 81-3 opines that the Arzamas circle was formed in imitation of a school of young sculptors grouped in Arzamas about the painter, Stupin. 51 D. TomaSevskij, Puskin (Moscow-Leningrad, Akademija nauk S.S.S.R., 1955) I, p. 110, lists some of the members: BatjuSkov, a poet and nephew of Karamzin's early protector, Murav'ëv; Vjazemskij, Karamzin's brother-in-law; Zukovskij, the poet and former editor of the Vestnik Evropy, among others. 49

MOSCOW AND ST. PETERSBURG

49

a burlesque of the masonic rituals. Karamzin and his friend, Dmitriev, were honorary members from the very beginning. While in Petersburg, Karamzin took great pleasure in the society of this circle, even reading portions of his unpublished history to them, and he seemed to be attempting to recreate his Moscow environment in St. Petersburg. The young adherents, who now made their pilgrimages to his home and sought his advice, had for the most part formed his social circle during his last years in Moscow. However similar the society, it was still St. Petersburg that he saw on his daily walks, it was still far from Moscow. No circle of friends could replace the memories that tied him to the past. Ostaf'evo, the Vjazemskij estate became a sacred shrine: "It is remembered by my heart. There we enjoyed all the delights of life and not a little of its sadness . . .".52 He railed against St. Petersburg and swore that "I shall never leave my bones here".53 This oath was not fulfilled while his earlier premonition was. He died in St. Petersburg on May 22, 1826, and was buried in the Nevskoe Cemetery where a marble slab decorated with a laurel wreath bears the simple inscription, "Karamzin".

52

Letter of July 1819, to Ν. I. Krivcov, quoted by Pogodin, op. cit., II, pp. 333-5. 53 Ibid., p. 396. Quoted from a letter to Malinovskij, December 11, 1822.

III PREROMANTIC DEVELOPMENTS BEFORE KARAMZIN

A.

INTRODUCTION

Several important elements can be noted in the development of sentimentalism within Russia. Perhaps the most striking is the "time lag" between date of the original publication of the western poems and novels and the date of their appearance in Russia. Young's Night Thoughts appeared originally in 1742-1745, but Russian translations of various "Nights" only followed in the seventies. Thomson's The Seasons, 1726-1730, was translated in the late seventies and eighties, while Richardson's novels, published in the forties and early fifties, did not appear in Russian until the late eighties and early nineties. The questions that arise "Why the 'time lag'?" and "Why these particular writers?" are complementary since the answer to the latter question provides the explanation of the former. Eighteenth-century Russia, similar in many ways to Soviet Russia, was intensely preoccupied with the forms of European culture in an attempt to imitate, assimilate, and, eventually, surpass the West. Karamzin attributed the origin of this particular "spirit of the times" to Peter the Great, who "had only to tear the veil which concealed the achievements of the human mind and say to us, 'Behold! Equal these, and then, if you can, surpass them!' " 1 While the story of western influences in Russia begins long before Peter, Karamzin's generalization bears some truth, for Peter's name is popularly associated with the great eighteenth century transformation of Russia into a modern European state. Peter the Great helped rend the veil but his primary interest in the "achievements of the human mind" was practical and utilitarian, largely confined to the introduction of practical sciences, elementary schools and social customs that would 1

Letters of a Russian Traveler, p. 220.

PREROMANTIC DEVELOPMENTS BEFORE KARAMZIN

51

help the Russians attain western standards of efficiency and order.2 The Russian nobility, forced into state service by Peter, had little leisure to pursue literary careers, and the development of literature was not an object of Peter's scheme of change. However, the cultural contact with the West, the raising of the nobles' educational level, the expansion of printing facilities, could not but have a significant cultural effect in preparing the Russians for the intense European acculturation which was to take place during the remainder of the century. For the several years after Peter's death in 1726, the most significant foreign influence upon Russian cultural developments was German, due largely to the Russian acquisition of several Baltic provinces and the subsequent influx into Russian society of many German-trained statesmen, military officers, and teachers. However, with the ascension of Elizabeth (1741-1761), who gained her throne with French help, and then with the ascension of Catherine II (1763-1796), who so admired French culture, and, last but not least, with the gradual liberation of the Russian nobility from the time-consuming demands of state service, the process of transforming the Russian nobleman into his French counterpart took place in earnest. In the forties and fifties the Russians turned toward French culture - the influence of the Age of the Grand Monarque was still strong in most of Europe - attracted by the works of Molière, Corneille, Racine and Boileau, that is, the major exponents of French neo-classicism of the seventeenth century. Russian writers such as Tred'jakovskij, Kantemir, and Sumarokov imitated certain elements of this French school, unaware of, or oblivious to, the fact that its brilliance was fast fading. Even before this classical movement had matured in Russia, new literary tendencies began to vie with it. In France, the fifties and sixties marked the high point of English influence: Richardson's novels were translated in the early fifties,3 The Seasons appeared in 1759, and Night Thoughts in 1769; Lillo's The London Merchant had been translated in the late forties and Moore's The Gamester in the early

2

For a good, brief discussion of this period see D. D. Blagoj, Istorija russkoj literatury XV111 veka (History of Russian Literature of the XVIII Century) (Moscow, Gosudarstvennoe uíebno-pedogogiíeskoe izdatel'stvo, 1945), pp. 18-25. 3 Prévost translated Clarissa in 1751 and Sir Charles Grandison in 1753. Pamela was translated in 1742 but Prévost's participation in this translation is in doubt, see Frank Howard Wilcox, Prévost s Translations of Richardson's Novels ( = University of California Publications in Modern Philology, Vol. 12 [Berkeley, California, University of California Press, 1927]), pp. 351-3.

52

PREROMANTIC DEVELOPMENTS BEFORE KARAMZIN

sixties.4 The Russians followed the enthusiasm of their French preceptors and the beginning of the penetration of English sentimentalism into Russia can be marked; the poetry of Young and the moralizing play of Moore in the seventies, and the novels of Richardson in the eighties - all found their way into Russia after the French sanctioned them through their translations. If the Russians were guided by French tastes - and to a lesser degree in the seventies and eighties by the German interest in English sentimental literature5 - the problem arises as to the nature of these French translations and their effect upon Russian developments. In the preface to his translation of Young's Night Thoughts, Le Tourneur very frankly advised his readers of the liberties he had taken with the text. Thematic repetitions and theological passages dealing with redemption and revelation were winnowed from the text and placed in the copious footnotes. Le Tourneur retained those religious passages which preached a "morale plus universelle, comme l'existence de Dieu et l'immortalité de l'âme".6 He made of Young a deist, an impassioned preacher of natural religion, rather than the dogmatic and sometimes acerbous defender of the official faith. In matters of style, Le Tourneur also emendated that which seemed to him "bizarre, trivial, mauvais, répété et déjà présenté sous des images plus belles".7 He toned down the images which "rendered his poet less bitter and sarcastic, more tender and melancholy".8 And it was precisely this tenderness and melancholy, suffused in the soft light of the sepulchral landscape, which appealed to the Russian readers and was imitated by Russian writers. Prévost's translations of Richardson's novel's reveal a necessity to bring order out of the supposed disorder of language, style, and emotions.9 Richardson's novels are altered to make them conform to Prévost's concept of "good taste". Richardson describes with loving care a society and people he knew intimately. He depicts circumstantially his characters' emotional difficulties and joys, their courtships and mar4

F. Gaiffe, Le Drame en France au XVille siècle (Paris, Armand Colin, 1910), p. 53. 5 German translations of Thomson's The Seasons and Richardson's Pamela and Clarissa had appeared in the forties of the eighteenth century. In the fifties and sixties translations of Young, Ossian, and Sterne followed. β As quoted by Paul van Tieghem, Le Préromantisme (Paris, Felix Alean, 1930), II, p. 51, from Le Tourneur's preface. * Ibid. β Ibid., p. 56. 9 Wilcox, op. cit., p. 359.

PREROMANTIC DEVELOPMENTS BEFORE KARAMZIN

53

riages, seductions and deaths. Nuances of facial expression and physical movements do not escape the probing quest of his pen which seeks to create a semblance of truth through a mass of detail. Prévost often considers this detail to be superfluous and, frequently, omits it, since it "n'ajoutent rien à l'histoire ni à l'interest".10 The rationale for this is to perk up the story line and make of the rambling Clarissa a concise, fast-moving novel. This was one of the major stylistic elements guiding Prévost in making his translations. Another important element was the translator's desire to tone down vulgar descriptive scenes. Richardson's detailed depictions of physical contacts, which frequently became voluptuous pictures of vice, are often omitted by Prévost, who, perhaps, had less need to release his inhibitions in print than did Richardson. Clarissa's detailed presentation of her decline "unto death" is considerably abbreviated and the death scene of the malevolent Sinclair is omitted entirely. This respect for the delicacy of the French reader is also exemplified in Prévost's "polishing-up" the language of some of Richardson's serving-class characters to make it more elegant if not more eloquent. The high moral purpose, the respect for the "lowly", the depiction of the vicissitudes of courtship and family life were not substantially altered in Prévost's translations. However, the changes which resulted from the contact of French "good taste" with English "barbarism" were clearly reflected in the early Russian imitators of the English novel. Details of family life and physical action were included but handled carefully so as not to interfere with the pace of the tale; the love theme was treated in a refined manner so as not to shock the readers' sensibilities; and, finally, the language of the various characters was much refined to conform to the "elegant taste" of the Russian reader.

B.

THE POETRY

1. Significance of preromantic poetry11 In "Poetry",12 Karamzin characterizes the poetic contributions of Thomson and Macpherson: 10 11 12

Quoted by Wilcox, ibid., p. 386, from Prévost's preface to Clarissa. See Appendix A for Russian translations of preromantic poetry. Karamzin-Dmitriev, pp. 59-65.

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PREROMANTIC DEVELOPMENTS BEFORE KARAMZIN

Thomson had studied nature And carefully observing the seasons, their most delicate shadows Proclaimed the beauty of nature to us. And the songs of Macpherson, Pouring the tenderest anguish into the languid spirit Attune us to sad scenes; But this grief is dear and sweet to the soul. Karamzin notes quite accurately the new dimension that these poets had added to the description of nature. Thomson's depiction of nature, although still in the abstract classical tradition, suggested a more exact and faithful rendition of the English countryside to his European contemporaries. Macpherson was fond of the sepulchral landscape of ruins and foggy vistas and often complemented these "sad scenes" with lugubrious thoughts on the transiency of man's life. In the same poem, Karamzin also calls attention to the mood of melancholy which runs through Young's Night Thoughts. In "reconciling us with death, Young reconciles us also with life", Karamzin writes and, thus, touches upon one of the major themes of Young's poem, the problem of death and destiny or the loneliness of man facing death. Young's pensive melancholy is also reflected in the change of scenery, the moonlit vista with the spectral owl and the cemetery, a fitting background for the anguished probing of death's meaning. However, this melancholy is more significant as an indication of the concern with the "self", which is found in Night Thoughts, The Seasons, and the poems of Maspherson. Young is the major exponent of introspective exploration. The poet concentrates on his subjective world; and his own immediate experiences, however petty, become poetical subjects. Young's Conjectures on Original Composition,13 1759, helped liberate the poet from the traditions and authorities of the past. The depiction of the true poet as an "original", one who respects the ancients but does not imitate them and who "drinks where Homer drank . . . at the breast of nature", worked toward these ends. The "original" found his creativity within himself, he is "born of himself, is his own progenitor. . . ." The true poet exalts his own feeling, reveres his own personality, unfetters his imagination, and sprinkles all with the waters of enthusiasm. He creates from a "barren waste", a blooming spring. 13

(2nd ed.; London: n.p., 1759).

PREROMANTIC DEVELOPMENTS BEFORE KARAMZIN

55

Thomson rhapsodizes on peasant joys and Gray praises village types, but, perhaps, Gessner best described the pleasures of the simple life for his century. In "Poetry", Karamzin commends Gessner for this reason: In delight thou [Gessner] Sang of innocence, simplicity, pastoral manners And delighted tender hearts with thy pipe.

Gessner's Idyllen, 1756 and 1772, praise the uncluttered natural life, the tender love of shepherds, maternal and paternal joys, and conjugal happiness. They were immensely popular and Gessner became "one of the principal prophets of the return to nature", which excited all of Europe during the second half of the eighteenth century.14 Haller may also be placed in this tradition. Karamzin was familiar with this poem "Die Alpen", a description of Haller's alpine tour of 1728, and had translated "Über der Ursprung des Übels", which celebrates the virtuous life of the Swiss peasant. Haller's description of the happiness of these people deeply moved Karamzin, and he observed in a footnote to his translation: . . . in these happy creatures, Haller thinks of the Swiss shepherds. Everything that I have heard from travelers in regard to their life, delights me. The thought of these happy people forces me to exclaim, "O mortals! why have you turned away from your early innocence! Why are you proud of your imaginary enlightenment!"16 2. Russian

developments

The major poet of the forties and fifties in a sparsely populated scene is Mixail Lomonosov (1711-1765). The virtues and vices of the literary movement he helped establish and lead are exemplified in his favorite genre, the ode. For Lomonosov, odic speech is somehow "divine": The unearthly origin is proved by the abstract and elevated vocabulary; by the involved "periods", which allow a complicated play on words, ideas, and emotions; and by the "high" vocabulary, drawn from Biblical, mythological, and other sanctified sources. The successful ode is inspirited with a divine rapture which generates the hyperbole and exotic tropes that serve to create an illusion of godlike pre-eminence and insight. And, as there is but one God, so also, for Lomonosov at least, there is but one meter, the ten-line iambic tetrameter (or hexameter), which he used constantly. These are the main elements of a 14

"

Van Tieghem, op. cit., p. 228, author's italics. As quoted by Sipovskij, Karamzin, Avtor ..., pp. 87-8.

56

PREROMANTIC DEVELOPMENTS BEFORE KARAMZIN

school of poetry which was exceedingly popular in the eighteenth century. The public acceptance and veneration of the Lomonosovian ode, testifies to man's eternal willingness to make any sacrifice to commune with God. However, every poetic system has within it the elements of its own dissolution. Odic speech, frequently, is unintelligible; the poetic devices undecipherable; and the rapturous heights, unscaleable. As a consequence, such poetry began to impress its readers as remote, abstract, and removed. In the fifties and sixties, A. P. Sumarokov, the Russian dramatist and poet, criticized these elements of Lomonosov's aesthetic system. Sumarokov felt that to overburden the ode - or, for that matter, any genre - with poetic devices tends to interfere with the direct communication of ideas and emotions, the poet's main purpose. To achieve simplicity, clarity, and naturalness of expression, Sumarokov simplifies the syntax, shortens the sentence, and uses poetic devices more judiciously. A compensatory narrative element often dealing with ordinary experiences of ordinary mortals - is stressed and those genres lending themselves to narration (elegy, idyll, eclogue, song) are favored. Quite deliberately, Sumarokov mixes the language of the stylistic categories established by Lomonosov; in this quest for variety, he essays many poetic genres and meters even introducing free verse into the higher poetic forms. Finally, and not the least of his contributions, Sumarokov was highly conscious of that poetic element which escaped Lomonosov completely, the audial, musical quality of poetry. Playing carefully and consciously upon his instrument of sound and sense, he created poetry that even today is sometimes delightful and moving. In this clash of aesthetic ideas, the young generation gradually rallied to Sumarokov's standard. In Sumarokov's journal, Trudoljubivaja pcela [Industrious Bee], 1759, poets such as A. A. Nartov and S. V. Naryskin appear, illustrating the ideas and techniques of their master. A year later, the journal of the University of Moscow, Poleznoe uveselenie [Useful Entertainment], under the editorship of Xeraskov and numbering Nartov and Naryskin among the contributors, frankly espoused these new tendencies. The young writers ignored the abstract ode in favor of elegies, idylls, fables, and poetic romances, in general, singling out narrative and lyrical forms. Let us look at some of those genres and some of those writers in order to trace the development of the movement which leads directly to, and provides the fundamental ideas of, the Karamzin poetic school. Sumarokov, was the most important idyllist of the Russian classical

PREROMANTIC DEVELOPMENTS BEFORE KARAMZIN

57

movement, producing some eighty eclogues and idylls.16 These simple tales are written in a fluid language and depict the love of innocent shepherdesses and not-too-innocent shepherds. Despite the philosophical insubstantiality this genre contributed substantially to the breakdown of the Lomonosovian aesthetic standard. In his "Epistola o stixotvorstve"17 [Epistle on Poetry], Sumarokov clearly defines the aesthetic norms governing this genre. The prime object of the idyll is to delight the sophisticated reader and provide a retreat from life's "hustle and bustle". The shepherds described in the idyll must be tastefully drawn, neither "polite nor crude", that is, neither illustrating the foppish elegance of the "courtly cavalier", nor the vulgar realism of the peasant. Since nature is a refuge, it must be delicately described so as to be restful and appealing. Consequently, only certain vistas are to be included: Sing in the idyll of clear skies Green meadows, bushes, woods, The bubbling spring, wells, and groves, Spring, a pleasant day and the quiet of a dark night.

Finally, the idyll must in simple language tell of the lovers' separation and recount "Phyllis' cruelties" and infidelities. Sumarokov's idylls adhere admirably to these dictates. His purview of nature shows little variation; it is quietly arcadian, beautiful - and monotonous. Roses, tulips, lilies, nightingales, larks, and the dove are always present; rivulets and streamlets are clear and pure, and always in the diminutive; spring and summer reign eternally. Nature plays a significant, if a somewhat passive, role as an echo of the shepherds' joys and sorrows.18 While the shepherd of Sumarokov's idyll is artfully drawn, the shepherdess is the one who receives major attention. The poet is primarily interested in her emotional reactions, such as they may be, and neglects the lover. The shepherd's love is often frivolous 18

There is a slight difference between these genres. According to Batteux, there is generally "more action and movement in the eclogues than in the i d y l l . . . . " Quoted by A. A. Veselovskij, Ljubovnaja lirika XVIII veka [Love Lyrics of the XVIII Century] (St. Peterburg, Jasnoforodskij, 1909), p. 95. 17 S. A. Vengerov (ed.), Russkaja poèzija [Russian Poetry] (St. Petersburg, A. E. Vineke, 1879), pp. 166-8. 18 In the idyll, "Agnesa", the shepherd's joy in nature depends entirely upon whether he will, or will not, see his beloved and in "Del'fira", nature laments at the lovers separation, see Polnoe sobranie soiinenij Sumarokova [Complete Collection of Sumarokov's Works], ed. Ν. I. Novikov (2nd ed.; Moscow, n.p., 1787), VIII, pp. 7-8, 30-2.

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PREROMANTIC DEVELOPMENTS BEFORE KARAMZIN

or physical, while the shepherdess feels love deeply and is aware of its power to affect her life. But both are sensitive creatures, attuned to nature, deeply responsive to love's vicissitudes and, very frequently, given to tears and melancholy.19 Finally, Sumarokov depicts love as a powerful, consuming passion, which must be satisfied. It is a "flame", a "fire", which "burns", "flames", and consumes its "captives" or "prisoners".20 Quite naturally, Sumarokov finds comparisons for these poems in nature: love is a "flower" which "withers", or "seeds" which are "sown" to bear the "fruits" of love. These poems emphasize the intimacy between man and nature, the varieties of amorous emotions,21 and the melancholy of unrequited love. In these respects, they prepare the way for the coming sentimental movement. However, these are classical eclogues, separated by rather formidable barriers from the movement which followed. Despite Sumarokov's disclaimer in his dedication to the eclogues that he is not defending the "indecorous voluptuousness" of love,22 a strong sensual theme with its glorification of physical pleasure is everywhere apparent in these eclogues. The fact that a sense of shame, rather than a sense of sin, is the strongest deterrent to sexual license best illustrates this moral code.23 Full of passion and voluptuousness, these eclogues defend no moral code but do praise the "tenderness" of love. Sumarokov was responsible for transplanting other lyrical genres into Russian literature, e.g., love songs and romances. Involuntarily, the poets who attempted to imitate the French in these genres, fell into the mood and tone of Sumarokov's poetry. Later poets, Dmitriev, Neledinskij-Meleckij, and Murav'ëv, differ only in the greater degree of sentimentality but the images and devices of their poetry are derived from Sumarokov. As a young man, Sumarokov had written two famous love songs24 and by the end of his career, over one hundred and fifty. In his "Epistle on Poetry", he distinguishes the genre in this way: 19

For example, in the idylls "Cefisa", "Felamira", "Del'fira", ibid., pp. 11, 5860, 30-2. 20 Veselovskij, op. cit., pp. 110-11, finds the same comparisons and similes in the French poets Sumarokov imitated. For Piron, love is a "feux timides", for Parny, a "tendre feu", for Grecourt, a "beau feu". 21 Sumarokov, op. cit., pp. 5-7 ("Irisa"), pp. 58-60 ("Felamira"). 22 Ibid., p. 1. 23 In "Irisa", love is excited in the shepherdess but she tries to control her passions for a logical reason: to submit would allow her lover to be "enamored of another shepherdess". 24 "O mesto, mesto dragija" [O site, dear site] and "Mesto toboju ukraSenny" [Site adorned by thee].

PREROMANTIC DEVELOPMENTS BEFORE KARAMZIN

59

The words of the song must be pleasant, simple, clear; Eloquence is not necessary D o not sing in passion, "Farewell, my Venus"! Say "Goodbye, farewell now, my world!" When a man parts with his love Venus never enters his mind.

Ju. A. Neledinskij-Meleckij (1752-1828), Sumarokov's follower in his genre, pursued these same goals. However, influenced by the rising sentimental movement, his songs exalt the spiritual, rather than the sensual, nature of love. In Sumarokov's idylls and songs, the lover's "blood boils" and he "burns in loving".25 In Neledinskij-Meleckij's songs this fiery physical theme is tempered and the malleable heart becomes the dwelling place of divinity and immortality: Death can not destroy the soul Which was nourished in me; And the heart, in which it dwells, Must it not be immortal? N o , it can not be mortal It breathes with a divinity. 26

And his love delights not in physical charms but in spiritual beauty, which is found by ". . . secretly penetrating into the charms of thy soul". Imbued with a spiritual, creative power, love even transcends death: If thou, by chance Wilt be near m y grave M y dust will tremble, Thy approach will give birth to life, A n d the stone, which covers me, Will be shattered.

In another song, "Ty velis' mne ravnodusnym"27 (Thou Biddest me [Be] Indifferent) it is love which animates man: 25

Russkaja poèzija, p. 259, . . . his heart is beastly And his blood boils tyrannically, or p. 260, I feel how many tortures there are, Now in loving I burn, now I turn to stone. ä " "U kogo duSevny sily" [He Who Has Spiritual Strength], ibid., p. 358. " Ibid., p. 357.

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Thou [love] hast made me feel, Thou hast placed a soul in me. And in one of his most famous songs, "Vydu ja na recenku" 28 (I Shall Go to the Little River), love is so etherealized that it becomes the very air the lover breathes: Let my languishing soul suffer forever, If only he will be sweet to me . . . Thou, whom I see, whom I attend, Whom I think about—whom I breathe. Sumarokov introduced the poetic romance into Russian from French in the fifties. Essentially, a short narrative dealing in simple terms with a complication arising from a love affair, the poetic romance was quickly adapted by Sumarokov's followers. Already in the fifties, Nartov and S. V. Naryskin tried their hands at this genre. In Sumarokov's journal, Nartov published his romance, "Razlucenie s ljubeznoj" 29 [Separation from My Love], a personal and highly emotional poem. Here in a simple idiom the poet speaks of the loss of his beloved, his memories of her, and his attempt to find solace in nature. Naryskin introduces the sentimental idea of social inequality as the cause of the lover's separation in his "Elegija" 30 [Elegy], The narrator has lost his beloved to a wealthy, tyrannical rival, whom the girl prefers to him. The rejected suitor accuses the parents of preferring gold to the happiness of their daughter and, thus, voices the doctrine of a crass materialism destroying spiritual values which would become an essential of sentimental literature. A literary circle centered in Moscow, led by Xeraskov 81 and sympathetic to Sumarokov's innovations, introduced additional sentimental ideas into this genre. Ja. Β. Knjaznin (1742-1792), a member of this group, wrote an extremely important romance, "Nakazannaja nevernost'" 3 2 [Unfaithfulness Punished], 1783. Knjaznin reflects the transitional nature of Russian literature in the seventies and eighties. While 28

Ibid., p. 335. Ibid., p. 316. 30 Ibid., p. 321. 31 Other members were Naryäkin; I. F. Bogdanovii, who gained much fame for his poem, DuSin'ka, a free adaptation of La Fontaine's Les Amours de Psyche et de Cupidon; and V. I. Majkov, the author of a popular mock-heroic poem, Elisej, ili razdraiënnyj Vax [Elisej, or Bacchus Irritated]. 32 Socinenija Knjaznina [Works of Knjaznin] (St. Petersburg, KraSennikov and Co., 1847), I, pp. 490-5. 29

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61

primarily a classicist, the author of stately tragedies and edifying comedies, he admired Gessner and translated many of his idylls.33 His romance, "Unfaithfulness Punished", is a tale of delicate complexity with an excessive "refinement of feeling". It takes place in Moscow. Flor, the main character, has sworn to love Liza but, unfortunately, a wealthy charmer entices him away. The treacherous Flor sets a wedding date. Liza pines away and, by one of those odd coincidences of sentimental poetry, dies on the very day of Flor's marriage. Her body is taken to the church where Flor is to be married; he enters, arrayed in his bright wedding cldthes, sees Liza and, now, wishes to fulfill his original vow, but it is too late. He dies suddenly, "a sacrifice of his own emotions". Knjaznin introduces many elements which had not previously appeared in this genre but which were to figure prominently in the Russian sentimental movement: A mysterious love that wreaks a terrible vengeance; the tale's high moral purpose, showing how the oathbreaker destroys himself; the amorous triangle that results in tragic deaths; the social differences between the characters; the independence of the rich and the loyalty of the poor. These classical genres facilitated preromantic developments by introducing a new vocabulary, new themes, and new characterizations into Russian poetry. The language of the idylls, songs, and romances is limpid, unstrained, and, often, close to conversational idiom; love, the central passion, is unrequited and tragic; the characters are appropriately delicate and sensitive, expressing in melancholy and tears human sufferings. When the rain of translations from English and German preromantic literature began in the seventies, it fell upon a soil well prepared to receive it. The new growth that was nourished was not drastically different from the classical one: the veneration of nature and country dwellers is inherent in the idyll; the personal, lyrical quality of the poetry of the seventies and eighties occurs in rough form in the classical love songs and the laments of the romances; and the narrative poem or ballad easily develops on the established tradition of the romance. However, as has already been indicated, important qualitative and quantitative distinctions exist between these early genres and later sentimental poetry: Love became ethereal and spiritual, devoid of its former sensuality; nature became a temple of God in which the sentimentalist worshipped; and lyrical poetry developed to the 33

Blagoj, op. cit., p. 324.

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point where it became an account not of some abstract lyrical ego but of the tribulations of the poet's own life. The most important link between the Sumarokov tradition of lyrical poetry and the sentimental poetry of Karamzin is M. N. Murav'ëv (1757-1807), a close friend of Xeraskov, Novikov, and other members of the Moscow cultural1 scene, and a mentor of the L'vov literary circle (see below). He published a few volumes of poetry in the seventies, which clearly reflected the poet's more intimate relation to his world and served as a source of his influence. Murav'ëv was the first Russian poet to use openly the personal details of his private life as the subject of his poetry. He discusses his family (father, sister, son) and his close friends in his poetry. In "Priglasenie" 34 [Invitation], he requests his son to walk and enjoy nature with him. "K Feone" 35 [To Feona] is a personal letter to his sister, describing mutual friends in an easy, bantering manner, and the poem, "Putesestvie" 38 [The Voyage], tells of his life in Moscow, spent with "the most tender of fathers and an incomparable sister". Nature is important and attractive to Murav'ëv only as it provides an outlet for the description of his own emotions. Indeed, the description of external nature sometimes becomes so hazy and vague as to leave only a personal emotional impression. In his poem, "Invitation", nature simply provides a pretext to meditate upon passion: In the quiet of nature The moonlight is delightful When the weather is still And the sky cloudless. Now passions have stilled As have the movement of people. The soul is subject Only to its own power. Come to these sites Come forth with me, Emile! Enjoy these Meditations for the moment.

A further extension of this intimate approach to nature is found in the poem, "Razmyslenie" 37 [Meditations], where the poet's ethical and moral ideas condition his appreciation of nature. 34

Polnoe sobranie socinenij [Complete Collection of Works] (St. Petersburg, Rossijskaja akademija, 1819), I, p. 17. » Ibid., pp. 57-60. M Ibid., pp. 18-20. 37 Ibid., p. 34.

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This open expanse of clear sky, In which pellucid clouds swim, Illumed by the rays of the evening Phoebus, This crystal and quiet river, These bushes shading it, In a word, all the lines and tones of this picture Can only captivate us When happiness is within the soul. And happiness is possible only to a "good, gentle soul". A s in Sumarokov's idyll's, nature responds to man's inner being. Thus, beautiful nature simply echoes the internal harmony of the poet, and, in this sense, the boundary between nature and the poet is obliterated; nature becomes a facet of the poet's personality. While Murav'ëv's depiction of nature still is largely in the classical tradition where . . . assiduous villagers And nymphs wreathe garlands of cornflowers . . . , Summer days end with walks or dancing,38 he often describes sites and scenes more precisely and realistically. The new paysage poetry, originating with The Seasons, attempted to paint landscapes in which national colors would be apparent. For the European admirers of Thomson's poem, the locale was purely English. Murav'ëv's more exact descriptions partly reflect this tradition and, partly, the personal nature of his poetry. Much of his poetry was in the form of epistles and short lyrics meant for intimates, and, consequently, he refers to familiar sights and places. In the "Voyage", he begins by invoking shared experiences: Farewell peaceful city, where golden dreams Adorned my youthful days, passed in the shelter of my homeland I exchange your love for pompous Petropol, But allow me to carry your memory with me. Ah! the memory of a life passed so sweetly, With the most tender of fathers and an incomparable sister. Then he describes his journey, a rather exact charting of his river voyage from Moscow to St. Petersburg: along the Msta river to Lake Ladoga and then to the Neva and "Petropol". He describes the "craggy 38

"Sel'skaja zizn'" [Village Life], ibid., pp. 20-1.

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hills" of the Msta river, with "innumerable ships clustered along its shores". Often these descriptions are quite realistic with deft touches that bring the incidents and background to life. In "Rosea"39 [Grove], there is this detailed picture of a peasant at rest: The farmer removes the yoke from his steaming horse; And moves to the spotty shadows of the twisted oak. He wipes the sweaty streams from his brow with his handkerchief, Throws off his hat and lies with his chest pressed to the earth. Meanwhile, the plow rests, thrust into the field, And the horse, freed of the snake, rolls, transforming himself, Spreading his mane upon the grass. . . . Many of his poems contain nocturnal landscapes, so favored by Young. A moonlit night ("Invitation"), a poet leaning upon a mossy stone and contemplating nature ("Noe' " 4 0 [Night]), or a poet musing upon death ("Neizvestnost' zizni"41 [Incertitude of Life]), are traditional elements of this poetry. The last poem is a good example of a type of "graveyard" poetry. Dark and somber images convey life's transiency, while the poet calls for mortification of the flesh so that the spirit might find eternal life. It is short enough to quote almost in its entirety. When the heavenly vault embraces the gloomy night, And I close my tired eyes to dream, Suddenly there appears before me The moment when I shall leave this world. Terrible transition, incomprehensible to mortals! Nature trembles, imagining this hour, Inevitable hour, unknown, unreturnable; As a whirlwind, escaping from the northern gorges, Swirls and strikes the ship on the deep. Chasing momentary joys intently, We come to the edge of the yawning chasm Do not reckon on a long course of life, O mortal! Entrust your hopes to the Supreme Being, And languish in the brevity of your days, be alien to pride, You shall pass beyond the earth; there you shall live forever. 38

« "

Ibid., pp. 50-2. Ibid., pp. 28-9. Ibid., p. 33.

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In the seventies Murav'ëv was a member of a literary circle, sympathetic to Sumarokov and led by N. A. L'vov (1751-1803), a man of catholic tastes, musician, sculptor, and architect. Other members included Xemnicer, an important fabulist, Kapnist, a dramatist and poet, and G. R. Derzavin (1743-1816), undoubtedly the most important poet of this group. While Derzavin had been influenced by the lyrical, linguistic, and narrative elements of Sumarokov's poetry, his broad poetic range makes it difficult to assign him either to the ebbing classical or the rising preromantic movement. Although he professed admiration for Lomonosov, he was intimately connected with L'vov's circle; consequently, he derived much from both movements, and, as is often the case with genius, his work is impressed with its own stamp of originality. Derzavin maintained that he wanted to imitate Lomonosov in his early years but, unfortunately, found that he could not "soar" as could the great odist. It is fortunate for Russian poetry that Derzavin discovered this inability. As a result, he walked among the common foibles and weaknesses of mankind and, in lyrical verse of great beauty, caught many uncommonly beautiful features. Early in his career, Derzavin essayed eclogues and songs in the Sumarokov tradition, catching every erotic line suggestive of physical delight. Intervening literary groups bolstered and developed this tradition and Derzavin assimulated these elements quite naturally: He merged different levels of speech, experimented constantly with meter, sought easy conversational patterns, and introduced realistic elements into the most elevated poetic forms. When the early waves of English lyrical poetry began to beat upon the Russian shore, Derzavin was soon touched. He became familiar with the translations of Young made in 1772 and 1778, and adapted Young's idea of the Christian's triumph over the terror of death to his poem, "Na smert' Knjazja Mescerskago" 42 [On the Death of Prince Mescerskij], the first Russian night ode. Subsequently, he was influenced by both Thomson and Macpherson. The nature descriptions of Derzavin's poetry are often wintry and autumnal, far removed from Sumarokov's vernal, pastoral landscapes. "Osen' vo vremja osady Ocakova" 43 [Autumn During the Siege of

42 43

Russkaja poèzija, p. 635. Ibid., p. 639.

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Ocakov], written by Derzavin in 1788, contains a rather precise description of the southern steppe during autumn. Already ruddy autumn bears Golden sheafs to the threshing floor, And luxury pleads with greedy hand For grapes, for wine. Already birds are flocking; The mare gleams silver on the steppes, Red-yellow leaves are strewn Everywhere along the paths.

The poet attempts to depict specific autumnal beauties, the harvest, the migrating birds, and the fall of leaves. He follows with hunting scenes and vignettes of hungry wolves foraging in denuded hills. In 1785, Derzavin had been appointed governor of Olonec province and, while on official duty, viewed the Kivac Falls at the conjunction of the Suma river and Lake Onega. Some years elapsed before he tranquilly recollected this event for his famous poem, "Vodopad" 44 [Waterfall], The poem bears Ossianic influences, which helps explain the interval between the first sight of the Kivac Falls and the composition of the poem in 1790. It was not until the end of the eighties that Derzavin read Dmitriev's translation of Macpherson's fancy; shortly thereafter, the "Waterfall" appeared. The central character, several images, and the setting are drawn from or influenced by Macpherson. Derzavin describes the old warrior of the poem in bardic terms. Beneath the inclined cedar, In the presence of nature's terrible beauty, On a decayed stump, stretching from the Mountainous crags to the water's banks, I see—a grey-haired man, Leaning, resting his head on his hands. A spike and a sword and a great shield, The wall of all the Fatherland, And a helmet entwined with ivy, Lie in the moss at his feet. . . .

Violent and lugubrious images crowd these scenes: a "Wolf . . . born in bloody battle", a "body . . . lying on the dark bosom of the night", a traveler gazing on the "inscription of a grave". The setting of the 44

Ibid., pp. 652-4.

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Ossianic epics is the sea-girt islands and craggy shores. Somehow, the mild and relatively small Kivac Falls suffer a change to approximate the Ossianic scene: The October night came upon the earth, On the bosom of the gloomy stillness. I hear nothing but the Waves, roaring Against the rocks from the broken heights, Seen with their snowy mountains.

IV PREROMANTIC DEVELOPMENTS BEFORE KARAMZIN (Cont.)

A. THE NOVEL

1. Significance of the new novel1 The social order was changing in the eighteenth century and to a degree hardly understood by the novelists who, nevertheless, described this change. The rising middle class, which had been praised by Addison and Steele for "being just, faithful, modest, and temperate" (The Tatler, no. 97) found more eloquent champions later in the century. Richardson, Rousseau and Goethe praised in unyielding terms the less well born while vigorously protesting the wilfulness, excesses, and debauchery of the aristocratic classes. Pamela judiciously guards her virtue through life's vicissitudes and the non-aristocratic St. Preux and Werther demonstrate a deep passion and honesty that are envied by their social superiors. This was more than the simple ascendance of a new class and the descendance of an old; in the moral as well as social field, the traditionally accepted standards had been weakened and, if God had not died, He was being mortally challenged by the demon of relativism. Virtue and vice, social standing and acceptance, were not determined entirely by birth, education and church but by shifting emotional attitudes and ideals. In this respect, Rousseau and Goethe created prototypes of the alienated, self-tortured, self-conscious hero of romantic and realistic fiction. Analytic and irrational, coldly perceptive and ardently imaginative (St. Preux occasionally suffers from hallucinations), the heroes of La Nouvelle Héloise and The Sorrows of Young Werther lead lives of intense emotional consciousness and this conduct brings them into constant conflict with a crass, insensitive world. This struggle with society, however, is less important than the psychic battle within St. 1

See Appendix Β for Russian translations of the new novel.

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69

Preux and Werther. Having rejected the false social conventions and hypocritical moral standards, they consequently, turn within and accept as a sort of "higher law" their own emotional demands. Since, unfortunately, these are often vaguely defined or constantly being redefined, the young men flounder in a sea of unrealized - and, frequently, unrealizable - hopes and ideals. This bitter sense of inevitable frustration is the source of that Weltschmerz afflicting those who seek, not so much a reason to live but a manner of living with their "selves". Whether is be the prince in search of a princess stolen by pirates, or a cowboy in search of a maid stolen by Indians, the external movement of the adventure novel is exciting and, frequently, delightful. In the eighteenth century the adventure novel with its static hero and villain (polarities for a number of minor characters naively divided according to virtue or vice), its sequential plot, and its incidents of pursuit, confrontation, escape, gave way to the character novel, which, externally, had far less movement. The locale is circumscribed, the characters fewer, and the incidents more complex and more artfully woven into the fabric of the character. If successful, the novelist probes deeply into the nature of his characters and seeks to reveal the mysterious complexities of man by observing, enumerating, and explaining the subtle causes of human actions. Of course, the progression of the novel depends upon incidents, a confrontation and resolution, but they are markedly different. Social inequalities, parental opposition, moral conventions, or the character's emotional vacillation replace the old adventures and serve to illustrate in their own way the variety of the human personality.

