Were we to compare English literature to the starred heavens with their galaxies and their permanent constellations of varying magnitudes, Russian literature would represent itself to us as the darkling sky which is now illumined by the refracted glamour of the aurora borealis, now by the illusive flashes of shooting meteors, and now again by the steadier brilliancy of some errant comet, by the side of which stars seem pale and insignificant. In England, as with the other great nations of the West, there have been temporary suspensions of literary activities, but with every new unshrouding the ancient combinations gleam forth in the azure vault in untarnished brilliancy, even though new stars may obtrude themselves to view. Not thus in Russia. After every short period of celestial fireworks the heavens are suddenly merged into palpable darkness, to dazzle us once more with an entirely new display of unwonted splendour.

Such, at least, is the aspect Russian literature bears in the nineteenth century. Though Púshkin’s poetry was naturally the crowning glory of the incipient reign of Nicholas I., it bears but a faint resemblance to the lacrimose verses of Karamzín, or to the elegant imitations and patriotic ebullitions of Zhukóvski of the previous two decades, and yet Karamzín lived till Púshkin reached man’s estate, while Zhukóvski was still active after his death. Púshkin and his contemporaries are classed separately from Lérmontov, though but fifteen years lie between their births and only four between their deaths. No new division is made for poetry since the days of Lérmontov, though in the light of Nekrásov’s realism, who began writing in 1848, the poets of pure art, Máykov, Polónski, Tyútchev, Fet,--all of them born long before Púshkin’s demise,--were reviled by the democratic critics and suffered more or less complete oblivion after the fifties. Still more pathetic is the fate of Vyázemski who, reared in the school of Karamzín, had the misfortune of surviving to a vigorous old age: he bitterly felt the living literary death to which he was doomed for more than a quarter of a century.

The vicissitudes of prose have been even more varied. Karamzín had barely established the new style of writing, based on French and English writers, still struggling with the reactionary tendency of Shishkóv, whose antiquated style is prominent in Griboyédov’s comedy, when a whole school of Romanticists, beginning with Bestúzhev-Marlínski and Lazhéchnikov, and ending with Púshkin and Lérmontov, evolved, under the influence of Walter Scott, the Russian novel. It is a far cry from Karamzín’s _Líza_ to Púshkin’s _Captain’s Daughter_ and to Lérmontov’s _Hero of Our Time_. Yet, within less than a decade after the latter had charmed the public, Gógol’s _Dead Souls_ completely obliterated the fame of all its predecessors, and Byelínski’s dictum in regard to the Natural School at once set the pace for an entirely new set of writers,--the novelists of the forties. Turgénev, Goncharóv, Tolstóy, Dostoévski, Písemski, were trained in that school and wrote their first productions in the lifetime of Gógol. Yet after the memorial year 1848 a reaction set in in literature as well as in affairs, and the fifties, except for rare flashes of genius from Turgénev and Tolstóy, were one barren waste. Of Gógol’s example and Byelínski’s injunctions hardly a trace was left. Then, during the reign of Alexander II., the atmosphere was again cleared, and the sixties produced that wonderful series of writings for which Russia is mainly known abroad. And yet, in 1862, Turgénev proved by his _Fathers and Sons_ that he was no longer in touch with Russian reality; and a few years later, after Tolstóy had written his _War and Peace_ and _Anna Karénin_, began Tolstóy’s rapid departure from all reality.

In the meantime the critics, from the master Byelínski down, through Dobrolyúbov, Písarev and Chernyshévski, reached the _ne plus ultra_ of negation, and with them rose a new set of authors, who returned to the lowest elements of society for their themes,--to the peasants. Grigoróvich, Pomyalóvski, Uspénski, and a whole host of minor writers, many of them riotous in the absence of style, produced a vast amount of literature. Dostoévski, revelling in excruciating psychological analyses, wrote his best work, _Crime and Punishment_, in 1865. No wonder, then, that after such a concentrated creative period there should follow a decade of impotence, in which the only relief was afforded by the older writers, who occasionally lighted up the darkness with their phosphorescence. Then, since the eighties, there has been a November shower of novelists, Korolénko, Potápenko, Chékhov, Boborýkin, and many, many more, and but lately a new comet has loomed up in the horizon in the person of Maksím Górki.

The periods of distinct literary ideals are so short, their activities so varied, that one feels tempted to treat the nineteenth century by decades, or, to avoid embarrassing results from a purely mechanical arrangement, to survey each field of belles-lettres, poetry, drama, prose, in its evolution from Karamzín to the present. Neither method, however, is free from serious objections, and it will be found more convenient to regard the literary movement under each reign, especially since the Decembrist revolt at the end of the rule of Alexander I., the Crimean War under Nicholas I., and the death of Alexander II. mark real epochs in the intellectual movements of Russia. Each reign, in its turn, is by some historical event divisible into two parts, the first of which coincides with aspirations and vigorous activities in literature, the second with relaxation and indifference. Such events were the year 1812 and, in a higher measure, the year 1848.

