RUSSIA (LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE). 



laws in the time of Jaroslaff (who died in 1054) ; 

 (lie expedition of Igor, a heroic poem of the twelfth 

 century ; popular songs, and the poems of the prince 

 Cantimir, in the reign of the empress Anna. This 

 predecessor of LomonosofF possessed true talent, 

 had received a European education, and was well 

 acquainted with the classics. His poems consist of 

 satires and epistles, in which, in imitation of Horace 

 and Boileau, he described in true colours the man- 

 ners and faults of his times. The spirit of his 

 poems is modern, the form antique, but his verse is 

 rhymed. He likewise translated into Russian Fon- 

 tenelle's Dialogues on the Plurality of Worlds; but 

 the language was as yet too little refined to preserve 

 the beauty of the original. This period shows only 

 individual monuments of a written language in the 

 lirst stages of improvement. Peter the Great had, 

 unintentionally, given it a retrograde direction, 

 when he introduced many foreign expressions, in 

 place of a great number of existing technical terms, 

 which thus became disused, so that the language 

 itself became poorer, and was disfigured. 



The second period extends from Lomonosoff to 

 Karamsin. Lomonosoff, a man of genius, created 

 the language of Russian poetry, by the introduction 

 partly of poetical expressions and partly of new 

 forms, which he borrowed principally from the Ger- 

 man literature, and which served his successors as 

 models. His example likewise shows how the Rus- 

 sian language can be enriched and ennobled by ex- 

 pressions and phrases from the Sclavonic. He first 

 developed its grammatical structure, and contributed 

 also to form its prose. His odes relate to the cir- 

 cumstances of the day ; we find in them little poetry, 

 but much rhetorical richness. In his tragedies the 

 lyric tone prevails, and dramatic power is sought for 

 in them in vain. In epic poetry, his Peter the Great 

 was a first attempt ; there are individual passages, 

 indeed of great merit ; but the poem, as a whole, is 

 devoid of interest. His imitations of the Psalms 

 are rich in poetical expression. His epistle on the 

 utility of verse shows his great command of the 

 language. Sumarokoff, an author celebrated in his 

 time, is too diffuse upon every subject. His fertility 

 in tragedy and comedy, in satires, epistles, elegies, 

 eclogues, fables, epigrams and songs, gave him re- 

 putation; but in no department can he be considered 

 a model. Keraskoff has produced two large epics 

 upon the conquest of Kasan, and upon Wladimir 

 the Great, besides tragedies, odes, and epistles. 

 His language is beautiful, and far more smooth than 

 that of Lomonosoff, but his talents are much less 

 conspicuous. He was considered in his time as the 



Homer of Russia; but he is now forgotten May- 



koff acquired a reputation by two burlesque poems, 

 which were, however, not the less worthless on that 

 account: Kniashjinin imitated the French in his 

 tragedies and comedies, too closely, indeed, but not 

 without talent. Some comedies in which he has 

 interwoven many of the follies of the times in which 

 he lived, have maintained themselves upon the stage 

 till the present time. He very much excelled Su- 

 marokoff; and some of his scenes, even now, are 

 read with pleasure, although the language has pro- 

 proceeded so far in improvement Kostroff deserves 



mention on account of his translation of the first 

 books of the Iliad into Alexandrine verse, and of 

 Ossian into prose. His language is not without 

 force Bobroff, a wild genius, has left behind him 

 a number of bombastic odes, and a descriptive 

 poem, Taiiria, a chaos, but which contains hureand 

 there some brilliant passages Bogdanowitsch, 



(q. v.), author of a poem called Psyche, in imitation 

 of La Fontaine, is naif, and full of grace and ori- 

 ginality, but diffuse, and deficient in taste. Oser- 

 off belongs, if his language is considered, to this 

 period, although his poems appear in that which fol- 

 lowed. The plan of his tragedies is French, the 

 language neither pure nor beautiful, but the ex- 

 pression is often forcible, and the description of the 

 passions natural ; some scenes are really tragic ; 

 some of his characters are well delineated and sup- 

 ported. Petroff was a true poet, but his language 

 is rude ; he had many ideas and striking images. 

 He celebrated the victories of Catherine the Great 

 in his odes. His heroes were Potemkin and Ro- 

 manzoff. His translation of the J^neid into Alex- 

 andrine verse is very unpolished in its language, but 

 is full of power. Lomonosoff also commences the 

 series of prose writers of this period. His eulo- 

 gies upon Peter the Great and Elizabeth contain 

 few ideas, but much rhetorical ornament. Both 

 of these writings are entirely different from those of 

 his predecessors. They have very much improved 

 the language, but still have not given it a perma- 

 nent form. The same may be said of his scientific 

 treatises upon electricity and metallurgy, of his Essay 

 towards a Russian grammar, of his Rhetoric, which 

 contains many fragments translated from the ancients. 

 Weissen (Wism) wrote two comedies in prose, full 

 of genuine humour, which describe in true colours 

 some of the absurdities of the age; both of these 

 have maintained themselves upon the stage. He 

 also wrote two very original satires, and some 

 translations from Montaigne and Terrasson. Mura- 

 vieff, the tutor of the emperor Alexander, com- 

 posed for his noble pupil several treatises upon 

 Russian history, some dialogues of the dead, and 

 some fragments, in the manner of the English Spec- 

 tator, under the title of the Suburban. His style 

 is not wholly pure, neither has he a great command 

 of language : it is evident that he has formed his 

 style from the imitation of French writers ; but he 

 is full of ideas, and particularly rich in imagery. 

 When we read his works, we feel that his mind is 

 conversant with all the beauty contained in ancient 

 and modern literature. A good heart, a pure mind, 

 and a love of virtue, are conspicuous in every thing 

 that he has written. He was in advance of his 

 age. But he had little effect upon his contempo- 

 raries, as he permitted but few of his writings to 

 be printed, and his works did not appear till long 

 after his death. In general, it may be said, that 

 during this period the genius of Lomonosoff awak- 

 ened a taste for literature in his nation. People 

 eagerly read every thing that was printed, particu- 

 larly poetical productions. In Sumarokoff they 

 saw a great tragic writer, and in the poem of 

 Keraskoff, with all its defects, an Iliad. They felt 

 the beautiful, but did not know how to distinguish 

 it from what was miserable. Taste was in the 

 cradle, and criticism still unborn. We may con- 

 sider this age as the awakening period of genius 

 and poetry. In the last half of it, a man of genius 

 made his appearance, who belonged to no school, 

 of an original and peculiar mind, without high cul- 

 tivation, but unique in his kind, and the true repre- 

 sentative of Russian poetry. This man was Der- 

 schawin. He celebrated the glory of the Russian 

 arms during the reign of Catharine, as did Lomono- 

 soff and Petroff ; but while these were only eulo- 

 gists of their sovereign and her generals, Derscha- 

 win celebrated them in the true spirit of a poet. 

 He remained a philosopher even at the foot of the 



