Page:The Spirit of Russia by T G Masaryk, volume 2.pdf/297

Rh mission were still purely naive and uncritical. Solov'ev took a low estimate of Puškin as a thinker, and said that Puškin's Byronism was superficial. In these judgments we may perhaps trace the influence of Pisarev or Tolstoi. Unquestionably Solov'ev failed to understand the significance of Puškin's Oněgin, and failed to understand the general significance of Puškin's creative work, for he looked upon Puškin too one-sidedly as a representative of pure art. In Solov'ev's article The Fate of Puškin, the poet's death was rightly represented as self-ordained destiny; but the analysis of Puškin's relationship with Madame Kern is incomplete and biased, whilst the poet's fondness for epigram is taken amiss, and Uvarov is commended in comparison. This study by Solov'ev has been deservedly censured.

Lermontov and Barjatynskii are poets of reflection. That which in Puškin was the expression of a passing mood, was in the two other poets the outcome of definitive conviction. For them, sceptical and pessimistic reflection became a constitutive element of creation; there was a rift within their philosophy, and this disintegration impaired their artistic activities. Subjective dissatisfaction, says Solov'ev (speaking here, too, in the sense of his doctrine of methodological scepticism), has notable significance as providing the first impulse towards self-consciousness; thus negation is essential, but what is abnormal and futile is to rest in negation, to find satisfaction in personal dissatisfaction. Solov'ev considers that Lermontov shows strong leanings towards Nietzscheanism; towards the psychopathic idea of the superman, which ascribes superhuman importance "to the ego, or to the ego and company." This is the complete victory of egoism and of contempt for mankind. No doubt the principle of individuality is the precondition of the most intensive awareness of the content of life, but the principle is not itself that content, for the strong ego can be void of content. Lermontov was too much the man of genius to remain void. He devoted himself to love; but really, says Solov'ev, in the end he sang only the praise of loving, not the beloved, not love itself. He considers that Lermontov displayed a positively demoniacal wickedness and demoniacal