It would, however, be incorrect to identify the various periods with the political changes of the Empire. Though, naturally, a new impetus may be given at the beginning of a new reign, or a great national calamity may rouse the dormant literary powers of the people, yet the accessions to the throne of the successive rulers, and their policies, do not sufficiently account for the shortness of each separate period and their apparently abrupt cessations; just as, on the other hand, the political changes themselves are frequently only the reflex of the antecedent literary movement with the pronounced public opinion which is based upon it. Thus, for example, the emancipation of the serfs, with its tremendous political and social consequences, was not merely an arbitrary act of the monarch, but the logical culmination of the literary propaganda, with Turgénev and his _Memoirs of a Huntsman_ at its head, which had preceded it.

Nor can governmental policy and severity of censorship be made accountable for the short-lived literary influence of each individual author, for the early maturity of genius, and the wide chasm between the author’s sunny youth and his old age in the rare instances when he has lived beyond his forties. At forty years of age, rather earlier than later, all Russian writers have reached their apogee. Most authors have gained their reputation long before that, and their old age passes by unnoticed or in mystic abstractions, and in nearly all cases out of tune with the realities of the day. And how appallingly large is the number of those whose career was brought to an untimely end before they had reached forty, either by violent means, as that of Púshkin and Lérmontov, or through insanity, as that of Garshín, or through disease, frequently as the result of dire wretchedness in youth, or of intemperance, as that of Byelínski, Dobrolyúbov, Písarev, Nikítin, Nádson, and many others!

The peculiar conditions of Russian literary life are the result of the whole social structure of the country. Here we shall find an answer to the many perplexing questions that the foreigner must necessarily put to himself as he contemplates, not only the peculiar course of Russian belles-lettres and their artistic and political maxims, but also the exaggerated relation that Russian men of letters bear to the political life of the nation.

The literate class of the people of Russia is at the present time but a small part of the total population, and the cultured elements of society form but a small percentage of all those who can read and write Russian. The conditions were, naturally, much more unfavourable for education in the beginning of the nineteenth century. The Western civilisation which had spread over Russia since the days of Peter the Great had not penetrated deep: it had not touched the core of things, had not changed much in the semi-barbaric home life of the gentry and even of the higher nobility. Below these classes it was practically non-existent. A desire for learning there was, and the fathers who wished to have their children benefited by the blessings of an education had either to fall back on foreign tutors, or to send them to the schools maintained at Moscow and St. Petersburg. The Lyceum at Tsárskoe-Seló was the chief seminary of learning for the sons of the nobility. The sons were just as eager to acquire the lustre of the foreign culture, but they invariably understood this European learning merely as a counteraction to the brutal surroundings of old Russia. They brought with them no home traditions of refinement, no settled political and social views. At their schools the young men were banded together by common interests of progress against the world without, and they felt that the future of Russia depended upon them as an intellectual force. Had the next generation of students been recruited exclusively from the sons of men who had enjoyed school advantages before, there would have been a nucleus for traditional culture. But, in the nature of the case, ever-new elements were availing themselves of the higher schooling, and the younger generation was as much torn out of its barren surroundings as the young men at the beginning of the century. They, too, were the chosen few, and upon them, they knew, devolved the task of regenerating their country. Unfortunately they lacked not only traditions of culture in their families, but the school had not been able to transmit any other positive tradition than the general desire for mental training and literary brilliancy. The ethical principle of culture was but weakly developed, and the absence of stated maxims of life made philosophic moderation impossible. If the older generation had been carried away by the prevailing French taste, or by Byron’s enticing poetry, or by the powerful Romanticism of Germany, without, however, grasping the underlying philosophy of either, or making it its own, the youths of the thirties sat at the feet of the German philosophers, and with the enthusiasm of new converts transferred their tenets into their whole view of life and letters, however, by first eliminating from it the essence of methodical thinking, which alone would have assured any permanency to the Russian ecstasy.

Since culture was confined chiefly to the higher classes of society, there was slowly growing up a select circle of cultivated men who, while not characterised by the stability of the German intellectual class or the dignified refinement of the English aristocracy, atoned for the superficiality of their learning by a superabundance of youthful enthusiasm. But, before the gentry had any time to crystallise into an intellectual class, the doors of schools were thrown open to the nation at large, and the middle classes began at once to avail themselves of the privilege. There was a new influx of men without a tradition, and the work of intellectualising had to be begun once more. The vigorous burghers had not the wealth and position of their noble predecessors to distract their spiritual energies, and to them the pursuit of learning was a very serious matter. But their efforts were often thwarted by a struggle against all kinds of adversities, and they frequently succumbed in body and mind to the effects of poverty and persecution. If the sons of the gentry in the previous generations stood out as a protest against their fathers, the young men now added to it a protest against the higher classes, and, as is natural in a state of chronic protests, they rapidly reached the negation of everything. Russian literature passes all the stages of negation, from the criticisms of Chátski in Griboyédov’s comedy to the conscious superiority of Bazárov in Turgénev’s _Fathers and Sons_, and from the critiques of Byelínski to the negation of art and literature in the acrid solvent of Písarev’s reviews and in the latter-day literary productions of the master-artist Tolstóy.

