People : Author : Peter Kropotkin Tags

Prisoner of Chillon, or the translations of Hiawatha, are simply classical. All Schiller, most of Goethe,nearly all Byron, a great deal of Shelley, all that is worth knowing in Tennyson, Wordsworth, Crabbe, all that could be translated from Browning, Barbier, Victor Hugo, and so on, are as familiar in Russia as in the mother countries of these poets, and occasionally even more so. As to such favorites as Heine, I really don't know whether his best poems lose anything in those splendid translations which we owe to our best poets; while the songs of Béranger, in the free translation of Kúrotchkin, are not in the least inferior to the originals.
We have moreover some excellent poets who are chiefly known for their translations. Such are: N. GERBEL (18271883), who made his reputation by an admirable rendering of the Lay of Igor's Raid (see Ch. 1.), and later on, by his versions of a great number of West European poets. His edition of Schiller, translated by Russian Poets ( 1857), followed by similar editions of Shakespeare, Byron, and Goethe, was epoch making.
MIKHAIL MIKHAILOFF (1826-1865), one of the most brilliant writers of the Contemporary, condemned in 1861 to hard labor in Siberia, where he died four years later, was especially renowned for his translations from Heine, as also for those from Longfellow, Hood, Tennyson, Lenan, and others.
P. WEINBERG (born 1830) made his reputation by his excellent translations from Shakespeare, Byron (Sardanapal), Shelley (Cenci), Sheridan, Coppe, Gutzkow, Heine, etc., and for his editions of the work of Goethe and Heine in Russian translations. He still continues to enrich Russian literature with excellent versions of the masterpieces of foreign literatures.
L. MEY (1822-1862), the author of a number of poems from popular life, written in a very picturesque language, and of several dramas, of which those from old Russian life are especially valuable and were taken by RIMSKIY KORSÃKOFF as the subjects of his operas, has also made a great number of translations. He translated not only from the modern West European poets-English, French, German, Italian, and Polish-but also from Greek, Latin, and Old Hebrew, all of which languages he knew to perfection. Besides excellent translations of Anacreon and the idyls of Theocritus, he wrote also beautiful poetical versions of the Song of Songs and of various other portions of the Bible.
D. MINAYEFF (1835-1889), the author of a great number of satirical verses, also belongs to this group of translators. His renderings from Byron, Burns, Cornwall, and Moore, Goethe and Heine, Leopardi, Dante, and several others, were, as a rule, extremely fine.
And finally I must mention one, at least, of the prose-translators, VVEDÉNSKIY (1813-1855), for his very fine translations of the chief novels of Dickens. His renderings are real works of art, the result of a perfect knowledge of English life, and of such a deep assimilation of the genius of Dickens that the translator almost identified himself with the original author.
• Chapter 6 : The Drama

Ideals and Realities of Russian Literature
Peter Kropotkin

CHAPTER VITHE DRAMA ITS Origin-The Czars Alexis and Peter I.-Sumarókoff-Pseudo-classical Tragedies: Knyazhnin, Ozeroff-First Comedies-The First Years of the Nineteenth Century-Griboyedoff-The Moscow Stage in the Fifties-Ostrovskiy; his first Dramas- "The Thunderstorm"-Ostrovskiy's later Dramas-Historical Dramas: A. K. Tolstóy-Other Dramatic Writers.

THE Drama in Russia, as everywhere else, had a double origin. It developed out of the religious "mysteries" on the one hand and the popular comedy on the other, witty interludes being introduced into the grave, moral representations, the subjects of which were borrowed from the Old or the New Testament. Several such mysteries were adapted in the seventeenth century by the teachers of the Graeco-Latin Theological Academy at Kieff for representation in Little Russian by the students of the Academy, and later on these adaptations found their way to Moscow.
Towards the end of the seventeenth century-on the eve, so to speak, of the reforms of Peter I.-a strong desire to introduce Western habits of life was felt in certain small circles at Moscow, and the father of Peter, the Czar Alexis, was not hostile to it. He took a liking to theatrical representations, and induced some foreigners residing at Moscow to write pieces for representation at the palace. A certain GREGORY undertook this task and, taking German versions of plays, which used to be called at that time "English Plays," he adapted them to Russian tastes. The Comedy of Queen Esther and the Haughty Haman, Tobias, Judith, etc., were represented before the Czar. A high functionary of the Church, SIMEON PÓLOTSKIY, did not disdain to write such mysteries, and several of them have come down to us; while a daughter of Alexis, the princess Sophie (a pupil of Simeon), breaking with the strict habits of isolation which were then obligatory for women, had theatrical representations given at the palace in her presence.