2. Russian

developments

The English novel, introduced to the Russian public in the sixties through Russian and French translations, provides the major impetus to Russian prose developments in the late eighteenth century. However, a prose tradition exists already in the Petrine period, and elements of this tradition contribute in no small measure to later developments. The authors of these popular tales 2 attempt a crude psychology of 2 "Gistorija o rossijskom matrose Vasilii Kiriotskom . . . " [History of the Russian Sailor, Vasilij Kiriotskij . . . ] , "Gistorija o xrabrom rossijskom kovalere Aleksandr . . . " [History of the Brave Russian Cavalier, Alexander . . . ] , "Gistorija o nekoem äljaxeckom syne . . . " [History of a Certain Gentleman's son . . . ] .

70

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(cont.)

love, interpolating letters and songs to illustrate the complexities of passion. These tales exalt love, praise faithfulness, and allow even the low born to suffer its pangs. Finally, the heroine plays essentially the same role as in subsequent sentimental prose, bringing out the social conflicts, the primacy of emotional life, and the extremes of passion in the hero. This native prose tradition was supplemented in the fifties by the availability of novels and tales of Calprenede, de Scudéry, Scarron, and Prévost, all of which predisposed the Russian reading public to an easy acceptance of the English novel and the Russian writer to a ready acceptance of its complexities. The new novelistic techniques and ideas were first reflected in the lengthy epistolary novel of Fëdor Èmin, Pis'ma Ernesta i Doravry9 (Letters of Ernest and Doravra), 1766. Èmin had lived for some time in France; he knew French and was acquainted with French literature. Influenced by La Nouvelle Héloïse, he recounts the passionate love of Ernest, a member of the lesser nobility, for Doravra. When her father learns of this affair and of Ernest's previous marriage, he forces her to marry an old man who will tell her "fairy tales" and teach her to "moderate her passions." Some time later, Doravra's husband dies and she offers Ernest a position as tutor to her children. He refuses and, in farewell, observes rather bitterly that his "fervent love ended in extremely cold observations". Aware that his novel was different from the popular adventure novel, Èmin defends in his preface his realistic delineation of, and conclusion to, the love affair. It is possible that several readers will censure my taste because the last part [of the novel] does not correspond to the first part. In the first part, constancy in love is elevated to a high degree, while in the second part, it is almost destroyed. . . . Believe me, indulgent readers, it would not be difficult to elevate romantic constancy even higher and conclude my book to the satisfaction of all, uniting Ernest and Doravra. But fate does not enjoy such conclusions—and I was forced to write this book to her taste.

Thus, Èmin will be true to life, even if it means that the romantic expectation of a happy ending to this love affair is not fulfilled. This novel differs from the roman d'aventure not only in the handling of "romantic constancy" but in other aspects. Èmin replaces the sequential intrigues of the adventure novel with emotional conflicts * My résumé is from V. V. Sipovskij, Ocerki iz istorii russkago romana [Essays on the History of the Russian Novel] (St. Petersburg, Trad, 1909), I, Part 2, pp. 428-54.

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71

within the characters. Although the hero travels a great deal, there is little physical action in the novel. Instead, the author spends much time in analyzing the hero's and heroine's emotions. Thus, Ernest probes his own actions, attempting to define his own emotions in comprehensible terms. And with every twist of the plot, he further analyzes and explains his conduct. And the plot proceeds through a maze of common social problems: The lovers are separated by different concepts of love, financial inequality, a previous marriage, and, finally, parental objections. Ernest is modelled upon the analytical St. Preux. Deeply sensitive, he recognizes the cruelty and philistinism of his society and refuses to accept it. He "detests people who do not sympathize with the misfortunes of others". The animosity has a social base; he suspects wealth and power because "the dishonorable, . . . the deceivers . . . obtain great benefits through their audacity'. Like St. Preux, this acute sensitivity predisposes Ernest to unhappiness: "there is no greater misfortune", he writes, "than to possess a sensitive soul. When a man has feelings there can be no happiness in this world". And like St. Preux, Ernest is inclined to melancholy and sadness; occasionally, he suffers paroxysms of despair which not even a beneficent nature can alleviate: "I look upon the green meadow, the fields strewn with flowers. But it only deepens my sorrow." Rousseau's veneration of the simple, natural life and those who live close to nature, is clearly apparent in the hero of Èmin's novel. Ernest respects the peasants and considers the ideal life to be one that is lived closed to the soil: "It is necessary to be born a farmer to live that peaceful life which is the envy of all philosophers." Conversely, the aristocrat can not understand such a life; indeed, "pure milk, the most delicate food of the shepherd and shepherdess, only upsets his stomach". St. Preux rejects the artificial park in favor of untrammelled and unconstrained nature. Ippolet, who plays the Lord Bomston to Ernest, defends this view, moderating it slightly: The groves are beautiful here. . . . We have many gardens . . . There is no magnificence here; no gold, silver, marble, no artfully wrought statuary. . . . Natural vegetation, rather than any magnificence, adorns our gardens. Different flowers fill these gardens. Nature demonstrates its joy and life through its tender flowers and green leaves.

The ornate, artificial park must give way to the unembellished garden,

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(cont.)

where nature is made more natural. But it is still a garden, rather than nature in its pristine state, that appeals to the sentimentalist. Two short prose pieces,4 modelled on the lyrical effusiveness of St. Preux and describing in detail' their authors' emotional experiences during brief separations from their loved ones, are the only original works in the sentimental tradition of the seventies. The many translations of foreign novels and the availability of others in French translations made the Russians somewhat hesitant at trying their hands at original works. At any rate, Èmin's novel and these short pieces form the total Russian contribution to the sentimental novel up to the eighties. Even in this period, the output is exceedingly meager, consisting of three prose pieces reflecting the influence of Richardson, Rousseau, and Goethe. Nikolaj Èmin, the son of Fëdor, wrote two sentimental tales in the eighties: Roza, poluspravednaja i original'naja povest' [Roza, A Partially True and Original Tale], 1786, and Igra sud'by5 [Game of Fate], 1789. The first is the tale of Milon's love for Roza and her forced marriage to Prince Vetrogon, an aristocratic roué. Milon and Roza, unable to control their passion, begin an illicit love affair which the husband uncovers. Prince Vetrogon challenges Milon to a duel and wounds him mortally. This causes Roza to die of grief. The Prince accepts complete blame for this domestic tragedy, ascribing it to a debauched life, and kills himself. All three are united in death, being buried "beneath one stone". In the second work, the hero, Vsemil [All-Sweet], is disillusioned with urban life. He moves to the country where he falls in love with a young married noblewoman, Plenira. He demonstrates the sincerity of his love by continuing to love Plenira even after she has been disfigured by smallpox. Her husband finds out about this noble love affair and, realizing that he is old and near death, magnanimously invites Vsemil "to come to us. Be the consort of my wife's heart and the friend of her consort." Èmin has departed most significantly in his characterizations from his father's imitation of La Nouvelle Héloïse. Milon is only partially modelled upon St. Preux. His melancholy arises from his extreme sensitivity; a lover of virtue, he is subject to the conflict of virtue and passion. At the same time like Werther he is violent and impetuous. 4

"Dnevnik odnoj nedeli" [Diary of a Week], 1773, by A. N . Radiäöev, and "Utrenniki vljublennago" [Mornings of a Man in Love], 1779, by V. A. Leväin. 5 All quotes from these two novels are from the résumés in Sipovskij, Ocerki iz istorii . . . , I, Part 2, pp. 460-77, 477-91.

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73

His passion sets him at odds with the laws of society. Despite the objections of Roza's parents he pursues her, even disguising himself to gain entrance into her household. And when the husband discovers the liaison, he persists in his passion and the affair culminates in the fatal duel. Vsemil is still more violent; his passion, powerful and destructive, transforms him into a man of "hellish features", "torn by the furies of delirium". These characters are largely drawn from the lesser nobility, and, at every opportunity, the author points out their superiority to the upper nobility. In a Game of Fate, Nelest', a friend of the hero, describes the urban nobility: "They pass their time in an amazing fashion. They hold church services in the morning..., and then they mercilessly whip their servants and beat their maids. . . ." Socially hypocritical, they are also selfish and shallow in their emotional relations. Love for the upper aristocracy is a physical experience and nothing more. Milena, a witty, socialite friend of Plenira, defines this attitude toward love very well. She enumerates the courtly rituals and formalities, the "sweet eyes", "tender sighs" and oaths, and, then, tells how the lovers "throw themselves upon their knees" and soon "the pleasure is taken and the affair ends". The heroes differ from such hedonists. They are wealthy, not in estates and family names, but in spiritual resources. Milon boasts that these "sad clothes indicate that [I am] devoid of wealth" and he scorns Roza's mother who "values financial means more than spiritual attributes". Rousseau's veneration of an uncluttered, natural life; the eclogues' idealization of simple villagers; and the comic operas apotheosis of the virtuous peasants (see below, The Drama), had created a strong tradition in Russia that tended to magnetize many different literary currents. With this background in mind, Richardson's Pamela, the story of a serving girl's successful aspiration to an upperclass life, was interpreted by the Russians as a defense of the virtues of the lower classes. Pavel L'vov in his novel, Rossijskaja Pamela, ili istorija Morii, dobrodetel'noj poseljanki,6 [A Russian Pamela, or the History of Maria, a Virtuous Peasant Girl], 1789, the story of a young nobleman, who persecutes, courts, and, finally, marries a peasant girl, follows Richardson's novel closely, but in his treatment of the peasants, L'vov clearly reflects the earlier Russian literary tradition. In his introduction to this novel, L'vov points out his intentions: 6 ibid., pp. 491-510.

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(cont.)

I have called [the heroine] A Russian Pamela, because among us there are tender hearts, great souls and noble sensitivity in low circumstance. . . . Although I fear a severe censure for the lack of completeness in my work, nevertheless, everyone should see in it a desire to depict the exact aspect of good and evil as they appear in society. I followed truth as much as I was able. . . . Even the prejudices of society, so tolerated and accepted as good in many cases, I have termed "evil", "empty," and "an oppression of nature". Motivated by such patriotism, L'vov attempts to show that virtue exists among the lowly, that good and evil are often found in society, and that which society accepts as good, is often the reverse. In depicting virtue "in low circumstance", L'vov has apotheosized the child of nature. Philip, Maria's father, bases his own conduct on the "respected rules of a natural philosopher" and raises his family by these rules. Viktor, the nobleman, summarizes this philosophy when he comments on Maria's education: " . . . I see a complete education in her, i.e., a tender heart, a good soul, good manners, a fine judgment of things, and unfeigned feelings. . . . The good Philip, this intelligent villager, knows that a true education lies in spiritual beauty and not in external attractions." So successful is this mental and moral discipline that even Maria's physical being radiates a spiritual wholeness. "[She] . . . was like a heavenly being who had descended to earth; goodness of soul shone on her innocent forehead." Viktor realizes the spiritual superiority of Maria and Philip, even while he is persecuting them. He defends them from the calumnies of an evil friend by affirming, "God created only virtuous men, not the illustrious, not the noble, proud of himself.. . ." Therefore, his marriage proposal is made, not to a lowly peasant maid, but to a being superior in many respects to himself. Oddly, Philip refuses the offer; he is level-headed enough to realize that natural qualities cannot efface the social inequalities between Maria and Viktor. It remains for Maria to lecture him on one of the central tenets of his natural philosophy: "Surely, he [Viktor] is the same being as I, and he has the same soul, the same feelings - so why are we not equal?" The hostility toward the upper classes is more marked in this novel than in those of N. Èmin. Viktor contrasts Maria with Russian society women who "chatter away in French, English, or Italian, jumping in a contredanse, strumming on a fortepiano, or plucking the strings of a harp. . . . " Maria also draws a comparison loaded with social bias when Viktor tries to buy her favors with money. She cries,

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Do not humiliate me, Victor, nor yourself, by offering me wealth, luxury, control over the peasants. Don't think that these dreams, which only seduce perverted emotions, might allure m e . . . . I am not one of those city women, who, I have heard, waste in capricious actions all the money the poor farmer earns in bloody sweat.

Her father states unequivocably that there are no honorable people in the city and only in the country can one find the "Golden Age". The Francophile aristocracy bears the brunt of this attack. They believe "everything on earth was created for their pleasure and all people born for their service". We are introduced in the novel to a Prince Mnogoslov (Many-Words), who "considers everything French, holy. He always accepted French buffoons and chatterers . . . more amicably than the modest, polite, and respectable Russian nobleman." L'vov's novel is more a throwback to the older adventure novel than those of his contemporary, Èmin. The plot contains many subordinate episodes dealing with journeys, shipwrecks, adventures with wild men, which almost overshadow the domestic tragedy of Maria and Viktor. It remained for Karamzin in a series of short stories published in the nineties to make the decisive break with the old forms and open the road to future. B. THE DRAMA

1. Significance of the new drama1 Whether it was the embourgeoisement, the more democratic, liberal mood, or simple opposition to the classical spirit of St. Petersburg, the new drama also took root in Moscow and developed rapidly. In May 1770, Belmonti, a theatrical entrepreneur of Italian origin, staged Beaumarchais' Eugénie before a most enthusiastic Moscow audience. This success provoked Sumarokov, the doyen of the Russian classical drama, into one of his notorious diatribes. "A new and vile type of tearful drama", he railed, "has insinuated itself into Moscow but dares not appear in St. Petersburg".8 Appalled at the nudity of the leading actress and dismayed by the audience's enthusiasm, he distainfully concluded, "A clerk [Nikolaj Pusnikov, the translator, was a minor functionary] has become the judge of Parnassus and the arbiter of Muscovite public taste." Perhaps Sumarokov's pique was aroused by the unenthusiastic re7

See Appendix C for Russian translations of the new drama. Preface to Dmitrij Samozvanec [Dmitrij the Ursurper] in Polnoe sobrante soíinenij Sumarokova [Complete Collection of Sumarokov's Works], ed. Ν. I. Novikov (2nd ed.; Moscow, n.p., 1787), IV, p. 62. 8

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ception this same public accorded his tragedy, Sinav i Truvor [Sineus and Truvor], At a time when the theater-goer - in Russia as well as Europe - was responding to more realistic portrayals of more contemporary events, Sumarokov's spectacle of exalted beings from antiquity caught in world-shaking events and playing out their fates according to orthodox classical rules, did not excite great loyalty. The new drama, on the other hand, met this challenge and owed not a little of its success to this rudimentary realism. Ordinary people acting in ordinary situations touched intimately upon the experience of the spectators. Even the translations of foreign dramas with their examples of parental tyranny (Le Père de famille of Diderot), a daughter's seduction (Eugénie), or youth corrupted by a vicious habit (The Gamester of Moore), were closer to the experience of the raznocincy and the petty nobility of Moscow than the suffering of a prince of Novgorod. The playwrights added the same measure of realism to their characterizations. Good and evil, virtue and vice, sophistication and naïveté are indefinably mixed in many characters. George Barnwell (The London Merchant) is not a classical hero, whose reason wars with passion, but a weak, and yet, admirable youth, beloved by the virtuous Maria and the villainous Marwood. Despite the hero's dastardly behavior, the playwright avers that Heaven will deal charitably with young George and distinguish "between frailty and presumption" (Act IV). Similarly, in Lessing's Miss Sara Sampson, the villain, Mellefont, is confused, tormented by the "ruined virtue upon his conscience" (Act I, Sc. 3). Even the suffering father of poor Sara forgives him, noting, "He was more to be pitied than blamed" (Act V, Sc. 10). However, this realism of situation and character could never fit a definition of "life as it is". Frequently, the idealization of the lower classes and the dark portrayal of the upper, places both strata beyond realistic bounds. The antithesis introduced in Lessing's play that the "common herd still have feelings which among greater people are corrupted" (Act V, Sc. 3), forced such characterizations beyond the limits of the definition and buttressed the idea that this was a polemical literature designed to justify and extol an entire class. A resultant of this pressure is the drama's intense moralism. Diderot wrote that the "theater will be a place where the most important moral problems will be discussed . . . " 9 and Beaumarchais expected the new 9

"On Dramatic Poetry", European Theories of the Drama, ed. and trans. Barrett H. Clark (Revised ed.; New York-London, D. Appleton and Company, 1929), p. 289.

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drama to "furnish" . . . a morality which is more applicable than can be found in heroic tragedy.. . ." 10 Whatever the reasons: a justification of a new class, the need to define morality in an ever-changing world, a reaction to the abstract classical presentation of virtue, or, simply, the human need to preach - the playwright eagerly assumed his new responsibility as preacher. Plays are constructed, as it were, about a moral and the audience is constantly admonished "to mend its ways". When in Eugénie, Clarendon, debilitated by vice, turns to the spectators and cries, "If only one could estimate the cost of wickedness", the moral not only sounds in our ears but walks before our eyes. Furthermore, the dramatist consciously manipulated the moral aspect to heighten the audience's emotional response. Virtuous innocence deliberately traduced, the young corrupted, and vice strangling noble impulses, created the drama's pathetic quality, which the eighteenthcentury audience dearly loved. Sympathetic to others' sufferings, intimidated by man's inhumanity and disturbed by hints of his tragic complexity, the spectator in his deep agitation could experience, in Burke's words, "a degree of delight, and that no small one, in the real misfortune and pains of others. . . . " 1 1

2. Russian developments Already in the sixties the Russians were touched by the new dramatic currents.12 However, it was not until the seventies that the Russian movement gathered force and respectability, attracting several prominent literary men and introducing a new but influential genre, the comic opera. The serious moral role of the drama was well understood by M. I. Verëvkin (1732-1795), who wrote two new dramas in the early seventies, Tak i dotino [So It Must Be], 1773, and Toc' ν toc'1S [That's It, 10

"Essay on the Serious Drama", ibid., p. 305. Edmund Burke, "A Philosophical Inquiry into the Origin of our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful", The Works of Edmund Burke (London, George Bell and Sons, 1909), I, p. 80. 12 The first Russian bourgeois drama, Mot, ljuboviju ispravlennoj [Wastrel by Love Restored] was written in 1765 by V. I. Lukin. It deals with a good man who had been corrupted by gamblers but who is ultimately saved by his love for a virtuous maid. Rossijskij featr [Russian Theater! (St. Petersburg, Akademija nauk, 1788), XIX, pp. 7-154. 15 Ibid., XIX, pp. 155-238, and XXXIII, pp. 133-78. 11

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Exactly], 1774. In dedicating the first play to Prince P. I. Repnin, a contemporary Maecenas, he observed that virtue's depiction in books or art, "induced a pleasant delight in you and often even excited tears, so felicitous to sensitive hearts".14 In another dedication, he stated that the drama's essence lies in the presentation of virtues and vice so as produce an aversion to the latter, "mixed with pity for perverse, viceridden hearts".15 Both plays illustrate Verëvkin's concept of the new drama. So It Must Be examines the venality and corruption of the officials of a small town who try unsuccessfully to deprive an old noble of his rights and prerogatives; That's It, Exactly focuses upon an actual incident that occurred in the family of the Kerensk voivode during the Pugacëv rebellion. It is essentially a love story of two young people but played out against a background of violence and deceit. The voivode, Truslivyj (Cowardly), who is supposed to protect Kerensk from Pugacëv's Cossacks, deserts and allows his daughter to fall into the rebel leader's hands. Pugacëv rapes her, and, when released, she feels that her life has been destroyed. However, her love, Miloj (Dear One), still remains faithful to her and she accepts his marriage offer. It is not known whether the pathetic scenes of the first play "excited tears" in Prince Repnin's eyes, but they were well calculated to do so: There are moving pictures of the unjust suffering of the old nobleman and the officials' cruel disrespect to him. Perhaps the realism of other scenes caused the Prince to shed tears, but for different reasons. The stark portrayal of corruption in official circles recalls the provincial town that Xlestakov visited in Gogol's famous comedy, The InspectorGeneral: The judge falls asleep while orders are being read, prisoners are held without charges, bribery is rampant. That's It, Exactly deals realistically with a real problem, an aftermath of any violent social upheaval. The dishonored maiden does not commit suicide or hide on the family estate. Miloj respects her personal qualities which are superior to physical virtue. He seeks eternal, spiritual values and ignores the temporal. And the voivode's character is complex. A solicitous father and a respected member of society, he at the same time is a bribetaker and a coward. At the critical moment he abandons his command and is indirectly responsible for his daughter's predicament. He is puzzling and unpredictable, awaking both sympathy and abhorrence in the audience. 14

«

Ibid., XIX, pp. 159-60. To "Imjaninniki" [Name-Day Celebrants], ibid., XXI, p. 187.

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Actually, these dramas of the sixties and seventies still reflect many classical conventions (five acts, "messenger" characters, actions resolved by servants) but mixed with elements of the new drama (disregard of the unities; complex mixture of good and evil in the characters, exaltation of the humble). The works of M. M. Xeraskov well illustrate the transitional nature of this period. Although busy with an epic poem, Rossiada, a pinnacle of Russian classicism, he found time to write a tearful comedy, Drug nescastnyx18 (Friend of Unfortunates), 1774. A favorite theme of the new drama was innocence traduced and cruelly suffering. Friend of Unfortunates depicts the poverty-sticken life of the virtuous Milana and her two little brothers. Persecuted by a lecherous, "atheistic usurer", she is eventually saved by an equally virtuous nobleman. Xeraskov's play is a compendium of all the clichés of the tearful comedy: virtue in distress; suffering of innocent children; distraught fathers; scenes of domestic bliss; and a happy ending where virtue is rewarded and vice punished. The heroine is subjected to great material deprivations and her virtue is in constant jeopardy, but she triumphs in the end and demonstrates, as did Pamela, that the indefatigable protection of virginity brings material rewards. The play's setting is also consistent with the more realistic demands of the new drama for it reproduces the squalid existence of the poverty-stricken. Milana's little family lives in one miserable room without furniture and with bundles of straw as beds. The original Russian comic operas of the seventies are important not only for the veneration of the primitive but also for their exaltation of the lowly and their rather harsh criticism of the serf system and the landowning class. M. I. Popov (17427-1790?), who was interested in the customs and legends of the Russian people long before such interest became popular,17 was responsible for the first Russian comic opera, Anjuta,18 performed in the summer of 1772 in Catherine's summer residence, Carskoe Selo. The plot of this work is quite conventional. Anjuta, the heroine, has 18

Ibid., VIII, pp. 177-240. He assisted M. D. Culkov (17437-1792), a novelist and editor of the seventies, m the first collection of Russian songs, Sobranie russkix pesen [Collection of Russian Songs], 1770-1774. In 1768, he published a collection of "Old Slavic" folk tales and, in 1770, a literary reworking of an old folk tale. 18 A. V. Kokorev, ed., Xrestomatija po russkoj literature XVIII veka [Anthology of Russian Literature of the XVIII Century] (2nd ed.; Moscow, Gosudarstvennoe uòebno-pedagogiòeskoe izdatel'stvo, 1956), pp. 360-75. 17

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been raised by the peasant Miron, who wants her to marry another peasant, Filat. She is in love with a landowner, Viktor, but the social barrier of her class prevents a union. Since nothing must impede the course of true love, it is soon revealed that Anjuta is not a peasant but a noble. Her father simply entrusted her to Miron's care. Despite the pastoral setting and idyllic denouement, Popov manages a critical commentary on serfdom. Miron, overworked and oppressed by the nobility, gives vent to his anger: The noble's worry To drink, eat, promenade, and sleep. Their labor consists In collecting money; The peasant sweats And labors, And then, although enraged, Must give up his money.

Miron is not only mulcted by the landlord but also by the steward of the estate. As a result he cannot even support his own family. Consequently, he want to marry Anjuta to Filat, since such a marriage would provide another farmhand for the household. Miron's cynical attitude toward peasant marriages can be coupled with Viktor's insolent treatment of Filat: The former offers the latter thirty rubles as a replacement for his bride-to-be Anjuta. Both points of view demonstrate the debasement of the individual within the serf system, which corrupts both master and slave. However, Popov softens his rather harsh depiction of social conflicts by drawing a moral defending the status quo: He is happiest of all in this world. Who is satisfied with his lot.

Anjuta is a far more realistic presentation of peasant life than is the comic opera of N. P. Nikolev (1758-1815), Rozana i Ljubim19 [Rozana and Ljubim], 1778. The peasants are ideally drawn, the nobles are presented as vicious hedonists, and rural life is frankly venerated. It is the story of Rozana, a comely peasant maid, and her love for Ljubim, another peasant. Scedrov, her master, lusts for her, persecutes her, and causes no end of difficulties until he has a change of heart and allows her to live in peace - and with Ljubim. Rozana, an untutored peasant girl, intuitively understands real love and wisely evaluates the master's advances. His love will last, 19

Rossijskij featr, XXII, pp. 5-110.

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. . . but an hour, And a peasant's heart Knows no end to love. She refuses the many expensive gifts her master offers and remains faithful to Ljubim. Her father, a simple woodsman, possesses a highlydeveloped sense of honor. When he is informed of his master's actions, he asks, "Does he not know that honor is just as dear to us?" (Act iii, sc. 3). A condemnation of the city and its inhabitants runs through this play. Scedrov phrases this attitude well in the final scene of the last act, when he turns to Rozana, saying, "Rise, you are triumphant. Nature . . . hides real tenderness in the human heart, a real faithfulness, which is scorned in the town, where people do not know how to enjoy i t . . . . " The next comic opera, Mel'nik, koldun, obmanscik i svat20 [The Miller, Sorcerer, Impostor, and Matchmaker], 1779, written by A. A. Ablesimov (1748-1783), is more realistic in its treatment of the peasantry and in its criticism of the serf system than is Rozana and Ljubim. Ablesimov's comic opera relates how Filimon, a young odnodvorec,21 is helped to win a young peasant girl, Anjuta, by the miller, Faddej, a "sorcerer, impostor, and matchmaker". Her father wants her to marry a peasant while her mother, who, formerly, belonged to the nobility, wants her to marry a nobleman. When Faddej discovers Filimon's social standing - midway between the two classes - both parents are satisfied. There are some realistic elements in the plot and characterization. The solution to the parent's contending demands is peculiar to the Russian social system. The odnodvorec was a type of homesteader who had settled in the outlying districts of Russia in the seventeenth century. Although Ablesimov does not furnish any insights into the 20 Xrestomatija po russkoj literature ..., pp. 377-99. This play has often been compared to Rousseau's Le Devin du village, 1752. Both plays deal with a clever sorcerer who sets the lovers' affairs in order; the place of the action, a village, is the same; many of the situations are similar: the lovers give the sorcerer money, the sorcerer pretends to divine. Several of the characters can also be compared in certain of their traits: the sorcerers are witty, sly rascals and the lovers are dull, naive fools. However, Ablesimov has changed the plot to a certain degree. In Rousseau's play, the girl turns to the sorcerer because her lover is enamoured of a rich woman, while Ablesimov omits this complication. Ablesimov hinges the denouement on the peculiarly Russian social status of an odnodvorec, see next footnote. 21 Generally a fanner who enjoyed certain legal rights denied to the peasants. His social position was higher than the peasants but still beneath that of the nobility.

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nature of this class, the very introduction of the odnodvorec added a degree of realism to the play. There are elements of realism in the mother's character also. She is not the gay, frivolous peasant woman of the idyll but is a harsh, stubborn, dominating creature. Embittered by her unfortunate marriage, she tries to prevent her daughter from making the same tragic mistake. While the comic opera delineates the peasants with a certain awareness of their difficult lives and an occasional realistic line, the dominant feature is the extreme idealization of this particular class. In the drama of the eighties, the class conflicts are considerably softened and the peasant and the nobility more idealized. Mikail Prakudin's play, Sud'ba derevenskaja22 [A Village Lot], 1782, clearly reveals these tendencies. Kristina, a comely peasant lass, is loved by Osip, a shepherd, and lusted after by the bailiff of their master's estate. The bailiff wants to remove his rival by sending him to the army but, when the master returns to his estate, Kristina pleads for the young shepherd. Dobroserdov (Good-Heart), the master, releases Osip, fires his malevolent bailiff, and decides that from now on "[He] will give orders to the peasants." Prakudin's play draws a thoroughly idyllic picture of the lives of the master and peasant, marred only by the conduct of a perfidious bailiff. In the first act, Kristina walks through the meadows, her only task to pick flowers and berries. In the second scene of this act, Osip, merry and in love, enters playing a reed-pipe. The harsh conflict between master and serf of the previous comic operas is replaced by the conflict between the peasants and the noble's intermediary, the bailiff. The final play of this brief survey, Nagrazdenie dobrodeteli23 [Reward of Virtue], author and date unknown, repeats the most important ideas and themes of the preromantic development but all coated with such an extreme sentimentalism that the embryonic realism was almost entirely smothered. Postojanov, a nobleman impoverished through his "injudicious youth", barely supports his wife - a shoemaker's daughter - and children through his labors as a shoemaker. Stepan, a faithful servant and "friend of his heart", attempts to ease their penury by stealing some money from another nobleman, Miloserdov (DearHeart). The latter, in ferreting out the thief, comes across the suffering Postojanov and his virtuous family, and seeing "poverty adorned with 22

Rossijskij featr, XXXIX, pp. 93-132. Ibid., IX, pp. 113-78. The play was written sometime before 1788, the date of publication of Rossijskij featr.

23

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virtue" invites the noble shoemaker to come live in his palace, a refuge for "old people, the poor, and orphans". The new tendencies are all here: exaltation of the lowly, respect for menial and manual labor, primacy of emotions, and veneration of nature and a life lived close to it - all filtered, however, through a prism of extreme idealization. Postojanov's poverty is beautiful; Stepan's crime is pardoned; the father's sins are not visited upon the children; social barriers do not exist. The significant element of the new drama, its nascent realism, is refracted here through a rose-colored glass and is as much distorted as in the classical comedy or tragedy.

ν POETRY: THE THEORY

A. INTRODUCTION

At the core of classicism is a cold rationalism, which perceives and explains the explainable; at the core of sentimentalism is a smoldering spark of sensibility, which perceives and remakes the world - even if it is beyond the reach of reason. This transposition from one aesthetic system to another, dimly recognized by Sumarokov and his followers, was more clearly understood by Karamzin. More than a simple transposition, it was a journey inward to view the subsurface emotional life, the unique ego, the particular emotion. The purpose, however, of the sentimental journey is clear: If reason tended to isolate, to indicate distinctions between men, then sensibility possessed a redemptive grace, it united man with man, with nature, and, ultimately, with God. Sensibility, the core of creativity, is the center of Karamzin's aesthetic creed and every poetic concept - the poet, morality, poetic art and subject matter - radiates from it like the spokes of a wheel. Each stage of the classical creative process from the imitation of the ancients to the prescriptions of "bon sens", is rationally plotted, functioning somewhat like a modern conveyor belt. Beginning with the plotting-board idea and running through its logical elaboration, everything is carefully and artfully prepared: the reasoned response, the controlled delirium, the appropriate style and language. If such terms as artisan of the word and poetic craft aptly suit classicism, then Karamzin's terminology is equally appropriate: The beginning is less an idea and more an impression or perception; the elaboration is often illogical, proceeding through random associations and mysterious correspondences. The poet becomes a "creator", moved by inspiration and enthusiasm, to create illusions and describe visions. The sentimental artist absorbs his art and stands forth for all to behold. He is the subject of the poem, a universe and an atom, and his poetry pours out from

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the heart, spontaneously, like the nightingale's song, untutored and unconsciously sung. By placing the center of poetry in man's emotions, and making the poet, himself, a fashioner of these impressions, Karamzin took a giant step toward romantic art, whose depth and variety depend upon the poet's curiosity and originality. Imaginative vagaries, subtle expressiveness, idiosyncratic reactions - all are logical fields for that insatiable artistic curiosity which drives the creative ego on to fashion the familiar into the strange and the particular into the universal. However, this sensuous approach to art produces a new burden: if reality depends upon the individual creative ego, it will differ from poet to poet and, indeed, from moment to moment for a single poet. An unstable, relativistic world is the result. Karamzin early recognized that a Pandora's box had been opened; in a letter of May 31, 1789 (Letters of a Russian Traveler), he curses that "restlessness of the human heart which draws us from object to object; . . . which attunes our fancy to dreams and drives us to search for happiness in the uncertain future". Curse it he may but accept it he must for this "restlessness" is provoked by that excruciating sensitivity of the sentimentalist which, in turn, provides opportunities for the insights and visions of his, and succeeding, poetic generations. This transposition caused a significant change in poetic focus. The "real" world, subject to precise and objective definition, ceases to appeal to the poet. The old definitions are suspect; the old gods were dying out. The focus was not upon that Cartesian world of the seventeenth century, where society, morality, and religion were precisely ordained, but upon a new world, created by the poet from his own experiences and validated by his own emotional responses. The poet creates this world, and, if only an illusion, it has all the force of reality. The poet makes the voyage of discovery in the unknown lands of the spirit and the poem is an account, sometimes weak and sometimes wondrous, of man's inward splendors. A moral imperative exists to render this account. The poet views the imminent collapse of the social and political order and the resultant change in moral values and he is determined to provide new shorings. The world is a "temple" and the poet a preacher, exhorting man to live by poetic truths. Urged by his conscience and by his sublime contiguity to God, Karamzin's poet speaks in a divine voice of the moral world and the manners of man. Of course, Karamzin's ideas and attitudes are an early tentative

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exposition of romantic aesthetics. He did not elaborate his theories with sufficient detail nor did he exemplify their practical application with sufficient clarity to make either the theory or the poetry a highly significant contribution to Russian poetics. Furthermore, he had been influenced to a large degree by classicism; he admired the rational approach to art while, at the same time, attacking it. This ambivalence creates a tension, a hesitancy to accept the new standards at full value and a reluctance to retreat to the past. The result is a moderation which, in its own way, is a fine testimony to his literary insight and judgment. At the turn of the century, an intelligent counterbalance to classicism was needed to allow a new synthesis to emerge. Karamzin provided this quite effectively.

B. AESTHETIC POEMS

The didactic poem has long been popular as a comment either on life or art. Aside from the obvious reason that poetry in the past was the logical instrument to sound elevated themes, the poem on aesthetics had been sanctioned by authority, ancient (Horace) or modern (Boileau); it allowed the author to prove his poetic mettle while expounding his ideas; and it was malleable: short or long, terse or disquisitive. The intensely polemical character of eighteenth-century Russian literature with its conflicts over language, style, cultural orientation, gave rise to many practitioners of the genre. Sumarokov, Kapnist, Murav'ëv, and Xeraskov, to mention a few, used the genre to develop and illustrate their theories. Karamzin, in several poems of the late eighties and nineties, follows this tradition to develop his own poetic theory, to deny the old and defend the new, and to popularize his favorite poets. "Poetry", written in the masonic period and published in the Moscow Journal in 1792,1 is a rather clear formulation of an aesthetic creed to which Karamzin remained remarkably faithful throughout his life. This poem also illustrates an interesting aspect of his creative life: he was neither an original nor a profound intellect but he possessed a flair for the systematic and coherent exposition of others' ideas. In his poetry and prose, he adapted these concepts, simplifying, and popu1 An excerpt (Gessner) was published in Detskoe ctenie (1789), Part XVII. It was printed in its entirety in Moskovskij zumai, Part XVIII, pp. 260-75 and then omitted from his collected works, which were published in 1803-1805, 1813-1814, and 1820-1821.

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larizing them for his Russian readers. In "Poetry", Karamzin turned to Herder and the Abbé Batteaux, reworking their ideas to these ends. Johann Gottfried von Herder presages in his writing much of the German "Storm and Stress" literature. While with the masons, Karamzin had read several of Herder's works and had been deeply impressed by his Älteste Urkunde des Menschengeschlechts, 1774-1776, exclaiming, "How he pictures the creation! What Eastern splendor!" 2 The rhapsodic mood of this book, it veneration of man and nature, and its attitude toward language are reflected in "Poetry". 3 According to Älteste Urkunde, God's love is manifested in the creation and each dawning reflects his love. Indeed, every natural phenomenon repeats this creative power and divine love, which is, in effect, the spring of the universe. All creatures are, consequently, full of a Divine Presence and one can not look upon nature and "not be filled with God!" 4 Herder not only praises nature as the work of God but describes man as a microcosm of the universe, representing God's love, wisdom, and divinity in one consummate form. 5 In "Poetry", Karamzin rhapsodically lauds man as "the most beautiful creature" and praises the "majesty of the Creator, his wisdom, goodness". And, further, the Divine Presence inspirits all of nature; God's voice is heard "in the thunder and zephyrs, / In the winds and waters. . . . " Both works are marked by this delight in nature's divinity and a delightful consciousness of man's divine nature. Herder repeats J. G. Hamann's idea that language is a divine gift of God. This Ursprache is as divinely created as are other natural phenomena. "As the heavens from the waters, so also the word, sound, and sign." 6 It is a creative, spiritual instrument: "Holy language of nature, poetic and genetic! Engendered, experienced, born in the contemplation of God in the creation! Permeated throughout with the vital spirit of nature." 7 Language is really a Lobspruch of the creation 2

Letters of a Russian Traveler (July 20, 1789). Ibid. Karamzin mentions three works: Älteste Urkunde des Menschengeschlechts; Gott, einige Gespräche; and Paramythien. The second book was written after "Poèzija" and the subject of Paramythien is not germane. 4 J. G. von Herder, Werke, ed. T. Matthias (Leipzig and Vienna, Bibliographisches Institut, n.d.), III, p. 13, and the exaltation of nature occurs frequently: God "permeates all nature . . . " , p. 29; "Nature should be the first, the only . . . religion", p. 56. 5 "The beasts of the field in incomplete form, man alone in complete, consummate form are . . . small worlds", ibid., pp. 53-4. • Ibid., p. 45. * Ibid. 3

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and God; immanent within it is all of man's future intellectual development. Karamzin discusses in his poem the origin of poetry rather than the origin of speech, but he considers the qualities of "holy poetry" to be synonymous with Herder's "holy language . . p o e t i c and genetic". Poetry is the "holy language of heaven" and it aspires "toward the father". It is also a Lobspruch, exalting the Creator's wisdom: . . . so vitally did he [early man] feel The majesty of the Creator, his wisdom, goodness, That his heart overflowed in a tender hymn, Striving to ascend toward the father. Born of a contemplation of nature, this language is permeated with the spirit of God: The wise man, knowing nature, comprehending her Creator, And hearing His voice in the thunder and the zephyrs, In the winds and waters, imitates on the harp The divine Harmony, and the voice of the poet Was always the voice of God. In Les Beaux Arts réduits à un même principe, the Abbé Batteux provides an intriguing synthesis between the rationalism of the seventeenth- and the eighteenth-century cult of sensibility. J. G. Schwartz, in his aesthetic lectures (see above, Chapter I) had introduced Batteux's ideas to his Russian audience. Petrov, an auditor, had been much impressed and, undoubtedly, later acquainted his roommate, Karamzin, with the man and his work. Both young men had evidently studied the French aesthetician with pleasureable care and adopted many of his ideas. Karamzin makes this clear when he discusses Petrov's ideas on the categories of taste (see above, Chapter I), which, not unexpectedly, come directly from Batteux's famous treatise.8 Like Shaftesbury in England and Dubos in France, Batteux provides the transition from classical aesthetics to a cohesive aesthetics of sensibility. He did this by making a subtle shift in the aesthetic system of Boileau, for whom reason is the causative factor in the creation of art. The wise application of reason, sens commun, is the cardinal creative principle; feelings are nothing more than reason in action. Batteux does not denigrate reason but he does elevate "sentiment" to the austere position previously held by reason. Taste is the discriminating 8

Les Beaux Arts réduits à un même principe (Paris, Durand, 1747), pp. 59-60.

