Page:The Russian Review Volume 1.djvu/169

Rh, although later it had among its members learned professors, and well-known writers and actors.

About ten years ago, Mr. A. Van Kistern wrote a volume of "Recollections" dealing with this Circle. He began his account in the following manner: "Nowadays, when the life of Moscow has changed so radically, when nothing remains of that type of life which made it possible for the Shakespearean Circle to come into existence, when human passions are raging around us, when bombs are exploding in the streets (This was written during the revolution), when politics replace all other interests, nowadays one feels especially the irresistible attraction of that peaceful, distant past which will never come back." I have dwelt purposely on this sad foreword of the author of the "Recollections" about the first Russian Shakespeare Circle (in all probability, the first), because in this foreword are pointed out indirectly the causes which have hampered the study of Shakespeare in Russia.

"When passions are raging" But passions will always rage in Russia, until the time comes when she will have effectively guaranteed political freedom. And if, despite all this, the cult of Shakespeare has penetrated into the consciousness of the educated class, it is because the Russians keenly feel and sincerely love everything truly beautiful, these traits being innate in them.

This article would not be complete, were I to fail to mention Tolstoy's attitude towards Shakespeare, a subject which at one time stirred up the Russian intellectual classes. The whole civilized world knows that the great Russian genius made an attempt to set at naught Shakespeare's works. "The sooner people will get rid of the false Shakespearean cult, the better," wrote Tolstoy in the conclusion of his long discussion on Shakespeare. "First, because people, having freed their minds from this falsehood, will have to understand that drama not based on the religious principle, is not only matter which is neither important nor good, but it is decidedly a most trivial and contemptible thing."

Is it not significant that, in the Shakespearean problem, Tolstoy stand alone,—Tolstoy the great, the incomparable, to whose opinions Russia listened so eagerly, no matter what was the subject, whose writings of the last years of his life constantly added new recruits to the army of his followers? Tolstoy's attitude towards Shakespeare amazed Russia. At that time I met at Petrograd the noted Shakespearean scholar, Sokolovsky,