This was too much for the old Moscow Conservatives, and after the death of Alexis the theater was closed; and so it remained a quarter of a century, i. e., until 1702, when Peter I., who was very fond of the drama, opened a theater in the old capital. He had a company of actors brought for the purpose from Dantsig, and a special house was built for them within the holy precints of the Kremlin. More than that, another sister of Peter I., Nathalie, who was as fond of dramatic performances as the great reformer himself, a few years later took all the properties of this theater to her own palace, and had the representations given there-first in German, and later on in Russian. It is also very probable that she herself wrote a few dramas-perhaps in collaboration with one of the pupils of a certain Doctor Bidlo, who had opened another theater at the Moscow Hospital, the actors being the students. Later on the theater of Princess Nathalie was transferred to the new capital founded by her brother on the Neva.
The répertoire of this theater was pretty varied, and included, besides German dramas , like Scipio the African, Don Juan and Don Pedro, and the like, free translations from Molière, as also German farces of a very rough character. There were, besides a few original Russian dramas (partly contributed, apparently, by Nathalie), which were compositions drawn from the lives of the Saints, and from some Polish novels, widely read at that time in Russian manuscript translations.
It was out of these elements and out of West European models that the Russian drama evolved, when the theater became, in the middle of the eighteenth century, a permanent institution. It is most interesting to note, that it was not in either of the capitals, but in a provincial town, Yarosláv, under the patronage of the local tradesmen, that the first permanent Russian theater was founded, in 1750, and also that it was by the private enterprise of a few actors: the two brothers Vólkoff, Dmitrévsky, and several others. The Empress Elisabeth-probably following the advice of Sumarókoff, who himself began about that time to write dramasordered these actors to move to St. Petersburg, where they became "artists of the Imperial Theater," in the service of the Crown. Thus, the Russian theater became, in 1756, an institution of the Government.
SUMARÓKOFF (1718-1777), who wrote, besides verses and fables (the latter of real value), a considerable number of tragedies and comedies, played an important part in the development of the Russian drama. In his tragedies he imitated Racine and Voltaire. He followed strictly their rules of "unity," and cared even less than they did for historical truth; but as he had not the great talent of his French masters, he made of his heroes mere personifications of certain virtues or vises, figures quite devoid of life, and indulging in endless pompous monologues. Several of his tragedies (Hórev, written in 1747, Sináv and Trúvor, Yaropólk and Dílitza, Dmítri the Impostor) were taken from Russian history; but after all their heroes were as little Slavonian as Racine's heroes were Greek and Roman. This, however, must be said in favor of Sumarókoff, that he never failed to express in his tragedies the more advanced humanitarian ideas of the times-sometimes with real feeling, which pierced through even the conventional forms of speech of his heroes. As to his comedies, although they had not the same success as his serious dramas, they were much nearer to life. They contained touches of the real life of Russia, especially of the life of the Moscow nobility, and their satirical character undoubtedly influenced Sumarókoff's followers.
KNYAZHNÃN (1742-1791) followed on the same, lines. Like Sumarókoff he translated tragedies from the French, and also wrote imitations of French tragedies, taking his subjects partly from Russian history (Rossláv, 1784; Vadím of Nógorod, which was printed after his death and was immediately destroyed by the Government on account of its tendencies towards freedom).
OZEROFF (1769-1816) continued the work of Knyazhnín, but introduced the sentimental and the romantic elements into his pseudo-classical tragedies (Oedipus in Athens, Death of 0lèg). With all their defects these tragedies enjoyed a lasting success, and powerfully contributed to the development of both the stage and a public of serious playgoers.
