SECTION F SLAVIC LITERATURE 



(Hall 8, September 21, 10 a. m.) 



CHAIRMAN: MR. CHARLES R. CRANE, Chicago. 

 SPEAKERS: PROFESSOR LEO WIENER, Harvard University. 



PROFESSOR PAUL BOYER, Ecole des Langues Vivantes Orientales, 



Paris. 

 SECRETARY: MR. SAMUEL N. HARPER, University of Chicago. 



AMERICAN INFLUENCES IN THE SLAVIC LITERATURES 



BY LEO WIENER 



[Leo Wiener, Assistant Professor of Slavic Languages and Literature, Harvard 

 University, Cambridge, Massachusetts, b. July 26, 1862, Byelostok, Russia. 

 Studied at Minsk, University of Warsaw and Berlin. Assistant Professor of 

 Modern Languages, Missouri State University; Teacher of Modern Languages, 

 New England Conservatory of Music, 1895-96; Instructor in Slavic Languages 

 and Literature at Harvard University, 1896-1901. Member, Modern Language 

 Association. Translated Tolstoy's complete works, edited History of Yiddish 

 Literature, etc.] 



LIKE all the great nations of the world, the United States has 

 variously exerted an influence upon nineteenth-century thought 

 among the nationalities of Europe, especially upon Russia and Bul- 

 garia. This influence has proceeded from a great number of sources, 

 some of which can be easily traced, while others, though equally 

 or even more effective, naturally escape the investigator's scrutiny. 

 In the second half of the century American literature in its repre- 

 sentative authors became known to Europeans, to be translated, 

 and partly even imitated. Emerson, Thoreau, Poe, Walt Whitman, 

 Longfellow, have palpably influenced, not only German and French, 

 but also Russian, Bohemian, and Hungarian literatures. This source 

 can always be easily discovered, as the translations give evidence of 

 the interest in American literature, and the imitations arc generally 

 too obvious to admit of any doubt. Somewhat less apparent are 

 the obligations of the European literatures to American thought as 

 proceeding from scientific works, political, philosophical, sociological 

 treatises and school-books, for the reason that scientific ideas are 

 rapidly disseminated, and cross and recross continually, so that 

 the first source is very soon lost sight of; this effacement is still 

 further aided by the fact that the literary form of such treatises. 

 which more than anything else betrays the borrowing, is of but 

 secondary importance. Thus, though we arc positive of the in- 

 fluence of the Unitarian writers, Channing and Parker, upon Hun- 

 garian writers as well as upon the Russian Tolstoy; though we 



