Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 21.djvu/121

Rh LITERATURE.] RUSSIA 103 past of which they had known but little, described in poetical and ornate phraseology, a new impulse was given to the collection of all the remains of popular literature. In 1804 appeared a volume based upon those which had been gathered together by Cyril or Kirsha Daniloff, a Cos- sack, at the beginning of the 18th century. They were received with much enthusiasm, and a second edition was published in 1818. In the following year there appeared at Leipsic a translation of many of these pieces into Ger- man, in consequence of which they became known much more widely. This little book of 160 pages is important in many ways, and not the least so because the originals of some of the bilini translated in it are now lost. Since that time large collections of these poems have been published, edited by Ribnikoff, Hilferding, Sreznevski, Avenarius, and others. These curious productions have all the characteristics of popular poetry in the endless repetitions of certain con- ventional phrases the " green wine," " the bright sun " (applied to a hero), " the damp earth," and others. The heroes of the first cycle are monstrous beings, and seem to be merely impersonifications of the powers of nature ; such are Volga Vseslavich, Mikula Selianinovich, and Svia- togor. They are called the logatiri stars/tie. Sometimes we have the giants of the mountain, as Sviatogor, and the serpent Gorinich, the root of part of both names being cfora (mountain). The serpent Gorinich lives in caves, and has the care of the precious metals. Sometimes animal natures are mixed up with them, as zmei-bogatir, who unites the qualities of the serpent and the giant, and bears the name of Tugarin Zmievich. There is the Pagan Idol (Idolistche Poganskoe a great glutton, and Nightingale the Robber (Solovei Razboinik), who terrifies travellers and lives in a nest built upon six oaks. In the second cycle the legends group themselves round the celebrated prince Vladimir of Kieff, in whose time the Christian religion was introduced into Russia, as previously mentioned. The chief hero is Ilya Murometz, who performs prodigies of valour, and is of gigantic stature and superhuman strength. The cycle of Novgorod deals with the stories of Vasilii Buslaevich and Sadko, the rich merchant. The great commercial prosperity of Novgorod has been already described. The fourth cycle deals with the autocracy; already Moscow has become the capital of the future empire. We are told of the taking of Kazan, of the conquest of Siberia by Yermak, of Ivan the Terrible and his confidant Maliuta Skuvlatovich. It is observable that in the popular tradition Ivan, in spite of his cruelties, is not spoken of with any hatred. As early as 1619 some of these bilini were committed to writing by Richard James, an Oxford graduate who was in Russia about that time as chaplain of the embassy. The most pathetic of these is that relating to the unfortunate Xenia, the daughter of Boris Godunoff. Yermak, the conqueror of Siberia, forms the subject of a very spirited lay, and there is another on the death of Ivan the Terrible. Considering the relation in which she stood to the Russians, we cannot wonder that Marina, the wife of the false Demetrius, appears as a magician. Many spirited poems are consecrated to the achievements of Stenka Razia, the bold robber of the Volga, who was a long time a popular hero. The cycle of Peter the Great is a very interesting one. We have songs in abundance on the various achievements of the wonderful czar, as the taking of Azoff in 1696. There is also a poem on the execution of the streltzi, and another on the death of Peter. In the more modern period there are many songs on Napoleon. The Cossack songs, written in the Little Russian language, dwell upon the glories of the seek, the sufferings of the people from the invasions of the Turks and Mongols, the exploits of the Haidamaks and lastly the fall of the Cossack republic. Besides these, the Russians can boast of large collections of religious poems, many of them containing very curious legends. In them we have a complete store of the beliefs of the Middle Ages. A rich field may be found here for the study of comparative mythology and folk-lore. Many of them are of considerable antiquity, and some seem to have been derived from the Midrash. Some of the more important of these have been collected by Beszonoff. Besides the bilini or legendary poems, the Russians have large collections of skazki or folk-tales, which have been gathered together by Sakharoff, Afanasieff, and others. They also are full of valuable materials for the study of comparative mythology. Leaving the popular and oral literature, we come to Earliest what has been committed to writing. The earliest written specimen of Russian, properly so-called, must be considered M 61 ** 1116 the Ostromir Codex, written by the diak Gregory at the order of Ostromir, the posadnik or governor of Novgorod. This is a Russian recension of the Slavonic Gospels, of the date 1056-57. Of the year 1073 we have the Izbomik or " Miscellany " of Sviatoslaff. It was written by John the diak or deacon for that prince, and is a kind of Russian encyclopaedia, drawn from Greek sources. The date is 1076. The style is praised by Buslaeff as clear and simple. The next monument of the language is the Discourse concerning the Old and New Testament by Ilarion, metropolitan of Kieff. In this work there is a panegyric on Prince Vladimir of Kieff, the hero of so much of the Russian popular poetry. Other writers are Theodo- sius, a monk of the Pestcherski cloister, who wrote on the Latin faith and some Pouchenia or " Instructions," and Luke Zhidiata, bishop of Novgorod, who has left us a curious Discourse to the Brethren. From the writings of Theodosius we see that many pagan habits were still iu vogue among the people. He finds fault with them for allowing these to continue, and also for their drunkenness ; nor do the monks escape his censures. Zhidiata writes in a more vernacular style than many of his contemporaries ; he eschews the declamatory tone of the Byzantine authors. With the so-called Chronicle of NESTOR (q.v.) begins the Annalist! long series of the Russian annalists. There is a regular an< ^ catena of these chronicles, extending with only two breaks traveilerf to the time of Alexis Mikhailovich, the father of Peter the Great. Besides the work attributed to Nestor, we have chronicles of Novgorod, Kieff, Volhynia, and many others. Every town of any importance could boast of its annalists, Pskoff and Suzdal among others. In some respects these compilations, the productions of monks in their cloisters, remind us of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, dry details alternating with here and there a picturesque incident ; but the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle has nothing of the saga about it, and many of these annals abound with the quaintest stories. There are also works of early travellers, as the igumen Daniel, who visited the Holy Laud at the end of the llth and beginning of the 12th century. A later traveller was Athanasius Nikitin, a merchant of Tver, who visited India in 1470. He has left a, record of his adventures, which has been translated into English and published for the Hakluyt Society. Later also is the account written by the two merchants, Korobeinikoff and Grekoff. They were sent with a sum of money to the Holy Sepulchre to entreat the monks to pray without ceasing for the soul of the son of Ivan the Terrible, whom his father had killed. A curious monument of old Slavonic times is the Pouchenie ("Instruction") written by Vladimir Monomakh for the benefit of his sons. This composition is generally found inserted in the Chronicle of Nestor ; it gives a quaint picture of the daily life of a Slavonic prince. In the 12th century we have the sermons of Cyril, the Eeligious bishop of Turoff, which are attempts to imitate in Russian literature.