Present Drift of Literature

This is somewhat striking, but the same would have to be said of all the contemporaries of Korolénko, among whom there are men and women of great talent. To analyse the causes of this fact, especially with reference to so great an artist as Korolénko, would certainly be a tempting task. But this would require speaking at some length of the change which took place in the Russian novel during the last twenty years or so, in connection with the political life of the country. A few hints will perhaps explain what is meant. In the seventies quite a special sort of novel had been created by a number of young novelists — mostly contributors of the review, Rússkoye Slóvo. The “thoughtful realist” — such as he was understood by Písareff — was their hero, and however imperfect the technique of these novels might have been in some cases, their leading idea was most honest, and the influence they exercised upon Russian youth was in the right direction. This was the time when Russian women were making their first steps towards higher education, and trying to conquer some sort of economical and intellectual independence. To attain this, they had to sustain a bitter struggle against their elders. “Madame Kabanóva” and “Dikóy” (see Ch. VI.) were alive then in a thousand guises, in all classes of society, and our women had to struggle hard against their parents and relatives, who did not understand their children; against “Society” as a whole, which hated the “emancipated woman”; and against the Government, which only too well foresaw the dangers that a new generation of educated women would represent for an autocratic bureaucracy. It was of the first necessity, then, that at least in the men of the same generation the young fighters for women’s rights should find helpers, and not that sort of men about whom Turguéneff’s heroine in Correspondence wrote (see Ch. IV.). In this direction — especially after the splendid beginning that was made by two women writers, SOPHIE SMIRNÓVA (The Little Fire, The Salt of the Earth) and OLGA SHAPÍR — our men-novelists have done good service, both in maintaining the energy of women in their hard struggle and in inspiring men with respect towards that struggle and those who fought in it.

Later on a new element became prominent in the Russian novel. It was the “populist” element — love to the masses of toilers, work among them in order to introduce, be it the slightest spark of light and hope, into their sad existence. Again the novel contributed immensely to maintain that movement and to inspire men and women in that sort of work, an instance of which has been given on a preceding page, in speaking of The Great Bear. The workers in both these fields were numerous, and I can only name in passing MORDÓVTSEFF (in Signs of the Times), SCHELLER, who wrote under the name of A. MIKHÁILOFF, STANUKÓVITCH, NOVODVÓRSKIY, BARANTSVITCH, MATCHTÉTT, MÁMIN, and the poet, NÁDSON, who all, either directly or indirectly, worked through the novel and poetry in the same direction.

However, the struggle for liberty which was begun about 1857, after having reached its culminating point in 1881, came to a temporary end, and for the next ten years a complete prostration spread amidst the Russian “intellectuals.” Faith in the old ideals and the old inspiring watchwords — even faith in men — was passing away, and new tendencies began to make their way in Art — partly under the influence of this phase of the Russian movement, and partly also under the influence of Western Europe. A sense of fatigue became evident. Faith in knowledge was shaken. Social ideals were relegated to the background. “Rigourism” was condemned, and popularist” began to be represented as ludicrous, or, when it reappeared, it was in some religious form, as Tolstóyism. Instead of the former enthusiasm for “mankind,” the “rights of the individual” were proclaimed, which “rights” did not mean equal rights for all, but the rights of the few over all the others.

In these unsettled conditions of social ideas our younger novelists — always anxious to reflect in their art the questions of the day — have had to develop; and this confusion necessarily stands in the way of their producing anything as definite and as complete as did their predecessors of the previous generation. There have been no such complete individualities in society; and a true artist is incapable of inventing what does not exist.