Part 27 (2/2)

The poets of the present age exercise little or no influence on a society distracted and absorbed by the political questions of the day.

Although the history of Russia is rich in dramatic episodes, it has failed to inspire any native dramatist. Count Tolstoi has been one of the most successful writers in this line, but, with great merits, he has the fault common to the Russian drama in general, that of great attention to the study of the chief character, to the neglect of other points which contribute to secure interest.

4. LITERATURE IN RUSSIA SINCE THE CRIMEAN WAR.--After the Crimean War, in 1854, the Russian government took the initiative in an onward movement, and by the abolition of serfdom the country awoke to new life. In literature this showed itself in the rise of a new school, that of Nature, in which Turgenieff (1818-1883) is the most prominent figure, a place which he still holds in contemporary Russian literature. The publication of his ”Diary of a Sportsman” first made the n.o.bility of Russia aware that the serf was a man capable of feeling and suffering, and not a brute to be bought and sold with the soil, and this work was not without its effect in causing the emanc.i.p.ation. No writer has studied so faithfully and profoundly the Russian peasant and better understood the moral needs of the time and the great questions which agitate it.

Within the last twenty years the new theory of Nihilism has begun to find expression in literature, particularly in fiction. Rejecting all authority in religion, politics, science, and art, this school is the reaction from long ages of oppression. The school of nature lent itself to this new movement until at last it reached the pessimistic standpoint of Schopenhauer.

Of late, the ultra-realistic school has appeared in Russia, the writers of which devote themselves to the study of a low realism in its most repulsive aspects. While it boasts of not idealizing the peasant, like Turgenieff and others, it presents him in an aspect to excite only aversion. Art being thus excluded, and the school having neither authority, principle, nor object, whatever influence it may have cannot but be pernicious.

SCIENCE.--In mathematics and in all the natural sciences Russia keeps pace with the most advanced European nations. In chemistry Mendeleeff formulated the theory relating to atoms and their chemical properties and relations, not then discovered to be the law by which they were governed, as later experiments proved.

THE SERVIAN LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE.

The Servian alphabet was first fixed and the language reduced to certain general rules only within the present century. The language extends, with some slight variations of dialect, and various systems of writing, over the Turkish and Austrian provinces of Servia, Bosnia, Herzegovina, Montenegro, and Dalmatia, and the eastern part of Croatia. The southern sky, and the beauties of natural scenery that abound in all these regions, so favorable to the development of poetical genius, appear also to have exerted a happy influence on the language. While it yields to none of the other Slavic dialects in richness, clearness, and precision, it far surpa.s.ses them all in euphony.

The most interesting feature of the literature of these countries is their popular poetry. This branch of literature still survives among the Slavic race, particularly the Servians and Dalmatians, in its beauty and luxuriance, while it is almost extinct in other nations. Much of this poetry is of unknown antiquity, and has been handed down by tradition from generation to generation. From the gray ages of paganism it reaches us like the chimes of distant bells, unconnected, and half lost in the air.

It often manifests the strong, deep-rooted superst.i.tions of the Slavic race, and is full of dreams, omens, and forebodings; witchcraft, and a certain Oriental fatalism, seeming to direct will and destiny. Love and heroism form the subject of all Slavic poetry, which is distinguished for the purity of manners it evinces. Wild pa.s.sions or complicated actions are seldom represented, but rather the quiet scenes of domestic grief and joy.

The peculiar relation of brother and sister, particularly among the Servians, often forms an interesting feature of the popular songs. To have no brother is a misfortune, almost a disgrace, and the cuckoo, the constant image of a mourning woman in Servian poetry, was, according to the legend, a sister who had lost her brother.

This poetry was first collected by Vuk Stephanovitch Karads.h.i.+tch (b.