At the same time comedies also began to be written by the same authors (The Brawler, Strange People, by Knyazhnín) and their followers, and although they were for the most part imitations of the French, nevertheless subjects taken from Russian everyday life began to be introduced. Sumarókoff had already done something in this direction, and he had been seconded by CATHERINE II., who contributed a couple of satirical comedies, taken from her surroundings, such as The Fête of Mrs. Grumbler, and a comic opera from Russian popular life. She was perhaps the first to introduce Russian peasants on the stage; and it is worthy of note that the taste for a popular vein on the stage, rapidly developed-the comedies, The Miller by ABLESÃMOFF, Zbítenshik (The Hawker), by Knyazhnín, and so on, all taken from the life of the people, being for some time great favorites with the playgoers.
VON-WIZIN has already been mentioned in a previous chapter, and it is sufficient here to recall the fact, that by his two comedies, The Brigadier (1768) and Nédorosl (1782), which continued to be played up to the middle of the nineteenth century he became the father of the realistic satirical comedy in Russia. Denunciation (Yábeda), by KAPNIST, and a few comedies contributed by the great fablewriter KRYLÓFF belong to the same category.
THE FIRST YEARS OF THE NINETEENTH CENTURY
During the first thirty years of the nineteenth century the Russian theater developed remarkably. The stage produced, at St. Petersburg and at Moscow, a number of gifted and original actors and actresses, both in tragedy and in comedy. The number of writers for the stage became so considerable that all the forms of dramatic art were able to develop at the same time. During the Napoleonic wars patriotic tragedies, full of allusions to current events, such as Dmítri Donskói (1807), by Ozeroff, invaded the stage. However, the pseudo-classical tragedy continued to hold its own. Better translations and imitations of Racine were produced (KATÉNIN, KOKÓSHKIN) and enjoyed a certain success, especially at St. Petersburg, owing to good tragic actors of the declamatory school. At the same time translations of KOTZEBUE had an enormous success, as also the Russian productions of his sentimental imitators.
Romanticism and pseudo-classicalism were, of course, at war with each other for the possession of the stage, as they were in the domains of poetry and the novel; but, owing to the spirit of the time, and patronized as it was by KARAMZÃN and ZHUKÓVSKIY, romanticism triumphed. It was aided especially by the energetic efforts of Prince SHAHOVSKÓY, who wrote, with a good knowledge of the stage, more than a hundred varied pieces-tragedies, comedies, operas, vaudevilles and ballets-taking the subjects for his dramas from Walter Scott, Ossian, Shakespeare, and Púshkin. At the same comedy, and especially satirical comedy, as also the vaudeville (which approached comedy by a rather more careful treatment of characters than is usual in that sort of literature on the French stage), were represented by a very great number of more or less original productions. Besides the excellent translations of HMELNÃTZKIY from Molière, the public enjoyed also the pieces of ZAGÓSKIN, full of good-hearted merriment, the sometimes brilliant and always animated comedies and vaudevilles of Shahovskóy, the vaudevilles of A. I. PÃSAREFF, and so on. True, all the comedies were either directly inspired by Molière or were adaptations from the French into which Russian characters and Russian manners had been introduced, but as there was still some original creation in these adaptions, which was carried a step further on the stage by gifted actors of the natural, realist school, it all prepared the way for the truly Russian comedy, which found its embodiment in Griboyédoff, Gógol and Ostróvskiy.
GRIBOYÉDOFF.
GRIBOYÉDOFF (1795-1829) died very young, and all that he left was one comedy, Misfortune from Intelligence (Góre ot Umá), and a couple of scenes from an unfinished tragedy in the Shakespearean style. However, the comedy is a work of genius, and owing to it alone, Griboyédoff may be described as having done for the Russian stage what Púshkin has done for Russian poetry.
Griboyédoff was born at Moscow, and received a good education at home before he entered the Moscow University, at the age of fifteen. Here he was fortunate enough to fall under the influence of the historian Schlötzer and Professor Buhle, who developed in him the desire for a thorough acquaintance with the world-literature, together with habits of serious work. It was consequently during his stay at the University (1810-1812) that Griboyédoff wrote the first sketch of his comedy, at which he worked for the next twelve years.
