RUSSIAN AND STUDIES IN RUSSIAN 



BY PAUL BOYER 

 (Translated from the French by Mr. Samuel N. Harper, University of Chicago) 



[Paul Boyer, Professor of Russian Language, School of Oriental Languages, Paris, 

 since 1894. b. Cormery, Indre-et-Loire, France, March 11, 1864. Studied at 

 the Universities of Paris, Leipzig, Moscow; Licencie" in letters, Paris, 1886; 

 Fellow, University of Paris, 1888; Mission to Russia, 1889-90. Assistant Pro- 

 fessor at School of Oriental Languages, Paris, 1890; member of the Committee 

 on Historical and Scientific Works, 1897. Member of Linguistic Society of Paris 

 (President in 1901), Geographical Society, Paris, Society for the Study of 

 Modern Languages and Literatures, Paris. Author of divers translations from 

 Russian into French; On the Accentuation of the Russian Verb; French edition 

 of The Finnish Population of the Sources of the Volga and Kama, by J. Smirnov; 

 Manual for the Study of the Russian Language.] 



IN the programme of this Congress, the comprehensive synthesis 

 of which seems to embrace all contemporary learning constituting 

 the sum of human knowledge, a special place has been reserved for 

 Slavic studies under the head of Slavic Literature. I beg to be 

 permitted (and I ask it particularly of the eminent chairman of this 

 meeting, whose authority is based on so many services rendered to 

 the cause of Slavic studies in this country) to understand this 

 name of Slavic Literature in a slightly special meaning, a meaning 

 it does not ordinarily imply. 



Literature, in the proper sense of the word, is the study of the 

 written and oral works through which the spirit of a people manifests 

 itself, and it is also the study of the men who were their authors. 

 I want to speak to you not of these works, nor of their authors, but 

 of the verbal instrument which the authors used for their compo- 

 sition, one of the most supple, delicate, and perfect that has ever 

 been wielded by human genius. And since preeminence among the 

 Slavic literatures belongs, if not by right of seniority, at least by 

 right of incontestable superiority, to Russian literature, I wish to 

 talk of Russian, of the language of Pushkin, Gogol, Turgeniev, Dos- 

 toievski, and Tolstoi, examining with you the distinctive characteris- 

 tics of its development in time and in space, indicating its present 

 state, endeavoring to show what can be predicted as to its future, and, 

 at the same time, determining what we have a right to expect from 

 Russian studies. 



(1) Limited to the question of origin, the linguistic definition of 

 Russian can be formulated as follows: Russian, under its three aspects 

 of Grcnt Russian, or Russian, properly speaking, of Little Russian 

 in Galicia, Hungarian Russia. Bukovina. and the Ukraine, of White 

 Russian in White Russia. i> an Indo-European language. It forms 

 the second of the three groups into which the Slavic languages are 



