Page:Russian literature by Kropotkin.djvu/10

vi been real stepping stones in the development of Russian youth within the last fifty years.

The reason why literature exercises such an influence in Russia is self-evident. There is no open political life, and with the exception of a few years at the time of the abolition of serfdom, the Russian people have never been called upon to take an active part in the framing of their country's institutions.

The consequence has been that the best minds of the country have chosen the poem, the novel, the satire, or literary criticism as the medium for expressing their aspirations, their conceptions of national life, or their ideals. It is not to blue-books, or to newspaper leaders, but to its works of Art that one must go in Russia In order to understand the political, economical, and social ideals of the country—the aspirations of the history-making portions of Russian society.

As it would have been impossible to exhaust so wide a subject as Russian Literature within the limits of this book, I have concentrated my chief attention upon the modern literature. The early writers, down to Púshkin and Gógol — the founders of the modern literature—are dealt with in a short introductory sketch. The most representative writers in poetry, the novel, the drama, political literature, and art criticism, are considered next, and round them I have grouped the less prominent writers, of whom the most important are mentioned in short notes. I am fully aware that every one of the latter presents something individual and well worth knowing; and that some of the less-known authors have even succeeded occasionally in better representing a given current of thought than their more famous colleagues; but in a book which is intended to give only a broad, general idea of the subject, the plan I have pursued was necessary.

Literary criticism has always been well represented in Russia, and the views taken in this book must needs bear traces of the work of our great critics—Byelínskiy, Tchernyshévskiy, Dobrolúboff, and Písareff, and their modern followers, Mikhailóvsky, Arsénieff, Skabitchévsky, Venguéroff, and others. For biographical data concerning contemporary writers I am indebted to the excellent work on modern Russian literature by the last named author, and to the