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factor, it is the "faculty of feeling the good, the bad, the mediocre, and distinguishing them with certainty". 9 And taste is a "sentiment", a type of emotional judgment, and "at this tribunal, one feels more than one can prove". 10 In thus defining taste, Batteux took leave of that classical realm where more or less objective and absolute standards reigned and entered a region of individual reactions, where any definition is predicated on a host of indefinite and indefinable associations and assumptions. Without quite understanding where he was going, Karamzin followed Batteux into this realm. Once Batteux had defined taste as an emotional judgment, each poet was free to judge what is or is not a subject of poetry. The poetic process no longer is logical, rational, and considered but an intuitive and immediate response of an individual to his own particular experiences. Karamzin's consciousness of uniqueness and individual perception guides his attempt to define this process: Man "gazing on the temple of beauty [nature] and feeling himself ' [Karamzin's italics] pours out of his heart a "tender hymn". Poetry becomes an emotional, lyrical effusion, arising uniquely as a perception of the "self". Batteux does impose limits to the unrestricted operation of taste. The "same principle" to which he reduces all art is an imitation of nature, but nature "not only as it is but such as it is able to be and as one can conceive it through the spirit". 11 Nature is consequently perfected, harmonized, made whole by the artist's vision. Artistic creativity is further restricted by the fact that this idealized nature adheres to "natural laws", which the poet must obey: "The limits are set up; as soon as they are passed, one is lost." 12 This formulation seems to follow the classical tradition where the imitation of nature meant to perceive the absolute, eternal values behind the shifting human scene, and little or no room is left for individual vagaries or reactions. However, Batteux left the door slightly ajar and genius, "the father of the Arts", slipped through. Genius allows the artist to "produce a new order of ideas and feelings", which gives the product an individual poetic stamp. While this is not the concept of the "original", in Edward Young's sense, where the genius is a law unto himself, it eased somewhat the classical inhibitions upon the poet and stressed, once more, the poet's individuality. 9 10 11 12

Ibid., Ibid., Ibid., Ibid.,

p. 59. p. 61. p. 25. p. 10.

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The same doctrine of imitation of nature with the same limitation of natural laws, can be observed in "Poetry". The legendary Orpheus first derived this idea of order and proportion from nature: He sang of the beauty of Nature, the creation; He sang of that law, which in Nature Is perceived by the wise eye. . . .

Further, Karamzin's favorite poets, Ossian, Shakespeare, Milton, Young, Thomson, Gessner, and Klopstock, all in varying degrees studied nature, deriving from it the art which made their poetry great. Thomson looked closely at external nature and taught man to "praise the creator in the forest's gloom", while Shakespeare plunged within, into the "depths of his soul", to find there "the key to all the great mysteries of fate". This concept of the doctrine of imitation differs only in degree from the classical concept. The Russian classical school adheres closely to Boileau's precepts, understanding as a corollary that one must imitate Greek, Roman and, above all, French literature. Sumarokov, one of the major representatives of Russian high classicism, advised writers to fashion their works on the models of the Greeks, Romans, and the French, "Malherbe, Racine, and Molière".13 In another poem, he cautions writers to imitate "Creators who are directly worthy of honor" and to adorn their natural ability with "art", or else their work will be strained.14 He adds in explanation, "Only enlightenment gives the writer intelligence". Sumarokov tried to establish norms from the ancient and more contemporary writers. Thus, this classical doctrine of imitation - ostensibly an imitation of nature - was an imitation of precepts derived essentially from a small group of accepted writers. For Karamzin, the doctrine of imitation did not imply an imitation of the ancients and certainly not of the French classicists - he omits the French entirely in his survey of important poets - but, rather, of the contemporary poets of England and Germany. Of the ancients, he mentions Homer, Sophocles, Euripedes, Bion, Theocritus, Moschus, Ovid, and Virgil. However, in a footnote to the publication of the poem in 1792, he admits that these writers do not appeal to him anymore.15 Actually, even in this poem, he devoted more space to con13 "Nastavlenie xotjasòim byti pisateljami" [Precepts for Those Wanting to be Writers], Xrestomatija po russkoj literature .. ., pp. 160-4. 14 In "Èpistola o stixotvorstve", Russkaja poèzija, pp. 166-8. 15 "The writer speaks only of those poets who most touched and gripped his soul at the time this poem was composed", Karamzin-Dmitriev, p. 62.

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temporary poets than to those of antiquity. 18 And, as if to dispel any doubts as to his predilection, he flatly states that "Brittannia is the mother of the greatest poets". But the degree of difference is extremely important. Karamzin's beloved poets describe the "self", the ego, and its reactions to the world. This is "poetry of the heart", and the listed poets write for the "soul", the "heart", and the "spirit". Introspective and subjective, the poet is concerned with the inner regions of man's being. The real significance of this poem lies in its acceptance of the emotional nature of poetry. This was dictated, partly, by Batteux's theory of taste, partly, by Karamzin's reaction to classical poetry, and, partly, by the development of lyrical genres in Russia. In a sense, Karamzin simply refurbishes the ancient Parthenon with more contemporary images. However, in so doing he modified the understanding of the poetic process and freed the poet to explore his own psyche, catalogue his reactions to nature, and analyze his knowledge of man. Batteux states that great poets write not merely to amuse but to instruct, 17 and, thus, moves in that same eighteenth-century aesthetic stream that carried along the essayists of the Morning Light, who stress the moral valüe of art. Karamzin follows the current, and, for him, the poet ceases to be a court singer, precariously dependent on a patron's capricious indulgence; instead, the poet begins to assume the romantic mantle of prophet or high priest, mysteriously in contact with Divine Mysteries. Karamzin writes: In all, in all lands, Holy Poetry, You were the teacher of people, their happiness; . . . . and the voice of the poet Was always the voice of God. Like Herder before him, Karamzin discerns in the poets and poetry of ancient times, an oracular power which can fathom the historical obscurity and serve as a guide to the present: . . . Sometime the wise old man, Harmoniously, gravely, sang mysterious songs And taught the young the legends of their fathers. 16 Forty-two lines were taken to discuss the nine poets mentioned above while seventy-two lines were devoted to the seven poets of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. 17 Batteux, op. cit., pp. 158-9.

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Certain contemporary poets possess this power to an even greater degree. Thus, Klopstock soars beyond the mundane world and becomes privy to divine secrets: For his hymn, the singer, the chosen Klopstock, Rose higher than all the others, and there, in the heavens, Was taught the mysteries. . . .

In Klopstock's case, the problem is compounded by the fact that one must read the Messiah to ascertain these truths. In the early nineties Karamzin wrote a great deal of minor lyrical poetry. As the chief contributor to Aglaja, 1794-1795, he was forced to fill its pages with inconsequential "album" pieces. When he published Aonides, 1796-1799, he attracted many different contributors and, as a consequence, was under less pressure to publish. His poetic production abated, but the quantitative loss was compensated for by the increased significance of the poetry. The light lyrics almost disappear; the poems are longer and present his basic poetic concepts in interesting detail. The most important are: "K bednomu poetu" 18 [To a Poor Poet], "Darovanija"19 [Gifts] and "Protej" 20 [Proteus], In addition, he wrote several articles dealing with the nature of poetry and the poetic process, which shed additional light on his aesthetic values. In "Poetry" the poetic process is conceived as an intuitive response to the world. In the nineties, Karamzin considerably modifies this view. Already in his polemical essay of 1793, "Necto o naukax, iskusstvax i prosvescenii"21 (Something on the Sciences, Arts, and Enlightenment), Karamzin indicates that even before the poetic "song" breaks forth another process occurs within the individual: the mind sets order to "innumerable ideas or emotional concepts, which are nothing but direct reflections of objects carried in the soul without order. . . ." 22 Later, in the poem, "Gifts", Karamzin expands upon the mind's function: Reason, awakened by feeling, Discovered the unchangeable order In all earthly things; In all wondrous manifestations, 18

Socinenija Karamzina, pp. 167-70. Ibid., pp. 198-213. 20 Ibid., pp. 238-48. 21 Socinenija Karamzina, III, pp. 373-403. It is a refutation of Rousseau's supposed attack upon the Enlightenment in his "Discours sur les sciences et les arts", 1750. 22 Soc. Karamzina, III, p. 377. >e

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In soulless creatures and verbal things, In the different seasons of the year; It discerned the impress of wisdom In the dead atoms and the grain of sand, It found the mark of greatness. The authority of emotional judgment and emotional standards is considerably curtailed. A diarchy of reason and feeling is hypothesized, acting in unity to be sure but acting together and not independently. This concept is a stage beyond classical aesthetics where reason was the dominant and dominating factor and a stage before romantic aesthetics with its unfettered emotional reign. For this idea, Karamzin had gone to one of his favorite authors, Charles Bonnet (1720-1793). While with the masons he had been introduced to the works of the Swiss naturalist and philosopher and, when he arrived in Geneva in 1789, Karamzin made his pilgrimage to Bonnet's cottage in Genthod. There, he sought and gained permission to translate the Swiss philosopher's work. When Bonnet railed against unauthorized translations of his writings into English and German, the young Muscovite was properly sympathetic and, even, indignant.23 Karamzin, however, must have concealed a nervous fear also, for he, too, had committed a similar indiscretion, translating excerpts from Contemplation

de

la

Nature

and

publishing

them

in

Readings

for Children in 1789. He deeply admired the book, judging it to be a "treasure house of knowledge. . . ." 24 For Bonnet - and Karamzin the purpose of life is happiness, and evertything aspires to this ideal in Bonnet's rationally conceived world.25 By a wise use of reason, man, the "masterpiece of earthly creation",26 deduces his ideas from the perceptions and sensations received by the "callous body".27 Man, in contemplating nature, must see the divine wisdom in all earthly manifestations. With Bonnet as his guide, Karamzin proceeded to limit emotional perception as the single cohesive and creative force of art; he admits, rather confusingly, that the mind or reason - "awakened by feeling" - is the controlling factor.

23

Letters of a Russian Traveler, p. 153. Ibid. 25 C. Bonnet, The Contemplation of Nature, T. Longman, 1766), I, p. 17. 28 Ibid., p. 63. " Ibid., p. 72. 24

translator unknown

(London,

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Karamzin's concept of the poet was also revised during this decade but more directly in a romantic direction. In "Poetry" the artist reacts intuitively to man and the world, imitating the order and proportion found in nature. In the nineties, poetry still remains an imitation of nature but the poetic process now becomes an imitation of the entire creative power of nature, a recreation of nature's sights and sounds and truths. The poet is directly, sensuously related to the world, a man who understand "all its most mysterious bonds".28 Thus, the distinction between the creative energy of nature and the creative energy of the poet is effaced. The poet now becomes a creator, one with God, producing or reproducing a world in every poem. Thus, Karamzin exhorts the poet to Be a sovereign of the world! Praise the Creator — be a creator yourself!29 If the poet is now a god, an energizing divinity, how does the poetic process function? Karamzin follows in the tradition of Shaftesbury and Young, for whom the poet is also a creator and poetry, a divine grant. In his article, "Cto nuzno avtoru?" 30 [What is Necessary for an Author?], he discusses the creative act. Talent and knowledge are not enough to create art. What is necessary is a "tender heart", a capability to feel others' sufferings and an ability to express this experience in print. Further, if one wants to be an author, one must ask "What sort of a person am /? [Karamzin's italics] because you want to paint the portrait of the soul and heart." Here is the core of sensibility: the individual ego, in describing itself, transcends the ephemeral and attains the eternal' realm of art. This emphasis on the poet and his personal experience is found in Karamzin's own poetry, if in a very conventional form. Nonetheless, the lyrical ego and its many moods are vital to his writings. It is from this point of view that Karamzin attacks the "discordant, pompous words" of the odist,31 whose bombast and thundering about 28 26 30 31

"Darovanija", Socinenija Karamzina, p. 200. Ibid., p. 200. Ν. M. Karamzin, Izbrannyja stixotvorenija ..., pp. 90-2. "K bednomu poetu", Socinenija Karamzina, p. 168: They [the little birds] will sing their praises Better than the ode-writers, . . . the muses in their odes Lie with discordant, pompous words.

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95

elevated subjects cannot touch the heart. The poet must express only what he feels and understands, since "it is better for the young nurseling of the Muses to express in verse his first impression of love, friendship, the tender beauties of nature, rather than the destruction of the world, the universal conflagration of nature, and so on in his style".32 In a very real sense, the artist creates an infinite variety of microcosms, each of which is an endless challenge. However, these little worlds depends on their creator, who becomes a type of divine, a worker of miracles, a magician forming and transforming reality: The poet is a cunning wizard; As a fey, his inspired ideas Create beauty from a flower And roses on a pine. . . ,33

Following Batteux, who saw poetry as " . . . a perpetual lie which has all the aspects of truth", 34 Karamzin invokes the goddess of the "Lie, Untruth, the apparition of truth" 35 [Karamzin's italics] to guide his pen. In "Proteus" he avers that the poet deals with the irrational and the purpose of poetry is not to resolve intellectual antinomies but to express The nuances of different feelings, not to reconcile ideas. The purpose is not to resolve [conflicts] but to affect and amuse.

Here is an early appeal to flee reality, to construct one's own world, to allow the imagination free and unfettered reign. The poetic world has more value and significance than the real world. Thus the imitation of nature gives way to an imitation of the poetic world. Writing in "Gifts", Karamzin states that a description of nature by St. Lambert, Thomson, Kleist or Delille often provides more pleasure for the reader than the contemplation of nature itself: And often the charm of imitation Is sweeter than nature to us: The little wood, the little flower are far More pleasant to the eyes in description. Reading Lambert, Thomson, 32 33 34

35

"Iz predoslovija .. .", N. M. Karamzin, Izbrannyja stixotvorenija . .., p. 94. "K bednomu poetu", Soc. Kar., p. 168. Batteux, op. cit., p. 16.

"Il'ja Muromec", Karamzin-Dmitriev, p. 143.

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Comparing the original with the drawing, I find this world best: The shade of the grove is fresher for me, The murmur of the stream dearer; I look upon everything with joy That Kleist, Delille have painted. In a footnote he adds, "All the delights of the Fine Arts are nothing but an imitation of nature; however, the copy is sometimes better than the original - it makes [the original] always more interesting for us, since we take pleasure in comparison." 36 Again Karamzin had been influenced in this respect by Batteux, who wrote " . . . this imitation [of nature] . . . is one of the principal sources of pleasure derived from the Arts. The spirit is busy in a comparison of the model with the portrait and the judgment which carries makes an impression upon it. . . . " 3 7 Actually, the comparison is with a more delicate and refined reproduction of nature; it is nature expunged of all its coarseness that attracts the sentimentalist of the Karamzin type. However, the shift of focus, from an objective, natural world to a subjective, artificial world, is most important. While there may be pleasure in contemplating the original, the copy has the real charm for the sentimentalist for it is the "portrait of the soul and heart" of the poet and an insight into the nature of man. Karamzin's theorizing on poetry's purpose contains, rather conventionally, both the pleasure and utility principle. In the preface to Aonides, Karamzin lists the objects of literature: "to occupy, comfort [people] in rural isolation; to attune their souls to deep feelings for the beauties of nature and the tender passions for morality.. . . " 8 8 This dual concept had been touched in "Poetry" and supported in a series of works from the nineties.39 While the poet affects and amuses, he also contributes significantly to the betterment of society. As Orpheus tamed the wild beasts in the past, now the poet describes the "moral world" and, thereby, improves the manners of man.40 The poet, not yet a "prophet" or "priest", still has a profound effect on moral life. He describes virtue, love, friendship, and patriotism in his poetry. This elevated concept of the poet's role had developed in European literature 36

"Darovanija", Soc. Kar., p. 204. Batteux, op. cit., p. 18. 38 "Iz predoslovija . ..", N. M. Karamzin, Izbrannyja stixotvorenija ..., pp. 95-6. 38 "Cto nuzno avtoru?", "Neöto o naukax ...", "Darovanija" and "Protej". «» "Darovanija", Soc. Kar., pp. 204 f. 37

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during the eighteenth century, but this is the first consistent and coherent presentation of it in Russian literature. Therefore, while admitting Karamzin's conventional analyses of the human personality which obscure his value - he, rather than 2ukovskij, his follower in this regard, should receive credit for being the "first to point out the high idea of creative art".41

41

A. N. Pypin, Istorija russkoj literatury [History of Russian Literature] (4th ed.; St. Petersburg, M. M. Stasjuleviî, 1913), IV, p. 267.

VI POETRY: THE PRACTICE

If Karamzin's theories were ahead of his times, they were also ahead of his own poetic practice. According to his poetics, the poet concentrates on the "self" and on his emotional life. It is true that Karamzin does this in his own poetry but the thematic similarity, the restricted imagination, and conventional treatment make much of it monotonous, pale, and trite. This should not obscure his value, however. On the basis of an intimate acquaintance with the man and his work, Vjazemskij, a relative and still a close friend, evaluated Karamzin's contributions and found that Russian poetry was "abstract and impersonal until Karamzin's appearance". 1 This opinion cannot be accepted without reservations, since Murav'ëv and Derzavin, to mention two contemporaries, wrote poetry that was concrete and personal', derived from the variety of their unique experiences. Still, the generalization is correct. Karamzin might have fallen short of his mark but he did aim at the concrete and personal. If the execution was imperfect, the attempt, itself, added a new dimension to Russian literature. The major portion of Karamzin's poetic production in the early nineties consisted of love lyrics, personal lyrics, and some anacreontic verse. The latter genre well illustrates Karamzin's shift of focus. The anacreontic poem, which Lomonosov had cultivated with success, indicated the century's interest in light verse. In the cycle, "Razgovor s Anakreonom" [Conversation with Anacreon], Lomonosov moralizes and tries to refute the dictum that pleasure is the only object of pleasure. Derzavin stoically accepts the joy of wine, women, and friendship in his anacreontic verse. When Karamzin takes up this genre, he sounds the latter note but in a different key, somewhat dissonant for this poetry, and, yet, consonant with the sentimental mood. He describes 1 P. A. Vjazemskij, "Stixotvorenija Karamzina" [Poetry of Karamzin], Besedy ν obscestve ljubitelej rossijskoj slovesnosti [Conversations of the Society of Lovers of Russian Literature], ed. Ν. V. KalaÊov (Moscow, n.p., 1867), p. 47.

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his personal life, the pin-pricks of fate, the failures in literature and love, and the exquisite delights of sentimental suffering. Karamzin's anacreontic poems are dark and melancholic, not quite the normal mood of the genre. In "Vesëlyj cas" 2 [Merry Hour], 1791, it is the human condition - "we live in a sad world" - which occupies the poet; in an earlier poem, "Anakreonticeskie stixi A.A.P." 3 [Anacreontic Lines to A.A.P.], it is his lack of literary talent: N o w I wander the fields I grieve and w e e p bitterly, Feeling h o w f e w Talents I possess.

And in another poem, "Prosti" 4 [Farewell] it is his failure in love. Most of Karamzin's erotic verse was written in the first half of the nineties; none of it before his journey abroad. It is quite conventional, in the tradition already established by Dorat and Parny in France and Goethe in Germany. Here are the themes of the perfect beauty of the beloved (".. . the shining image/Of earthly perfection"5), the ephemeral nature of love ("I stretch my hand toward it [his beloved's image]/I embrace a cloud, air" e), the inconstancy of love,7 and the helplessness of love.8 However similar the themes, love in the poetry of Dorat and, especially, Parny, is lightly treated: the physical passion of love affords the greatest pleasure and the loss of a pleasurable mistress is a pretext for the conquest of another. While these attitudes appear in Karamzin's poetry,9 love is accompanied by a melan2

Karamzin-Dmitriev, p. 91. Ibid., pp. 57-8. 4 Ibid., pp. 103-4. 5 "Fillade" [To Phillada], ibid., pp. 85-6. β "Κ prekrasnoj" [To a Beauty], ibid., p. 88. 7 "Nepostojanstvo" [Inconstancy], ibid., p. 174: Loving treason in everything Let us love The happiness of change. 8 "Kljatva i prestuplenie" [Oath and Transgression], Soc. Karamzina, p. 217: I do not want to love. What can I do? I am in love! In loving I am lacerated, I spin about, I perish. 9 Cf. the poem "Otstavka" [Retirement], Karamzin-Dmitriev, pp. 180-1 (italics are those of Karamzin): I lived in Arcadia with thee, Not just an hour but forty days. It is enough - the finest nightingale Will no longer sing in the springtime. »

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choly attitudinizing, marked by "sighs of grief [and] yearning".10 It is the same pensiveness found in Neledinskij-Meleskij's songs, which are also permeated with a spiritual longing and, frequently, a spiritual delight. This particular mood of Karamzin's love lyrics prompted Voejkov, in his amusing poem, "Don sumassedsix" [The Madhouse], to assign Karamzin a place in the section reserved for those driven mad by love. In many of these poems, Karamzin describes his own amatory adventures. The two poems, "K nevernoj" 11 [To the Unfaithful One] and "K vernoj" 12 [To the Faithful One], concern Princess P. Ju. Gagarina, a Muscovite beauty with whom Karamzin was much in love, but, as the titles suggest, with uneven success. And the Liza or Lizeta of his poetry was Ε. I. Protasova.13 His long poem, "Poslanie k zenscinam" 14 [Epistle to Women] was inspired by his friendship and admiration for A. I. Plesceeva, his close friend. The lyrical poem is a personal revelation and, yet, if it lives as art it has to transcend the personal and become a universal statement on life. Many of Derzavin's lyrics still retain an insight and immediacy for modern man. In reading Karamzin's lyrical verse, a stereotyped image of the poet arises, and, across the span of centuries, it is difficult to be moved by the poet's account of his emotional adventures. These poems are often dedicated to intimates,15 people with whom Karamzin shared the joys and vicissitudes of life. Unfortunately, the conventional Chloe, I too sang of thee, Thou listened with delight; I love; I love - I shall die loving! But your old friend will not forget That he who remembers the past Will lose his eyes as a Cyclop: Let my broad brow, O Chloe, Be sometimes adorned with horns, So long as my eyes remain. 10 "K nej" [To Her], ibid., p. 136. 11 Ibid., pp. 182-5. 12 Ibid., pp. 186-8. 1S "Dve pesni" [Two Songs], ibid., pp. 139-41; "Triolet Lizete" [Triolet to Lizeta], ibid., p. 193. 14 Soi. Karamzina, pp. 139-50. 15 Several poems were dedicated to Dmitriev: "Gospodinu D * na bolezn' ego" [To Mr. D * on his Illness], Soc. Karamzina, p. 25; "K D." [To D J , KaramzinDmitriev, pp. 66-7; several to Petrov: "Anakreonticeskie stixi . . . " ; "Na razhiku s Ρ*" [On Parting with P*], Soc. Karamzina, pp. 59-60; several to the PleSieevs: "Poslanie k Aleksandru Alekseeviìu PleSòeevu" [Epistle to Aleksandr AlekseeviS Plesceev], Karamzin-Dmitriev, pp. 130-5; "Poslanie k zenscinam".

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image of the "belle âme" dominates these poems and, in a real sense, prevents Karamzin from discussing his shared intimacies frankly, directly, and truthfully. If he had done so, such poetry would still, perhaps, appeal to us. Instead, the poet emerges as a man closely bound to a select circle of friends, nervously enthusiastic about nature, and deeply possessed by melancholy. The revelation is personal to be sure but, somehow, petty and repetitious. In "Vesennjaja pesn' melanxolika"16 [Spring Song of a Melancholy Person], melancholy is a perennial "winter of sadness" and the poet wanders "despondently through the woods" unable to alleviate his sufferings. It is true, of course, that this fixation on the individual ego is a necessary prerequisite to romantic poetry. It is a prerequisite, however, to a detailed analysis. In discussing discordant personal events, Karamzin fails to go beyond description to an analysis of cause and effect. The simple description dominates this poetry, whose images, epithets, and themes are uniformly similar. In "Vyzdorovlenie"17 [Recovery], written in Geneva after Karamzin had recuperated from an illness, he piles a mound of epithets upon his psychological suffering: Boredom, despondency, grief Dwelt in my soul My nights were filled with Threatening, terrible dreams, With hellish delusions.

Only nature responds to his sighs and her "glance" dispels the "gloom of his soul". In "Osen' " 1 8 [Autumn], 1789, the poet is a "sad wanderer", whose "languid sighs" express his emotional turmoil. In 1792, he wrote "Na razluku s Ρ*" 19 [On Parting with P* [etrov]] to mark the departure of Petrov for St. Petersburg. Again, his melancholy is described in the same terms: He breathes "an involuntary, heavy sigh", which "shakes his chest". The separation causes his heart to be "sorrow laden". Some years later, he wrote the introspective poem "K samomu sebe"20 [To Myself], 1795, in which he castigates himself for standing "with despondent glance/And gloomy soul". While the subject of personal misery would provoke grief in any case, Karamzin's standardized reactions, even to the choice of adjectives and nouns, 18

" 18 19 20

Ibid., pp. 71-2. Ibid., pp. 76-7. Ibid., pp. 83-4. Soc. Karamzina, pp. 59-60. Karamzin-Dmitriev, pp. 156-7.

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makes the melancholy mood appear to be a mere poetic convention. Karamzin's appreciation of nature is just as predictable. Although he praised Thomson's autumnal descriptions and celebrated fall scenes,21 he rarely describes the sentimentalist's favorite time of the year. "Autumn", written in 1789 after he had translated Thomson, is the most detailed poetic presentation. Autumnal winds blow In the gloomy oak grove, The yellow leaves fall Rustling to the earth. The fields and gardens are ravaged The hills grieve, The song in the groves is stilled, The little birds have disappeared. The grey mists wreathe On the quiet plain.

He expends no further energy in this direction but, rather, concentrates on a romantic paysage of indefinite season, darkening storm, thunder, and flashes of lightning. The sad fate of "Raisa" (see below) is enacted in this ominous gloomy setting, where The storm raged in the dark night And lightning flashed in the sky.

In 1792 he adapted the graveyard poem, "Des Grabes Furchtbarkeit und Lieblichkeit", of L. T. Kosegarten (1758-1818), as the base of his poem "Kladbisce"22 [Graveyard], Here, the clammy form of the romantic corpus is unearthed: a grave, "cold and dark"; sepulchral voices; "shattered coffins"; "white bones" and "toads nestling in yellow skulls"; "snakes in the nettles" and "dark crows,/Rapacious birds". A "wanderer, terrified of the deadly vale" crosses this site. Karamzin introduces these romantic variations but rarely returns to them.23 The most common scene is set in spring und summer. "Spring Song of a Melancholy Person" clearly illustrates this pastoral, beneficient aspect of nature.

21

He praised Thomson's description of autumn in "Poèzija" and wrote a few poems dealing with autumn, e.g., "Osen' ". 22 Karamzin-Dmitriev, pp. 101-2. 23 Except in "K solov'ju" [To a Nightingale], ibid., p. 111.

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103

In the fields the grass grows green And all the meadow is covered with flowers. Already the violet has budded, It flowers peacefully beneath the bushes, Nourishing the air with its ambrosia; Little birds sing in the little branches

Meek lambs wander Plucking the little grass of the meadows;

The shepherd lying carefully in the grass, Plays on his pipe.

Grassy verdure, flowering meadows, fragrant air, and a shepherd luxuriating in the provident embrace of nature, are in varying degrees the descriptive ingredients of his poems dealing with nature, e.g., "Pesn' mira"24 [Song of Peace], "Il'ja Muromec"25 and "Vesennee cuvstvo"26 [Spring Feeling]. The narrative poem is one of the favorite genres of the romantic "

Ibid., pp. 95-7. The meadow is downy and green, The balsam blows in the little wind, The little birds flock To our groves and woods; The lamb does not fear the tiger And wanders the meadows with him. The beautiful sun appears In the pure, azure sky With bright gold rays Lights the quiet grove, The green hill and flowering dale.

26

The little grasses The aromatic little flowers Mix their sweet spirit, their fragrance, With the morning air. Soc. Karamzina, pp. 80-1. Spring has come - the earth flowers; The trees rustle in their green crowns Gilded by the rays of the sun; The fields, meadows are beautified; The flocks gambol on the hills; Little birds sing in the little bushes.

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movement. Its popularity is connected with general cultural and aesthetic currents of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. In "Poetry", Karamzin writes of the wise men who "sang mysterious songs/And taught the young the legends of the fathers" and, thus, paraphrases Herder's ideas on the Volkslieder. The songs and tates of the people are pristine poetry, which should be considered sources of a nation's wisdom and grandeur. This interest in the peoples' Stimmen marks an early stage in the developing European nationalism, an exploration of the past to unearth the myths and ideas which would prove the genius of a people. This cultural interest was complemented by a specific aesthetic interpretation of national songs, ballads, and folk narratives. Aesthetically, the imitation of nature became a recreation by the poet of his own world, drawn from his personal experiences and knowledge, rather than an imitation of the objective reality about him. The narrative poem is a microcosm in which the poet functions as fate, directing and controlling a variety of characters at a moment of intense crisis. As the creator of this world, the poet gives free rein to his imagination and creative impulse. Karamzin wrote several narrative poems, illustrating these specific features and contributed in a real way to the development of this genre in Russia. Karamzin probably composed his ballad, "Graf Guarinos" 27 [Count Guarinos] in Weimar in 1789. In his letter of July 21, 1789, {Letters of a Russian Traveler) he consoles himself for having failed to see Goethe by remembering that "There are other famous writers in Weimar: Bertuch [F. J., 1747-1822], Bode [J. J., 1730-1793] and others." And by way of explanation, he adds that "Bertuch had translated Don Quijote from the Spanish and published a Magazin der Spanischen und Portugiesischen Literatur... ." Bertuch had also published a German translation of the "Romance del conde Guarinos Almirante de la Mar" in his magazine in 1780, and Karamzin probably came into contact with the Spanish ballad in this fashion. Actually, the German translation must have followed the Spanish version closely, for Karamzin's work, when compared with the Spanish, differs only in minor details from the original.28 27

Ibid., pp. 78-82. D. Marcelino Menéndez y Pelayo (ed.), Antología de Poetas Líricos Castellanos (2nd ed.; Madrid, Hernando y Compania, 1900), IX, pp. 113-15. I have arranged the lines in quatrains. The Spanish text actually divides the couplets by dash. This has been retained. The elimination of details may be seen in the fol28

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The ballad stanza had not existed in Russian literature until the publication of "Count Guarinos" in the Moscow Journal in 1792.29 Karamzin has followed the Spanish poem so closely that his version is devoid of sentimental features. Potentially sentimental incidents are dryly and factually presented. Thus, Guarinos is offered one of the daughters of Marlotes in marriage on the condition that he accept Mohammedanism. Karamzin could have exploited such a situation on both religious and national grounds, illustrating the qualities of Christian steadfastness and patriotic loyalty in his hero. In the Letters of a Russian Traveler, written at a later date, he recounts the saga of Count Gleichen, who had been captured during the Crusades and taken a Saracen mistress. Eventually, she saves his life and returns with the Count to his homeland where the Count's wife receives her as a dear member of the family.80 Here, Karamzin creates a story of a faithful love that transcends all social and religious conventions. However, in the ballad, Karamzin adheres to the story of the Spanish romance and simply allows Guarinos to refuse Marlotes' daughter and to say: "Ah! In France my dear/Bride is waiting for me". Or Marlotes, angered at the inability of his men to strike the target during a tournament, forbids "Children to be suckled,/ And the elders to eat and drink", so long as the cursed target remains standing. Again, the pathetic situation is clearly present but it is not exploited. Karamzin allows Marlotes to lowing quatrains, the first two from the Spanish romance and the second two from Karamzin's poem: ¡ Mala la vistes, franceses, la caza de Roncesvalles! Don Carlos perdio la honra, murieron los doces pares, cativaron a Guarinos almirante de las mares: los siete reyes de moros fueron en su cativar. Bad, bad, was it for you, Frenchmen At Roncesvalles! Charles the Great was there deprived Of his best knights. And Guarinos was captured, By a host of enemies, Seven Arabic kings Suddenly took him captive. "La caza de Roncesvalles" has become simply "Roncevalles"; Charles does not lose his "honra"; Karamzin adds "By a host of enemies". M F. W. Neumann, Geschichte der russischen Ballade (Königsberg-Berlin, OstEuropa-Verlag, 1937), p. 27. 30 Soc. Karamzina, II, p. 27.

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give the order and that is all. He does not bother to expand the scene to depict the suffering of the innocent. And, finally, the escape of the Count, against insurmountable odds, is quite laconically described: "But Guarinos dispersed them [his many enemies]/ And reached France". This adaptation is significant as the first of several narrative poems that Karamzin was to write. The poem that tells a love story was popular in the classical period, largely through Sumarokov's versions of the French romance.31 Nartov, Naryskin, and Knjaznin also wrote narrative poems in this tradition. Karamzin contributed two poems to this body of poetry, "Raisa",32 1791, and "Alina",33 1797-1800. "Raisa", printed in the Moscow Journal with the subtitle, an "ancient ballad", might rightly be considered the first original Russian ballad. The poem's source is unknown, but the great popularity of G. A. Biirger's ballads at this time quite possibly influenced it. His famous "Lenore",34 written in 1773, had captivated Europe in the last quarter of the century; the young maid's ghostly ride and the romantic trappings were soon imitated in all countries from Scotland to Russia. It seems probably that Karamzin, a great admirer of contemporary German literature, was familiar with this ballad. He did praise another ballad of Bürger, "Des Pfarrers Tochter von Taubenhain",35 1781, as an excellent example of mellifluous poetry.36 It seems to have partially influenced his "ancient ballad" in theme and action. "Raisa" is the tale of a young girl's deep love for a flighty youth, Kronid. He seduces and deserts her. She flees from her home on a wild and stormy night and, as she climbs to the craggy sea-coast heights, her frustrated love is recounted in a series of flashbacks. The poem ends in a suicidal leap from the lofty rocks. In Biirger's "The Pastor's Daughter", Rosette is taken advantage of by a man who eventually deserts her. She is pregnant; her father, a "harter and zorniger Mann", orders her to leave his home; she flees "with bloody feet, through thistle and briar,/ Through moors and sedges", weeping and bemoaning her fate, as does Raisa. Before her death, she places a curse upon her 31

Tred'jakovskij was a forerunner. During his stay in France, 1727-1729, he was attracted by light French verse, pieces fugitives, madrigals, sonnets, triolets celebrating the passion of love. He tried to imitate this poetry in Russian. See, Veselovskij, op. cit., pp. 102-3. 32 Karamzin-Dmitriev, pp. 92-4. 33 Ibid., pp. 202-7. 34 G. A. Bürger, Sämmtliche Werke (Vienna, Anton Doll, 1812), I, pp. 62-71. 35 Ibid., II, pp. 28-35. se According to Vjazemskij, op. cit., p. 45.

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lover. The dreadful plight of both women is caused by their love for vain and perfidious lovers. Rosette and Raisa invoke the wrath of heaven upon their seducers. The action of both poems is set on a sea shore and takes place on a wild and stormy night. These elements suggest that Karamzin already in 1791 was familiar with Biirger's ballad. In the sixth part of the Letters of a Russian Traveler, "Alina", the last of Karamzin's narrative poems, appeared. Karamzin claims to have written the poem in the summer of 1790, but this has been disputed.37 As in Karamzin's prose tales (see below, Chapter VII), he purportedly bases "Alina" on a true incident. In the Letters of a Russian Traveler (Paris, June 1790), Karamzin describes his visit to a French salon. During the course of the conversation, Madame N., the hostess, relates an anecdote of a faithful but unrequited love. I spent five whole hours yesterday at Madame N.'s and not in a boring fashion. . . . We spoke about sentimentality. The Baron asserted that the devotion of man is more powerful and sure; that women cry more, but we more often die from love. The mistress asserted the opposite and in a sweet voice, with a tender and languid mien, told us a sad anecdote of Lyon. Everyone was touched, I no less than the others. Madame N. turned to me and asked, "Do you compose verses? . . . Here is your subject. Give me your word to describe this incident in Russian verses." "Willingly; but allow me to adorn it a bit", [Karamzin replied] . . . . I kept my word and wrote the following.

