Page:The Russian Review Volume 1.djvu/282

252 he has undertaken, viz., to justify Russian absolutism and to whitewash the reactionary tendencies existing in Russia. Dr. Young went even further than the English girl: he not only ignored entirely the Russian sources concerning the social, political, and economic history of the country, but he has chosen to look at Russia through the eyes of the most reactionary prophets of Darkest Russia, which is very outspoken in its utter contempt for civilization and democracy.

Thus, Dr. Young's attempt to extend a hand of friendly protection to "Abused Russia" becomes an outpouring of abuse upon real Russia, greater, perhaps, than that country has ever suffered at the hands of any writer. Even from the point of view of those whom Dr. Young is trying to defend, the book is disappointing. It contains a mass of contradictory statements, most of them even unsubstantiated, while the concluding chapter really negatives and condemns everything that was extolled and glorified at the beginning of the volume. This last fact would seem to show that Dr. Young wrote his book before the War broke out, but did not publish it until after the beginning of the War. But, in the meantime, conditions have changed. Some of those dignitaries of whom Dr. Young thinks so highly, among them the ex-War Minister, General Soukhomlinov, and General Tolmachev, often referred to in Russia as "the wrecker of Odessa" because of his activities in that most beautiful of Russian cities during the post-revolutionary period, are already fallen idols in the eyes of the Russian bureaucracy. Unmistakable changes are being wrought by the War, and the whole social, political, and economic outlook of the country is undergoing a transformation.

Dr. Young evidently thought it incumbent upon him to put "liberal" finishing touches to his book, but they do not change the abusive attitude that he has displayed towards the Russian people, the real "Russia of the Russian." Without anything like a shadow of substantiation, he accuses the Douma, that bright spring-flower of constitutionalism in Russia, of intentions to "disintegrate Russia. Summarily brushing aside the strivings and aspirations of the growing spirit of social and political democracy in Russia, he prescribes for the country an iron Diaz, an institution that even turbulent Mexico could not endure.

After wading through streams of misstatements that Dr. Young has managed to bring together within the bounds of a small book, one is not at all astonished to find him siding with the Russian bureaucracy in the Russian-American dispute concerning passport regulations, and repeating General Tolmachev's stories about the "Hebrew conspiracies," which reflect upon the personal integrity of many prominent and respectable American philanthropists.

The literary qualities of Dr. Young's study of Russia are on a par with its authoritativenss and its factual content. The volume is a striking example of how books about foreign countries should not be written.

M. V.

In most of the stories in the present volume, Chekhov has chosen for