Page:Anthology of Modern Slavonic Literature in Prose and Verse by Paul Selver.djvu/9



bulk of this Anthology has been selected from translations which have been accumulating for several years. My aim has been to include what is most typically racial; but what is most typically racial is not always the most adapted for translation. In making my choice of material, this was one of the difficulties I had to deal with. It was less acute in the prose section; but on the other hand, this section presented certain other obstacles of its own. The first arose from the need of finding short prose works complete in themselves. Only twice (with Reymont and Machar) did I deviate from this principle, and even in these two cases the reader will find that each of the extracts chosen, although part of a longer work, formean organic whole. The second obstacle was due to the purely practical diffculty, under present conditions, of obtaining the necessary books. To take a particular instance, this accounts for the scanty manner in which Southern Slav prose is represented. It is hoped, however, that such gaps as these (and perhaps