To support this illusion of reality, Karamzin affixes a footnote to the poem: "Everything which Alina says or thinks has been taken from the journal in which she noted her thoughts almost from childhood. She wanted to burn it while she was dying but did not suceed." 38 Whether reality has paralleled fiction, or vice-versa, is unknown, but poetic fiction provides us with similar plots quite popular in the preromantic period.39 Karamzin's poem is the story of Alina, an earthly angel, who loves and marries Milon, a "tender youth". But the "giddy Milon" soon grows bored and falls in love with a married woman (as 37

Sipovskij, Karamzin, Avtor . . ., pp. 165-6, says that it was written during the composition of the sixth part of the Letters . . . ; this section deals with the French Revolution and was considerably reworked by Karamzin before it was published in 1801. Karamzin had led a rather gay life in this period, a life full of amours and very similar to that of the hero of "Alina". See above, Chapter II and Pis'ma Karamzina k Dmitrievu, pp. 75 ff. for description of his life at this time. Sipovskij uses this similarity between Karamzin's life and Milon's to assign the poem to 1797-1800. 38 Karamzin-Dmitriev, p. 205. 39 Naryäkin's "Elegija", Knjaznin's "Nakazannaja nevernost' and, passim, Sumarokov's idylls (Chapter III, above).

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Karamzin informs us in a footnote 40 ), which proves to be the "last blow for Alina". She languishes and dies. The doctors discover that she has taken poison, and Milon, fully aware now of the results of his unfaithfulness, wants to commit suicide. His friends restrain him. He lives in terrible torment and the poet concludes: Alive he betrayed Alina, But he wants to be true to her in death!

Karamzin does "adorn [this poem] a bit". He expresses his personal ideas in those sections which purport to be taken directly from Alina's diary. Thus, in the Letters of a Russian Traveler (March 9, 1790), Karamzin tells us of two lovers, Thérèse and Faldoni, who had committed suicide because of parental objections to their marriage. Karamzin then observes: But Faldoni and Thérèse loved each other, so they should have considered themselves happy. They lived in the same world, beneath the same sky; the rays of the same sun, the same moon shone on them—what more could they want? . . . The idea: I am loved! must be the happiness of the tender lover.

Alina visits the site of the lover's suicides and describes love's meaning in much the same terms: He who while loving is loved, Must be satisfied with his fate; In prison and chains, he is free To dream sweetly of his friend, In separation and in grief, he feeds Upon a happy hope.

"Raisa" and "Alina" are remarkably similar in plot: a pure being is cruelly and capriciously betrayed by a beloved and suffers terribly as a consequence. In the romance and idyll of Sumarokov and his followers, such a story was often climaxed by a sudden peripetia, resulting in the consummation of that love. Occasionally, the tale ended in a lover's suicide threat (Naryskin's "Elegy"), or in a mortal decline (Knjaznin's "Unfaithfulness Punished"). In "Raisa" and "Alina" the unrequited love culminates in suicide. Karamzin in a period of greater sentimentality describes explicitly what is only implied in the earlier romances and denied in the idyll, that is, the power of emotion to destroy an individual. 40

Karamzin-Dmitriev,

p. 204.

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In matters of characterization, Karamzin's two narrative poems are patterned closely upon the idylls. Karamzin's female characters are described in much greater detail. They are extremely sensitive, deeply emotional, and profoundly aware of the meaning of true love. On the other hand, the lovers tend to be fickle and unfaithful, even cynical in their attitude toward love. The interlopers, or third parties, who entice the lovers away are vaguely described, functioning as deux ex machina devices to bring the poems to the desired conclusion. In matters of language these poems also draw upon the idyll-romance tradition. Love is a "flaming tear" in "Raisa", while in "Alina" it is a powerful passion which "captivates", takes one "prisoner" or burns as a fire, e.g. "Alas! why had this tender flame/Not been extinguished in both hearts"; "He who is loved . . . burningly"; "The heat of love". The romantic setting of "Raisa" is entirely in keeping with that of Biirger's ballad: a violent storm at night, a roaring sea, craggy cliffs, and a half-mad girl struggling against the elements: The storm raged in the dark night, A threatening beam illumes the heavens, Thunder roars in the dark storm clouds, And a strong rain rustles in the wood.

From her white, uncovered breasts, Cut by the branches of the trees, Streams of bubbling blood flow To the verdure of the damp earth. The gloom and terror of the setting parallel Raisa's desperation and agony. A n d nature, animistically involved in her fate, ominously comments upon her death. A t the moment of suicide, a peal of thunder resounds and the poet hastens to interpret it: With this, the heavens proclaimed ruin To him who had destroyed her. The setting of "Alina", however, is more typical of the idyll. The heroine lives in a region Where the Somme with its bright waters Sprinkles the green banks The gardens [and] flowery meadows. "Alina" is far more representative of Karamzin's sentimentalism than is "Raisa". B y alluding to the factual base of the plot and using the

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"thoughts" of a real individual, Karamzin is very consciously trying to create a poem with some pretense to versimilitude. To achieve this goal, he dispenses with the exotic setting and romantic death scene of "Raisa". Instead, the placid Somme countryside is the background and the heroine dies, rather prosaically, from poison: They asked the doctors; they discovered That Alina had taken poison. The characters of "Alina" are far more complex than are those of "Raisa". Kronid is an unthinking "Don Juan" type, a hedonist interested only in his physical satisfaction. Milon, on the other hand, is a man possessed by a sickness of soul; he is marked by a "languishing mien"; he is not a "crafty flatterer". He suffers deeply for his unfaithfulness to Alina and even tries to join her in death. Karamzin's advocacy of the ballad - Herder considered it a creation of folk genius 41 - is connected with a more significant Russian literary manifestation which develops in the 1760s, the interest in Russian folklore.42 Although this Russian concern was analogous to the Western interest in folk creations, it originated independently of it. It arose as a reaction to the cosmopolitan classical period with its heavy borrowing from European, particularly French, literature and represents a Russian search for "techniques and devices of their own folk, or 'national' literature".43 M. D. Culkov (17437-1792) who had previously issued a collection of purported "Slavic Folk Tales", published with M. I. Popov a Sobranie russkix pesen [Collection of Russian Songs] in 1770-1774. This was the first of many national song books, the most famous of which was that of N. A. L'vov, Sobranie narodnyx russkix pesen s ix golosami [Collection of National Russian Songs with Parts], 1790, with the music of Pratsch included. Levsin, mentioned above as the author of an early sentimental tale, issued a collection of Russian folk tales, Russkie skazki [Russian Folk Tales] in 1780-1783. By the time the Russian literati had become familiar with Ossian at the end of the 41

A. Gillies, Herder (Oxford, Basil Blackwell, 1945), p. 44. Sumarokov wrote a satire "Xor ko prevratnomu svetu" [Chorus to a Perverse World] in 1763 based on a Russian folk satire. It was not published until 1781, and therefore had no influence in the sixties or seventies. Culkov published a collection of essays, sketches, and tales in the seventies, which are highly derivative. For a discussion of this early interest in folk poetry, see W. E. Harkins, The Russian Folk Epos in Czech Literature, 1800-1900 (New York, King's Crown Press, 1951), pp. 2-3. 43 Ibid., p. 2. 42

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eighties, the Russian interest in their own folk literature had been maturing for some twenty years and by the end of the nineties, a Russian counterpart of the Irish bard, the putative author of an early Russian epic, Bojan, had been uncovered. In the nineties, writers battened upon this earlier interest but with a great display of aesthetic selectivity. The classical hierarchy of genres places a greater value on the "higher" genres, e.g., the epic and the tragedy, than on the "lower", e.g., the idyll and comedy. This evaluative concept guided the sentimental approach to folk literature.44 The folk tale was the creation of the lower classes and did not deserve serious consideration at the outset. Consequently, when the writer utilized the folk tale in seriously sophisticated literature, he parodied it or treated it humorously in self-conscious recognition of its origin. Karamzin impressed this particular stamp on the folk tale in the nineties, and his followers maintained this same condescendingly jocular attitude.45 It is interesting that he did not parody the ballad. Evidently, such eminent writers as Bürger, Goethe, and Herder had by their practice and criticism lifted it beyond Karamzin's mockery. Karamzin's "bogatyr's fairy tale", "Il'ja Muromec", 46 was published in 1795 with an epigraph from L a Fontaine: " L e m o n d e est v i e u x " , dit-on: j e le crois; c e p e n d a n t Il le f a u t a m u s e r e n c o r e c o m m e u n e n f a n t .

Conforming to this desire to "amuser", Karamzin opens his "tale" by asserting: I do not want. . . . T o sing of the wrath of A g a m e m n o n ,

that is, in the epic style and of subjects which "we [Russians] do not believe. . . ." Rather, for "his reader's pleasure" he will "chat" about Il'ja Muromec, the "greatest of knights" and he will take his "words" as found in "Russian fables, in Russian tales gleaned from [his] late nurse". In R u s s i a n classical literature, the influence of f o l k material is evident in the lower genres, e.g., comedy. 45 F o r example, D m i t r i e v maintains this jocular attitude in his " S k a z k a " , " P r i S u d n i c a " [A Whimsical Person]; L ' v o v , in " D o b r y n j a " ; R a d i s i e v , in Bova. Puskin and Zukovskij continued this attitude in the nineteenth century, e.g., in Puskin's Rustan i Ljudmila [Ruslan and L j u d m i l a ] and Zukovskij's " B o g a t y r ' Alëâa Ρορονίδ". 48 Karamzin-Dmitriev, pp. 143-55.

44

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Karamzin makes his attitude clear. He will use the people's creations as a poetic subject, but, at the same time, he patronizingly apologizes for his choice. That he viewed folk literature suspiciously was apparent even earlier. In a letter (September 6, 1792), to Dmitriev, Karamzin accounts Dmitriev's intentions to publish a book of Russian songs as "strange". 47 This was his early reaction to the folk creations. It changed with the passage of years. After the discovery of the Igor Tale, Karamzin took a more favorable attitude toward the creations of early Russian poetry. In his "Un mot sur la littérature russe", he found folk songs "touching". 48 And in 1818, in his speech before the Russian Academy, he defended the "patent presence" of genius in Russian songs, a genius which was "not alien to the Russians even in the darkest periods of ignorance".411 In the poetic preface to "Il'ja Muromec" (11. 1-103), Karamzin describes the proper method of treating the old folk tale: The sophisticated adaptor must embellish it with his fancy. The Lie, Untruth, the apparition of truth! Be now my goddess And with the flowers of the Russian meadow Gather the hero of antiquity, The sorcerer ll'ja Muromec! I want to chat about him,— About his immortal exploits. Lie! I have not studied with thee T o give out untruths for the truth.

Karamzin sentimentalizes a folk tale from Levsin's Russian Folk Tales.6" He eliminates the popular national theme of the "ancient Russian warrior struggling for his native land" and substitutes the sentimental quest of a delicate youth for a fair maid. 51 The doughty warrior of the Russian folk tale, Il'ja Muromec, is transformed into a languid, idyllic hero, a Knight who had not read Gessner But [had] a tender heart [And] loved the beauties of the day.

This "sensitive soul" takes an oath to God, "who adorns all things", 47

Pis'ma Karamzina k Dmitrievu, p. 30. Ibid., p. 474. Soc. Karamzina, III, p. 648. 50 "Tale of Alëâa Ρορονίδ". 51 Α. Ν. Sokolov, Ocerki po istorii russkoj poèmy [Essays in the History of the Russian Poem] (Moscow, Izdatel'stvo Moskovskogo universiteta, 1955), p. 286. 48

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to defend "innocence" and punish with his sword all who "terrorize the human heart". He comes upon a sleeping maiden and his heart "beats with a frequent, powerful pulse". She had been bewitched by Cernomor, an evil sorcerer of the Russian folk tale. Il'ja Muromec waits patiently for a week, while he "forgets food, tender dreams". Suddenly, he attempts to brush a fly from her "raspberry lips" and touches her with his ring, containing a talisman of Veleslav. She awakens. Modestly, he removes himself while she dresses. She soon joins him and they sit on the "odorous grass" for two minutes in deep silence and at the third minute "a miracle occurs. . . . " The poem ends here. Karamzin had created here a type of sentimental light verse, colored by his imagination for the delight of readers who could forget themselves "for a minute/ In the sorcery of beautiful lies!" Clearly, this could not be achieved by adhering to the actual tale, in his opinion. If he treated the subject matter with unconcealed contempt, this was not so with the meter. He honestly thought he was adhering to the meter of the old Russian songs. In a footnote to "Il'ja Muromec", he observed, "In regard to the meter, I will say that it is completely Russian. Almost all our old songs are composed in such verses."52 Actually, this meter - trochaic trimeter with dactyllic endings, unrhymed - was common only in the Russian soldiers' songs of the eighteenth century. They were very popular, however, and their meter was identified with the old Russian epic meter. Karamzin associated the hexameter with epic poetry as is evident in his letter to Dmitriev, written in 1788: And if you yourself should think of extolling the mighty exploits of all our soldiers, then sing, please, in dactyls and trochees, in Greek hexameters, and not in iambic six-foot verses, which are not suited for heroic poems and are utterly boring. Be our Homer, not Voltaire.53

Karamzin began his poem by rejecting the alien events of the epic: We are not Greeks, nor Romans; We do not believe their legends.

Quite consistently, he rejected the epic meter for the trochaic trimeter, which he mistakenly identified with the meter of the old songs. Despite Karamzin's metrical misconceptions, the great success of "Il'ja Muromec" predisposed his successors to the same pattern. A. N. Radiscev, Puskin, and many others used it as the basis of their folk adaptations during the first quarter of the nineteenth century. 52 55

Karamzin-Dmitriev, Pis'ma Karamzina

p. 143. k Dmitrievu,

p. 10.

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Karamzin also maintained that he would use the "words of antiquity" to relate the incidents, but he was no more successful in this than he was in transmitting the subject matter or metrical pattern of the old skazki. By the expression, "words of antiquity", Karamzin evidently meant that his poem contained words borrowed from the old folk tales. Actually, this influence consisted of certain fixed epithets, e.g., "sol'nce krasnoe" (beautiful sun), "svet belyj" (white light), "pole cistoe" [clear field], "mec bul'atnyj" [steel sword], and occasionally, entire expressions, e.g., "Zakrasnelasja, kak makov cvet" [she blushed poppy red], 'mjagce vosku belojarogo" [softer than maize wax], "tri dni s casom" [three days and an hour]. These words and expressions impress the reader as artificial coloration added to give a tint of the folk tale and the poem remains a sentimental, idyllic narrative. Thus, the "beautiful sun" illumes the "little grass", the "little flowers", and "littlte bushes" of the sentimentalized earth. It is the same landscape of Karamzin's other poems, and of the poetry of Dmitriev and Neledinskij-Meleckij. 54 Karamzin reveals the transitional role and moderation of his sentimentalism in his poetry. His poetic principles differ from certain concepts of classicism, but they are not an outright refutation or rejection of them. Indeed, it is difficult to construct a consistently sentimental aesthetic credo from Karamzin's poetry and critical essays because of the patently contradictory ideas that continually intrude. However, this difficulty itself creates an insight into the essential nature of his sentimentalism. Karamzin recognized that antinomies could exist in his own poetry, since it was an emotional, even intuitive, response to his experiental world and, furthermore, the purpose of poetry was not to "reconcile ideas" but to "affect and amuse". Karamzin insisted that the poet describe "nature", while he proceeded through his own example to restrict this term significantly. Karamzin depicts the terrible aspects of nature in " R a i s a " and melancholy autumnal scenes in several other poems but he prefers a placidly idyllic landscape insistently repeated throughout his poetic career. Karamzin was not especially attracted by romantically wild vistas such as occurred in the "Waterfall" of Derzavin, nor for that matter, by the Cf. with the song of Dmitriev {Karamzin-Dmitriev, p. 297): I wander with a soul despondent Alone along the shores, And there I always meet Little bushes and little flowers. Or cf. with the songs of Neledinskij-Meleckij (see above, Chapter III).

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realistic lines of "twisted oaks" and "sweaty streams" of Murav'ëv. Karamzin avoided the extremes of romantically uncouth nature and realistically vulgar nature in his search for a pleasant and refined ideal. In much the same fashion, Karamzin appealed to the poet to describe "every movement of the human heart" and, seemingly, called for greater freedom of subject matter. However, he severely limited the area of poetic activity, admonishing the poet to speak of "love, friendship, [and] the tender beauties of nature", and in his own poetry he conventionally repeats these dominant sentimental motifs. Consequently, Karamzin's lyrical ego seems less expansive than that of Derzavin or, even of Murav'ëv. While Karamzin rejects the models which were imitated by classical writers, he does not reject the need for imitation. The imitation of beautiful nature remains his ideal, but he admits that the "copy is sometimes better than the original" and, hence, imitation of the former is more rewarding. The essentially classical ideal of imitation remains, but Karamzin has replaced the old models. Much the same can be said about Karamzin's attitude toward the classical concept of rules governing each genre. He rejects those temporal artistic values but not the validity of rules, since the poet must obey those laws which are found "in all nature". The image most frequently applied to the poet by Karamzin is that of the 'nightingale", whose emotions pour out in spontaneous and effusive song. Such poetry is an immediate and direct response to the varied stimuli of the poet's world and it is often "expressed" . . . against [the poet's] will". Having made this point, Karamzin proceeds to restrict poetic stimuli and the spontaneous emotional nature of poetry. He states that the mind and the emotions function as one to discover the "unchangeable order/In all1 earthly things". Indeed, in reading Karamzin's poetry, one is impressed by the rational elucidation and coherent expression of often complex ideas and is reminded of just how "artful" the poetic "liar" can be. In his preface to Aonides, Karamzin cautioned the poet to avoid that which is "strange, distant, and incompatible with his i d e a s . . . . " The poet should deal with that which is familiar but not realistically. He must recreate reality and turn "earth into heaven". Verisimilitude rather than realism is the object of such an appeal. Karamzin's poetry excludes the coarse and vulgar. A n excellent example of this exclusion occurs in the ballad, "Raisa". Biirger's heroine was pregnant; Karamzin carefully eliminated any reference to this "indelicacy" in connection with

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Raisa, while retaining the other elements of the German poem. Karamzin illustrates the same aesthetic selectivity in his handling of folk poetry, for he carefully winnowed the common and raw from the folk source to make it palatable to the refined taste of his reader. One fundamental aesthetic principle emerges from these varying and often contradictory views: The sentimental poet must exercise extreme care in order to present the "pleasant things of l i f e . . . . " He must carefully avoid that which might violate his reader's sensitivity. Realism, violent passions other than those canonized by sentimental authorities, harsh satire, primitive nature, sensuality, and much more do not find their way into Karamzin's poetry. One must return to the idyllic tradition for the clearest formulation of a similar aesthetic principle. The idyll was admittedly a refuge from crass reality and, consequently, its themes were delicately melancholy or happy; its characters, refined; and its landscapes, pleasing. The idyll deliberately avoided the coarse and the vulgar, e.g., exact descriptions of the "sordid occupations of the shepherds...." For the most part, it was precisely this tradition which guided Karamzin in his choice of subject matter, the resolution of theme, and the manner of presentation.

VII PROSE: "POOR LIZA", LANGUAGE

Karamzin's tales are a slim but significant contribution to Russian literary developments. The most important of them - "Frol Silin", "Poor Liza", "Natalie, the Boyar's Daughter", "Island of Bornholm", "Julia", and "Sierra Morena" - graced the pages of Karamzin's Moscow Journal and Aglaja. His very first prose tales, "Progulka" [A Stroll] and "Evgenij i Julija" [Eugene and Julia], were published in Readings for Children in 1789, while his last tale, "Marfa the Mayoress", appeared in 1802 in the European Herald. Between these polar dates he published two less important tales, "Liodor", 1792, and "Dense Wood", 1795. His fictionalized autobiography, "Rycar' nasego vremeni" [Knight of Our Time] appeared in the European Herald in 1802-1803. The subject matter and form of the early prose works, "A Stroll" and "Eugene and Julia", although minor pieces in themselves, are important to an understanding of his later tales. "A Stroll"1 is a very short, rhapsodic invocation of nature with frequent appeals to such authorities as Thomson, Ewald von Kleist, and Young. "No time of the year is as pleasant for me as spring", Karamzin begins, and then describes his walk through the countryside with a volume of Thomson in his hand. Various natural scenes recall the spring evenings described by Thomson and Kleist. Soon, as the sun sets, his happy mood is replaced by one of gloom. This provokes a remembrance of Young's description of night, the poet who, "sang to us of the night's beauty, thy beauty, Chaste Cynthia.. . . The song and the singer have become immortal. Young's name will be forever holy for those tender hearts who feel the beauties of nature and the worth of man. . . ." Now Karamzin recalls the English rector's "melancholy dreams" about solitude and so he promptly eulogizes it: "Blessed be the quiet of solitude, when all creation is sunk in deep slumber. It awakens holy thoughts in me, [provokes] intimate conversations in my heart, and pacifies all its 1

Cf., Sipovskij, Karamzin, Avtor . .., pp. 132-4.

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agitations, the product of the storms of society!" Enervated by his efforts - whether physical or emotional, it is not clear - he relaxes on "the soft, fragrant grass, fed by the purest air, and listens to the song of the nightingale and the murmur of the streams". He falls asleep and does not awaken until dawn. "Eugene and Julia" 2 has a rudimentary plot. A mother lives happily with her daughter Julia on a rural estate. They experience all the vivifying joys of spring and in autumn are possessed by a "languishing melancholy". A young man, known to the reader only through his initial, L*, visits them after a trip abroad. He and Julia enjoy nature and books together; she plays the clavecina and sings Klopstock's song, "Willkommen, silberner Mond". The author cannot refrain from comment, observing, "Meek tender souls! You alone know these virtuosos [e.g., Klopstock], their immortal works are dedicated to you alone." In such an environment, it is but natural that the young people fall in love. Karamzin praises L* for his frank declaration of love and, to exemplify this, describes how he "Pressed the virtuous maiden to his breast!" They are betrothed. Unfortunately, L* catches cold and complications ensue. He soon dies. Julia's grief is without measure; she does not cry but "in her heart she felt all the burden of the delivered blow". Now mother and daughter live in melancholy solitude. Nature, at one time a source of joy, now seems gloomy and desolate. A sentimental friend eulogizes the deceased in the following epitaph: This flower of paradise could not blossom in this world It dried, withered, fell—and was carried to paradise. The simplicity of the descriptive piece and the tale are in marked distinction from the romans d'aventure and the lengthy sentimental novel which was gradually finding its way into Russian literature. In his teens, Karamzin was delighted by the romans d'aventure, whose heroes and heroines were ideally drawn: physically beautiful, extremely moral, and well-born. These novels generally described the vicissitudes of life which separated the lovers and one adventure after another followed in quick succession: shipwrecks, piratical attacks, sojourns in harems, long convalescences, and lengthy pilgrimages. Finally, hero and heroine are re-united, their virtue unblemished and their love unchanged, and there is every indication that they will live happily in the future. As has been indicated in Chapter IV, the translated and original 2

This résumé is taken from Sipovskij, Ocerki Part 2, pp. 604-5.

iz istorii

russkago

romana,

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sentimental novel still retained this basic structure of innumerable sequential complications, even if the setting was not exotic. Karamzin preferred a most simple plot from the very outset. In "Eugene and Julia", the story of the love affair is resolved by the climactic death of L*. The intrigues and adventures of the novel are eliminated entirely. The characters are also simplified, for there are no contradictory or complex elements within the young people's personalities to be resolved. Their mutual hopes and dreams are not discordant, and their love develops without social or emotional obstacles until it is destroyed by fate. An important element of the tale is its quest for realism. In its subtitle, it is labeled a "true Russian story".3 Sipovskij conjectures on the basis of a letter of Karamzin to his brother that the man who wrote the epitaph for L* was none other than the author himself.4 But whether the story was drawn from personal experiences or not seems immaterial, for the main point is its plausibility. While the characters are sketchy, there is an effort to suggest real people. L* has just returned from abroad and, from his familiarity with German literature, the inference is that he had been studying there. This was one of Karamzin's youthful dreams.5 The mother and daughter are busy with the management of their estate rather than in constant, sentimental enjoyment of nature. The young people do enjoy nature and books together, much in the same fashion as Karamzin and Dmitriev did in Simbirsk (see Chapter I). And the tragic end to the love affair parallels a similar event that Karamzin had heard about, according to Sipovskij. L*'s death does not shatter Julia completely. She languishes after losing her lover, but not unto death. Life continues for both mother and daughter, who share an even greater intimacy than before since the mother, too, had grown very fond of L*. It was not until Karamzin's literary debut that the short tale ipovest') became popular in Russian literature. Karamzin's most fruitful contact with this genre arose as a result of his translations of 1787 and 1788. At this time he translated some fifteen tales of Madame de Genlis, which were taken from two collections: Les Veillées du château and Noveaux contes moraux et nouvelles historiques. Madame de Genlis had eliminated the complicated intrigues, the monstrous villains, the 3

Ponomarëv, op. cit., the listings for 1789. Sipovskij, Karamzin, Avtor .. ., p. 137. 5 "Pis'ma russkogo puteäestvennika" [Letters of a Russian Traveler], proza XVIII veka, II, p. 313. 4

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sequential adventures and, instead, concentrated on one or two incidents and peopled her stories with characters of the middle nobility or lower classes. Her tales were a reaction to the inordinately complex novel and, as such, had a direct influence on Karamzin's tales. The narrator of "Eugene and Julia" is an omniscient friend of L*. This same type of narrator is used in Madame de Genlis' tales, where it is either Madame de Clemire or the Baroness, her grandmother. "Eugene and Julia" depicts a family circle, consisting of a mother and daughter, and the intrusion of a friend into it. Many of Madame de Genlis' contes reproduce this same grouping. In "Eglantine", Doralice raises her only child, Eglantine, and, after several adventures, a Viscount comes into their lives and falls in love with the daughter; in "Eugénie et Leonce", Madame de Palmena dedicates her life to rearing her only daughter Eugénie; in "Alphonse et Dalinde" and "Theophile et Olympia" a father and son repeat this same pattern. Not infrequently, Madame de Genlis pictures menials and the indigent, e.g., "Les Esclaves" and "Le Chaudronnier" (translated as "The Coppersmith" by Karamzin). The Frenchwoman also describes the middle levels of the nobility in "Eglantine", "Alphonse et Dalinde", and "Pamela". Karamzin depicts the middle levels of the nobility in his first tale and the lower classes, the peasantry, in his second tale, "Frol Silin". Madame de Genlis also insists that hers are true stories drawn from real incidents.® Karamzin returned from abroad in 1790 and in 1791 published "Frol Silin"7 in the Moscow Journal. It is a glorification of the lower classes and, as such, is quite in harmony with a previously established Russian tradition. In the novels of P. L'vov, F. and N. Èmin, the peasants had been extolled as good, kind creatures; in the comic opera of the seventies and the serious drama of the eighties, the superiority of the peasants over the corrupt townspeople had been explicitly stated. At the beginning of his short tale, Karamzin adjures the "flatterers" to glorify the great, while he will "praise Frol Silin, a simple farmer. . . ." His account does just that. It is an enumeration of a man's good deeds: Frol distributes his surplus crops to his starving neighbors rather than sell at a profit during a famine; he helps neighbors whose homes and barns have been burned out with gifts of money; he gives his horse to 6

"Préface", Les Veillées du château, François de Lagarde, 1806), p. viii. 7 Soc. Karamzina, ΙΠ, pp. 661-5.

ed. M. de la Veaux (4th ed.; Berlin,

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a needy neighbor; he rears two serf girls and arranges successful marriages for them. More so than in "Eugene and Julia", Karamzin emphasizes that this story is based on real facts and depicts a real character. According to M. Dmitriev, Frol Silin was his grandfather's serf, whom Karamzin had met in his youth.8 The disastrous drought and fearful famine described in the tale (the fields were "washed only with the tears of the grieving farmers . . .") occurred in the seventies in the Simbirsk area. Karamzin recalls that although young he felt as a mature man and "suffered, seeing the suffering of [his] poor neighbors". Frol Silin was still alive when this tale was published and Karamzin describes the "good man's" reactions: "One of my friends read him this piece. The good old man cried and said Ί am not worth this, I am not worth this!'" 9 Karamzin concludes his account by asserting: . . . I would not pass by the temple dedicated to the good Geniuses of humanity without heart-felt tears—in that temple it would be necessary to raise a monument to Frol Silin.

Karamzin's "monument" to Frol is idyllically sentimentalized, purged completely of any coarseness. It was much imitated. Many stories followed in the same idealized vein and their titles alone indicate how well the authors understood Karamzin's intent: "The Heroic Peasant", "The Good Peasant", "The Sensitive Soldier", and "The Great-hearted Soldier".10 This praise of the "simple farmer" and the careful suggestion of realism were limited by certain sentimental aesthetic qualifications. In "Il'ja Muromec" Karamzin was to parody a folk tale and create a type of sentimental belle âme in place of the folk hero. Influenced by the classical denigration of folk material and in keeping with a previously established tradition, he would treat the folk tale condescendingly. In the same manner the lower classes were depicted satirically in the classical comedy or mock-epic poem. In the seventies, a more sympathetic characterization of the lower classes became apparent in the comic opera, which remained an idealized pastoral fantasy meant to amuse and delight the aristocratic audience without raising serious social problems. It is this tradition that Karamzin has in mind when he begins his tale with a slight apology and justification for his choice of hero: 8 9 10

Sipovskij, Ocerki iz istorii russkago romana, I, Part 2, p. 738. Soc. Karamzina, III, p. 661, footnote. Listed in Sipovskij, Oierki iz istorii russkago romana, I, Part 2, p. 738.

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Let the Virgils celebrate their Augustuses! Let the eloquent flatterers praise the magnanimity of the well-born! I want to praise Frol Silin, a simple farmer. He disclaims any epic intentions and, hence, can discuss the lower classes with some seriousness; anyway, he adds, the epic genre is merely a vehicle for the author seeking favors. If Frol Silin is not an epic character, he is still worthy of praise. But a "simple farmer" may be ignorant, coarse, and indifferent to the sufferings of others, and, therefore, an inappropriate hero for Karamzin's sensitive readers. To avoid displeasing his audience, Karamzin depicts Frol as a man of deep sensibility, possessed of a native intelligence and a delicate awareness of the feelings of others. He is devoid of any coarseness, indelicacy, and much given to tears. He cries when this account of his life is read to him and sobs when the poor farmers say that they will pray for him. As in Karamzin's later poem, "Il'ja Muromec", too, the hero strides rather gracefully across the stage, carefully displaying his profound perceptivity and sensibility. Karamzin published his most famous tale, "Poor Liza", in 1792. It was enormously popular in Russia and young Russians actually made pilgrimages to the pond near the Simonov Monastery, where Liza was reputed to have committed suicide. Here, on the trunk of an old oak tree, they carved their names and sentimental inscriptions and wept over Liza's fate. Eventually, with further sophistication, the lachrymosity of the tale became an object of ridicule and Belinskij could write some thirty years later: Now tell me frankly, sine ira et studio, as our true-bred scholars say, who is to blame that Poor Liza is now being laughed at as much as it was once cried over? You can say what you like, messieurs Karamzin admirers, but I would rather read the stories of Baron Brambeus [pseudonym of O. I. Senkovskij, journalist, critic, and author of humorous travel tales] than Poor Liza . . . / »

Karamzin's brother-in-law, Prince Vjazemskij, took issue with this opinion. In his poem read before the "Society of Lovers of Russian Literature", he admonished his audience not to laugh at poor Liza, for "she is still related to us all".i2 While the tale may be too sentimental and simple for the contemporary reader, it represents an extremely important stage in the development of Russian fiction. II

V. G. Belinsky, Selected Philosophical Works, translator unknown (Moscow, Foreign Languages Publishing House, 1948), p. 46. 12 Vjazemskij, "Tomu sto let" [Hundred Years Ago], Besedy ν obscestve ..., p. 59.

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"Poor Liza" 13 begins with the narrator's lyrical evocation of the Moscow environs, where he wanders through "the meadows and groves, the hills and ravines". After pointing out certain landmarks, e.g., the "innumerable golden cupolas" of the innumerable Moscow churches, the "golden-topped Danilov Monastery", and the Sparrow Hills, the author describes the ruins of the Simonov Monastery, the terrible fate of which recalls the "woeful1 fate of Liza, poor Liza". Liza had lived "about seventy yards from the monastery wall" and, when her father, "a well-to-do peasant", was alive, the family was comfortably fixed. After his death, however, things deteriorated. The loss of her husband moved the mother deeply, because "even peasant women know how to love". Liza was forced to sew, sell flowers, and pick cherries to sustain her mother and herself. Two years pass and Liza suddenly meets a well-dressed young man on the streets of Moscow while she is selling her lillies-of-the-valley. He asks her where she lives; she tells him and goes; the young man "did not seek to restrain her, perhaps because passers-by began to stop and . . . slyly laugh". Liza dutifully tells her mother of this incident and of the fact that she refused to accept more than a fair price for her flowers. Several days later, the young man, Erastus by name, appears at the humble cottage. He desires to be the sole purchaser of Liza's flowers, explaining that he wants to save her the long trip into town. After Erastus leaves, the narrator tells us something of his life. "A rather rich noble", he has a fair mind and a good heart; he is good by nature "but weak and giddy." He leads a dissipated life in society and is utterly bored. He dreams of an ideal world and an idyllic love: H e read novels and idylls. H e had a rather lively imagination and often transferred himself mentally to that period which once had, or had not, existed, when—if the poets are to be believed—all people wandered through the meadows without a care, bathed in pure springs, kissed each other like doves, sighed beneath the roses and myrtles, and lived days of happy leisure.

Liza suggests this idyllic dream to him and he pursues her. On the shores of the Moscow River and to the echo of the shepherd's reedpipe, they confess their love for each other. Erastus swears to love Liza forever. Suddenly, a crisis occurs. Liza has been approached by a matchmaker with a possible suitor, the son of a rich peasant from a neighboring village. The mother favors this marriage, but Liza refuses be13 I have used the version of "Bednaja Liza" in Russkaja proza XVIII II, pp. 236-49.

veka,

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cause of her feelings for Erastus. Unfortunately, she has no real hope of marrying him, since the social barrier between the peasantry and nobility is too great. When she mentions this, Erastus retorts, "you are insulting me. For your friend, it is the soul, the sensitive, innocent soul, that is most important...". Carried away by their emotions, they consummate their love. The scene of passion is illuminated by lightning and accompanied by thunder. Erastus in subsequent meetings seeks only to satisfy his physical hunger for Liza, and, soon, grows bored with her. He parts with her because a "war is on, I am in the service; my regiment is on the march". After some two months of desperate grief and anxiety, Liza has to go to Moscow. To her great surprise, she sees Erastus in a majestic carriage. She runs after it and, when he gets out, throws herself into his arms. Erastus explains that he is now engaged and, although he still loves her, she must not try to see him again. He gives her a hundred rubles and orders his servant to lead her away. At this point the narrator complains, "Ah! Why am I not writing a novel, rather than relating a sad fact?" He then explains that Erastus had been in the army but had lost almost all his estate at cards. When peace had been concluded, Erastus returned to Moscow burdened with debts. Recognizing his desperate financial condition, he decided to marry a rich widow. Crushed, Liza commits suicide and is buried beneath the oaks. The narrator often sits by her grave, where "the ripple of the pond is reflected in my eyes; the leaves rustle over me". Liza's mother dies soon after. A legend arises that Liza still haunts the now deserted cottage. Erastus lives with the memory of his perfidy, adjudging himself a murderer. It was he who told the narrator the sad history and it was he who showed the narrator the simple grave. The tale concludes on an optimistic note: Erastus is dead but, perhaps, he and Liza "have already been reconciled". Since this tale has not been adequately translated into English, it has been recapitulated at some length. Karamzin's immediate predecessors in the field of prose, N. Èmin and P. L'vov wrote long novels that were a curious blend of the older adventure tale and the newer English novel. As in Richardson's novels, the heroes are from the middle nobility, the action is contemporary to the eighteenth century, and concerns personal domestic difficulties, suggesting very real situations. From Rousseau and Goethe, the novelists derived the deeplytroubled, deeply-sensitive hero attuned to both love and nature but

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alienated from his society. They find it impossible to fulfill their hopes and aspirations in a brutally insensitive environment. Finally, Èmin's tale, Roza, recalls the tragic finale of Werther in the suicide of Vetrogon. However, merged with these elements of the English novel are the remnants of the older romans d'aventure, the tedious moralizing, the lengthy monologues, the journeys, shipwrecks, and even a visit to an island utopia. Karamzin championed the short story in opposition to this long, and "weighty" novel". (That these were weighty novels in the physical sense is verified by A. I. Klusin,14 a satirist of the 1790's, who maintained that he was almost killed by certain novels which fell upon him from his library shelves. The most damaging of these was L'vov's, A Russian Pamela.) Karamzin eliminates the innumerable adventures both physical and psychological of the older novels forms and considerably condenses the drawn out intrigues of the English novel. In this latter respect, "Poor Liza" concerns a contemporary event, a minor domestic tragedy, which like Werther ends in suicide. As in the English novel, the obstacle to the success of this love is the social barrier separating the lovers. But it is only mentioned briefly by Karamzin. The antagonism of St. Preux and Werther toward the crass and philistine society is much mitigated, and, instead, the onus for Erastus' actions remains with him alone. He is "weak and giddy" and his boredom arises from his egotistical pursuit of "wordly amusement". Erastus is simply a weak creature. Finally, Karamzin refuses to condemn Erastus too harshly and suggests in his conclusion that both Liza and her lover have been reconciled in heaven. It is the same plfea for tolerance and humanity heard in Werther, Pamela, and Clarissa. In addition to the influence of the English novel, another literary tradition is discernible in "Poor Liza", and that is the pastoral poem and tale. Sumarokov's eclogues glorify the "tenderness and faithfulness" of love in language which would not "grate upon the ear", and generally, the shepherdess is treated with more care than the shepherd. Gessner celebrates the joys of family life ("Palemón"), the child's respect for his parents ("Myrtillis"), the joys of rural life, nature, and pristine virtue ("Menalcas and the Hunter Eschinus").15 The novels of Florian (1755-1794) were widely translated from the French and immensely 14

H e was the editor of Zritel' [Spectator], a satirical journal of the nineties often extremely hostile to Karamzin. See Pis'ma Karamzina k Dmitrievu, pp. 27, 018-019. 15 "Palemón", "Mirtil", and "Menalcas und Aeschines, der Jager", Schriften (Zurich, Orell, Gessner, Fussli et Comp., 1770), III, pp. 65-9, 28-31, 80-4.

