Gógol more appropriately ends the old series of authors than begins the new. His powerful genius raised him above his predecessors, but the absence of a definite political or social tendency in his works makes him more akin to the writers of pure art. In the forties, a younger generation of writers was trained in the philosophical conceptions of Germany, and the democratic spirit that swept over Europe affected them in favour of the people. It became incumbent on these authors, not merely to amuse by their productions, but to teach and propagate definite social ideals, to become the protagonists in the battle for human liberties. At the same time the vast abyss which lay between their theories and the disheartening reality about them, the unmooring from all the traditions of the past, and the hopelessness of the future developed in them a strain of scepticism and self-analysis that sooner or later led to pessimism.

The oldest of these new authors, Turgénev, who was the first to express his interest in the people, remained all his life an advocate of a peaceful progress on the basis of a cautious adoption of Western ideals. In style he was a realist of a pronounced type, but his genius saved him from carrying his naturalism to the appalling extent to which the French novelists have carried it. In 1847 he began to attract attention by his sketches from peasant life, but in the sixties he depicted the condition of the intelligent classes as affected by the emancipation of the serfs. The keynote to the conception of his heroes is struck in an article of his on _Hamlet and Don Quixote_, in which he expresses the thought that all people belong to one of these two types, but that in his days there was a predominance of Hamlets, that is, of such as are prone to analysis and scepticism.

Goncharóv, in his _Oblómov_, has given us a type of a passive man who lacks every initiative, and has generalised in his hero all Russians as by nature incapable of active progress; but Tolstóy very early began to carry his analysis to the farthest extent and not only assumed a negative attitude towards all the questions of the day, but soon reached the negation of all progress in general, and sought refuge from the world without in a close communion with the people. He is less careful about style and artistic perfection of his productions than Turgénev, but in the portrayal of separate incidents and in analysis of character he often rises to the highest art. In the second half of his life, but especially since the eighties, Tolstóy has carried negation to the impossible point of non-resistance, thus repeating, though not in an identical form, the experience of Gógol.

Dostoévski, born and bred in the city under distressing circumstances, appropriated for himself the analysis of the lower elements of the population of the towns. His long imprisonment in Siberia acquainted him with the mental and moral life of the criminals, and his own epileptic and extremely nervous condition made it possible for him to pry into the recesses of the diseased and depraved mind. His democratic love for the subjects he described, and the psychological analysis to which he submitted them, however startling and unusual they are in his case, are in keeping with the traditions of the men of the forties.

No new school, no new tendency, has since supplanted the democratic school of analysis which these authors had inaugurated nearly half a century ago. Nearly all authors have taken the _people_ for their motto. The question has only been to decide what really constitutes the _people_. Just before and soon after the emancipation the peasants came in for the largest share of attention. At first their real condition was not clearly understood, and they were, on the one hand, idealised, and, on the other, represented as objects worthy of ridicule. In the meanwhile the Slavophiles, in their attempt to discover the national spirit, did a great deal to study their customs and their oral literature. Thus, by degrees, a proper understanding of the real life of the peasant was possible, and the _novelists of the people_ were able to treat them with greater objectivity and truth. Among these writers of one class or other were Danilévski, Ryeshétnikov, Levítov, Glyeb Uspénski, and Zlatovrátski.

Others, again, proceeded to busy themselves with the intelligent class, pre-eminently with the negative sides of their existence. Písemski painted them in the blackest colours, while Saltykóv applied his great satirical talents more especially to the disclosure of all the wretchedness and dishonesty of the middle and the official strata of society. Ostróvski, again, took for his dramas the Moscow merchant class which stood on the border of the old Russian civilisation, and treated it ideally, apologetically, or negatively at various stages of his development. In poetry the democratic spirit of the forties is best reflected in Nekrásov and in a much lesser degree in Nikítin. Though these writers are related to Koltsóv in the treatment of popular themes, they differ vastly in the application of the democratic motive from their more artistic predecessor.

In the seventies there was the usual reaction in literature as well as in the political life of the nation. Since then a large number of novelists and poets have been endeavouring to reproduce the currents of modern society. The background of all this new literature is still the democracy of the forties, but the centre of interest has shifted from the peasant and the intellectual class to the large burgher population in its undefined tendency to form a substantial middle class. There are no pronounced ideas which these writers feel themselves called to propagate or defend, hence their task is comparatively more difficult than that of the previous generation. They are conscious of this, and when accused of scattering their energies and not rising to the high points of the men of the forties, they have justly answered that they are at a loss to discover any positive tendencies in the nation to reproduce. In the external technique of their works, however, there is a decided improvement over the generation which has just passed away, and the works would, no doubt, greatly interest foreign readers if they did not so much approach well-known models of the West.

In this greater cosmopolitanism of the newer Russian literature, in the broadening of the intellectual horizon, even though the literary life is more shallow, lies the hope of Russia’s future. Life is readjusting itself on a more stable basis. The tendencies of society, though indefinite, are more normal. Hence didacticism in literature is rapidly passing away, and art, this time tempered by the democratic spirit of the age, bids fair to regain its place in letters. Two illustrations will suffice to make this clear. Górki, who by his private life and the influence of the democratic school has been led to descend to the lowest dregs of society for his subjects, absolutely refrains from inculcating, directly or indirectly, any social or political tenet. Whatever he paints, he paints with the consummate skill of the artist for the sake of art. Merezhkóvski, who has not yet entirely passed his apprenticeship in letters, is trying to bridge over the democratic epoch, which he abhors, and aspires for the laurels of Púshkin.

Compared with its humble beginnings in 1800, Russian literature has made a wonderful record in the nineteenth century. The Russian language has been moulded into an instrument of great perfection: it is melodious, and capable of all shades of expression and all literary forms. The great authors of its literature have become the possession of all nations. Intellectual Russia no longer stands aloof. It is an important and valuable member of the great nations of the world. From the steady progress in the past, frequently under the most trying opposition, must be prognosticated a still greater advancement in the future. It has well learned its lessons from the West: it may yet become its teacher.

THE NINETEENTH CENTURY

Nikoláy Mikháylovich Karamzín. (1766-1826.)

Karamzín was born in the Government of Simbírsk. At fourteen years of age he entered Professor Schaden’s school at Moscow, and later he attended the university. In 1783 he settled in St. Petersburg where he began his literary career in conjunction with his friend Dmítriev (see