Page:The Spirit of Russia by T G Masaryk, volume 2.pdf/141



ETR LAVROV became well known in Europe as a theorist and leader among the revolutionary refugees. Of his numerous essays, pamphlets, and longer works, a few only have been translated, notably the Historical Letters. He also contributed several essays to European socialist periodicals, chiefly French and German.

Lavrov's literary physiognomy is peculiar to himself. Pisarev, with youthful impudence, termed him a scholastic, but this was a libel. Lavrov was a conscientious scholar, what Russians might call "a German professor." He was diligent as an analyst, but lacked constructive talent and had little originality, and was a vigorous but not an incisive thinker. As an author he was cumbrous, and of his opus magnum, which was to be a history of thought, nothing more was ever completed than an introduction to the introduction. But he was prolific as a clandestine poet, and his Russian "Marseillaise" is still sung.