In 1812, during the invasion of Napoleon, he entered the military service, and for four years remained an officer of the hussars, chiefly in Western Russia. The spirit of the army was quite different then from what it became later on, under Nicholas I.: it was in the army that the "Decembrists" made their chief propaganda, and Griboyédoff met among his comrades men of high humanitarian tendencies. In 1816 he left the military service, and, obeying the desire of his mother, entered the diplomatic service at St. Petersburg, where he became friendly with the "Decembrists" Tchaadáeff (see Ch. VIII.), Ryléeff, and Odóevskiy (see Ch. I. and II.).
A duel, in which Griboyédoff took part as a second, was the cause of the future dramatist's removal from St. Petersburg. His mother insisted upon his being sent as far as possible from the capital, and he was accordingly dispatched to Teheran. He traveled a good deal in Persia, and, with his wonderful activity and liveliness, took a prominent part in the diplomatic work of the Russian Embassy. Later on, staying at Tiflís, and acting as a secretary to the Lieutenant of the Caucasus, he worked hard in the same diplomatic domain; but he worked also all the time at his comedy, and in 1824 he finished it, while he was for a few months in Central Russia. Owing to a mere accident the manuscript of Misfortune from Intelligence became known to a few friends, and the comedy produced a tremendous sensation among them. In a few months it was being widely read in manuscript copies, raising storms of indignation among the old generation, and provoking the greatest admiration among the young. All efforts, however, to obtain its production on the stage, or even to have it represented once in private, were thwarted by the censorship, and Griboyédoff returned to the Caucasus without having seen his comedy played at a theater.
There, at Tiflís, he was arrested a few days after the 14th of December, 1825 (see Ch. I.), and taken in all speed to the St. Petersburg fortress, where his best friends were already imprisoned. It is said in the Memoirs of one of the Decembrists that even in the gloomy surroundings of the fortress the habitual brightness of Griboyédoff did not leave him. He used to tell his unfortunate friends such amusing stories by means of taps on the walls that they rolled on their beds, laughing like children.
In June , 1826, he was set free, and sent back to Tiflís. But after the execution of some of his friends-Ryléeff was among them-and the harsh sentence to hard labor for life in Siberian mines, which was passed upon all the others, his old gaiety was gone forever.
At Tiflís he worked harder than ever at spreading seeds of a better civilization in the newly conquered territory; but next year he had to take part in the war of 1827-1828 against Persia, accompanying the army as a diplomatic agent, and after a crushing defeat of the Shah, Abbas-mirza, it was he who concluded the well-known Turkmanchái treaty, by which Russia obtained rich provinces from Persia and gained such an influence over her inner affairs. After a flying visit to St. Petersburg, Griboyédoff was sent once more to Teheran-this time as an ambassador. Before leaving, he married at Tiflís a Georgian princess of remarkable beauty, but he felt, as he left the Caucasus for Persia, that his chances of returning alive were few: "Abbas, Miraz," he wrote, "will never pardon me the Turkmanchái treaty"-and so it happened. Afew months after his arrival at Teheran a crowd of Persians fell upon the Russian embassy, and Griboyédoff was killed.
For the last few years of his life, Griboyédoff had not much time nor taste for literary work. He knew that nothing he desired to write could ever see the light. Even Misfortune from Intelligence had been so mutilated by censorship that many of its best passages had lost all sense. He wrote, however, a tragedy in the romantic style, A Georgian Night, and those of his friends who had read it in full rated extremely high its poetic and dramatic qualities; but only two scenes from this tragedy and the outline of its contents have reached us. The manuscript was lost-perhaps at Teheran.
Misfortune from Intelligence is a most powerful satire, directed against the high society of Moscow in the years 1820-1830. Griboyédoff knew this society from the inside, and his types are not invented. Real men gave him the foundations for such immortal types as Fámusoff, the aged nobleman, and Skalozúb, the fanatic of militarism, as well as for all the secondary personages. As to the language in which Griboyédoff's personages speak, it has often been remarked that up to his time only three writers had been such great masters of the truly Russian spoken language: Púlshkin, Krylóff, and Griboyédoff. Later on, Ostróvskiy could be added to these three. It is the true language of Moscow. Besides, the comedy is full of verses so strikingly satirical and so well said, that scores of them became proverbs known all over Russia.