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popular in the eighties.18 An interesting aspect of his novels is the complication of plot created by the appearance of a rich competitor, who woos the maid only to withdraw when his love is not be reciprocated. He also used the device of the lover who must go to war.17 "Poor Liza" has a pastoral base. The plot of Sumarokov's eclogues is retained: A shepherdess loves a frivolous youth; complications arise but they are eventually solved. Karamzin's tragic conclusion is not found in the eclogues but is found in the romances. I have already made many references to Knjaznin's "Unfaithfulness Punished" in which a fatal oath is sworn and broken, leading to the death of the heroine, also named Liza. Karamzin might have been influenced by this poem or by the powerful finale of Werther to introduce the suicide motif. Apart from the conclusion, the action, the setting, and the characters themselves are taken from the pastoral1 tradition. The possibility of Liza's betrothal to a rich suitor and Erastus' flight into the army are resolutions to be found in both the comic opera and the pastoral novel. Nikolev's Rozana and Ljubim complicates the love affair of the young people with the threat of a rich competitor. A variation of the resolution of army service is found in Knjaznin's Unhappiness from a Carriage and Prakudin's A Village Lot. In these plays army recruitment is used as a threat - which is not carried out to separate the lovers. Finally, Liza's attitude toward her mother, her veneration and respect, are found in Gessner's idylls. In "Myrtillis", the young shepherd praises his aged father's unselfish dedication to his children: Father, t h o u hast prayed for m e ! A h , h o w h a p p y I am! G o d has heard thy prayers; or w h y w o u l d our cottage stand so secure in the midst of the fruitful branches. Or w h y w o u l d a blessing be u p o n our hearth and the fruit of our fields? 1 8

In Gessner's idyll, "Palemón", the aged father fondly recalls his youth, the great love he bore his wife, and her death in his arms. In "Poor Liza", the mother "loved to speak of her late husband and tell [Erastus] about the days of her youth". Then she relates how her husband "died in [her] arms".

111

K. Skipina, "O cuvstvitel'noj povesti" [On the Sentimental Tale], Russkaja proza [Russian Prose], eds. B. Ejkhenbaum and Ju. Tynjanov (Leningrad, Akademia, 1926), pp. 34-5. " Ibid., p. 39. 18 Gessner, op. cit., p. 29. In "Palemón", the children protect the aged father.

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The characters of Liza and her mother are defined by Karamzin's sentimental aesthetics and should not be interpreted as a democratic defense of the superiority of the peasantry. Karamzin does not reproduce reality in these personalities. The real peasant was obviously too coarse and brutal to be depicted in a literature meant for delicate and sensitive readers. Consequently, Karamzin excludes the "low", the "coarse", and the "filthy" from his characterizations. Liza is in the tradition of the idyllic heroines: a delicate and refined creature who thrives on a pure love. The statement that "Even peasant women know how to love" was entirely in keeping with the exaltation of an imaginary primitive for the delight of a reading public which did not want to be reminded of the ignorance and poverty of the lower classes. Karamzin's essays convince us that he approached the peasants in real life not with any Rousseauistic veneration but with a great deal of aristocratic suspicion. In his "Pis'mo sel'skago zitelja" (Letter of a Country Dweller), 1802, he presents the peasant as deficient in intelligence and lacking in discipline.19 In another essay, "O novom obrazovanii narodnago prosvescenija ν Rossii" [On the New Form of National Enlightenment in Russia], 1803, he describes the dissolute, debauched life of the rural peasantry and concludes that it is only through the landowner's stringent, dictatorial treatment that the peasant might be controlled so as to benefit both the landowner and himself.20 Erastus' sensitivity, love of nature, and dissatisfaction with society are in the St. Preux-Werther tradition but he is far less profound than they. Karamzin frankly admits that Erastus possessed only "a fair mind . . . [and was] weak and giddy". His superficiality makes him unable to understand the depth of Liza's love. He pursues his own pleasures quite wittingly, and unwittingly, becomes the instrument of his "shepherdess' " destruction. His idealistic dream of a "passionate friendship" and an idyllic pastoral life with Liza is revealed for what it is, the vain illusion of an unrealistic, selfish youth. Confronted with the actuality of pastoral life and the necessity of drawing all his pleasure from the affair with Liza, Erastus becomes bored. After Liza's death, he realizes his responsibility in this suicide and remains "unhappy to the end of his life". Although indebted to the pastoral tradition for his plot and certain literary devices, Karamzin criticizes in the person of Erastus the unreality of arcadian life. 19

»

Soc. Karamzina, III, pp. 567-80. Ibid., pp. 348-58.

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Karamzin handled nature with far greater subtlety than did his Russian contemporaries, P. L'vov and N. Èmin. He controls its function well, using it to complement and contrast the action of his tale. The mood is suggested at the beginning of the story by the lyrical description of the Moscow hills and the old, ruined monastery. I often go to this spot and frequently meet spring there. I also go there in the gloomy autumnal days to grieve together with nature. The winds howl fearfully through the walls of the deserted monastery, through the graves overgrown with tall grasses, and in the dark passages of the cells. There, leaning on the ruins of the gravestones, I hearken to the dull groan of ages, swallowed by the gulf of the past—a groan that makes my heart shake and tremble. This lugubrious introduction sounds most ominously in all of Liza's happy moments. As in Werther, the season's alternations accompanies the change in the heroine's fortunes. Liza meets Erastus in the spring - when the "meadows are covered with flowers" - her love is consummated in the summer, and her suicide occurs in the fall. Nature echoes Liza's fortune: the expectation and hope of spring, the fulfillment of summer, and the reckoning of autumn. But nature becomes more personal at times and even judges the action. Thus, "a storm cloud rumbled threateningly; rain poured from dark clouds - it appeared that Nature itself was mourning the loss of Liza's innocence". The early courtship of the young people is pure: ". . . the modest Cynthia did not hide behind a cloud", but in the seduction scene: ". . . not a single little star shone in the heavens - no light of any sort could illuminate the error". The clarity and musicality of Karamzin's prose style, which proved so attractive to his contemporaries, is well exemplified in this tale. It differed sharply from that of M. V. Lomonosov, the prominent classical poet and chief arbiter of Russian prose during much of the eighteenth century. In his article on Lomonosov in the Pantheon, Karamzin mixes praise for the great odist's poetry with condemnation of his prose: "In general, the prose of Lomonosov can not serve as a model for us. The long sentences, the word order, which does not always conform to the flow of ideas, are not pleasant to hear." 21 Indeed, the lengthy sentences, the frequent subordination, and the constant inversion of modifiers and predicates of Lomonosov's prose - which was closer to Ger"

Soi. Karamzina, I, p. 591.

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man and Latin than to Russian - was not always "pleasant to hear".22 Karamzin was not content to criticize Lomonosov's prose but tried to exemplify in his writing of the nineties the essential elements of a better style. His predecessor's ponderously long sentences, which did not always "conform to the flow of ideas", were considerably shortened,23 chiefly by studiously avoiding awkward subordination. Karamzin considered copulatives to be clumsy because they were not used in the spoken idiom of good society,24 and, when he had to subordinate, he preferred using relative pronouns, and less frequently, adverbs and participial constructions. In opposition to the free-word order of the Lomonosov sentence,25 Karamzin introduced a more logical "subjectpredicate-object" sequence. He insisted that each change of order led to a change of ideas: 22

The heavy construction of Lomonosov's style can be seen in the following literal translation of a letter to 1.1. Suvalov in Russkaja proza VIII veka, I, p. 57: I most humbly beg your excellency in this to be assured, that I all my efforts will expend so that those who, me from zeal are ordering to be careful, would be about me unconcerned; but those, who from vicious jealousy, spread rumors, disgraced in their false opinions will be and to know will be taught, that they by their own standard others' efforts to measure must not; and they would remember, the muses are not such sluts, whom always to rape it is possible. Which can be rendered into English thus: I must humbly beg your excellency to rest assured that I will expend all my efforts so that those who zealously ordered me to be careful shall not be concerned; but those who, viciously jealous, are spreading rumors about me, will be disgraced and they will be taught that they must not measure others' efforts by their own standards; and they should remember that the muses are not such sluts whom it is always possible to rape. 23 V. S. Podsivalov, a poet and friend of Karamzin, noted this in his style book, Sokrasënyj kurs rossijskogo sloga [Short Course on Russian Style], 1796. He wrote: "In the old days, the interval from one period to another was very great. Quite often, it was impossible to pronounce a sentence in one breath. Today, however, short sentences are used for the most part because it is difficult to understand long ones. 8, 10, or 15 words are enough for one sentence." Quoted by V. V. Vinogradov, Ocerki po istorii russkogo literaturnogo jazyka XVII- XIX vv. [Essays on the History of the Russian Literary Language of the XVII-XIX cc.] (Leiden, E. I. Brill, 1950), p. 171. 24 " 'As a consequence of that' (vsledstvie êego), 'in order that' (daby) and so on . . . sound very dissonant from the lips of woman who . . . was more beautiful than Venus", as quoted by V. V. Vinogradov, Jazyk PuSkina [Language of PuSkin] (Moscow-Leningrad, Academia, 1935), p. 204. 25 Lomonosov had specifically advised the writer to alternate different parts of his sentence. "Let the first word [of a sentence] be now a noun, now a verb, now a pronoun, now an adverb and so on. This rule must be observed in regard to the end of each sentence also", "Ritorika" (Rhetoric), Socinenija Lomonosova [Works of Lomonosov] (St. Petersburg, Akademija nauk, 1898), IV, paragraph 177.

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It seems to me that there is a law for word order in Russian. Each [word order] gives a different idea to the sentence. Where it is necessary to say: "Solnce plodotvorit zemlju" (the sun fructifies the earth) then "Zemlju plodotvorit solnce" (The earth is fructified by the sun) or "Plodotvorit solnce zemlju" (Fructifies the sun, the earth) will be a mistake. The best, that is, the true word order is always the same. Russian grammar does not define [this word order]; so much the worse for the poor writer.2® Finally, to create prose that was "pleasant to hear", Karamzin emphasized the sentence's rhythm and balance, its melody and intonation, all of which provided a harmonious accompaniment to the concrete semantic meaning. His sentences are marked by a nice balance of parts, often breaking down into two or three segments although four and five are not unusual. Each segment corresponds to the others, either in the number of syllables or in the number of accents.27 The paragraph already quoted from the opening of "Poor Liza" will illustrate this balance although almost any descriptive passage in Karamzin's writing could serve this purpose. The transliterated passage reads: Casto proxozu na sie mesto || i poeti vsegda vstrecaju tarn vesnu; || tuda ze prixozu i ν mracnye dni oseni, | gorevat' vmecte s Prirodoju. || Strasno vojut vetry | ν stenax opustevsego monastyrja, || mezdu grobov, zarossix vysokoju travoju, i ν temnyx perexodax kelij. || Tam, opersis' na razvaliny grobnyx kamnej, || vnimaju stonu vremën, || bezdnoju minuvsego pogloscennyx,— || stonu ot kotorogo serdee moe sodragaetsja i trepescet. || The first sentence consists of three independent clauses. The first two approximately balance the third (separated by the double lines), twenty syllables as against twenty-three. However, the first clause more nearly balances the second, ten syllables to eleven. This sentence has approximately four equal parts while the two others are two- and threepart sentences. The segments of each sentence are short enough to be read in one breath, that is, natural pauses can occur very easily between the sixth and tenth syllables. In the second sentence, a slight pause occurs after "vetry", "monastyrja", and "travoju". While this is not the natural flow of speech, it does suggest that Karamzin was conscious of the pauses that occur in natural conversation and did not hesitate to adapt his sentence to this rhythm. The intonation of Karamzin's sentences is of two types, rising with a subsequent lowering, or a series of rising followed by a lowering. The first sentence illustrates the former: 26 27

Soc. Karamzina, III, p. 600. Skipina, op. cit., p. 17.

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The last sentence, the latter :

Finally, the harmony and musicality is augmented by such poetic devices as alliteration, assonance, and parallelism. Ejxenbaum asserts that Karamzin in his prose style strives "for a definite melody that appealed most of all to the ear". 28 It is actually a type of "poeticized" prose, the effect of which is achieved through these devices. Karamzin utilizes the sounds of speech to provide a melodic accompaniment to the meaning. The sibilants of the second sentence suggest the wailing of the wind ("Strasno vojut vetry ν stenax opustevsego monastyrja . ..") and in the last clause, the series of vowels and sibilants, perhaps the groan of a heart (". . . stonu ot kotorogo serdce moe sodragaetsja i trepescet"). And the parallel repetition can almost be reconstructed in poetic Unes: Casto prixozu na sie mesto, I poeti vsegda vstrecaju tarn vesnu Tuda ze prixozu i ν mraenye dni. . . . While Karamzin speaks of the poet as a "fey", or a "wizard", the prose writer was no less so in his mind. In his early essay, "What is Necessary to an Author?" he wrote, What, then, can an author do? To invent, to compose expressions, to divine the best choice of words; to give the old several new ideas, present them in a new combination, but so artfully as to deceive the reader and hide from him the unusualness of the expression.29 Karamzin tries to do this in his prose. He does not attempt to convince the reader that he is depicting the exact truth of life, but, rather, that he is suggesting it imaginatively and emotionally. He sought, as he says in his essay, "Ot cegó ν Rossii malo avtorskix talantov" (Why There is So Little Writing Talent in Russia), 1802, to deceive the reader into belief, because "such deceit is the triumph of art".30

28

Boris Ejxenbaum, Skvoz' literatury [Through Literature] (Leningrad, n.p., 1924), p. 48. *· Ν. M. Karamzin, Izbrannyja stixotvorenija . . p . 91. 50 Soc. Karamzina, III, p. 528.

Vili PROSE: HISTORICAL, MORAL, AND ROMANTIC TALES

The achievements of Russian arms in the Seven Years War awakened an interest in the national past among many Russians. Histories were published and new historical journals issued. In the literary sphere, the folk talfe and folk song were studied. Russian heroes of the past were now celebrated in poetry, e.g., Vladimir and Ivan IV, the heroes of Xeraskov's epic poems. In prose, a less serious attitude guided the early approach to the past. In 1766-1768, Culkov published his collection of fanciful tales set in old Novgorod and a place he called "Viñeta", supposedly a town on the site of St. Petersburg. Appropriately enough, this collection of Slavic tales was called the Scoffer. Some two years later, Popov published his Slavic Antiquities, a work more intended in Popov's words "for the delight of his readers than for serious historical inquiry".1 This evidently did delight the Russians for it proved extremely popular, a second edition appeared in 1778 and a third in 1794. Some ten years after the first publication of Slavic Antiquities, Levsin tried his hand at fictionalizing history. He used actual names but inserted imaginary characters in his collection Russian Folk Tales, 1780-1783. He frankly tried to imitate the tales of knightly chivalry,2 popular in European literature at this time. The Kievan prince, Vladimir, became in Levsin's collection, the founder of a knightly order, whose purpose paralleled the European chivalric orders. The Russian folk heroes are types of "chevaliers errants". Culkov, Popov, and Levsin reworked actual and imaginary events of Russian history. Prose made no attempt to rival the serious treatment of Russian historical events such as was found in the contemporary tragedy or epic poetry.

1 2

As quoted by Zapadov, "Popov", Istorija russkoj literatury, IV, p. 281. He had translated several into Russian in 1778.

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Karamzin's first attempt 3 to deal with past history was influenced by his predecessors' light approach. Sipovskij stated that "Natalie, the Boyar's Daughter" was the "first conscious effort to create a Russian story based on history with a regard for couleur historique. ..."4 Actually, this statement is a bit overdrawn, for the tale is more an idyll in the Gessner tradition (strongly influenced however, by Sterne's techniques) than a "Russian story" seriously concerned with the nation's history. Karamzin claims to be recounting a "true event" or "history" of the seventeenth century. He had heard it from the "grandmother of his grandfather". It concerns Natalie, the daughter of an honorable boyar, Matvej. She had been reared as "Nature rears the little grass and little flowers, that is, [she was provided] with food and drink and the rest was left to the will of F a t e . . . . " As a child of nature, she falls innocently in love with a handsome stranger, knowing neither his name, nor his background, nor his calling. This mysterious stranger, whom she had first seen in church, proves as impetuous as he is handsome: He bribes Natalie's nurse to arrange a rendezvous and, before he even tells Natalie his name, beseeches her to flee with him. Obeying her impulses and ignoring the voice of reason which bids her wait, Natalie agrees. Again with the connivance of the old nurse, the young couple flee Matvej's home. They are married in a church near Moscow and then settle down in a cottage in the wilds. Now the stranger reveals his name, Aleksej Ljuboslavskij, and tells his sad story. Many years before, his father, a highly-placed boyar, had been accused of treason and forced to flee Moscow. He settled on the shores of the Volga and, after years of sterile mourning for his Fatherland and besmirched name, died. His son is determined to clear his name and, aided by true friends, has left the Volga wilds to settle near Moscow. Here, he is awaiting the call to action. This is the cottage in which Natalie finds herself and, since they must be patient, they busy themselves with domestic pursuits. Natalie sews; Aleksej paints. ("Nature itself had taught him the art.") But the call comes. The cruel Lithuanians are sweeping down upon Moscow. Aleksej, with Natalie at his side arrayed in warrior's dress, rushes to the Tsar's succor. They save the Fatherland. They are singled out for their bravery by the military commanders and Aleksej now reveals his identity. The Tsar had long since discovered that old 3

"Natalija, bojarskaja doò", Soi. Karamzina, ΠΙ, pp. 81-138. All quotes are taken from this edition. 4 Ocerki iz istorii russkago romana, I, Part 2, p. 721.

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Ljuboslavskij was innocent and welcomes this opportunity to redress the old wrong. He heaps honors upon Aleksej. Natalie throws off her helmet and her golden hair plummets to her shoulders. The boyar Matvej, who happens to be in the Tsar's retinue, joyfully embraces his daughter. All live happily ever after. In his fanciful preface to the story, Karamzin begins with a question that seems to promise a sound historical tale: "Who of us does not love those times when Russians were Russians; when they wore their own costumes, . . . spoke their own language, lived according to their own customs . . . ?" However, before he finishes it is clear that he is evoking an entirely imaginative past. The source of his tale is a "protograndmother", who related this tale to Karamzin, a "great-greatgrandson". In Karamzin's words: I, at least, love those times, I love to fly on the swift wings of my imagination to the distant gloom, beneath the shade of the long since rotted elms seek out my bearded forebears, [and] chat with them about ancient adventures, the character of the eminent Russian people. . . Through such conversations, Russian antiquity is "better known [to Karamzin] than to many of his fellow citizens". However, he is not prompted by any enlightened desire to disseminate this information but by the need to get rid of these various "anecdotes and tales", since there is no longer any room in his head for them. The realism of the tale is also facetiously handled. "I intend to inform my beloved readers of a true event, or history, which I heard in the realm of the shadows, in the kingdom of the imagination, from the grandmother of my grandfather. . . ." He embellishes this paradox by further describing the old lady. He fears that she will descend "from that other world" and beat him "with her crutch for his impoverished eloquence". Somewhat disturbed by this unjust accusation of the old woman (for which he is responsible), he hastens to recreate her earthly existence and describe her goodness and kindness. "In this earthly life you were meek and innocent as a young lamb; your hand never killed a mosquito or a little fly and the butterfly was allowed to rest peacefully on your nose.. . . " Finally, he evaluates his writing. He admits to being a "scribbler", who spins "tall tales on the living and the dead. . .". He also admits to having tried "the patiences of [my] readers". Fortunately, they can find refuge in "soft divans" and "deep dreams". Karamzin maintains the spoofing mood of the preface throughout

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the tale, constantly interceding to defend the incongruities and absurdities or to emphasize the humor by the style. Natalie is a model child; she is typical of the youth of the old days. In the past, parents did a good job even though they "had not read Locke, O n Education', or Rousseau's Emile - in the first place because these authors had not yet been born, and in the second, because they could not r e a d . . .". Natalie's chief occupation is church-going. She goes not once a week but every day. Karamzin is prepared for the reader's query: " 'Every day?' the reader will ask. Of course - that was the habit in the old days", is Karamzin's matter-of-fact evasion. At another point in the middle of a description of Natalie's old nurse, he apologizes for spending so much time on a low-born menial and hopes that the reader ". . . is still holding the book in his hand and is not dozing off". And, finally, Karamzin is conscious of the absurdity of Natalie's sudden love but, to maintain the offensive, rebukes the reader for showing incredulity: My dear sirs! I am relating how this affair transpired; do not doubt its truth, do not doubt the force of mutual attraction which two hearts can feel, two hearts created for each other.

His prose style also emphasizes the humor. He uses extreme comparisons and similies which often deliberately approach the point of the ludicrous. In describing Natalie's charms, he writes, Natalie was more charming than all the other [beauties]. Let the reader imagine white Italian marble or the snows of the Caucasus: He will still not capture the whiteness of her face—and in imagining the color of Zephyr's lover, he still will not fully understand the redness of Natalie's cheeks. But I fear continuing this comparison . . . because in our luxuriant time the storehouse of poetic comparisons . . . has been quite exhausted. . . .

Or in describing Natalie's soul, his delicately molded similes conclude with a rather anticlimactic generalization: At least our charming Natalie had a charming soul, tender as a mourning dove, innocent as a lamb, sweet as a May morning; in a word, she had all the qualities of a well-educated girl. . . .

His descriptions are marked by this same extreme style which borders on parody: She [Natalie] sighed—she sighed a second time and a third time . . . again she sighed and suddenly a diamond-like tear appeared in her right eye—then in her left—and both rolled down—one trickled onto her chest, while the other remained on her ruddy cheek. . . .

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When he wrote this tale, Karamzin was busy translating "The Story of Le Fever" from Stern's Tristram Shandy. He proceeded to adapt several Sternian devices to his own needs. The digression was much favored by Sterne. In its short form, it appears as an anecdote and in its longer version, as a continuing episode in the main narrative. 5 In "Natalie" Karamzin is provoked by the heroine's unhappiness into a short, philosophical digression: . . . she felt strongly some deficiency in her soul and pined away. So [Karamzin intercedes, beginning the digression] beauty! your life cannot be happy . . . if it flows as a solitary river in a desert; without a dear shepherd the entire world is a desert for you . . . No, beauty, no! your heart seeks someone else; it wants such a heart . . . which forms one feeling with it, tender, passionate, fiery—and where can it find it, where? Of course, not with Daphnis, nor with Chloe, who can only grieve with you . . . not in cold friendship . . . . You will find it in the shade of the myrtle arbor, where, sunk in despondency, in sweet yearning, a youth with light blue or dark eyes sits and with sad songs complains of your outward cruelty.— Dear reader! forgive me this digression! Not only Sterne was a slave of his pen.—Let us return to our tale. Despite his apology for the digression - the ending of which is similar to Sterne's 6 - Karamzin continued to use this device. These digressions serve to place the personality of the narrator before the reader; indeed, a colloquy often ensues between the narrator and the reader, in which the author denies ideas the reader has deduced from the text. But it is the narrator's personality which most suggests Sterne. He is extremely sensitive, quite modest, and almost afraid of the sensual. As in Sterne's Sentimental Journey7 the narrator of "Natalie, the Boyar's Daughter" is very conscious of the language of glances, tones, and manners. He believes that "physical beauty always expresses spiritual beauty", the eyes' expression is the language of love, a sweet "sympathy" unites sensitive souls, and glances can communicate ideas. His attitude toward sex is shy and appropriately hesitant. He would rather divert his description of a particularly passionate passage than violate this 5

See Peter Rudy, "Young Leo Tolstoy and Laurence Sterne", unpublished doctoral dissertation, Columbia University, 1957, pp. 151 ff., for an excellent discussion of the use of digression in Sterne. β Cf. L. Sterne, "But this is neither here nor there - why do I mention it - ask my pen, - it governs me, - I govern it not", The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman, ed. James Aiken Work (New York, The Odyssey Press, 1940), p. 416. 7 Laurence Sterne, A Sentimental Journey through France and Italy (London, MacMillan and Co., 1926), pp. 9, 22, 25, 100, 108, 221. Sterne's fondness for "translations" seems too well known to warrant discussion of it.

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attitude. When Natalie and Aleksej embrace for the first time, Karamzin begins to describe their passion and suddenly stops: "Let who would imagine the scene, I don't dare to describe i t . . . " . Or when the newly-wed couple prepare to retire to the nuptial bed: The young husband returned to his beloved—helped her undress—their hearts beat—he took her by her white hand. . . . But my modest Muse covers her face with a white handkerchief—not a word! The holy curtain descends, holy and impenetrable to curious eyes!

While this tale has certain pretenses to historical truth - Boyar Matvej's feasts for the poor and his recourse to a sorcerer to cure his daughter of her amorous "infection" - the basic plot is in the pastoral tradition. As in Gessner's idyll, "Damon and Phyllis", Natalie becomes aware of love by watching the birds flying in pairs: "The beauty noticed for the first time that they flew in pairs - they sat in pairs and hid themselves in pairs." And as in the idyll, true love is immediately recognized and it is described in terms of "fire", "flame", and captivity. Aleksej kisses Natalie "with . . . heat", is full of "fiery feelings", and looks at her with "flaming, fiery eyes". Natalie in the throes of love is described as "not being free". In keeping with this pastoral coloration, Aleksej is referred to as a "sweet shepherd" and Natalie's friends, as Daphnis and Chloe. Their married bliss is enacted against a background of vernal beauty and rural pleasures. Thus, winter passed; . . . the rivers and rivulets began to murmur again, the earth was decorated with little grass, and little green clusters blossomed in the trees. Aleksej ran out of his little home, plucked the first little flower and took it to Natalie. She smiled, kissed her friend—and at that very minute the little birds of springtime began to sing in the forest. . . . They went out and sat on the bank of the river. "Do you know", said Natalie to her husband,—"Do you know that I could not listen to the little birds last spring without sorrow?"

Natalie experiences and transmits in her thoughts and actions the deep emotion of love. Aleksej is only the foil, created when Natalie first becomes aware of love. She sacrifices for love, giving up her father and her home for this stranger. He is the fulfillment of her inchoate dreams and, to attain them, no burden is too great for her to bear. The sentimental idealization of history as a backdrop to a tale of romantic love marked the historical tale for some time to come.8 8

E.g., "Gromovoj", 1796, by A. Izmailov and "Rogvold", 1798, by V. Nareznij. The latter tale is set in "Ancient Rus' " but tells a love story in the sentimental style.

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During the editorship of the European Herald, Karamzin was much immersed in the study of Russian history and evidently felt that it could serve literature more significantly than it had in the past. He invoked some "eloquent historian" to resurrect "our forefathers" and provide the "artist" with ideas.9 Evidently his own studies were eloquent enough for him, for in 1803 he published a new historical tale, "Marfa posadnica" 10 (Marfa the Mayoress), which was different in mood and aim from "Natalie" and, more truly, marks the origin of the Russian historical novel. Karamzin called "Marfa the Mayoress" an "historical tale". In his short preface he maintained that "chance had placed the ancient manuscript in my hands" and, except for a few changes in vocabulary, it is being printed without alteration. The tale concerns the subjugation of Novgorod, a free city, by the forces of Ivan III in 1478. According to the manuscript the leader of this city was Marfa Boreckaja; her husband had exacted an oath from her in his death agonies to be the "eternal enemy of the foes of Novgorodian freedom". She is the mayoress of the town when Ivan offers it a humiliating union. She chooses to wage war rather than submit to conditions of slavery. She seeks aid from Pskov but it is not forthcoming. Patriotically, she rejects a union with Casimir, Prince of Lithuania and King of Poland. Outnumbered and without support, her troops are destroyed and, after a desperate siege, the city capitulates. Marfa is hanged by the Muscovites and Novgorod ceases to exist as a free city. Within this "historical tale", there is a love story of Marfa's daughter, Ksenija, and Miroslav, a young stranger who many years before had been found "in swaddling clothes on the iron steps of Vadim's Court". His death in battle makes his young wife an obdurate foe of Moscow and ardent defender of Novgorodian freedom, but, unfortunately, to no avail. The significance of "Marfa the Mayoress" lies in its suggested historicity. Karamzin realizes the experimental value of the tale "based on one of the most important happenings of Russian History" and assures his readers that "all the chief events are historically accurate". The characters also correspond to a large degree to their historical models. Prince Daniel Dmitrievic Xolmskij, who made the preliminary offer to the Novgorodians to accept Ivan's rule voluntarily, Marfa Boreckaja, Isaac Boreckij, the Archbishop Feofil are patterned after 8

10

See Chapter II.

Soi. Karamzina,

III, pp. 166-238. All quotes are taken from this edition.

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real personages. The "important happenings of Russian History" and real characters occupy the forefront of the stage while the sentimental elements, e.g., the fictional love story of Ksenija and Miroslav, are relegated to the rear. To bolster this illusion of historical validity, Karamzin uses several conventional literary devices. The most important is that of an "ancient manuscript" which "chance had placed" in Karamzin's hands. The manuscript's author had experienced the events, and was probably one of those "Novgorodians deported by the Grand Prince Ivan" after he subjugated the town. Karamzin, as editor of the manuscript has retained the basic text, only changing "obscure and unintelligible words". Consequently, the narrative retains many historical terms, suggesting the intimacy of the putative author with the place, period, and people concerned. The manuscript's author describes the vece, the governing body of Novgorod made up of all free citizens, the tysjatskie, military commanders elected by the vece, and ljudi zitye, members of the petty nobility, as well as the customs of the period, e.g., the return of the "sworn deed" (kljatvennaja gramota) by Novgorod signifying the breaking of political relations with Moscow. In "Natalie the Boyar's Daughter", Karamzin uses the footnote device as a droll explanation of the text's incidents. In this "historical tale" footnotes provide a serious commentary upon, or elucidation of, the text. One example will suffice. Karamzin explains the use of nonRussian names (specifically, Miroslav) in Novgorod through this footnote: "It was still the custom to use ancient Slavic names in Novgorod. Thus, the chronicles contain the name of Rat'mir, one of the comrades of Alexander Nevskij." Finally, an historical "atmosphere" is created by allowing the various characters to make constant references to past historical events. Karamzin uses these references to suggest the continuity of history to the reader and to justify the actions of his characters. In a detailed digression, Prince Xolmskij praises the unity of the Russian lands under the Rurikids, with the obvious purpose of enticing the Novgorodians into accepting a new unity under Ivan. Karamzin, however, is aware that this tale diverges from historical truth. He is not only writing an "historical tale" but also a highly imaginative story (skazka) and, hence, has taken certain liberties with real events. In his foreword, he says that he gives the manuscript to "lovers of History and - of stories. . . ." The love story of Ksenija and Miroslav and, above all, the portrayal of Marfa are fictional. Karamzin

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depicts Marfa as a tragic character; a woman of great intellect but marred by a flaw of "fanaticism". She is aware - in Karamzin's portrayal - that her fealty to the oath will lead to her own, and Novgorod's, destruction but, seemingly, refuses to turn aside from the cataelysmic effect of her actions. In keeping with the tragic depiction, Karamzin has Marfa hanged before her townspeople, while in actuality, she was arrested and deported to Moscow. In relegating the incidents of the love story to the background, Karamzin further emphasizes the tale's historicity. If "Natalie, the Boyar's Daughter" is a pastoral tale with some historical coloration, then "Marfa the Mayoress" can be termed an historical tale with pastoral coloration. Ksenija and Miroslav are fashioned from the same mold as Natalie and Aleksej. Ksenija has been "reared in the simplicity of ancient Slavic manners" and possesses an "Angelic innocence". Miroslav has a "sensitive heart" and is "holy and virtuous". Their love is also compared to a flame. Unfortunately, the flame is snuffed out for Miroslav is slain in battle and Ksenija, seeking revenge for his death, dies on the scaffold with her mother. As in "Natalie, the Boyar's Daughter",11 certain descriptions in "Marfa the Mayoress" suggest the influence of Ossian, e.g., Marfa at the grave of her husband, "in deep pensiveness she chatted with his shade . . .", or the woeful catalogue of the old warriors. There is also a minor incident which suggests an incident in "Carthon", where the son is slain by the father. Miroslav's origin is unknown but his intelligence and natural abilities indicate a fine lineage; and Ivan shows inexplicable solicitude for him during the battle: T h e M o s c o w Prince w a s surrounded b y f a m o u s knights; Miroslav cut through this strong w a l l — r a i s e d his h a n d — a n d hesitated. T h e p o w e r f u l retainer of Ivan struck h i m a b l o w o n the head with his sword, . . . and h e wanted to repeat the blow; but Ivan himself protected Miroslav with his sword.

Ivan attempts to save Miroslav's life but fails. When Ivan enters the town he visits the young man's grave:

11

In "Natal'ja, bojarskaja doò' " Karamzin refers to Aleksej "in the language of Ossian, 'a son of danger and gloom' ", S oc. Karamzina, III, p. 114. H e also uses the familiar image of a man, seated on the high bank of a river and gazing into the distance, ibid., p. 117. The scene of Natalie going into battle dressed as a young warrior is used several times in Ossian, e.g., Cornala in "Cornala", Colmal in "Calthon and Colmai".

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. . . at midnight, Ivan and Xolmskij were seen in the stillness making their way to the Sophia Temple; the two warriors lighted their path with torches; they stopped in the churchyard and the Grand Prince— kneeled at the grave of young Miroslav. It seemed that he expressed his grief and with heat reproached Xolmskij for the death of the young knight. Ivan had formerly been a "peaceful guest amidst the [Novgorodians]", and it is possible that the "young knight" was the offspring of the Muscovite ruler. It is very possible that Karamzin has the same situation in mind as occurred in "Carthon", although he does not make it clear. In 1794, Karamzin published in Aglaja a translation of J. F. Marmontel's Contes moraux, 1761. Influenced in part by Gessner's idylls, these stories deal with the union of pure hearts and exalt virtue in a fitting pastoral environment (e.g., "La Bergère des Alpes", "Laurette"). In addition, Marmontel's tales purport to "paint the manners of society",12 largely by describing different types of love: virtuous love (in "Heureusement"), self-love (in "Philosophe soi-disant"), conjugal love (in "Bon Mari"), and paternal love (in "Ecole des Pères"). In his exposition, Marmontel attempts to "join simplicity of means" to "truth of characterization".18 To do this, he strives to use only experiences familiar to his readers: games, walks, dinners, and parties. This type of tale proved very popular and it gave rise to many imitators, among them, Mme de Genlis, A.-G. Meissner and A. Lafontaine. In the same issue of Aglaja, Karamzin published a conte moral of his own, "Julia",14 which reflects in many respects the influence of Marmontel. It is the story of a virtuous but flighty society woman, Julia. Beautiful and of marriageable age, she is beseiged by various suitors: Legkoum (Light-Minded), Xrabron (Brave), Pustoslov (EmptyWord), and Prince N*. She rejects them all in favor of Aris, a young man who is not very handsome but is "judicious and tender". They marry and settle in the country. Julia is bored by the monotony of her life, and they return to the city. Julia takes up balls, dinners, and soirées once more. Prince N*, a handsome, giddy aristocrat and a former suitor of Julia, reappears and courts her. Once Aris comes across them in the garden. Infuriated at this evidence of Julia's indiscretion, he leaves her. Having lost him, Julia realizes his value and 12

"Préface", Œuvres complètes de Marmontel (Paris, Verdière, 1818), III, xiv. Ibid. 14 Soc. Karamzina, III, pp. 42-68. All quotations are from this edition and the italics are Karamzin's. 18

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breaks off with the Prince. She returns to the countryside and prepares for motherhood - she is carrying Aris' child. Finally, after some years of wandering, Aris returns to the small family and happiness reigns. Karamzin is strongly indebted to Marmontel's tale, "L'Heureux Divorce",15 for the moral, the characters, and certain structural similarities. "L'Heureux Divorce" is the story of a young wife's disenchantment with the lack of romantic passion in her husband. They agree on a trial divorce. But she becomes disillusioned with other men and more appreciative of her husband. As Marmontel phrases the moral: L'imagination détrompée et le cœur mécontent se portent à de nouveaux objets dont la perspective nous éblouit à son tour et dont l'approche nous désabuse. Ainsi, d'illusion en illusion, l'on passe sa vie à changer de chimère; c'est la maladie des âmes vives et délicates. Karamzin's heroine suffers from this "maladie", but in the description of her vision of life, the illusion has not changed into a chimera, rather it continues to beckon alluringly. Julia expresses this well: Ah! the human heart is insatiable. It seeks unceasingly something new, new impressions, which, like the morning's rose, refresh [man's] inner feeling and give him new strength. Karamzin follows Marmontel, his mentor, closely, not only expounding the same moral, but using the same incidents to illustrate the near tragedy that an insatiable heart might create for itself. Thus, in both stories, we meet a sensitive and meek husband, a decent but bored wife, an interloper (one instead of Marmontel's six), who makes the wife cognizant of her husband's virtues, and, finally, the reconciliation of husband and wife. The characters are quite similar in general plan and in detail of execution. Julia is a woman whose "heart lives virtue" and who, despite her errors, will find the true path; she was "born to be virtuous" in Aris' words. Her deplorable conduct was due, not only to her youth, but to an "injudicious upbringing and bad examples". Her maturation takes place as she recognizes the errors of her ways and corrects them. Having lost her husband, she is aware of her guilt. She berates women, who "do not value a tender, virtuous heart; they want to please the entire world, they pursue glittering victories and are the victims of their own vanity". These are the characteristics of the heroine of Marmontel's tale, Lucille, whose virtue the world has not been able to destroy. Lucille admits, "I have been mad, but I have remained virtuous". 15

Marmontel, op. cit., IV, pp. 34-75. All quotations are taken from this edition.