The salutary effects of the renewal of the intellectual classes with every generation have been in the extreme democratisation of Russian society, and in the frequent and varied evolution of talent,--artistic, musical, literary, political. But the democracy, lacking the moderation of established procedure, too often loses itself in mazes of inactive speculation, and, lacking historic perspective and philosophic precision, is vacillating in its ultimate ends; while the same causes militate against a concentration of talent, and rather disperse its strength and nullify its effects. Hence the apt classification of the heroes of Russian novels as so many Oblómovs, which Dobrolyúbov has made in his review of Goncharóv’s famous work. It is, indeed, a notable fact that Russia has not produced a single philosopher worthy of the name, and a late attempt at discovering _The Philosophic Tendencies in Russian Poetry_ has resulted in a meagre work which, though interesting for the poets it harbours, is conspicuous for the absence of that philosophy which it sets out to find.

Philosophy can have free sway only where there is calm reflection; and reflection lies at the base of actions only where ideals of life are formed at a mature age. Unfortunately for Russia, young men have stood behind the cultural movements, and by “young men” are in Russia understood those who have not yet reached the age of thirty. In the Anglo-American civilisation men between thirty and fifty are supposed to be young men, men of action, which view, having its origin in the conservative spirit of Anglo-Saxon institutions, more than anything else assures a cautious progress. In Russia, we have seen, the task of fostering progress has fallen on school-lads and university students. The consequence has been disastrous. Russian youths have tried to carry high the banner of progress, and one cannot help but admire the courage with which they have upheld their cause, the enthusiasm with which they have advocated their tenets, the sacrifices which they have ever been ready to bring. At the same time it must be evident that their courage has frequently been ill-advised, their enthusiasm brittle because not tempered by chill experience, and their sacrifices vain and useless. There has been no bond of sympathy between the sons and their fathers, and the enthusiasm of one generation has not been bequeathed in its turn to the next.

As long as effervescent youth has lasted, Russians have not hesitated to throw their whole souls into their cause. In Púshkin’s days they surpassed Byron in the recklessness of their youthful excesses, and would-be Manfreds could be met with in the flesh. As Slavophiles they were willing to forego the fruits of Western civilisation, and gloried in their unwieldy native costume. As Soilers and Populists they renounced the society of their likes, and buried themselves in the deadening wildernesses of distant villages. Even if the Government had not nipped their efforts by exile and prisons, their fate could not later in life have been happy. When their first fervour had evaporated, and they were brought face to face with actualities, the discrepancy between theories and practices of necessity produced a revulsion. The stout of heart maintained their cherished hopes, but their minds became variously affected by quiet sorrow, melancholy, despair. The men of coarser texture turned liberal opportunists, temporisers, or downright deniers of all their previous thoughts and acts. The Government absorbed these as officials in various capacities, and thus the better elements, through their abhorrence of compromise, have generally been lost to the State.

The same disenchantment is noticeable in the life of every man of letters. Literature has been in Russia the field in which all the battles of progress have been fought. As there does not exist a representative government, where political opinions may struggle for recognition, and as there cannot exist a public opinion based on tradition and class interests, literature alone appears as the medium for advancing social and political ideas; and since scientific treatises reach but a vanishing proportion of the nation, belles-lettres proper have in Russia become the means for inculcating and propagating truths. In the beginning of the nineteenth century this was not yet so apparent, and literature for art’s sake could hold its own. But with the advancing democratisation of society, literature gathered ever more around camps with definite ideas, and literary art receded more and more and lived out its day in oblivion. The individual authors have always been conscious of their high calling, and in their youth have devoted themselves with fervour to their tasks; but in middle life they generally have been chilled by the actual conditions of life, and have fallen a prey to disappointment, the effects of which were mysticism, renunciation, opportunism, as the case might be.

Thus, also, there has followed a period of comparative stagnation and even retrogression after every decade of concentrated production. The men whom common interests had brought together in literary emulation had passed their perihelion, and another generation had not yet reached maturity; and in the interim the discordant notes could be heard more clearly. In the last twenty years, however, a marked change has taken place in Russian literature. While there has not risen an author of the first magnitude, there has been no lack of writers and poets of the second rank, and the reactionary element has been well kept in abeyance. Russian critics stigmatise this period as one of mediocrity, and despair of the future, since never before has there been so long a time without some author of strong personality and influence. In reality, the symptoms are very encouraging. It is evident from the long duration of the smouldering literary life that society is becoming more stable, even though temporarily less deep, and that literary sentiment and culture is gaining in breadth. The next outburst of literary activities will unquestionably be greater than any that have preceded it.