The idea of the comedy must have been suggested by Molière's Misanthrope, and the hero, Tchátskiy, has certainly much in common with Alceste. But Tchátskiy is, at the same time, so much Griboyédoff himself, and his cutting sarcasms are so much the sarcasms which Griboyédoff must have launched against his Moscow acquaintances, while all the other persons of the comedy are so truly Moscow people-so exclusively Moscow nobles-that apart from its leading motive, the comedy is entirely original and most thoroughly Russian.
Tchátskiy is a young man who returns from a long journey abroad, and hastens to the house of an old gentleman, Fámusoff, whose daughter, Sophie, was his playmate in childhood, and is loved by him now. However, the object of his vows has meanwhile made the accquaintance of her father's secretary-a most insignificant and repulsive young man, Moltchálin, whose rules of life are: First, "moderation and punctuality," and next, to please everyone in the house of his superiors, down to the gatekeeper and his dog, "that even the dog may be kind to me." Following his rules, Moltchálin courts at the same time the daughter of his principal and her maid: the former, to make himself agreeable in his master's house, and the latter, because she pleases him. Tchátskiy is received in a very cold way. Sophie is afraid of his intelligence and his sarcasm, and her father has already found a partner for her in Colonel Skalozúb-a military man full six feet high in his socks, who speaks in a deep bass voice, exclusively about military matters, but has a fortune and will soon be a general.
Tchátskiy behaves just as an enamored young man would do. He sees nothing but Sophie, whom he pursues with his adoration, making in her presence stinging remarks about Moltchálin, and bringing her father to despair by his free criticism of Moscow manners-the cruelty of the old serfowners, the platitudes of the old courtiers, and so on; and as a climax, at a ball, which Fámusoff gives that night, he indulges in long monologues against the adoration of the Moscow ladies for everything French. Sophie, in the meantime, offended by his remarks about Moltchálin, retaliates by setting afloat the rumor that Tchátskiy is not quite right in his mind, a rumor which is taken up with delight by Society at the ball, and spreads like wildfire.
It has often been said in Russia that the satirical remarks of Tchátskiy at the ball, being directed against such a trifling matter as the adoration of foreigners, are rather superficial and irrelevant. But it is more than probable that Griboyédoff limited himself to such innocent remarks because he knew that no others would be tolerated by the censorship; he must have hoped that these, at least, would not be wiped out by the censor's red ink. From what Tchátskiy says during his morning call in Fámusoff's study, and from what is dropped by other personages, it is evident that Griboyédoff had far more serious criticisms to put into his hero's mouth.
Altogther, a Russian satirical writer is necessarily placed under a serious disadvantage with foreigners. When Molière gives a satirical description of Parisian society this satire is not strange to the readers of other nations: we all know something about life in Paris; but when Griboyèdoff describes Moscow society in the same satirical vein, and reproduces in such an admirable way purely Moscow types-not even typical Russians, but Moscow types ("On all the Moscow people," he says, "there is a special stamp")-they are so strange to the Western mind that the translator ought to be half-Russian himself, and a poet, in Order to render Griboyédoff's comedy in another language. If such a translation were made, I am sure that this comedy would become a favorite on the stages of Western Europe. In Russia it has been played over and over again up to the present time, and although it is now seventy years old, it has lost nothing of its interest and attractiveness.
THE MOSCOW STAGE.
In the forties of the nineteenth century the theater was treated everywhere with great respect-and more than anywhere else was this the case in Russia. Italian opera had not yet reached the development it attained at St. Petersburg some twenty years later, and Russian opera, represented by poor singers, and treated as a step-daughter by the directors of the Imperial Theaters, offered but little attraction. It was the drama and occasionally the ballet, when some star like Fanny Elsler appeared on the horizon, which brought together the best elements of educated society and aroused the youth of all classes, including the university students. The dramatic stage was looked upon-to speak in the style of those years-as "a temple of Art," a center of far-reaching educational influence. As to the actors and actresses, they endeavored, in their turn, not merely to render on the stage the characters created by the dramatist; they did their best to contribute themselves, like Cruickshank in his illustrations of Dickens's novels, to the final creation of the character, by finding its true personification.
Especially at Moscow did this intellectual intercourse be. tween the stage and society go on, and a superior conception of dramatic art was there developed. The intercourse which Gógol established with the actors who played his