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HOME UNIVERSITY LIBRARY
OF MODERN KNOWLEDGE
AN OUTLINE
OF RUSSIAN LITERATURE
By the Hon. MAURICE BARING
London
WILLIAMS & NORGATE
HENRY HOLT & Co., New York
Canada: RYERSON PRESS, Toronto
India: R. & T. WASHBOURNE, Ltd.
HOME —— HERBERT FISHER, M.A., F.B.A., LL.D. Prof. GILBERT MURRAY, D.Litt., LL.D., F.B.A. Prof. J. ARTHUR THOMSON, M.A., LL.D. Prof. WILLIAM T. BREWSTER, M.A.(Columbia University, U.S.A.) |
AN OUTLINE OF BY THE HON. AUTHOR OF “WITH THE RUSSIANS IN |
First printed 1914/15
PREFACE
The chief difficulty which Englishmen haveexperienced in writing about Russia has, uptill quite lately, been the prevailing ignoranceof the English public with regard to all thatconcerns Russian affairs. A singularly intelligentRussian, who is connected with theArt Theatre at Moscow, said to me that hefeared the new interest taken by Englishintellectuals with regard to Russian literatureand Russian art. He was delighted, of course,that they should be interested in Russianaffairs, but he feared their interest was indanger of being crystallized in a false shapeand directed into erroneous channels.
This ignorance will always remain untilEnglish people go to Russia and learn toknow the Russian people at first hand. Itis not enough to be acquainted with a certainnumber of Russian writers; I say a certainnumber advisedly, because, although it is true[Pg vi]that such writers as Tolstoy and Turgenevhave long been naturalized in England, it isequally true that some of the greatest andmost typical of Russian authors have not yetbeen translated.
There is in England no complete translationof Pushkin. This is much the sameas though there were in Russia no completetranslation of Shakespeare or Milton. I donot mean by this that Pushkin is as great apoet as Shakespeare or Milton, but I do meanthat he is the most