Page:The Russian Review Volume 1.djvu/315

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This article is based on a lecture which the writer, a well-known literary critic in Russia, has delivered at Oxford and the universities of London and Edinburgh.—Ed.

I often wonder what quality of Russian literature is the one which appeals more particularly to English readers. Russian literary types have certainly a universal scope, but Russian writers seem to attract much more by their originality than by what they have in common with the western ideals. There is another peculiarity of all our best literature which accounts with more right for its bearing on the Western mind. It is the tense atmosphere of Russian novels, of Russian poetry and drama. They all deal with vast problems—social, moral, as well as religious ones—and this is due to a large extent to the rather abnormal conditions of Russian life.

In all the countries of western Europe literature is a world in itself and pursues its own calling. It is not concerned with immediate issues of any kind. The situation in Russia is quite different. We are deprived of free speech and of free action in our public life, and the social progress of Russia is mainly due to the high standard of our literature which is the true mirror of national aspirations and national ideals. The free and progressive instincts of the Russian mind crave to assert themselves; their realization in actual life is still some way off, and literature remains the only means to solve, at least in an ideal way, the problems which some day will be solved in reality. That is the reason why Russian novelists, Russian poets, and even philosophers dealing in metaphysics are imbued with a profound sense of national duties and responsibilities. There is always lurking behind every Russian work of art a sort of mystic image, that of Russia which longs to express her soul, and the highest aim of all Russian literature is to redeem the national spirit from the silence to which it is doomed by the conditions of Russian life. Every Russian author, if he is of any consequence whatever, longs to express the spiritual essence of Russia and to solve her problems.

When it comes to the greatest of our writers, to those who have a world-wide fame, this fundamental tendency of Russian literature rises to its highest expression. Tolstoy and Dostoyevsky are not only our social and religious reformers; they are the prophets of the Russian land. They reflect the destinies of Russia and show the way to the fulfillment of Russia's message to the world. Different as their ideas are, they represent the two sides of the national spirit, the rationalistic and the mystic