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Lucille is helped in her mis-adventures by the compliant society surrounding her. Her friend, Céphise, has gone out of her way to introduce her to new men, Blamzé, Clarifons, and Dorimon, in order to distract her from her marital problems. She soon realizes the emptiness of these people: Blamzé is a "fat", Clarifons, "un jaloux", and Dorimon, "un homme avantageux". She berates herself for running "after some illusions and even fleeing goodness itself. . . . " The men in the stories are also cut from the same cloth. Aris of Karamzin's tale and the Marquis de Lisère, the hero of "L'Heureux Divorce", are good, meek creatures. Their shy, reserved natures cause much of their troubles. The Marquis is not an ardent lover. Rather he wants Lucille to respect and trust him. In his relationship with her, he eschews all tyranny and force to make her comply with his wishes, preferring to gain his ends through mutual understanding and confidence. He believes that a "husband who becomes feared invites his wife to deceive him and gives her leave to detest him". After his separation from Lucille, he pays homage to her portrait, "his only consolation". Karamzin's Aris also avoids any romantic pose. In his courtship of Julia, he "looked at her from afar, he did not sigh, nor did he place his hand on his heart with languishing mien... ." After marriage, he prefers the quiet rural retreat which is, unfortunately, too quiet for Julia. Karamzin does not make Aris a simple copy of the Marquis, for once Julia and he are married, Aris is quite responsive to her emotional needs. Karamzin does distinguish the sincerity and straightforwardness of Aris from the insincerity and pretence of her other admirers. This fact in regard to their husbands is learned by both Lucille and Julia after much suffering. Aris' treatment of Julia suggests the same consideration and tolerance which marks the Marquis' conduct toward Lucille. He refuses to tyrannize over her or reproach her for her attachment to the Prince, but, rather, places complete faith in her innate virtue: "You are amazed, my friend, when I was silent and did not speak of the consequences of your giddiness; I was sure that reproaches would sooner harden your heart than touch its sensitivity. Tender patience on the husband's part is the most effective means in such cases. Reprimands, reproaches, would force you to think that I was jealous—and our hearts would have been forever separated from each other."

By accepting her wishes and complying with her desires - even if they were wrong - Aris salvages his love for Julia. She comes to realize

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that these wishes and desires were fickle and false. Her maturation is achieved when she relinquishes them. Even the secondary character, Prince N*, bears a strong resemblance to Marmontel's Count Blamzé. He, too, is basically a "fat", lacking in a moral code and without any intellectual ability. He is also a product of his society and the times. The unfounded praise of the Prince and unjust condemnation of Aris is typical of a society in which "People stubbornly seek out wit when it is not there and just as stubbornly do not admit it when it actually exists".16 "Julia" also contains, in proportion to its overall length, a substantial section devoted to the care and rearing of children and the maternal pleasures to be derived from these exercises. When Julia discovers that she is pregnant, she prepares herself for the "calling of motherhood": "Emile - the only book of its kind - never left her hand." Rousseau is the preceptor in this area of human experiences. Julia devotes her time to her son and dispenses with hired tutors; she accepts the pain of childbirth and the responsibilities of a parent; she feeds the child at her own breast. The fact of childbirth connects Julia with the great design of nature and she feels a kinship with the forces of creation: "Previously, she almost never left her room; the open sky, its expanse, the vast plains had nourished the sad idea of solitude in her soul. . .", but now with her son in her arms, she sees nature differently: "It seemed to her that the sun shone on her more brightly . . . Ί am a mother' she thought, and with brisk steps walks through the fields." Now she realizes the utter banality of society, "its deceptive illusion in comparison with the real, nourishing joys of motherhood". The country environment - so dull in her initial visit with Aris - is a source of joy and solace to her. In this rural, peaceful atmosphere, she raises her child, carefully attentive to his every experience "from the first tear to his first smile. . . . " Despite the great dependency on Marmontel and, to a lesser extent, on Rousseau, this is one of Karamzin's best stories. He tries to depict - with some success - the growth of an individual from irresponsibility to responsibility. Karamzin faithfully traces the "troubles intérieurs" of his character, and their solution follows logically from the nature of the character he has described. It is perhaps his finest creation, far 16

Soc. Karamzina, III, p. 46. Like Blamzé (Marmontel, op. cit., IV, pp. 39-50), Prince N* is a libertine who seeks feminine hearts to conquer. He loves his freedom and deplores constancy. He is strikingly handsome. See Soc. Karamzina, III, pp. 46-52, for a description of his character.

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better than Liza and Natalie, if not in its impact upon Russian literature, then in its artistic validity. Already in "Poetry', Karamzin had praised the elegiac strains of Ossian, whose songs, Pouring t h e m o s t tender yearning into the languishing spirit, T u n e d us t o sad notions; But this grief is sweet and dear to the soul.

More specifically, in the Letters of a Russian Traveler (July 17, 1789), he speaks of buying "Fingal" and several days later (July 20) he notes reading the first book. By the end of his voyage he has caught the spirit of Ossian and is busy translating him: "I listen to the sounds of the sea; I watch our swift ship cleave the waves with its black prow; I read Ossian and translate his Carthon"This translation appeared the following year in the Moscow Journal, and was the first to be made directly from the English. In the next issue of the journal and perhaps inspired by Werther's translation, Karamzin published his version of the "Songs of Selma". Ossianic influence was first evident in "Natalie, the Boyar's Daughter" in the descriptions of the young lovers' night ride, their wild honeymoon hideaway, and in Natalie's military foray with Aleksej.18 But the full influence was not to be apparent until the publication of a later tale, "Island of Bornholm", in 1794.19 The story supposedly takes place on Karamzin's return from England. An unfavorable wind forces his ship, "Britannia', to anchor near Gravesend. He goes ashore and sees "a young man, thin, pale, languishing - more apparition than man". Karamzin thinks to himself, "Unhappy youth, . . . thou hast been destroyed by fate. I know neither your name nor your race; but I do know that thou art unhappy." The unhappy young man sighs, gazes out to sea, and sings in Danish (which Karamzin maintains he had studied while in Europe) of a fatal love: T h e laws h a v e judged 17

Letters of a Russian Traveler, p. 338. I have made slight changes in the translation to make it conform more to the original Russian. 18 In "Cómala", the young girl is disguised as a young warrior as she follows Fingal into battle. In "Oithona", and "Cathlin of Clutha", the young heroes turn out to be young heroines. In Book IV of "Temora", Sulmalla follows Cathmor to war disguised as a young warrior. 19 I have used the version in Russkaja proza XVIII veka, pp. 261-70.

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The object of my love; but, What power is more powerful Than love and beauty? His love for Lila, as the girl is called is eternal. He languishes far from his native shores and death is the only escape: I will throw myself Into the noisy billows with thee. At this point, the captain makes Karamzin return to his ship, and he has no chance to talk to the young man. After a stormy voyage and six days of illness, the ship anchors off the Danish island of Bornholm. Karamzin recalls the sad singer when he sees the island, from whose "terrible cliffs, . . . bubbling rivulets with noise and froth rush precipitately to the ocean deeps". He goes ashore and meets the "coarse and rude" inhabitants, who, on the other hand, are neither "crafty nor evil". In walking about the island, he sees the "sharp towers of an ancient castle". His curiosity is aroused; and he approaches as night is falling. Suddenly, a voice asks who he is. He replies, "A foreigner . . . led by curiosity to this island; and if hospitality honors virtue in your walls, then you will shelter a stranger from the dark time of night." He has touched a sympathetic chord, for the doors swing open and a "tall man in a dark dress" guides him within. They approach an enormous house "across a vast court, overgrown with little bushes, nettles, and wormwood". "Everywhere it is gloomy and empty." The narrator is led to a "respected, grey-haired old man, leaning on a table where two white candles gleam". The old man assures the narrator that he respects him because "in my dying heart a love for people still flourishes. . . ." They talk about the state of the world and the old man asks suddenly, "Does love still reign on this earthly globe? Is incense still burned on the altars of virtue?" Karamzin is non-committal. Soon they part and Karamzin is led to his room where "ancient weapons, illumed by the weak light of the moon" hang on the walls. Now he thinks of the singer of Gravesend. In his sleep, visions of ancient warriors follow in terrifying procession; he sees heavy iron doors and a winged monster, and it is no wonder that he awakes. He decides to walk through the grounds, where "the noise of the sea waves unites with the rustle of leaves". Soon he comes to a cave in a hill. He enters and finds an iron door, unlocked, and, in a small room on a straw bed,

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a "pale young woman in a dark dress". He immediately discerns a "languishing, eternal, constant grief" in her features. The narrator turns to the reader and says, "My friend, who is not touched by the sight of an unfortunate?" He wants to help her, since he is confident of her innocence. She replies to his offer of aid: "Whoever you may be, with whatever intent you come here- . . . I am not able to demand anything but sympathy from you . . . I kiss the hand which punishes me." She avers that perhaps she had erred in the past and "God will forgive the weak". She refuses to explain. The narrator goes, bewailing her cruel punishment. He meets the mysterious old man the next morning, who relates the "terrible history" of the prisoner. The narrator then leaves the castle with the "terrible secret" of the singer of Gravesend. Rather than tell his reader now, he will save this "history" for another time. Following the famous Russian translation of Ossian by Kostrov in 1792, this tale served further to popularize Macpherson in Russia. The plot, setting, the nature descriptions, and several incidents are directly related to the Scot's "ancient" poems. The story of a father's animosity toward his daughter and the hostility of her lover to the father, recalls an incident in the "Songs of Selma".20 Colma has been separated from his love, Salgar; her brother and father oppose the affair, which culminates in tragedy. While the love story of Colma does not feature a captive maid, such incidents are found in the Ossianic poems. In "Cath-Loda", Fingal comes upon a maiden during a moonlit night standing before a cave. This is Conbancargla, imprisoned by the haughty Starno. In "Oithona", the heroine is also imprisoned on a deserted island, and, like the heroine of the "Island of Bornholm" beseeches her rescuer to leave her in "this narrow house so pleasant to me, and [on] this grey stone of the dead...." And the incident of the singer, separated by a vast sea from his beloved, suggests again Colma on her island calling to her love or the episode in "Carthon", in which Clessamor is separated from Moina. In this scene, Clessamor speaks of his yearning for his beloved. Finally, the narrator's dream in the "Island of Bornholm", a device often used by Karamzin to indicate the future course of events, suggests a direct relation to Ossian. Karamzin's apparition is of warriors, with "naked swords and angry faces" who threaten the dreamer with death. This 20

The Poems of Ossian (London, A. Strahan and T. Cadell, 1790), I, pp. 20516; "Cath-loda", ibid., pp. 1-36; "Oithona", ibid., pp. 115-23; "Carthon", ibid., pp. 77-96.

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is soon replaced with the vision of clanging doors and a winged monster. Here again, Karamzin is simply using standard descriptive elements of the Ossianic poems. Warriors and apparitions presaging death appear in "Carthon", "Oithona", and "Fingal". In the latter, the ghost of Crugal appears as a terrifying spectre, "His eyes are two decaying flames. Dark is the wound of his breast!" 2 1 The setting of Karamzin's story and the description of nature have been influenced by Ossian. In "Oithona", the dishonored maid is kept prisoner on the "sea-surrounded" island of Tromathon. The deserted castle figures in several of Macpherson's poems, perhaps most prominently in "Carthon", where it is a reminder to Clessamor of his lost happiness. He recalls, I have seen the walls of Balclutha, but they were desolate. The fire had resounded in the halls: and the voice of the people is heard no more . . . The thistle shook, there, its lonely head: The moss whistled to the wind . . . Desolate is the dwelling of Moina, silence is in the house of her fathers. And then the poet touches upon the theme of the transiency of life. Except for this theme, the castle of the "Island of Bornholm" is also "empty and desolate", its courtyard "overgrown with . . . nettles and wormwood", and it is the dwelling place of "eternal grief". As in many Ossianic poems, the season of the year is autumn and the action takes place during sunset and in the course of a moonlit night. "Sierra Morena", 22 published in the second part of Aglaja in 1795, differs considerably from Karamzin's other tales. In exotic Andalusia, a Russian traveler falls in love with young Elvira, whose beloved, Alonso, has only recently been lost in a shipwreck. The narrator succeeds in his courtship of Elvira; she reciprocates his love and they are to be married. But Elvira berates herself for being an "oath-breaker", in so far as she had promised herself to Alonso. On the day of the wedding, Alonso suddenly appears, accuses Elvira of being "false", and kills himself. Elvira refuses to marry the young Russian and retires to a nunnery. The young narrator wanders the world, a "plaything of vicious people", ever longing for his lost ideal. Actually, this little tale retains the old sequential adventure base, with a concentration on one of the incidents. Thus, the separation of the lovers is effected by a shipwreck, the lover is captured by Algerians and fettered in slavery, and, finally, after a period of bondage, he 21 22

"Fingal", ibid., p. 246. I have used the version in Russkaja proza XVIH veka, II, pp. 271-4.

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escapes.23 While these incidents are in the background, they remain essential to the plot, creating the complications necessary to forward the action. Another element that recalls the older novel form, is the role that fate plays in the lives of these characters. Although Karamzin emphasizes Elvira's "oathbreaking", it is actually the confluence of several circumstances that motivates the action. The story does not progress as a result of changes within the characters, nor as a result of the heroine's "sin". It is "fate", in the guise of a storm, a shipwreck, and the escape of Alonso that intervenes. Neither the hero nor the heroine have any control over their actions. In Karamzin's previous tales, the action progressed on the basis of imbalances within the characters, but in this tale he reverts to an older and different technique. The narrator's sudden love, Elvira's retreat into a nunnery, and Alonso's suicide are typical elements of the sentimental tale. The narrator is a type of belle âme, emotionally sensitive, melancholy, and disgusted with the vanity and philistinism of the world. He withdraws from the cruelties of it, exclaiming, "Cold world! I forsake thee!—Senseless being called man! I forsake thee! Rage in your fierce ecstasies, gnaw, slay one another! My heart is dead to you and your fate does not touch me." Elvira's retreat from the world recalls L'vov's novel, A Russian Pamela, in which the heroine flees to a nunnery because of an unrequited love. This device is found in older Russian tales, where the hero often finds refuge in a monastery from a wicked society or to do penance for some moral infraction.24 Karamzin's success in prose overshadowed his poetic achievements. Influenced primarily by Mme de Genlis and Marmontel, Karamzin broke with the novel tradition to introduce the povest' or short tale into Russian literature. It was marked by a simplicity of plot and exposition and it was written in a poeticized language. He created several different types of tales during his brief literary career, the love tale ("Poor Liza"), the historical tale ("Marfa the Mayoress"), and the romantic tale ("Island of Bornholm"). Despite their variety, a definite 23

In both of F. Èmin's novels, Nagrazdennaja postojannost' [Constancy Rewarded] and Nepostojannaja fortuna [Inconstant Fortune] such incidents are numerous. See the résumés in Sipovskij, Ocerki iz istorii russkago romana, I, Part 1, pp. 393-406, 649-61. 24 E.g., in the seventeenth century tale, "Povest' o Gore i ZloCastii" [Tale of Sorrow and Misfortune] and "Povest' dostoina kupca Fomy Grudcyna o syne ego Sawe" [Tale of Savva, Son of the Worthy Merchant Foma Grudcyn],

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uniformity in theme, characters, and method of treatment can be noted in these tales, and, as in his poetry, this uniformity reveals those sentimental aesthetic standards which directed and controlled his prose. In an article, "On the Book Trade and Love of Reading in Russia", 1802, Karamzin attributes the success of sentimental romances to their illustration of "the most common passions in various actions", and he adds, "Not everyone can philosophize or occupy the palaces of the Heroes of History; but each one loves, has loved, or wants to love, and finds in the romantic hero, his very self."25 Karamzin wanted the reader to identify himself with his (Karamzin's) heroes and their passions. Consequently, the exposition of "common passions", most notably, that of love, and the delineation of ordinary humans, are central to Karamzin's thematics and characterizations. "Common passions" and ordinary people may be Karamzin's aim, but, on reading his tales, it becomes clear that the characters are extraordinary and their passions, uncommon. Love is the passion most frequently treated: In "Poor Liza" it is naive love, in "Julia" it is conjugal and maternal love, and so on. True love for the sentimentalist is etherealized, touched by a divine power. For Liza, love "echoed in the depths of her soul, as heavenly, divine music", and for Natalie, love is conceived "under the influence of heavenly stars". Mysteriously connected with the Divinity, love, too, is mysterious. Again, it is Liza who refers to it as something "incomprehensible". Karamzin so idealizes this emotion that it is difficult for his characters to achieve, and for his readers to believe. Much the same can be said of Karamzin's characters. To facilitate the identification of the reader with them, Karamzin selects his heroes and heroines chiefly from the middle level of the nobility, e.g., Julia, Erastus, and Aris, and describes the normal social activities of balls, dances, and suppers. However, these people are not typical representatives of their social class. They are either deeply sensitive or capable of recognizing, and reacting to, sentimentality and, in so doing, reflect Karamzin's sentimental views rather than their own unique personalities. This is more clearly evident when Karamzin portrays the lower classes. Frol Silin, who is much given to tears, beneficence, and virtue, exemplifies fairly well the sentimental belle âme. The beautiful peasant, Liza, has been thoroughly cleansed of anything coarse, crude, and peasant-like. She loves nature, believes in the divinity of love and Erastus' good intentions. 25

Soc. Karamzina,

ΙΠ, pp. 545-50.

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Karamzin consistently uses certain literary devices to create the impression of reality. The most important of these is the unique position of the narrator in the tales. He is the reader's personal friend, who is recounting a truthful incident. The narrator insists that this tale is true, not an invention or figment of the imagination. In "Poor Liza", the narrator laments, "Ah! why do I not write a romance instead of the sad truth?" In the "Island of Bornholm", he bids his friends to listen to his tale, "truth not an invention". To explain how he has come by this information, the narrator states that he has either witnessed these events or has known one of the characters well ("Frol Silin", "Poor Liza", "Julia", "Island of Bornholm") or that he has read of these events in a newly-discovered manuscript ("Maria the Mayoress"). The intimate relation between the narrator and the reader would preclude any deviation from the truth, since the reader has entered the circle of "beloved friends" ("Island of Bornholm") to whom all falsehood is repugnant. In maintaining this fiction of a circle of friends, the narration takes on all the aspects of a conversation, where the narrator occasionally pauses to express a personal reaction to the events, e.g., he admonishes his reader to treat Erastus with some caution, since he is not "the master of his feelings", or he asks his reader to test certain statements against his (the reader's) experiences. Thus, by means of the narrator's position in the story as well as by the manner of narration, the reader is constantly assured of the event's reality. The impression of reality is deepened by Karamzin's use of local color. He describes sites and places that were familiar to his readers. In "Poor Liza", Karamzin mentions the Simonov and Danilov Monasteries; in "Natalie, the Boyar's Daughter", certain events occur near the "Red Gate", a spot familiar to the Muscovite reader. While Karamzin depicts a setting known, perhaps, to his readers, he does not undertake, or achieve, objective representation. He is not actually interested in reproducing a specific site exactly, but in his own subjective reactions to it. Consequently, his descriptive passages are highly colored, introducing the emotions of the author and setting the mood of the story. In the same fashion, Karamzin tries to create an illusion of reality by presenting "common passions", ordinary people, the "sad truth", and so on. But these tales are little more than a faltering step in the direction of realism. Allowing the definition of realism as "life as it is" - however weak this may be - the tales are highly subjective and much colored by Karamzin's need to relate the "pleasant things of life . . . " . The characters, their problems and the solutions are

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all filtered through the prism of Karamzin's aesthetic selectivity. After reading "Frol Silin" or "Julia", we do not have a clearer idea of a peasant or a society woman of the eighteenth century, but have been shown another belle âme garbed in peasant or fancy dress. The same subjectivity is apparent in the seasons Karamzin favors and in the landscapes he prefers. Autumn is viewed as a season of "languishing melancholy" ("Eugene and Julia") when one can "grieve with nature" ("Poor Liza"). Winter is largely ignored. Perhaps it was too fearful and terrible for the man of feeling, who preferred softer and more "delicate" seasons. "Winter approaches", Karamzin writes in the Letters of a Russian Traveler, "and the village dwellers speed back to the city to take advantage of society". Or in the "Island of Bornholm", the narrator observes with the approach of winter that "we must bid Nature farewell until the joyful spring meeting". As in his poetry - and for much the same reasons - Karamzin welcomed spring and summer with delight. He prefers the spring because one can then delight in the beauties of burgeoning nature ("Eugene and Julia"). Karamzin's dream of paradise is set in an "eternal heaven where spring always reigns, where flowers are imperishable, and where there are neither tears nor sighs" ("A Flower on the Grave of My Agathon"). The landscape of Karamzin's prose tales is predominantly pastoral with flowering fields and peasants, who frequently resemble arcadian shepherds and shepherdesses. The heroine of "Poor Liza" watches a sunrise: Quiet reigned everywhere. But the rising star of day quickly awakened all creation: the groves, [and] little bushes came to life; little birds fluttered about and began to sing; the flowers lifted their little heads to feed upon the life-giving rays of light . . . Meanwhile, a young shepherd drove his flock along the river bank, while playing on his reed pipe.

However, Karamzin does change his descriptions of nature when his literary source of inspiration changes. Thus, Karamzin abandons the pastoral landscape completely for the more rugged aspects of nature under the influence of Ossian in the "Island of Bornholm". Karamzin seems intent upon cultivating the "strongest emotion which the mind is capable of feeling", in Burke's phrase.26 In this tale, Karamzin depicts the granite cliffs of Bornholm, rising perpendicularly from the wild sea, a ruined gothic castle, and mysterious inhabitants. This view of 28

Edmund Burke, "A Philosophical Inquiry into the Origin of our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful", The Works of Edmund Burke (London, George Bell and Sons, 1909), I, p. 74.

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nature inspires thoughts of eternity in the narrator: "He saw with terror the image of cold, silent eternity there, the image of implacable death, and of that indestructible creative power, before which everything must tremble." In the Swiss section of the Letters of a Russian Traveler, Karamzin gazes upon the Alps with reverence and awe. He was familiar, of course, with the similar reactions of St. Preux before the majestic mountains. In dealing with the external aspects of nature, Karamzin prefers the classical pastoral landscape, with nature neither indecorously wild nor unnaturally decorated. In the Paris section of the Letters of a Russian Traveler (June 1790), he enters the Versailles gardens and, while giving Le Notre, the architect, his due, enters a demurral, saying, "The daring genius (Le Notre) everywhere placed proud art on the throne, and humble Nature, a poor slave, lay prostrate at his feet." Karamzin disliked the formal Versailles garden with the regular parterres, the careful arrangement of paths, walks, fountains, and statuary, and much preferred the English garden with its more "natural" setting and irregular patterns. In the same section, for example, he views the English gardens of Trianon and observes: "Nowhere is there a cold symmetry; everywhere a pleasant disorder, a sweet simplicity and rural beauty." Again, the transitional nature of sentimental aesthethics is made clear in the matter of the eighteenth-century garden: Karamzin rejects the stylized Versailles gardens as well as the unpleasant order of nature, much preferring the planned "pleasant disorder" of Trianon.

χ LETTERS

OF A RUSSIAN

TRAVELER

Karamzin left Moscow on May 17, 1789 on the first leg of a journey which took him to Germany, Switzerland, France, and England. He returned to Russia in September 1790. Karamzin's epistolary description of this tour, the Letters of a Russian Traveler, appeared serially in the Moscow Journal during 1791 and 1792. Approximately half of it was published in this manner. 1 Four volumes of the first edition appeared in 1797; the fifth and final volume was not published until 1801. Consequently, the publication extended from 1791 to 1801.2 Two types of travel books were popular in the latter part of the eighteenth century in Western Europe. One, modelled on Sterne's Sentimental Journey through France and Italy, concentrated not on the journey as such but upon the sentimental personality of the narrator. The other, represented by Charles Dupaty's Lettres sur l'Italie en 1785, was a mixture of ethnographie, historical, and geographical material with the addition of dramatic scenes, lyrical digressions, moral and social observations. Karamzin stresses the informative and educational aspects of his journey, and, consequently, the Letters of a Russian Traveler are much closer in spirit to Dupaty's book. At the same time, Karamzin's work contains elements which reflect a Sternian interest in the infinite world of his own sensibility. Karamzin refers quite frequently in the Letters of a Russian Traveler to Laurence Sterne, praising his sensitivity, originality, tenderness, and labelling him the "greatest writer of the eighteenth century". Karamzin's contemporaries, misled by this excessive praise and by the Russian's deliberate cultivation of a "sentimental traveler's" role, quickly accepted him as the Russian Sterne, much as the French had accepted 1

From the letter of May 18, 1789 to the letter of April 2, 1790. The fifth volume begins with the letter dated April . . . 1790: "What is there to say about the French Revolution?" 2

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155

Vernes and the Germans, Jacobi. 3 There is evidence of Sterne's influence in Karamzin's work, but not enough to call him Sterne's disciple. This influence is noticeable in certain aspects of the narrator's personality and the structure. Sterne's Sentimental Journey is an "effort to show the superiority of heart over head", 4 and it does so by stressing Yorick's unusual sensibilities. Every amorous dalliance and sentimental scene is calculated to demonstrate the manifest valüe of the sentiments, "source inexhausted of all that's precious in our joys, or costly in our sorrows! thou chainest thy martyr down upon his bed of straw - and 'tis thou who liftest him up to Heaven - Eternal fountain of our feelings!" 5 Each sketch of this delightful book turns upon the author himself and seeks to reveal, not so much the intricacies of the various characters as the narrator's own personality. Father Lorenzo, Madame de L - , the Grisette, exist as foils against which the deeply sensitive, searchingly perceptive personality of Yorick can reverberate. Much the same could be said of the narrator of the Letters of a Russian Traveler in regard to those portions of his work which reflect his own emotional personality, had he himself not said it so well in his conclusion: I am now rereading some of my letters. They are a mirror of my soul during these eighteen months! Twenty years from now . . . they will still be a delight to me . . . ! I shall peruse them and I shall see what kind of a person I was, what I thought, and what I dreamed.« The characters of the various short anecdotes, the longer vignettes, and dramatic episodes often reveal Karamzin's dreams and thoughts. A vignette from the German section will illustrate this point. On the road from Narva to Riga, his kibitka (a covered cart) breaks down and he is forced to wait in a cold downpour for the repairs to be made.7 A policeman comes up and shouts at him because the carriage "was lying in the center of the road". In deep despair, Karamzin curses the "restlessness of the human heart which draws us from object to object . . . and drives us to search for happiness in the uncertain future!" At this emotional nadir, a young lad appears and invites Karamzin to his house. There, the mother and father feed and entertain him while the 3

Vernes wrote Le voyageur sentimental (1786); Jacobi wrote Winterreise (1769), and Sommerreise (1770). 4 Alice Green Fredman, Diderot and Sterne (New York, Columbia University Press, 1955), p. 38. 5 Laurence Sterne, A Sentimental Journey . . . , p. 227 ("The Bourbonnois"). • Letters of a Russian Tarveler, p. 340. 7 Ibid., pp. 32-3.

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"LETTERS OF A RUSSIAN TRAVELER"

kibitka is being repaired. This incident of kindness so affects Karamzin that he cries, thanking his charitable hosts through his tears and hoping that they "would continue to cheer sad wayfarers parted from their dear friends". This scene makes evident the practical perils of traveling as well as a facet of Karamzin's own personality. It is the sentimental traveler that he seeks to describe: melancholy at the separation from his friends, gripped by the dreadful restlessness of the human heart, subject to the philistine pinpricks of society, and ever-ready to respond to goodness and hospitality. Karamzin occasionally utilizes the same characters and ideas as Sterne. The latter idealizes the meek, mild military man ("The Translation") and admires the strong ties between man and a beloved animal ("Nampont: The Dead Ass"). Karamzin is also drawn to old warriors. In Potsdam, he describes a pious, venerable veteran, who is living out his last days as a caretaker of an Orthodox Church.8 And some time later, he drinks to an old Swiss campaigner and to memories of a glorious military past. Karamzin eulogizes these "brave, deserving veterans!" 9 He lauds the friendship between a traveling companion (Gottfried Becker, 1767-1845) and his dog: "[Becker] loved his dog with all the tenderness of friendship . . .".10 He relates an incident taken from Poullain de Saintfoix' Essais historiques sur Paris11 of a dog's faithfulness even beyond death to his master, Aubri de Montdidier.12 It seems the dog had ferreted out his master's murderer, when human resources had failed. Karamzin is moved to exclaim, "When the History of People, so full of evil, drops from my hands, I shall read the History of Dogs and be comforted." 13 In describing his amorous adventures, Sterne delights in suggestive situations which end on innocent notes. Thus, his relations with Madame de L-, the incidents of the Grisette and fille de chambre suggest a pursuing male but their conclusions are admonitory rebukes to the reader to cleanse himself of all indelicate thoughts. Karamzin uses this same technique in many incidents of the Letters of a Russian Traveler. On the road to Dresden, he tells the reader of his interest in a young wife of an old "hunchbacked cavalier". "With the peace of innocence", he gazed upon "her beautiful blue eyes, her correct Grecian nose, her 8 9 10 11 12 13

Ibid., pp. 62-3. Russkaja proza XV111 veka, p. 415. Ibid., p. 348. (5 vols., 4th ed.; Paris, n.p., 1766.) Ibid., I, pp. 210-15. Soc. Karamzina, II, p. 535.

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red lips and cheeks" and, becoming progressively more enraptured, he found a reason to follow her into the parlor of an inn. Here, he speaks to her and their conversation flows smoothly. Karamzin admits that "I do not know what we would have agreed to" if his departure had not interrupted this promising beginning. He concludes this little vignette by saying, "I bowed low to the beauty and she wished me a good journey. - 'And that is all?' What can I do! I do not want to lie." A more romantic denouement in keeping with Karamzin's insinuation ("I do not know what we would have agreed to"), seems to be the conclusion Karamzin is denying by means of this final remark. While not as obvious as Sterne, Karamzin is indulging in the same game of contradicting the justifiable conjectures of his reader. In another incident, Karamzin depicts his restraint in an extremely romantic situation. Unfortunately, his traveling companion seems not to have shared his reticence. He has been asked to act as a protector of a twenty-year old girl during the long journey to Frankfort from Gotha.14 He gladly complies. During the trip she falls asleep and nestles her head on his shoulder. "As far as my conduct was concerned", Karamzin remonstrates with his reader, "I acted as honorably as a chaste knight, who fears even with a single immodest glance to insult the modesty of the innocence entrusted to him." He adds rather proudly, "Rare are such examples in this modern world, my friend, rare!" The young maid seems to have expected less noble conduct, for on leaving, Karamzin observes, "Caroline in her innocence did not even think of thanking me for my restraint and parted with me rather coldly." Another example of this shy, restrained, and yet innocent attitude is found in the episode in the French section, called "An Acquaintance at the Opera".15 Karamzin enters the opera house and is seated in a box with two ladies and a Chevalier de St. Louis. One of the women is a "beautiful young blonde". They chat amiably and Karamzin manages some moving compliments. His evident sympathy for the women is strongly contrasted with their companion's bored insouciance. This chance acquaintance gives every indication that it will blossom into something more exciting. Soon, however, the Chevalier whispers something to the women and they leave before the major work is performed. Left alone, Karamzin waits for the blonde's return and wonders, "Who was she? Was she of the nobility, respectable or . . . ? What a thought!" 14 15

Russkaja proza XVIII veka, p. 337. Letters of a Russian Traveler, pp. 227-32.

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"LETTERS OF A RUSSIAN TRAVELER"

But the doubt further insinuates itself into his mind, for he reasons that "Parisian ladies of rank do not talk so freely with strangers". He would rather disbelieve this, so he adds, "There is an exception to every rule". Karamzin now turns to his reader and exclaims, " 'The tale is ended', you will say". As for himself, he hopes for a future meeting, perhaps he will rescue her from thieves, drowning, or a fire. "I can see you smile", he adds somewhat ruefully. Here is the wistful innocence of Yorick, who can maintain, "I have something within me which cannot bear the shock of the least indecent insinuation.. .", even in the midst of the most indecently suggestive situations. As in the fille de chambre incident," in which Sterne contrasts the actual events with the reader's expectations and then castigates the reader for his conclusions ("clay-cold heads"), Karamzin contrasts his evaluation of these women with the reader's. The hardheaded, unemotional reader might conclude that they were prostitutes; this has occured to Karamzin but he has rejected it. In discussing Sterne, one critic has remarked that he seems to see things two ways, as they are and as he interprets them, which results in a 'kind of double vision. . .".17 Karamzin employs this "double vision" in several of his anecdotes and episodes, contrasting his own vision, based upon sensitivity and a firm rejection of evil, with the reader's, more practical and, perhaps, less chaste. Yorick comments on the French barber's statement that he will immerse his wig in the ocean by opining, "The French expression professes more than it performs". Then he adds, I think I can see the precise and distinguishing marks of national characters more in these nonsensical minutiae, than in the most important matters of state. . . .

It is not only the minutiae of speech that interests Sterne, but also little people and minor events, e.g., Father Lorenzo, La Fleur, Maria, the captivity of the starling and the death of the ass. There are many incidents in the Letters of a Russian Traveler which indicate the great importance that Karamzin attached to the same minutiae of human life. In Köslin, a small town near Stargard, Karamzin admires the statue of Frederick William and admits,

18

Sterne, A Sentimental Journey . . . , pp. 177-83 ("The Temptation: Paris" and "The Conquest"). 17 Fredman, op. cit., p. 55.

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You [Frederick William] are worthy of this honor, but I shall remember Köslin not for this monument alone. There a pretty innkeeper regaled us with a fine dinner! Ungrateful is the traveler who forgets such dinners, such good, kind innkeepers! I, for one, shall not forget you, comely German maid! When I recall the statue of Frederick William, I shall also recall your kind hospitality, your friendly glances, your friendly words! 18

He places the kindness of the "comely German maid" on the same level as the political activity of Frederick William; both are valid reflections of the German people. In the French section he devotes many pages to a eulogy of his valet and to a description of the little, obscure people of that great metropolis, Paris. In the English section, a serving maid attracts his attention and her tastes and habits are described for his Russian public. In the letter describing Köslin, referred to above, Karamzin inserts an interesting anecdote about a young scholar which illustrates the same regard for "nonsensical minutiae" as is found in Sterne. The young scholar is a postmaster's son who is on his way to the university to study. He seeks to impress Karamzin with his erudition and intellect. Karamzin's traveling companions, all military men, take a dislike to this pedantic youth and ridicule him. When the travelers arrive in Stargard, they are amazed to find that the young man carries a pair of enormous spurs in his pocket. With a great burst of laughter he is accused of being a Don Quijote. After the laughter subsides, one of the officers turns to Karamzin and says, "If sometime you should publish a journal of your travels, I beg you not to forget the spurs." 19 Karamzin solemnly assures him that he will carry out this wish. As in Sterne, this anecdote is more than humorous; it is also an attempt to suggest the "distinguishing marks" of a national character, in this instance, the mixture of the dry, pedantic, scholarly attitude with one that is imaginative and romantic. The contradictory facets of the young German's personality are part of the national character. Karamzin frequently indicates this dichotomy in other respects in the German section: Berlin is a site of extreme vice and honest virtue and frugality,20 it is also the home of philosophers who have not discovered how to live with their fellow men,21 and Germany is a land of expansive minds and harnessing restrictions. In an extended sense, the inci18

« 2» 81

Letters of a Russian Traveler, Ibid., p. 49. Ibid., p. 70. Ibid., p. 58.

p. 48.

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"LETTERS OF A RUSSIAN TRAVELER"

dent of the spurs seems to suggest that Karamzin has the national character in mind. The little vignette of the disembarkation in Dover serves the same purpose.22 As he walks down the gangplank, Karamzin is met by seven or eight men, all poorly dressed, who dun him for money. One exclaims, "Give me a shilling because I gave you a hand when you left the packet", another cries, "Give me a shilling because I picked up your handkerchief when you dropped it." Thus, all importune him. Karamzin uses the incident to philosophize upon the nature of the English character: "Judge for yourself just how much they love money here and if the Englishman sells his labor cheaply?" Except for some similarities in the personalities of the narrators, Karamzin's book differs from Sterne's in aim and scope. While Sterne does have a carefully planned chronological structure, it is submerged by the sea of emotional experiences which engulf the traveler. Karamzin carefully maintains the visibility of his chronology, dating his letters rather precisely for the most part to follow the actual journey. For Sterne, the emotional life is far more interesting and has precedence over any cultural or historical descriptions, and in this sense he differs markedly from his Russian admirer. One of Karamzin's main objects was to make the strange European and English scene familiar to his Russian readers. Karamzin sought to write a factual, informative travel book in the style of Karl Philipp Moritz' Reisen eines Deutschen in England im Jahr 1782 or Charles Dupaty's Lettres sur l'Italie en 1785, in which the authors include their own subjective experiences but subordinate them to the general aim of guiding and educating their readers. The Letters of a Russian Traveler is varied in mood and subject matter. There is much historical material, carefully gleaned by Karamzin from different sources and amusingly polished up to make it painlessly informative. There are philosophical observations on Western culture, not disturbingly profound nor strikingly original. There are comments on the new drama which clearly reveal Karamzin's own ideas. Light and serious interviews with the great and near-great, sentimental tales, lyrical digressions, and comments upon Western life are interpolated throughout the book and carefully arranged to appeal to his Russian readers. The literary sources of the Letters of a Russian Traveler are numerous indeed. In addition to Moritz and Dupaty, Karamzin consulted the works of William Coxe, John Moore, Louis-Sebastian Mercier, 22

Russkaja proza XVIII veka, p. 523.

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Poullain de Saintfoix, Rousseau, and Christopher Nicolai, among others.23 He either borrowed descriptions, statistics, and incidents directly or adopted the specific philosophical approach of an author to the people or the country described. Let us look at the Paris section, one of the most detailed and enjoyable in Karamzin's book, to illustrate what is meant. In Karamzin's description of Paris there is a verve and delight that distinguishes it from the other sections. One of the primary reasons was Karamzin's great anterior interest in the City of Light: "I was acquainted with the name [of Paris] almost as soon as I knew my own, [the city] of which I had read so much in novels, . . . had dreamed and thought so much about!" 24 And as the center of culture it was worthy of his interest, lending itself to a more interesting description - for Karamzin's purpose - than London or Berlin. While admitting this, Karamzin's deeper knowledge and keener appreciation of Paris must be explained. I believe the explanation lies in the detailed research in addition to the personal observations of a longer sojourn in Paris than in London or Berlin - that he undertook for this section. He used Mercier, Saintfoix, John Moore, Dulaure, and Rousseau as secondary sources and each in its own way helps fill out the Paris section. Of the many sources used, Mercier's Tableau de Paris and Saintfoix' Essais historique sur Paris contributed most to this section. Mercier gave him an overall, philosophical concept of Paris, while Saintfox provided the wealth of detailed historical information and the anecdotes which enliven the exposition. For Louis-Sebastian Mercier, Paris represented a contradiction: Life and death, wealth and poverty, virtue and vice, inextricably mixed. In the chapter, "Coup d'œil général", he speaks of the kind person who provides remedies for the poor as being lodged next to a carnivorous usurer, or of a baptism occurring during the course of a burial, or of the priest, who while administering 2S

The following is a list of the more important sources used by Karamzin: German section: F. V. Rostopcin, Putesestvie ν Prussiju [Trip to Prussia], 1784, C. F. Nicolai, Berlin und Potsdam, 1769; Swiss section: William Coxe, Travels in Switzerland, 1789, John Moore, A View of Society and Manners in France, Switzerland and Germany, 1779; French section: Louis-Sebastian Mercier, Tableau de Paris, 1782, Poullain de Saintfox, Essais historiques sur Paris, 1766, J. A. Dulaure, Nouvelles descriptions des environs de Paris, 1791, J. B. Tavernier, Les six voyages de J. B. T. en Turquie, en Perse et aux Indes pendant l'espace de quarante ans, 1678, Rousseau, La Nouvelle Héloise, 1760; English section: J. W. Archenholz, England und Italien, 1785, X. D e Lolme, Constitution de l'Angleterre ou état du gouvernement anglais, 1781. See Sipovskij, Karamzin, Avtor ..., pp. 239-362 for a detailed discussion of the influence of these sources. 24 Soi. Karamzina, II, p. 438.