1786), a Turkish Servian, the author of the first Oriental Servian grammar and dictionary, who gathered the songs from the lips of the peasantry. His work, published at Vienna in 1815, has been made known to the world through a translation into German by the distinguished auth.o.r.ess of the ”Languages and Literature of the Slavic Nations,” from which this brief sketch has been made. Nearly one third of these songs consist of epic tales several hundred verses in length. The lyric songs compare favorably with those of other nations, but the long epic extemporized compositions, by which the peasant bard, in the circle of other peasants, in unpremeditated but regular and harmonious verse, celebrates the heroic deeds of their ancestors or contemporaries, have no parallel in the whole history of literature since the days of Homer.

The poetry of the Servians is intimately interwoven with their daily life.

The hall where the women sit spinning around the fireside, the mountain on which the boys pasture their flocks, the square where the village youth a.s.semble to dance, the plains where the harvest is reaped, and the forests through which the lonely traveler journeys, all resound with song. Short compositions, sung without accompaniment, are mostly composed by women, and are called female songs; they relate to domestic life, and are distinguished by cheerfulness, and often by a spirit of graceful roguery.

The feeling expressed in the Servian love-songs is gentle, often playful, indicating more of tenderness than of pa.s.sion. In their heroic poems the Servians stand quite isolated; no modern nation can be compared to them in epic productiveness, and the recent publication of these poems throws new light on the grand compositions of the ancients. The general character of these Servian tales is objective and plastic; the poet is, in most cases, in a remarkable degree _above_ his subject; he paints his pictures, not in glowing colors, but in prominent features, and no explanation is necessary to interpret what the reader thinks he sees with his own eyes. The number and variety of the Servian heroic poems is immense, and many of them, until recently preserved only by tradition, cannot be supposed to have retained their original form; they are frequently interwoven with a belief in certain fanciful creatures of pagan superst.i.tion, which exercise a constant influence on human affairs. The poems are often recited, but most frequently sung to the music of a rude kind of guitar. The bard chants two lines, then he pauses and gives a few plaintive strokes on his instrument; then he chants again, and so on. While in Slavic poetry generally the musical element is prominent, in the Servian it is completely subordinate.

Even the lyric poetry is in a high degree monotonous, and is chanted rather than sung.

Goethe, Grimm, and ”Talvi” drew attention to these songs, many translations of which were published in Germany, and Bowring, Lytton, and others have made them known in England.

At present there is much intellectual activity among the Servians in various departments of literature, tragedy, comedy, satire, and fiction, but the names of the writers are new to Europeans, and not easily remembered.

THE BOHEMIAN LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE.

John Huss, Jerome of Prague, Tycho Brahe, Kepler, Comenius, and others.

The Bohemian is one of the princ.i.p.al Slavic languages. It is spoken in Bohemia and in Moravia, and is used by the Slovaks of Hungary in their literary productions. Of all the modern Slavic dialects, the Bohemian was the first cultivated; it early adopted the Latin characters, and was developed under the influence of the German language. In its free construction, the Bohemian approaches the Latin, and is capable of imitating the Greek in all its lighter shades.

The first written doc.u.ments of the Bohemians are not older than the introduction of Christianity into their country; but there exists a collection of national songs celebrating battles and victories, which probably belongs to the eighth or ninth century. During the eleventh and twelfth centuries the influence of German customs and habits is apparent in Bohemian literature; and in the thirteenth and fourteenth this influence increased, and was manifest in the lyric poetry, which echoed the lays of the German Minnesingers. Of these popular songs, however, very few are left.

In 1348 the first Slavic university was founded in Prague, on the plan of those of Paris and Bologna, by the Emperor Charles IV., who united the crowns of Germany and Bohemia. The influence of this inst.i.tution was felt, not merely in the two countries, but throughout Europe.

The name of John Huss (1373-1415) stands at the head of a new period in Bohemian literature. He was professor at the university of Prague, and early became acquainted with the writings of Wickliffe, whose doctrines he defended in his lectures and sermons. The care and attention he bestowed on his compositions exerted a decided and lasting influence on the language. The old Bohemian alphabet he arranged anew, and first settled the Bohemian orthography according to fixed principles. Summoned to appear before the council of Constance to answer to the charges of heresy, he obeyed the call under a safe-conduct from the Emperor Sigismund. But he was soon arrested by order of the council, condemned, and burned alive.

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