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last rites, suddenly is called upon to marry two lovers. 25 Another aim of Mercier is to describe "the physiognomy of my century" and not the details of the past. In his preface he states, "My writing of this Tableau is based on living people". 26 Karamzin also accepts the contradictions of Paris and finds a need to depict contemporary events and people. He explains his purpose at the very beginning of the section: In taking up my pen to depict Paris, not of course in a detailed picture but only in its major lines, should I begin with the egg of Leda, as the Ancients say, and expound with scholarly importance that this town was at one time called Lutetia . . . I can hear your answer; "We can read Saintfoix' Essais sur Paris and know everything you might say about ancient Paris. Tell us only how it appears to you at present—we demand nothing else." And so leaving the venerable past . . . I will describe only the present. 27 And Karamzin describes contemporary Paris: the literary salons (he follows Mercier's critical treatment), 28 the theaters of Paris (like Mercier, he disavows French classical tragedy and praises Shakespeare), the people of the Paris streets and the personalities he meets in his tour of Paris. The overall concept of Paris as a city of major and minor contradictions dominates Karamzin's presentation. This appears not only in his physical description of Paris but in his analysis of the Parisians he meets. His very first view of Paris makes this clear. On entering the city he says: There is the town . . . which, during the course of centuries, has been the model for all Europe, the source of taste, of manners—whose name is pronounced with veneration by the learned and the ignorant, by philosophers and fops, by artists and boors . . . We soon entered the suburb of St. Anthony; and what do you see? Narrow, foul, filthy streets, ramshackled houses and people in tattered shirts, "And is this Paris" (I thought)—"the town which, from afar, seemed so majestic". But the scenery changed completely when we came out on the bank of the Seine; here there were beautiful buildings, homes six stories high, sumptuous shops.29 Further on in this section he adds to this initial impression: Look about you and tell me, what is Paris? Not much if you term it the 15

« "

28 2

»

Mercier, Tableau Ibid., pp. 4-5. Soc. Karamzina, Cf. Mercier, op. Soc. Karamzina,

de Paris (Paris, n.p., 1853), pp. 9, 11. II, pp. 444-5. cit., p. 194 with Soc. Karamzina, II, pp. 438-9.

II, pp. 494, 672.

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most important town in the world, the capital of majesty and magic. Stay here if you do not wish to change your opinion; walk on and you will see . . . crowded streets, an indecent confusion of wealth and poverty; next to the glittering jewelry shops a heap of rotten apples and herring; on all sides filth and even blood, flowing from the butchers' stalls—hold your nose and close your eyes . . . Walk further and, suddenly, the fragrance of balmy Arabia, or at least, of the flowering Provence fields, is wafted toward you . . . you must call Paris the most majestic and most odious of towns.30 And the people he meets reflect contradictions: the beautiful and sensitive woman he encounters at the opera, upon closer study is, perhaps, a "lady of the night" ("An Acquaintance at the Opera"); the Palais Royal, so beautiful and majestic, shelters "nymphs of joy" (Letter of March 27, 1790); the well-dressed man who sits in the Café de Chartres by day, supports himself at night by stripping paper posters from walls and selling them (Paris, May, 1790); and a Parisian beggar wears a sword to protect himself from insults while soliciting alms. Finally, Mercier feels that these contradictions point up the passing of the glory of Paris and he recalls Thebes, Persepolis, Palmyra, saying, "those cities which rose proudly from the earth and whose grandeur, strength and solidarity seemed to assure an almost eternal life, have left even the sites which they occupied in doubt". 31 Mercier was profoundly dissatisfied with a Paris which failed to recognize the existing anomalies and, consequently, would not undertake to solve the social problems which were indicated by the state of affairs. Thus, he has a political reason for his gloomy prediction that Paris will follow in the paths of Persepolis and Thebes. Karamzin also feels that the glory of Paris and the grandeur of France will pass, and queries his reader, "Who will guarantee that France - the most beautiful nation in the world, the most appealing in its climate, its produce, its inhabitants, its art and artistry - early or late will not resemble contemporary Egypt?" 32 Karamzin accepts this carpe diem theme of Mercier, but not the social reasoning that prompted Mercier's statements. Actually, Karamzin is too obviously bound up in his enjoyment of the theaters, cafes, museums and social life to worry about the causes of the contradictions he has enumerated or to worry that the whole edifice will come crashing down. Karamzin says at the beginning of the Paris section that he will 3» 31 32

Ibid., pp. 447-8. Mercier, op. cit., p. 375. Soc. Karamzina, Π, p. 433.

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"describe only the present scene", but he finds it very difficult to adhere to this plan. Innumerable historical anecdotes, bits of historical information, and opinions on historical events are scattered throughout his text. Karamzin is strongly indebted to Saintfoix' Essais Historiques sur Paris for much of this information. Saintfoix' work is a diffuse and lengthy study of Paris, the object of which is "to make known the ancient customs, usages, and, above all, the manners and background of the French character".33 The first two volumes' anecdotes, historical descriptions, and descriptions of monuments, were used quite extensively by Karamzin. The third volume, dealing with the French-English wars, and the fourth and fifth volumes, dealing with French "customs, usages, and manners", were hardly used at all. Saintfoix' work contains much information about the past of Paris, but the style and wit are heavy and somewhat tedious. Karamzin consciously reworks the borrowed material, compressing it and adding humorous lines. While Karamzin follows Saintfoix' history of the Parisian streets, he changes the material stylistically. Saintfoix thus describes the Well of Love on the Rue de la Petite Truanderie: The little place of the Well of Love, or of Ariane, is the apex of the triangle formed by these two streets with Mondetour. This well was named on the occasion of the unhappy end of a young girl who threw herself into it and drowned. She had been wronged and abandoned by her lover. Her name was Agnes Mellebic and her father held a rather considerable rank at the court of Philippe-Auguste. About three hundred years later, another incident occurred at the well. A young man, made desperate by the sternness of his mistress, threw himself [into the well] but with so much good luck that he was not hurt. He mistress had time to lower a rope to him and assured him that she would nevermore be cruel to him . . . One still reads on the well's edge in poorly inscribed Gothic letters: L'Amour m'a refait En *525 tout-à-fait.34 Karamzin uses this same anecdote in the Letters but adds several delightful touches. He writes: Agnes Mellbic, a beautiful young maiden, the daughter of the stable master at the court of Phillipp-Auguste, loved and suffered. It is far from Paris to the Cape of Leucadia: What can be done? She threw herself into the well on the Rue de la Truanderie and, by ending her days, stopped the torture of love. About three hundred years later, another incident occurred. A young man, made desperate by the sternness of his goddess, also threw himself into the well—but quite carefully—and, fortunately, he was neither 33 34

Saintfoix, op. cit., I, p. 12. Ibid., pp. 329-31.

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drowned nor hurt. The beauty, upon learning that her lover was sitting in the water, flew on the wings of the Zephyrs, lowered a rope and dragged out her cavalier, rewarding him with her love, heart, and hand. To pay his respect to the well, he rebuilt and beautified it and wrote in Gothic letters: L'Amour m'a refait En 1525 tout-à-fait.« Karamzin's humor makes the dull account of Saintfoix take on spirit and movement. Agnes Mellebic's father is demoted to stable master; she is compared to Sappho and has become a "beautiful maiden". In the next incident, Karamzin jocularly reveals the intentions of the young man who threw himself into the well by saying, he did it "quite carefully", and his love comes to him on the "wings of the Zephyrs". This is quite typical of Karamzin's reworking of the material found in Saintfoix. He enlivens it by introducing his own humerous interpolations. On the Rue des Ecrivains, Karamzin visits the house of Nicolas Flamel, the alchemist, and recounts the story of his wanderings.36 Karamzin again uses Saintfoix as his source but eliminates the historical details and inserts his own reactions to the incidents of the tale. The bare tale of Flamel remains, but it is in the background, while Karamzin, the narrator, is projected into the foreground. He turns toward his reader with questions and relates personal whimsicalities. Saintfoix' descriptions of the streets of Paris, the Louvre, Les Tuileries, and the île de Notre Dame,37 provided background for an otherwise straight description of Paris. This helps to capture some of the legend and atmosphere of the localities visited and, certainly, adds pace and color to his narration. Like Mercier or St. Preux, Karamzin also visits the Parisian theaters and reviews the French drama rather critically. The central tenets of his attack upon the "French Melpomene" and his defense of the new drama is contained in the following paragraphs, which, because of their highly-concentrated nature, will be quoted in their entirety. At the so-called "French Theater" (Théâtre Français), they perform tragedies, dramas, and the more important comedies. Even now I have not changed my opinion of the French Melpomene. She is noble, stately, beauteful, but she never touches, never stirs my heart as does the muse of 35

Soi. Karamzina, II, pp. 526-7. Ibid., pp. 529-30. Cf. with Saintfox, op. cit., I, pp. 142-8. 37 Cf. Saintfoix, op. cit., I, pp. 150-1, 257-9, 290-8, and 210-15 with Soc. Karamzina, II, pp. 528-9, 531-3, 535, and 533-5. 36

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Shakespeare and certain (true, not many) Germans. The French poets have a refined, delicate taste. They might serve as models in the arts of writing. But in matters of inventiveness, passion, and a deep feeling for nature— forgive me, sacred shades of Corneille, Racine, and Voltaire:—they must yield to the English and Germans. French tragedies are filled with exquisite tableaux in which colors and shadows are skillfully matched, but I marvel at them for the most part unmoved. Everywhere the natural is mingled with the romantic; everywhere "mes feux", "ma foi"; everywhere Greeks and Romans à la française, who languish in amorous delights, at times philosophize, express a single thought in various choice phrases and, losing themselves in a labyrinth of eloquence, forget to act. Here the public demands from the author beautiful verses— des vers à retenir. Since a play wins fame through its verses, poets bend all their efforts to increase the number of these. Being more concerned with this than with the importance of the plot, or with the novel, unusual, yet natural situations, they forget that character is revealed mainly through unusual events, which also give the dialogue its strength.38 Tragedy should "touch our heart deeply and shake our soul",39 and he was particularly susceptible to pathetic scenes, sympathetically suffering when the innocent and beautiful were menaced on stage. Of a play by Kotzebue Karamzin writes: "As I was leaving the theater, I wiped away the last sweet tear. Would you believe, my friends, that I shall number this among the happiest evenings of my life?" 40 Sédaine and Bouilly, pillars of the comédie larmoyante, had each written a new comedy, "mêlée d'ariettes", in 1789. Karamzin's reactions to these plays illustrate this delight in the pathetic. One of them was Raoul Barbe-Bleue by Sedarne with music by de Grétry. It is full of pathetic, even grisly, scenes. Using the old tale of Blue Beard and his wives, Sedaine fashions a play of virtue in extreme distress and rescued only in the final minutes of the "comedy". Karamzin was impressed by the final scene in which Rosalie, the third wife, enters a room she had sworn not to enter. Karamzin describes this rather vividly: Rosalie took the oath—what won't beautiful women swear to?—she took the oath and after two minutes . . . unlocked the door . . . Imagine her terror! . . . She sees the heads of Raoul's former wives, with the fiery inscription: Behold your fate! . . . Pale, with dishevelled hair, she throws herself into a chair and sings in a trembling voice: "Ah! quel sort Le barbare 38 39 40

Letters of a Russian Traveler, pp. 200-1. Soc. Karamzina, II, p. 474. Letters of a Russian Traveler, p. 62.

"LETTERS OF A RUSSIAN TRAVELER"

167

Me prépare! C'est la mort! C'est la mort."41 Bouilly, the author of several plays dealing with the lives of great men (/. /. Rousseau à ses derniers moments, René Descartes), turned his attention in 1789 to Peter the Great. Karamzin found Bouilly's Pierre le Grand "particularly touching, especially for a Russian".42 Aside from the national interest, the play contains themes which would naturally appeal to a sentimentalist: the veneration of rural life and the lower classes, the definition of nobility based not on class but on emotions, and the effacement of all social barriers which might stand in the way of true love. The actual plot concerns Peter's sojourn in Holland and his love affair with a simple peasant girl. Peter works as a common laborer and his comrades call him the "good, wise, intelligent Peter". Peter falls in love with a girl whose "spiritual nobility" is worthy of respect. They marry and, quite suddenly, Peter must return to Russia to quell a rebellion. The peasant girl does not know that her husband is "Tsar of All the Russias", and she suffers terribly, believing that he has deserted her. Peter returns, resplendent in his Emperor's dress, and carries the young girl back to Russia because she "loved not the Emperor in me, but the man . . . " . In the summer of 1789, Kotzebue's play Menschenhass und Reue, was performed in Berlin. This tale of a young wife who deserts her husband to flee with her lover is replete with pathetic scenes. "Not for a long time have I been so moved as tonight at the theater", Karamzin exclaims, adding, "I wept like a child... ." 4S In 1791, Karamzin wrote Sofija44 (Sophia), a "dramatic fragment", which follows Kotzebue's theme and well' illustrates Karamzin's love of the pathetic. Sophia deserts her old husband for a young man of French extraction. Later, when her fickle lover is on the point of abandoning her, Sophia kills him and then commits suicide. One touching scene follows another. In the opening scene, Sophia informs her husband of her infidelity. Shocked at this, her husband faints twice and, upon recovery, alternates between abject humility and violent anger. Eventually, Sophia is punished for her transgressions, but not before her physical and moral suffering has been made clear by the dramatist. 41 42 43 44

Soc. Karamzina, II, pp. 481-2. Ibid., pp. 483-7. Letters of a Russian Traveler, p. 61. Soc. Karamzina, III, pp. 285-313.

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"LETTERS OF A RUSSIAN TRAVELER"

According to Karamzin, the French classical repertoire lacked this pathetic element and also the "inventiveness, . . . and deep feeling for nature', which are to be found in English and German dramatists. The artificial French drama, with its rouged actors and actresses imitating the Greek but à la française, is not "pleasing to a man of natural taste".45 Shakespeare and Lessing were different: the Englishman's "majestic pictures imitate nature directly",46 while the German drew from nature the "genuine feeling for truth, which makes both the author and the man great".47 In this regard, Karamzin speaks of the French drama as "romantic", meaning by this term something "artificial and exaggerated",48 as opposed to the more natural drama of Shakespeare and Lessing. He reasoned that a direct imitation of nature meant a greater verisimilitude of theme, character, and language. Karamzin criticized Le Cid as describing events beyond the audience's experiences. He approved Kotzebue's play of an unfaithful wife and noted, "How frequent such histories are in society!"49 If the dramatist draws his characters directly from nature then they will be less artificial. Karamzin writes: " . . . Lessing, Goethe, Schiller . . . vividly present man as he is, rejecting all unnecessary embellishments...." 50 Finally, in insisting upon a direct imitation of nature Karamzin thought that language would partake of this imitation, that is, it too would be simple and truthful. And in his reviews in the Moscow Journal he delights in pointing out awkward expressions or archaic turns of speech, using as his norm the language spoken in society. In one play he mocks a playwright for comparing his love for his mistress to a miser's love for money,51 and in another he criticizes the archaic words, advising the playwright to ask himself: Do we use these words in conversation? If not, then they should not be used in the comedy, which is a representation of society. The more natural the dialogue of a play is, and the simpler, the better it will be.52 45

Letters of a Russian Traveler, p. 62. Karamzin's preface to Julius Caesar, Ν. M. Karamzin, Izbrannyja stixotvorenija . . . , p. 76. 47 Quoted by Pogodin from Karamzin's review of Emilia Gaietti, published in the Moskovskij zurnal in 1791, op. cit., I, p. 175. 48 Karamzin says in regard to La Nouvelle Hélotse: "Although Hélmse contains much that is artificial and exaggerated - in a word, much that is romantic ...", Letters of a Russian Traveler, p. 141. " Ibid., pp. 61-2. '» Ibid., p. 62. 51 Quoted by Berkov, op. cit., p. 519, from a theatrical review by Karamzin. 52 Ibid. 46

"LETTERS OF A RUSSIAN TRAVELER"

169

The didactic or moralizing element in the new drama was approached by Karamzin with a certain caution. His contemporary, Plavil'scikov, could describe the drama as "a lively picture, where virtue, expressed in refulgent colors, captivates the feelings, while vice, represented in all it vileness, repels all and produces an aversion to it'.53 Karamzin does not go this far. In a review in the Moscow Journal he warns against dull moralizing: "If an author wants to moralize, let him write a dissertation, or some type of essay, but not a drama for the theater."54 He wanted the drama to deal with common domestic problems but he carefully insisted upon the artistic validity of the presentation. The effect of the combination of moral purpose and artistic mastery, he admits, is most penetrating. He had this combination in mind when he says of Shakespeare, "When he wants to present the splendor of virtue, his paintings are powerful and his colors, dazzling."55 In addition to the little dramatic interludes such as the "Acquaintance at the Opera", Karamzin includes in the Letters of a Russian Traveler legends,6* historical and sentimental tales.57 These little literary interpolations are organically connected with the mood of the larger passage in which they occur, serving to contrast or complement it. The sentimental tale of Lord O, a rich Englishman who commits suicide from melancholy, illustrates how sad are the lives of some who live in the sumptuous English homes Karamzin is describing. The historical tale of Count Gleichen illustrates sensibility and true love in the barbarous Middle Ages. These legends and tales not only fulfill the immediate literary function of varying or supplementing the mood but they also reiterate some of the more important tenets of sentimentalism, e.g., the meaning of true love ("Count Gleichen"), the suffering of a melancholy person ("Lord O"), the strength of love ("Faldoni and Thérèse"). This same conclusion can be drawn from the poetical insertions. They appear throughout the book but are most concentrated in the French section, where one finds "Alina", Karamzin's narrative poem, pieces from Delille and Voltaire, street songs, quatrains from the comedies, and poetic inscriptions. Undoubtedly, this was in response to the literary 55

"Teatr" [Theater], Xrestomatija po russkoj literatury, p. 502. Quoted in V. Vsevolodskij-Gerngross, "N. M. Karamzin i teatr" [N. M. Karamzin and the Theater], Russkij bibliofiï [Russian Bibliophile], VII (December 1916), p. 50. 55 N. M. Karamzin, Izbrannyja stixotvorenija . . . , p. 77. 56 Soc. Karamzina, II, pp. 160-1. 57 Ibid., pp. 156, 362, 389, 425, 665-6. 54

170

"LETTERS OF A RUSSIAN TRAVELER"

sites Karamzin visited in France, e.g., Ermenonville with its echoes of Rousseau; Chantilly of Prévost; Auteuil, of Boileau, La Fontaine, and Racine. Karamzin chooses poetry which harmonizes with the mood of his passage and, at the same time, illustrates some sentimental maxim. The quatrains selected from Pierre le Grand tell of Peter's search for goodness58; the chorus from a street song is in praise of virtue89; and the pieces from Delille are in praise of nature.60 Karamzin integrates this heterogeneous material successfully. Despite his use of many different sources, the historical1 descriptions, philosophical observations, interviews, dramatic scenes, sentimental tales and poetry are composed so as to bring out such sentimental ideas as the primacy of the emotions, the cult of friendship and melancholy, the love of beautiful nature, and so on. This unity of mood and outlook is achieved without sacrificing the variety and it makes the Letters of a Russian Traveler one of the best examples of the "hybrid" travel book in Russian literature.61

58

Russkaja proza XVIII veka, p. 457. 5» Ibid., p. 481. ·· Ibid., pp. 498, 503. 61 Examples of some others: P. Sumarokov, Puteiestvie po vsemu Krymu i Bessarabii [Journey Through All Crimea and Bessarabia], 1800; V. Izmailov, Puteiestvie ν Poludennuju Rossiju [Journey to Southern Russia], 1802; P. Makaov, Pis'ma iz Londona [Letters from London], 1803.

CONCLUSION

A small stone cast into a lake causes ripples to run to all shores. In a similar fashion, Karamzin cast the stone of his prose and poetry into the vast waters of Russian literature. It quickly sank from sight but the eddies from it were not without their effect upon literary development and, perhaps, out of all proportion to the real weight of his creations. Despite the frequent triviality of his prose and poetry, Karamzin significantly influenced Russian literary developments. Although indebted in a large measure to the classical aesthetic tradition, Karamzin represents one of the most important forces in the last years of the eighteenth century working to alter the long-dominant classical style and to replace the heroic ideals of classicism with the more democratic humanistic ideals of sentimentalism. The higher classical genres dealt with grandiose themes and grand characters: military exploits, coronations and celebrations, conflicts between personal passions and social obligations of the ruling aristocracy were artfully described. When Karamzin began his literary career, it was in "sharp opposition not only to the classical style which had reigned in the eighteenth century but, in general, to everything that had preceded him in Russian poetry".1 Classicism had at this time suffered mortal wounds; it was Karamzin's responsibilities to read the last rites over it. Rarely did he write odes; only once did he essay the epic genre (a translation of the Hector and Andromache scene from Book VI of the Iliad), and he never attempted a tragedy. Consequently, the content of his poetry differs markedly from that of his classical predecessors and his contemporaries who still followed in this vein, since it lacks the elevated civic themes and descriptions of the passionate lives of the upper aristocracy. However, his "opposition" was not based on passive omission. In his first major work, "Poetry", Karamzin pointedly ignores the French 1

Blagoj, op. cit., p. 405.

172

CONCLUSION

arbiters of Russian classicism as well as his classical Russian predecessors, Lomonosov and Sumarokov. Instead he praises the poets of England and Germany and poetry of the "heart" and "soul". Some years later in his preface to Aonides, he mocked the "superfluous grandiloquence", the "inflated descriptions", and insincerity of classical poetry. And his own poetry celebrates the ordinary experiences of his private life instead of the extraordinary civic or military exploit; and it is written by and large in blank verse rather than the rhymed iambic meter of the Russian classical school, which was so aptly described by Radiscev as "Parnassus surrounded by iambics with rhyme everywhere on guard".2 "Let the Virgils celebrate their Augustuses", Karamzin announced, "I want to praise Frol Silin, a simple villager...". He goes even further; he praises the lesser nobility as well, describing in detail their personal lives and emotional experiences. Karamzin lavishes the same solicitude on the peasants and the noble class and accords them the same respect that the classical dramatists and epic-writers had reserved for the upper aristocracy. Karamzin's special "philosophical" approach toward the peasants, which is important because it is repeated by his followers, should be noted. The peasants had appeared earlier in Russian literature. They are mocked in the classical comedy and mock-epic and highly idealized in the comic operas and novels of Karamzin's preromantic predecessors. However, a critical social note had been sounded in the latter which suggested that some peasants suffered as a result of injustice within the social system. Karamzin drops this interpretation completely and honors the peasant, like Tolstoj, as a "hero of the spirit", a being whose inner harmony can not be destroyed by the evils of any political or social system. Liza's parents were happy in their Arcadia and Frol Silin was eternally grateful to his good master. It is only in passing, and without censure, in the latter tale that Karamzin mentions the iniquitous sale of human beings, observing that Frol Silin, "in the name of his master bought two maidens, . . . raised them as his daughters, and married them off with good dowries". This melioration of social conflict follows quite naturally from certain basic ideas in Karamzin's sentimental philosophy. If Western sentimentalism in the eighteenth century is associated with an increased 2 Putesestvie iz Peterburga ν Moskvu [Journey From Petersburg to Moscow] in Polnoe sobranie solirtenij [Complete Collection of Works] (Moscow-Leningrad, Izdatel'stvo Akademii nauk, 1938), I, p. 352.

CONCLUSION

173

political and social respect for the individual and the growth of democratic ideals, then Karamzin's sentimentalism represents a defense of spiritual liberty, the primacy of the emotions, and the freedom of the imagination. It is apolitical and extremely individualistic. The prerogatives of the personality are placed above, not before, the individual's responsibility to society or the state. In this respect, Karamzin was much influenced by the Moscow mason's insistence on the mystical perfection of the inner man, possible only through revelation and possible in any social system, and their belief in the righteousness of the irrational. Consequently, Karamzin does not place the blame for the evils of this world and the suffering of man on the political or social system. Everyone has the same opportunities for spiritual harmony and happiness: . . . everyone can love, love his relatives, his family, his friends—this is true happiness, which unites all people: which allows the Tsar and the farmer to feel that they are brothers, children of one Father, born with the same hearts, with the same capabilities for pleasure.3 This philosophy of Christian piety, inner revelation, and emotional cosmopolitanism undoubtedly helps explain the success of Karamzin's stories among his aristocratic admirers. Without calling for any change in the status of the peasants, he created sympathy for them and endowed them with the humanistic virtues of his genteel readers. He does not acerbate any guilt feelings that might have arisen among the gentry but retreats quietly from the harsher realities of his subject matter into the more pleasant area of the individual's subjective experiences. This is clearly seen in his poetry. Karamzin refuses "to sing of the wrath of Agamemnon" and chooses to stress the varied emotions of his personal world. He bathes his vision of the poet in a sanguine and beneficent light. The poet " . . . depicts beauty, harmony and diffuses pleasant impressions in the area of the emotions", Karamzin wrote in his preface to the Aonides. Somewhat anomalously in the repressive and obscurantist atmsophere of the nineties but entirely in keeping with his own philosophy, his poetry deals with love, friendship, the beauties of nature and the beneficence of Providence and its form is the intimate love lyric, the friendly epistle, and jocular "album" verse. Karamzin concentrated his attention largely on one area of human experiences, but in confining his effort to this area, he found the creative »

"Filalet k Melodoru", Soö. Karamzina,

III, p. 494.

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CONCLUSION

freedom which allowed him to function in a dictatorial and autocratic society. In a letter to Dmitriev of August 28, 1796, he aptly describes this poetic freedom which is independent of social and political pressures: A poet has two lives, two worlds; if he is bored in the physical world then he escapes into the land of his imagination and, there, lives according to his tastes and passions as a pious Mohammedan in a paradise with his houris.4 However narrow this concept of creative freedom, it enabled the poet to operate without a fear of consorship or, worse, a renunciation of his craft. 2ukovskij accepted this concept with little change while Puskin struggled throughout his career with the inhibitions imposed by such a creative approach.5 Despite the limitations in Karamzin's depiction of the lower classes and his restrictive concepts as to the subject matter of poetry, his prose and poetry were vital contributions. To say that peasants can love deeply, appreciate nature aesthetically, and sacrifice themselves unselfishly, was to move in the same broad line of development that culminated in Turgenev's apotheosis of the peasants in his famous Zapiski oxotnika [A Sportsman's Sketches]. In a most rudimentary way, this manifest respect for the lower classes also leads to the discovery of other representatives of the "lowly", e.g., the petty bureaucrat of Gogol's tales and the penurious and oppressed townsfolk of Dostoevsky's novels. His poetry, also, moved in a larger current. It represented a more individual1 approach to the world. It depicted that world not in the abstract or generalized lines of his classical predecessors but through the particular, and often idiosyncratic, perceptions of the sentimental personality. Thus, it is a strong contribution to the introspective lyrical poetry of 2ukovskij and Batjuskov, his most important followers, and was not without its effect upon the early lyrics of Alexander Puskin. If the themes of classical literature had little appeal' for Karamzin, the genres in which they were presented had even less. To find suitable means for expressing his sentimental ideas, Karamzin was forced to introduce new prose and poetic genres, which he found in Western literature, or to develop genres, which already existed in Russian liter4

Pis'ma Karamzina k Dmitrievu, p. 69. I am thinking specifically of his early political poems which led to his exile and of his difficulties with the Tsar and Count A. Benkendorf, the head of the secret police, who acted as judges and censors of his works upon his return.

5

CONCLUSION

175

ature, along different lines. It is not an unfair generalization to say that Karamzin created the Rusisan short story in many varieties. The love tale with its more realistic treatment of material taken from Russian life was one of his major contributions. Another, quite different in intent if not in style and theme, was the tale of "alarum and terror". "The Island of Bornholm" is the first Russian Gothic tale and it contains many of the elements and themes which became standard equipment in the romantic period: A Gothic castle in an isolated setting; military accouterment suggesting the Middle Ages; and illegitimate love (perhaps the incestuous love of a brother for his sister), which is condemned by society but condoned by nature; the cruel suffering of a beautiful maiden; and, permeating all the nooks and crannies, an air of mystery and intrigue. To a greater or lesser degree, these elements and themes are carried over into the romantic poetry of Kamenev ("Gromval'), Zukovskij ("Svetlana"), and Baratynskij ("Eda"). The historical tale, developed by Karamzin on the basis of earlier Russian experiments, is no less important. "Marfa the Mayoress" attempts to unravel the knot of the past and deal objectively with emotionally-charged issues of political freedom and political tryranny. A spirit of historical perspective and impassive fatalism hovers over this tale: Marfa pleads for her cause against the despot and awakens the reader's sympathy and understanding; the author of the manuscript, one of the patriots exiled by Ivan and, therefore, loyal to the principle of freedom for which Novgorod stood, bows to the imperative of the political situation and "even in his own soul did not blame Ivan". Karamzin tries to explain the historical necessity that prompted Ivan to destroy Novgorod as well as the psychological necessity that made Marfa oppose Moscow. Karamzin attempts to illume an entire historical period on many different levels, and this first, feeble step leads eventually to the most consummate of all historical "tales", War and Peace. The poetic genres introduced by Karamzin also played a considerable role in literary developments. His narrative poems in setting, theme, and nature descriptions are a necessary prelude to the romantic movement. "Count Guarinos", a type of border ballad with its picture of life in the Middle Ages, was imitated by Zukovskij in his "Sid" [Cid] and by Puskin in his "Bednyj rycar' " [The Poor Knight]. Another facet of romantic literature was the interest in national themes and folklore. Karamzin's poem, "Il'ja Muromec", although highly artificial and thoroughly sentimental, did utilize this material and, as a result of

176

CONCLUSION

its popularity, focused the attention of many different poets on the availability of folk sources for "serious" liteature. Radiscev's "Bova", 1799-1801, Xeraskov's "Baxarijan", 1803, and Puskin's famous "Ruslan i Ljudmila" [Ruslan and Ljudmila], 1820, duplicate Karamzin's facetious treatment of folk material. Later, a more serious attempt was made to capture the authentic spirit and tone of the folk tale, e.g., Puskin's "Skazka o zolötom petuske" [Tale of the Golden Cockerel], 1834, and his "Skazka o rybake i rybke" [Tale of the Fisherman and the Fish], 1833. Karamzin's initial venture, however, impressed a certain stamp of respectability on this material and served as a transition to the delightful masterpieces of Puskin. Vissarion Belinskij, the furious gadfly of Russian literature, wisely observed that Karamzin's "influence on his contemporaries was so strong that a whole period of our literature from the nineties to the twenties is, with good reason, called the Karamzin period".4 Karamzin's literary activity was largely confined to the nineties but his influence was indeed vital to literary developments for the next several decades. He elaborated a sentimental aesthetics and introduced the themes and genres which became essential elements in the art of his followers. However his "influence on his contemporaries" extended beyond the literary borders. A product of the Russian Enlightenment, he never wavered in the dark days of repression from the high ideals of Novikov's circle. The humane and gentle philosophy of his stories, the subtle and delicate taste of his poetry, and the respect for learning and art of his essays could not but have a civilizing effect upon his readers and serve, in Zukovskij's term, to make the "holy name of Karamzin" long revered in Russian cultural history.

•

Op. cit., p. 44.

APPENDICES

A.

RUSSIAN TRANSLATIONS OF PREROMANTIC POETRY

Passages from James Thomson's The Seasons appeared in Russian journals from 1779 on. However, references to Thomson and his poetry occur as early as 1770. Russian renditions of sections of Edward Young's Night Thoughts predate the translations of The Seasons. Excerpts from Le Tourneur's translation of 1769 were published in 1772 in Vetera [Evenings], a journal edited by Xeraskov. The first translation in book form appeared in 1778. The great popularity of Goethe's novel, Die Leiden des Jungen Werther, which was translated in 1781, awakened interest in Ossian. Werther's unabashed admiration for Ossian led E. I. Kostrov, the translator of the famous 1792 version of Ossian, to look at the bard for the first time. Kostrov was long associated with the University of Moscow and was a close friend of Karamzin. A. I. Dmitriev, the brother of Karamzin's friend, made the first Russian translation in 1788 from Le Tourneur's French version. Petrov, also, seems to have been interested in Ossian, at least enough for him to stay awake "half the winter night" reading the bard with Karamzin. 1 Gray's famous elegy was translated in 1785 and 1789, the first time in a student quarterly published in Moscow and the second time in a more substantial monthly. 2 Salomon Gessner was translated into Russian early. Five idylls were published in Xeraskov's Vecera in 1772-1773; from 1778-1780, twelve more translations of different idylls appeared in the journals. They were translated in their entirety in 1787 by V. Levsin. Haller's poetry appeared frequently in the seventies and eighties in different journals.

B.

RUSSIAN TRANSLATIONS OF THE NEW NOVEL

Marivaux' Marianne, a forerunner of Richardson's Pamela, was translated in 1762 and, some seven years later, Rousseau's La nouvelle Hélóise. Rousseau was very popular among the Moscow masons. Ivan Petrov venerated him as did many of the other masons, e.g., the younger Petrov, Kutuzov, and I. V. Lopuxin, who had a bust of Rousseau in a special arbor on his estate. The inscription read, "The wildest solitude is preferable to the society of scoundrels".3 Novikov's circle published several translations of Rousseau's essays in addition to Emile.*

1 2 3

"Cvetok na grob moego Agatona", Soâ. Karamzina, III, p. 361. Berkov, op. cit., pp. 318-9. Vernadskij, op. cit., p. 116.

178

APPENDICES

The English novel became popular in Russian from the 1760's on. However, this was due not so much to the direct translations of Richardson, Fielding, and Sterne, as it was to the many imitations of the English novel which found their way into Russia. In the period 1760-1790, some 350 translations were listed from the French, 107 from the German, and only six from the English. But many of these novels listed as translations from the French or German, were "in turn translation from the English or were written in the tradition or in direct imitation, of Richardson, Fielding, and Sterne".5 Baculard d'Arnold, Mme. de Genlis, Florian, Meissner, were translated in the seventies and eighties and proved extremely popular. Marmontel was translated in the seventies of the eighteenth century. Fielding's Tom Jones and Joseph Andrews were the first English novels to appear in Russia. They were translated in 1770; Jonathan Wild and Amelia followed in 1772. So popular was Fielding's name at this time that several of Smollett's novels were translated and attributed to him. 6 Samuel Richardson's works were not translated until a rather late date, Pamela in 1787, Clarissa in 1791 and Grandison in 1793. Karamzin published a critical review of the translation of Clarissa in the Moscow Journal in 1791. He praised the virtuous heroine and the "natural mixture of good and evil" in Lovelace.7 He concludes by rating Clarissa and La nouvelle Hélo'ise as the finest novels produced in England and France. While parts of Sterne's Sentimental Journey were translated in 1779, the complete work was not translated until 1793. Tristram Shandy was translated in 1804-7. Again, the comparatively late appearance was due to the availability of the French translation.

C.

RUSSIAN TRANSLATIONS OF THE NEW DRAMA

Russian translations of tearful comedies, bourgeois drama, and of serious comedies appeared in the sixties of the eighteenth century. Lillo's The London Merchant, 1731, was translated in 1764. Diderot's serious comedies, Le Père de famille and Le Fils naturel, were translated in the same year by D. E. El'òaninov. Marivaux' gay, sentimental comedy, Le Jeu de l'amour et du hasard, was translated at the end of that decade in 1769. Beaumarchais' Eugénie was presented in 1770 in Moscow and proved enormously successful. Edward Moore, a follower of Lillo as Beaumarchais was of Diderot, became a familiar name to Russian theater-goers of the seventies through the translations of his dramas. The Gamester was translated by the versatile actor, I. A. Dmitrievskij, in 1772 and The Foundling was translated by Prince D. A. Golicyn in 1775. Lessing's plays were translated in the eighties, Emilia Galotti, in 1784 and by Karamzin in 1788; Miss Sara Sampson in 1787. Another seminal influence was the comic opera. Catherine II invited a French operatic troupe to Russia in 1764. It presented Le Maréchal ferrant, an opéra4

E.g., "Discours sur l'origine et les fondements de l'inégalité parmi les hommes" was translated in 1781. 5 Ernest J. Simmons, English Literature and Culture in Russia (1553-1840) (= Harvard Studies in Comparative Literature, Vol. XII [Cambridge, Harvard University Press, 1935], p. 139. 8 Ibid., p. 318, footnote 28 for a list of these works. 7 As quoted by Sipovskij, Karamzin, Avtor . . . , p. 77.

APPENDICES

179

comique of Quêtant with music by Philidor. The Russians, captivated by the idyllic depiction of simple artisans and peasants, quickly became fond of this genre and between 1764 and 1800, over one hundred comic operas were presented in St. Petersburg alone. By and large, these were translations of the works of Duny, Favart, Sédaine, and Rousseau, although the Russians soon produced imitations and adaptations. Even the Empress herself was responsible for several such opéras-comiques, e.g., Fevej, 1786, and Fedul' i ego deti [Fedul' and His Children], 1790.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

I.

WORKS BY KARAMZIN

Karamzin, Ν. M., Karamzin's Memoir on Ancient and Modern Russia. Translated, edited, and with an introduction ("The Background and Growth of Karamzin's Political Ideas Down to 1810") by Richard Pipes (Cambridge, Massachusetts, Harvard University Press, 1959). , Letters of a Russian Traveler. Translated by Florence Jonas. With an Introduction by Leon Stilman (New York, Columbia University Press, 1957). , N. Karamzin-1. Dmitriev, izbrannye stixotvorenija. Edited by A. Ja. KuÈerov (= Biblioteka poèta osnovana M. Gor'kim, Bol'Saja serija (Leningrad, Sovetskij pisatel', 1953). , N. M. Karamzin, Izbrannyja stixotvorenija i razsuzdenija. Edited by A. A. Silov (Moscow, Pol'za, 1914). , Perepiska Karamzina s Lafaterom. Edited by Ja. Grot ( = Zapiski Imperatorskoj akademii nauk, Vol. LXXIII) (St. Petersburg, Akademija nauk, 1894). ,Pis'ma N. M. Karamzina k I. I. Dmitrievu. Edited by Ja. Grot and P. Pekarskij (St. Petersburg, Akademija nauk, 1866). , "Pis'ma russkago putesestvennika". Russkaja proza XV1I1 veka. Edited by A. V. Zapadov and G. P. Makogonenko. Vol. II (Moscow-Leningrad, Gosudarstvennoe izdatel'stvo xudozestvennoj literatury, 1950), pp. 275-574. , Socinenija Karamzina. Edited by V. V. Sipovskij (Petrograd, Akademija nauk, 1917). , Soiinenija Karamzina, 3 vols. (St. Petersburg, Karl Kraj, 1848). II. WORKS ON OR REFERRING TO KARAMZIN Dmitriev, I. I., Vzgljad na moju zizn' (Moscow, V. Got'e, 1866). Ehrhard, Marcelle, V. A. Joukovski et le préromantisme russe (Paris, Librairie Ancienne Honoré Champion, 1938). Pekarskij, P., "O knigax pe£atannyx ν tipografii Ν. I. Novikova, i ob izdanii Karamzina: Beseda s Bogom", Pis'ma N. M. Karamzina k I. I. Dmitrievu. Edited by Ja. Grot and P. Pekarskij (St. Petersburg, Akademija nauk, 1866), pp. 465-72. Pipes, Richard, See Karamzin, N. M., Karamzin's Memoir on Ancient and Modern Russia. Pogodin, M., Nikolaj Mixajlovii Karamzin, 2 vols. (Moscow, A. I. Mamontov, 1866).

Ponomarëv, S. I., Materialy dlja bibliografii literatury ο N. M. Karamzine (— Sbornik otdelenija russkago jazyka i slovesnosti Imperatorskoj akademii nauk, Vol. XXXII. No. 8) (St. Petersburg, Akademija nauk, 1883).

BIBLIOGRAPHY

181

Skipina, Κ., " O öuvstivitel'noj povesti", Russkaja proza. Edited by Β. Èjxenbaum and Ju. Tynjanov (Leningrad, Akademia, 1926), pp. 13-41. Sipovskij, V . V., Ν. M. Karamzin, Avtor "Pisem russkago puteiestvennika" (= Zapiski istoriko-filologiceskago fakul'teta Imperatorskago s. peterburgskago universiteta, Part X L I X ) (St. Petersburg, n.p., 1899). Prilozenie: "Novikov, Svarc i moskovskoe masonstvo", pp. 1-22. Stilman, Leon, See Karamzin, Ν . M., Letters of a Russian Traveler. Vjazemskij, P. Α., "Stixotvorenija Karamzina", Besedy ν obícestve Ljubitelej rossijskoj slovesnosti. Edited by Ν . V . Kala2ov (Moscow, n.p., 1867), pp. 45-52. Also contains Vjazemskij's "Tomu sto let", pp. 56-60. Vsvolodskij-Gerngross, V., " N . M. Karamzin i teatr", Russkij bibliofil', V I I (December 1916), pp. 48-60. III.

GENERAL-RUSSIA

Alefirenko, P. K., Baxrusin, S. V., Kafengauz, Β. B. and KuSeva, E. N . (eds). Istorija Moskvy. Vol. I I (Moscow, Akademija nauk S.S.S.R., 1953). Contains the following articles: E. I. KuSeva, "Rost torgovli", pp. 268-304; P. G. Ryndzjunskij and Κ . V . Sivkov, "Izmenija ν sostave naselenija", pp. 305-332; E. I. Zaozerskaja, "Melkaja promySlennost' i manufaktura", pp. 233-68. Bartenev, Peter (ed.), Russkij arxiv (1863), 2nd ed. (Moscow, A . Mamontov, 1866). Belinsky, V . G., Selected Philosophical Works. Translator unknown (Moscow, Foreign Languages Publishing House, 1948). Berkov, P. N., Istorija russkoj zurnalistiki XVIll veka (Moscow-Leningrad, Akademija nauk, 1952). Blagodarov, Ja., See Rossijskij featr. Blagoj, D. D., Istorija russkoj literatury XVIII veka (Moscow, Gosudarstvennoe uCebno-pedagogiöeskoe izdatel'stvo, 1945). Bogoljubov, V., N. I. Novikov i ego vremja (Moscow, M . and S. SabaSnikov, 1916). Borozdin, A . K., Literaturnye xarakteristiki XIX veka, Vol. I. St. Petersburg, n.p., 1903. Dmitriev, M., Melodi iz zapasa moej pamjati (Moscow, n.p., 1869). Èjxenbaum, Boris, Skvoz' literatury (Leningrad, n.p., 1924). Ekaterina I I (Catherine II). Zapiski Ekateriny II (St. Petersburg, 1906). Êmin, F. Α., "Pis'ma Ernesta i Doravry", Russkaja literatura XVIII veka. Edited by G. A . Gukovskij (Moscow, Gosudarstvennoe uòebno- pedagogiíeskoe izdatel'stvo, 1939), pp. 145-52. See also V . V . Sipovskij, Oierki iz istorii russkago romana. Êmin, Ν., See V . V . Sipovskij, Ocerki iz istorii russkago romana. Grot, Ja., See S. A . Vengerov (ed.), Russkaja poèzija. Gukovskij, G . Α., and Desnickij, V . A . (eds.), Istorija russkoj literatury, Vol. I V , Part 2 (Moscow-Leningrad, Akademija nauk S.S.S.R., 1947). L . I. Kulakova, "Xeraskov", pp. 320-41, "Knjaznin", pp. 227-49, "L'vov", pp. 446-50, "Murav'ëv", pp. 454-61; D . K . Motol'skaja: "Nikolev", pp. 250-5; Ν . K . Piksanov: "Masonskaja literatura", pp. 51-84; L . V . Pumpjanskij: "Sentimentalizm", pp. 430-46; Α . V . Zapadov: "Lukin", pp. 265-9, "Popov", pp. 278-83. Gukovskij, G. Α., Oierki po istorii russkoj literatury i obSíestvennoj mysli XVIII veka (Leningrad, Gosudarstvennoe izdatel'stvo, 1938). Harkins, William E., The Russian Folk Epos in Czech Literature, 1800-1900 (New York, King's Crown Press, 1951). Kljuíevskij, V., Kurs russkoj istorii, Vol. V (Moscow, Gosudarstvennoe social'noekonomiieskoe izdatel'stvo, 1937).

182

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Kokorev, Α. V. (ed.), Xrestomatija po russkoj literature XVIII veka, 2nd ed. (Moscow, Gosudarstvennoe uiebno-pedagogiSeskoe izdatel'stvo, 1956). Contains the following: P. A. Plavil'Sòikov, "Teatr", pp. 502-5; M. I. Popov, "Anjuta", pp. 360-75; A. P. Sumarokov, "Nastavlenie xotja&im byti pisateljami", pp. 160-4. Knjaznin, Ja. Β., Socinenija Knjaznina, Vol. I (St. Petersburg, KraSennikov and Company, 1847). Kulakova, L. I., See G. Gukovskij, and V. A. Desnickij (eds.), lstorija russkoj literatury. KuSeva, E. I., See Alefirenko, et al., lstorija Moskvy. Levsin, V. Α., See V. V. Sipovskij, Ocerki iz istorii russkago romana. Lomonosov, M., Socinenija Lomonosova (St. Petersburg, Akademija nauk, 1898). Longinov, M. N., Novikov i moskovskie martinisty (Moscow, Graîev and Komp, n.d.). Lukin, I. V., See Rossijskij featr. L'vov, P., See V. V. Sipovskij, Ocerki iz istorii russkago romana. Makogonenko, G. P., Nikolaj Novikov i russkoe prosvescenie XVIII veka (Moscow-Leningrad, Gosudarstvennoe izdatel'stvo, 1951). , Radiscev i ego vremja (Moscow, Gosudarstvennoe izdatel'stvo xudozestvennoj literatury, 1956). Morozov, P., See S. A. Vengerov (ed.), Russkaja poèzija. Motol'skaja, D. Κ., See G. A. Gukovskij, and V. A. Desnickij (eds.), lstorija russkoj literatury. Murav'ëv, Μ. Ν., Polnoe sobranie socinenij, 3 vols. (St. Petersburg, Rossijskaja akademija, 1819). Neledinskij-Meleckij, Ju. Α., See S. A. Vengerov (ed.), Russkaja poèzija for anonymous article on Neledinskij-Meleckij. Neumann, Friedrich W., Geschichte der Russischen Ballade, (Königsberg-Berlin, Ost-Europa Verlag, 1937). Nikolev, N. P., See Rossijskij featr. Piksanov, Ν. K., See G. A. Gukovskij and V. A. Desnickij (eds.), lstorija russkoj literatury. Plavil'scikov, P. Α., See Α. V. Kokorev (ed.), Xrestomatija po russkoj literature XVIII veka. Popov, M. I., See Α. V. Kokorev (ed.), Xrestomatija po russkoj literature XVIII veka. Pumpjanskij, L. V., See G. A. Gukovskij and V. A. Desnickij (eds.), lstorija russkoj literatury. Pyljaeva, M. I., Staryj Peterburg, 3rd ed. (St. Petersburg, A. S. Suvorin, 1903). Pypin, Α. N., lstorija russkoj literatury, Vol. IV, 4th ed. (St. Petersburg, M. M. Stasjulevic, 1913). Radiäöev, Α. N., "Putesestvie iz Peterburga ν Moskvu", Polnoe sobranie socinenij, Vol. I (Moscow-Leningrad, Izdatel'stvo akademii nauk, 1938). Raeff, Marc, Michael Speransky (The Hague, Marinus Nijhoff, 1957). Rossijskij featr. Vols. VIII, IX, XIX, XXI, XXII, XXIX, XXXIII (St. Petersburg, Akademija nauk, 1788). Vol. VIII: Μ. M. Xeraskov, "Drug neäSastnyx", pp. 177-240 and "Gonimye", pp. 241-308. Vol. IX: Anonymous, "NagraSdenie dobrodeteli", pp. 113-78. Vol. XIX: I. V. Lukin, "Mot Ljuboviju ispravlennoj", pp. 7-154. I. M. Verëvkin, "Tak i dolzno", pp. 155-238. Vol. XXI: M. I. Verëvkin, "Imjaninniki", pp. 187-306. Vol. XXII: N. P. Nikolev, "Rozana i Ljubim", pp. 5-110. Vol. XXIX: Ja. Blagodarov, "Maternaja ljubov' ", pp. 133-88. Mixail Prakudin, "Sud'ba derevenskaja", pp. 93-132. Vol. XXXIII: M. I. Verëvkin, "Toc' ν toc' ", pp. 133-78.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

183

Ryndzjunskij, P. G., See Alefirenko, et al., Istorija Moskvy. Saitov, V., See S. A. Vengerov (ed.), Russkaja poèzija. Simmons, Ernest, English Literature and Culture in Russia (1553-1840) (= Harvard Studies in Comparative Literature, Vol. XII) (Cambridge, Harvard Univeristy Press, 1935). Sipovskij, V. V., Ocerki iz istorii russkago romana, Vol. I, Parts 1, 2 (St. Petersburg, Trud, 1909). Part 2 contains the following résumés: F. Èmin: "Nagrazdennaja postojannost' ", pp. 393-406, "Nepostojanaja fortuna", pp. 649-61, "Pis'ma Ernesta i Doravry", pp. 428-54; N. Èmin: "Igra sud'by", pp. 477-91, "Roza, poluspravednaja i original'naja povest' ", pp. 460-77; V. A. LevSin: "Utrenniki vljublennago", pp. 454-60; P. L'vov: "Rossijskaja Pamela, ili istorija Marii, dobrodetel'noj poseljanki", pp. 491-510. Sokolov, A. N., Ocerki po istorii russkoj poèmy (Moscow, Izdatel'stvo Moskovskogo universiteta, 1955). Sumarokov, Aleksandr P., Polnoe sobrante socinenij Sumarokova. Edited by N. I. Novikov. Vol. IV, VIII. 2nd ed. Moscow, n.p., 1787. Tixonravov, Ν. Α., Socinenija, Vol. Ill, Part 1 (Moscow, M. and S. SabaSnikov, 1898). TomaSevskij, B., Puskin, Vol. I (Moscow-Leningrad, Izdatel'stvo Akademii nauk, 1955). Vengerov, A. A. (ed.), Russkaja poèzija (St. Petersburg, A. E. Vineke, 1897). Contains the following articles: Ja. Grot: "L'vov", pp. 767-8; P. Morozov: "Kostrov", pp. 296-313; anonymous: "Neledinskij-Meleckij", pp. 321-34; V. Saitov: "Murav'ëv", pp. 777-9; M. Xmyrov: "Aleksandr Petrovic Sumarokov", pp. 151-6. Verëvkin, M. I., See Rossijskij featr. Vernadskij( Vernadsky), George, Russkoe masonstvo ν carstvovanie Ekateriny 11 (Zapiski istoriko-filologiieskogo fakul'teta, Vol. CXXXII) (Petrograd, Akcionernoe obscestvo, 1917). Veselovskij, Α. Α., Ljubovnaja lirika XVIII veka (St. Petersburg, Jasnorforodskij, 1909). Vigel', F. F., Zapiski, Vol. I. Moscow, n.p., 1891. Vinogradov, V. V., Jazyk Puskina (Moscow-Leningrad, Academia, 1935). , Ocerki po istorii russkogo literaturnogo jazyka XVI1-X1X vv. (Leiden, Ε. I. Brill, 1950). Xeraskov, Μ. M., See Rossijskij featr. Xmyrov, M., See S. A. Vengerov (ed.), Russkaja poèzija. Zaozerskaja, E. I., See Alefirenko, et al., Istorija Moskvy. Zapadov, A. V., See G. A. Gukovskij and V. A. Desnickij (eds.), Istorija russkoj literatury. IV.

GENERAL-EUROPE

Batteux, Charles, Les Beaux arts réduit à un même principe (Paris, Durand, 1747). Beaumarchais, See Barrett H. Clark (ed.), European Theories of Drama. Boileau-Despreaux, Nicholas, "Art of Poetry". Translated by William Soames, The Art of Poetry. Edited by Albert S. Cook (Boston, Ginn and Company, 1892), pp. 150-222. Bonnet, Charles, The Contemplation of Nature, Translator unknown, Vol. I (London, T. Longman, 1766). Bürger, G. Α., Sämmtliche Werke, Vols. I, Π (Vienna, Anton Doll, 1812). Burke, Edmund, "A Philosophical Inquiry into the Origin of our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful", The Works of Edmund Burke, Vol. I (London, George Bell and Sons, 1909), pp. 49-181.

184

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Clark, Barrett H. (ed.), European Theories of Drama, Revised ed. (New YorkLondon, D. Appleton and Company, 1929). Contains the following articles: Beaumarchais (Carón, Pierre-Augustin), "Essay on the Serious Drama", translated by Barrett H. Clark, pp. 301-8; Denis Diderot, "On Dramatic Poetry", translated by Barrett H. Clark, pp. 286-9. Diderot, Denis, See Barrett H. Clark (ed.), European Theories of Drama. Dilworth, Ernest Nevin, The Unsentimental Journey of Laurence Sterne (Morningside Heights, New York, King's Crown Press, 1948). Fontenelle, Bernard Bouvier de, Œuvres complètes de Fontenelle, Vol. Ill, Part 1 (Paris, A. Belin, 1818). Fredman, Alice Green, Diderot and Sterne (New York, Columbia University Press, 1955). Gaiffe, F., Le Drame en France au XVUle siècle (Paris, Armand Colin, 1910). Geliert, Christian F., Sämmtliche Schriften, Parts I, IV (Leipzig, Weidmanns Erben und Reich, 1784). Genlis, Stéphanie Félicité de, Les Veillées du Château, Edited by M. de la Veaux, 4th ed. (Berlin, François de Lagarde, 1806). Gessner, Salomon, Schriften, Vol. III (Zurich, Orell, Gessner, Fussli et Comp., 1770). Gillies, Α., Herder (Oxford, Basil Blackwell, 1945). Herder, J. G. von, Herders Werke, Edited by Theodor Matthias, Vol. Ill (Leipzig and Vienna, Bibliographisches Institut, n.d.). Lillo, George, The Works of Mr. George Lillo, Vol. I (London, T. Davies, 1775). Macpherson, James, The Poems of Ossian, Vol. I (London, A. Strahan and T. Cadell, 1790). Marmontel, J.-F., Œuvres complètes de Marmontel, Vols. ΠΙ, IV (Paris, Verdiere, 1818).

Menéndez y Pelayo, D. Marcelino (ed.), Antología de Poetas Líricos Castellanos, Vol. IX, 2nd ed. (Madrid, Hernando y Compania, 1900). Mercier, Louis-Sebastien, Tableau de Paris, Paris, n.p., 1853. Rudy, Peter, "Young Leo Tolstoy and Laurence Sterne", Unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, Department of Slavic Languages, Columbia University, 1957, p. 325. Saintfox, Poullain de, Essais historiques sur Paris, 5 vols., 4th ed. Paris, n.p., 1766. Schiller, Friedrich, "On Simple and Sentimental Poetry", Essays Aesthetical and Philosophical, Translator unknown (London, George Bell and Sons, 1875), pp. 262-332. Schneider, Heinrich, Quest for Mysteries (Ithaca, New York, Cornell University Press, 1947). Sterne, Laurence, A Sentimental Journey Through France and Italy (London, MacMillan and Co., 1926). , The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman, Edited by James Aiken Work (New York, The Odyssey Press, 1940). Tieghem, Paul van, Le préromantisme, Vol. I (Paris, F. Reider et Cie, 1924), Vol. II (Paris, Felix Alean, 1930). Wilcox, Frank Howard, Prévosfs Translations of Richardson's Novels ( = University of California Publications in Modern Philology, Vol. 12) (Berkeley, California, University of California Press, 1927). Young, Edward, Conjectures on Original Composition, 2nd ed., London, n.p., 1759.

INDEX

Ablesimov, Α. Α., The Miller, Sorcerer, Imposter, and Matchmaker, 81-82, 81n. Addison, J., The Tatler, 68 Aglaja, 40-42, 40n„ 92, 117, 141, 148 Alexander I, 42-43,45-46, 46n. Almanac des Muses, 41 Aonides, 41-42, 92, 96, 115, 172-174 Archenholz, J. W., England und Italien, 161η. Aristotle, 32 Arnold, Β. d', 178 Baratynskij, "Eda", 175 Barnwell, G., The London Merchant, 76 Batjuskov, 48n., 174 Batteux, C., 30, 32, 57n„ 87, 91, 9596; Les beaux arts réduit à un même principe, 30, 88-89 Baumgarten, A. G., 32 Beaumarchais, P. A. C. de, "Essay on the Serious Drama", 75-77, 179; Eugénie, 75-77, 179 Becker, Gottfried, 156 Belinskij, V. G., 122, 122η., 176 Belmonti, 75 Bertuch, F. J., Magazin der Spanischen und Portugiesischen Literatur, 104 Bion, 90 Bode, J. J., 104 Boehme, J., Mysterium Magnum, 3132n. Bogdanoviö, I. F., Duîin'ka, 60n. Boileau, 32, 51, 86, 88, 90, 170 Bojan, 111 Bonnet, C., 30, 35, 93; Contemplation de la Nature, 30, 93 Bouilly, 166-167; J. J. Rousseau à ses derniers moments, 167; René

Descartes, 167; Pierre le Grand, 167, 170 Buffon, G. L. L., 42 Bürger, G. Α., 39, 109, 111, 115; "Des Pfarrers Tochter von Taubenhain", 106-107; "Lenore", 106 Burke, E„ 77, 77n., 152 Calprenede, 70 Catherine the Great, 14, 14η., 15, 18, 18η., 21, 36, 36η„ 37-41, 38η„ 43, 51, 79, 179; The Deceiver, 36η.; Fedul' and His Children, 179; Fevej, 179; O Time, 14; Secret of a Society Opposing Absurdity, 36n.; Siberian Shaman, 36n. Cerkasskij, Α. Α., 21n. CernySev, Z. G., 21 Cicero, 32, 42 Classicism: French, 13-14, 33, 51, 8890, 162; Russian, 14, 51, 56-57, 63, 75-76, 79, 83, 84, 86, 90, 11 In., 114-115, 171-172 Corneille, P., 51, 166 Coxe, W., 160; Travels in Switzerland, 161n. Culkov, M. D., 11 On., 132; Collection of Russian Songs, 79n., 110; Scoffer, 132; Slavic Folk Tales, 110 Delille, 95-96, 169-170 DeLolme, X., Constitution de l'Angleterre ..., 161η. Demosthenes, 42 Derzavin, G. R., 41, 48, 65-67, 98, 100, 115; "Autumn During the Siege of Oiakov", 65-66; "On the Death of Prince Mesèerskij", 65; "Waterfall", 66-67, 114 Diderot, D., Le Père de famille, 76, 179; Le Fils naturel, 179; "On

186

INDEX

Dramatic Poetry", 76, 76n. Dmitriev, A. I., 177 Dmitriev, I. I., 17, 24n., 25-26, 26n„ 27n„ 34, 40, 41-42, 46, 49, 58, 66, 11 In., 112, 113, 114, 115n., 119, 174 Dmitriev, M„ 121 Dmitrievskij, I. Α., 179 Dorat, C.-J., 26, 99 Dostoevsy, F., 174 Dubos, J. B., 88 Dulaure, J. Α., 161; Nouvelles descriptions des environs de Paris, 161n. Duny, 179 Dupaty, C., Lettres sur Italie, 154, 160

El'èaninov, D. E., 179 Elizabeth, 51 Èmin, F., 120, 149n.; Letters of Ernest and Doravra, 70-72 Èmin, Ν., 74-75, 120, 124, 128; "Game of Fate", 72-73; "Roza, A Partially True and Original Tale", 72-73, 125 Euripedes, 90 European Herald, 43-45, 117, 138 Favart, 179 Fielding, H., 15, 178; Amelia, 178; Jonathan Wild, 178, Joseph Andrews, 178; Tom Jones, 178 Florian, 125-126, 178 Frederick William, 23, 159 Frederick William II, 36 Freemasons, See masonic movement Gagarina, P. Ju., 100 Geliert, C. F., 25, 28, 30 Genlis, Mme. de, 29, 119-120, 141, 149, 178; Les Veillées du château, 29n., 119; Nouveaux contes moraux et nouvelles historiques, 29n., 119 Gessner, S., 15, 26, 30, 55, 61, 86n„ 90, 133, 141, 177; "Damon and Phyllis", 137; "Das hölzerne Bein", 26; Idyllen, 125-126; "Palemón", 125-126, 126η. Goethe, J. W„ 15, 68, 72, 99, 104, 111, 124, 168; The Sorrows of Young Werther, 8-9n., 68-69, 125-

128, 177 Gogol, N., 174; The General, 78 Golicyn, D. Α., 179 Gray, T., 55, 177 Grec, Ν. I., 32η.

Inspector-

Haller, Α. von, 15, 27, 55, 177; "Die Alpen", 55; "Über den Ursprung des Übels", 27, 27n„ 55 Hamann, J. G„ 87 Herder, J. G., 35, 87, 87n., 88, 91, 104, 110, 111; Älteste Urkunde des Menschengeschlechts, 87, 87n.; Gott, einige Gespräche, 87n.; Paramythien, 87n. Homer, 17, 54, 90, 113 Horace, 32, 86 Igor Tale, See Lay of Igor Iliad, 171 Ivan III, 138 Ivan IV, 47, 132 Izmailov, Α., "Gromovoj", 137n. Jacobi, J. G., 30, 155; Sommerreise, 155n.; Winterreise, 155n. Kamenev, "Gromval", 175 Kant, I., 35 Kantemir, 51 Kapnist, 65, 86 Karamzin, M. E., 24 Karamzin, Ν. M., family background, 24; as translator, 26-27, 28, 28η., 29, 33-34, 39, 42, 120, 136, 141, 145; "Alina", 39, 106-110, 107n„ 169; "Anacreontic Lines to A.A.P.", 29η., 99; "Anecdote", 44; "Athenian Life", 40n.; "Autumn", 101102; "Count Gleichen", 169; "Count Guarinos", 39, 104-106, 104-105n., 175; "Dense Wood", 117; "The Emotional and the Cold, Two Characters", 44-45; "Epistle to Women", 100; "Eugene and Julia", 29, 117-118, 120, 121, 152; "Faldoni and Thérèse", 169; "Farewell',' 99; "A Flower on the Grave of My Agathon", 33n„ 152; "Frol Silin", 38n„ 117, 120-122, 150-151, 152, 172; "Gifts", 92-93, 95; "Graveyard", 102; History of the

187

INDEX

Russian State, 8; "Il'ja Muromec", 103, 111-113, 121-122, 175-176; "Island of Bornholm", 40η., 145149, 151-152, 175; "Julia", 40η„ 117, 142-144, 150-152; "Knight of Our Time", 117; Letters of a Country Dweller, 44, 127; Letters of a Russian Traveler, 25, 33, 40n., 42, 85, 104, 105, 107-108, 145, 152-170; "Liodor", 117; "Marfa the Mayoress", 117, 138-140, 149, 151, 175; "A Martial Song", 34n.; Memoir on Ancient and Modern Russia, 46; "Merry Hour", 99; My Confession, 44; "Natalie, the Boyar's Daughter", 38n., 117, 133140, 140n., 145, 151; "Often in this gloomy vale", 34n.; "On Parting with P*", 101; "On the Book T r a d e . . . " , 150; "On the New Form of National Enlightenment . . . " , 43n., 127; "On the Public Teaching of Sciences...", 43n.; Pantheon, 42, 128; "Philaletus to Melodorus", 40n.; "Poetry", 34n„ 53, 55, 86-87, 87n„ 90, 92, 94, 96, 102n., 104, 145, 171; "Poor Liza", 13, 38n„ 117, 122-131, 123n„ 145, 149-152, 172; "Proteus", 92, 95; "Raisa", 39, 102, 106-110, 114, 115-116; "A Real Method for Having Sufficient Teachers . . . " , 43n.; "Recovery", 101; "Sierra Morena", 40n., 117, 148-149; "Something on the Sciences . . . " , 40n., 92, 92n.; "Song of Peace", 103; Sophia, 33, 167; "Spring Feeling", 103; "Spring Song of Melancholy Person", 34n„ 101-103; "A Stroll", 29, 117; "To a Nightingale", 102; "To a Poor Poet", 92; "To Mercy", 38, 38n„ 39n.; "To Myself', 101; "To the Faithful One", 100; ' T o the Unfaithful One", 100; "Un mot sur la littérature russe", 42, 112; "What is Necessary to an Author?", 40n., 94, 96n., 131; "Why There is so Little Writing T a l e n t . . . " , 131 Kleist, E. von, 95-96, 117 Klopstock, F. G., 90, 92, 118; Messiah , 92 KluSin, Α. I., 125, 125η. Knjaznin, Ja. Β., 60-61, 106; Un-

faithfulness Punished, 60-61, 107n., 108, 126; Unhappiness from a Carriage, 126 Komarov, M„ "Van'ka Kain", 17 Kosegarten, L. T., "Des Grabes Furchtbarkeit und Lieblichkeit", 102 Kostrov, E. I., 17, 147, 177 Kotzebue, A. von, 166; Menschenhass und Reue, 167-168 Kutuzov, Α. M., 23n., 30, 37, 39, 178; "On the Pleasure of Grief", 30-31 LaFontaine, E., 60n„ 111, 141, 170 Lavater, J. C., 26, 26n., 32, 32n., 35 Lay of the Host of Igor, 42, 112 Lenz, J. M. R., 28n. Lessing, G. E„ 15, 28, 168; Emilia Galotti, 28, 179; Miss Sara Sampson, 76, 179 LeTourneur, P. P. F., 52, 177 Levsin, V., 110, 112, 132, 132n„ 177; "Mornings of a Man in Love", 72n.; Russian Folk Tales, 110, 112, 132; "Tale of AlëSa Popovií", 112η. Lillo, G., 15; The London Merchant, 51, 179 Locke, J., 135 Lomonosov, M. V., 47-48, 55-57, 65, 128-129, 129n., 172; Conversation with Anacreon, 98 Lopuxin, I. V., 39, 41, 178 Lukin, V. I., Wastrel by Love Restored, 77 L'vov, Ν. Α., 62, 65; Collection of National Russian Songs with Parts, 110

L'vov, P., 11 In., 120, 124, 128; A Russian Pamela, 73-75, 125, 149 Macpherson, J., 17, 39, 40n., 52n., 53-54, 65-66, 90, 110, 140, 140n„ 145, 147-148, 152, 177; "Carthon", 39, 141, 145, 147-148; "Songs of Selma", 39, 145, 147 Majkov, V. I., 26, 60n. Malherbe, F. de, 90 Marivaux, Le leu de l'amour ..., 179; Marianne, 178 Marmontel, J. F., 40n„ 149, 178; Contes moraux, 141; "L'Heureux Divorce", 142-144

188

INDEX

Masonic movement, 18-19, 21-22, 22n., 26-32, 32n„ 34, 36, 36n., 4041, 49, 173, 178 Meissner, A. G., 15, 141, 178 Melissino, I. I., 21 Mercier, L.-S., 160, 165; Tableau de Paris, 161-163, 161n. Milton, J., 90 Molière, 51, 90 Moore, E., The Gamester, 51, 76, 179; The Foundling, 179 Moore, J., 160-161; A View of Society and Manners ..., 161n. Moritz, Κ. P., 35; Reisen eines Deutschen in England ..., 160 Moschus, 90 Moscow Journal, 28n., 33, 38-39, 38n., 40, 42, 86, 86n„ 105, 106, 117, 120, 145, 154, 168-169, 178 Moscow Monthly Publication, 30-31, 31η. Murav'ëv, Μ. Ν., 26, 31, 3In., 34, 45, 48η., 58, 62-65, 86, 98, 115; "Grove", 64; "Incertitude of Life", 64; "Invitation", 62, 64; "Meditations", 62-63; "Night", 64; "Sunrise", 3In.; "Tablets for Notations", 31n.; "To Feona", 62; "Village Life", 63; "The Voyage", 62-64 Napoleon, 45, 47 Nareznij, V., "Rogvold", 137n. Nartov, Α. Α., 56, 60, 106; "Separation from My Love", 60 NarySkin, S. V., 56, 60, 60n„ 106; "Elegy", 60, 107n„ 108 Neledinskij-Meleckij, Ju. Α., 41, 5860, 100, 114, 114n.; "I Shall G o to the Little River", 60; "Thou Biddest me [Be] Indifferent", 59-60 Nestor, 48 Nicolai, C. F., 161; Berlin and Potsdam, 16 In. Nikolev, N. P., Rozana and Ljubim, 80-81, 126

Novikov, Ν. I., 15, 15n„ 17, 17n„ 19-23, 26-29, 27n„ 37, 37n„ 38n„ 39, 39n„ 41, 43, 62, 176, 178; Evening Light, 31; Morning Light, 29-31, 31n„ 91; Moscow News, 20, 38 Orlov, A. G., 14

Orlov, G. G., 14 Ossian, See Macpherson Ovid, 90 Panin, P. I., 14 Parny, 99 Paul, 36n„ 41-42 Pavlovna, Catherine, Grand Duchess, 46, 46n. Pazuxina, E. P., 24 Peter the Great, 13, 25, 50-51, 167, 170 Petrov, Α. Α., 28, 29, 32-34, 32n., 39, 88, 101, 177, 178 Petrov, I., 178 Petrov, V. P., 17 Pitt, 45 Platon, M., 21 Plavil'sèikov, 169 PleSèeeva, Α., 37, 40, 100 PodSivalov, V. S., 17, 129n. Pogodin, M., 9 Pope, Α., Essay on Man, 17 Popov, M. I., 17, 79η., 110, 132; Anjuta, 79-80; Collection of Russian Songs, 79n.; Slavic Antiquities, 132 Popovskij, Ν. N., 17 Prakudin, M., A Village Lot, 82, 126 Preromanticism and preromantic, 810, 8-9n„ 15, 17, 29, 32, 53, 61, 172 Prévost, 24n., 51n., 52-53, 70, 170 Protasova, A. I., 42 Protasova, E. I., 42-43, 100 Puskin, Α., 113, 174, 174n.; "Ruslan and Ljudmila", 11 In., 176; "Tale of the F i s h e r m a n . . . " , 176; "Tale of the Golden Cockerel", 176; "The Poor Knight", 175 Pusnikov, N., 75 Racine, J., 51, 90, 166, 170 Radisòev, A. N., 113, 172, 176; "Bova", 11 In., 176; "Diary of a Week", 72n.; Journey from Petersburg to Moscow, 38n., 172n. Readings for Children, 28, 93, 117 Repnin, P. I., 78 Reward of Virtue, 82-83, 82n. Richardson, S., 15, 50-53, 67, 72, 124, 177, 178; Clarissa, 51n„ 52n„ 53, 125, 178; Pamela, 51n., 52n„

189

INDEX 125, 178; Sir Charles Grandison, 5 In., 178 "Romance del conde Guarinos . . . " , 104, 104-105n. Rosicrucian order, 22-23, 30, 36, 37n. Rostopíin, F. V., 46; Trip to Prussia, 161η. Rousseau, J. J., 42, 44, 68, 124, 127, 135, 161, 170, 177, 178, 179; Le Devin du village, 81n.; "Discours sur les sciences . . . " , 92n.; Emile, 135, 144, 178; La Nouvelle Héloise, 68, 70-73, 161n„ 168n„ 178 Russian Enlightenment, 8, 15, 18, 20, 27-28, 30η., 40-41, 43, 43n„ 176 SaintfoLX, P. de, 156; Essais historiques sur Paris, 156, 161-162, 161n„ 164-165 St. Lambert, J. F. de, 95 Saint-Martin, L.-C. de, 31-32n. Sierbatov, 22n. Schaden, J. M., 19n., 24-26, 25n„ 35 Schiller, F., 168 Schwartz, J. G., 19, 19n„ 20, 20n., 21, 23, 26, 31-32, 31-32n„ 36, 88 Scarron, 24n., 70 Scudéry, G. de, 70 Sedaine, 179; Raoul Barbe-Bleue, 166 Senkovskij, O. I., 122 Sentimentalism: in Europe, 9, 15, 30, 39, 172; in Russia, 8-9, 15, 50, 52, 58, 60-62, 111, 118; and Karamzin, 8-10, 29, 39, 44-45, 62, 84-86, 96, 98, 102, 105, 107-110, 113-116, 121, 127, 150, 154-156, 160, 169, 171-176 Shaftesbury, A. A. C., 88, 94 Shakespeare, W., 28, 33, 90, 162, 166, 168-169; Julius Caesar, 28, 33 Siïskov, A. S., 48 Smollett, 178 Sophocles, 90 Spectateur de Nord, 42 Speranskiy M. M., 46, 46η. Steele, The Tatler, 68 Sterne, L., 30-31, 39, 39n., 136n., 178; Sentimental Journey, 136, 154160, 178; Tristram Shandy, 136, 178; "The Story of Le Fever", 39, 136; "Maria", 39 "Storm and Stress", 28n., 87 Stürm, C. C„ 27, 27n.

Sumarokov, A. P., 22n„ 26, 51, 5660, 58n„ 62-63, 65, 75-76, 84, 86, 90, 106, 107n„ 108, 110n„ 125126, 172; "Agnese", 57n„ 58n.; "Cefisa", 58n.; "Del'fira", 57n„ 58n.; Epistle on Poetry, 57-59, 90n.; Industrious Bee, 56; "Irisa", 58n.; "Precepts for Those Wanting to be Writers", 90n.; Sineus and Truvor, 76 Sumarokov, P. Α., 45 Tatiâëev, P. Α., 21η. Tavernier, J. Β., Les six

voyages...,

161n.

Theocrites, 90 Thomson, J., 15, 34, 53-55, 65, 90, 95, 102, 102n„ 117; The Seasons, 29, 34n„ 50, 51, 54, 63, 177 Tolstoj, L., 172; War and Peace, 175 Tred'jakovskij, 51, 106n. Trubeckoj, 21n„ 41 Τruten', 38η. Turgenev, I. P., 26 Turgenev, I. S., A Sportsman's Sketches, 174 Uvarov, S. S„ 48 Verëvkin, M. I., So It Must Be, 7778; That's It, Exactly, 77-78 sentimental, Vernes, Le voyageur 155η. Vigel', 42 Virgil, 90 Vjazemskaja, C. Ε., 47n. Vjazemskij, P. Α., 47n., 48n„ 98, 98n., 122, 122n. Vladimir, 132 Voejkov, "The Madhouse", 100 Voltaire, 15, 15n„ 22, 22n„ 27n„ 33, 113, 166, 169 Voroncov, R., 22n. Weisse, C. F., 35 Wieland, C. M., 35 Wolner, 36n. Xemnicer, 65 Xeraskov, M. M., 21, 26, 30-31, 40, 41, 56, 60, 62, 79, 86, 132, 177; "Baxarijan", 176; Evenings, 177; Friend of Unfortunates, 79; Rossiada, 79; Useful Entertainment, 56

190

INDEX

Young, E., 15, 30, 50, 52, 52n„ 54, 64, 65, 89-90, 94, 117; Conjectures on Original Composition, 54; Night Thoughts, 30, 34, 50, 51, 52, 54, 177

Zivopisec, 38n. Zukovskij, 97, 174, 176; "Bogatyr' Alesa Popovic", 11 In.; "Sid", 175; "Svetlana", 175

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