A FEW GLIMPSES INTO RUSSIA 



249 



Russian intellectuals that they talk too 

 much. This is true ; they do talk too 

 much. Perhaps it can be explained by the 

 fact that for years and years they have 

 not been allowed to act, and therefore all 

 their energies were devoted to talking, 

 which served as an outlet to their accumu- 

 lated knowledge, so to speak. But this 

 talking has in itself brought about very 

 good results — that is, people were enabled 

 to formulate more precisely their ideas 

 about things — and when favorable time 

 for action came then they were able to 

 put their words in action. 



Many of the foreign authors are just 

 as well known in Russia as in their native 

 country. It would take too long to re- 

 late all the translations, so I will con- 

 fine myself, as it may interest the Amer- 

 ican people, to a few American authors 

 who are known to the Russian people 

 as well as to the Americans. Mark 

 Twain is, of course, as much a Russian 

 author as an American author. Every- 

 thing that he has written has been trans- 

 lated into Russian and therefore has been 

 widely read. 



LONGFELLOW AND MARK TWAIN BELOVED 

 IN RUSSIA 



Longfellow is just as well known, per- 

 haps, as Mark Twain. His poems have 

 been translated into Russian, not in prose 

 but in the same form as written, even the 

 rhyme and the rhythm of the verses hav- 

 ing been preserved. 



A well-known Russian poet, Ivan Bou- 

 nin, translated "The Song of Hiawatha," 

 and if one reads a stanza in English and 

 then in Russian, he will see that the 

 rhyme and rhythm have not been changed 

 by the translation, but are the same. This 

 is true also of Edgar Allan Poe's writ- 

 ings. His poems were translated by an- 

 other famous Russian poet, Constantine 

 Balmont, and not only his poems but all 

 his short stories also have been translated 

 into Russian, and his works are very 

 much appreciated and loved. 



Walt Whitman's complete works have 

 been translated ; William Dean Howells is 

 as well known in Russia as in America. 

 In 1907 Jack London's complete works 

 were translated ; they appear in twelve 



volumes in Russian and have had a tre- 

 mendous success, the edition having been 

 repeated six times in one year. The 

 essays of Emerson are widely read ; the 

 books of William James, especially his 

 "Principles of Psychology," are known to 

 every intelligent Russian. 



The lives' of many Presidents of the 

 United States have been translated into 

 Russian and their histories are tamiliar 

 to the mass of the Russian people. The 

 "Life of Washington," the "Life of Gar- 

 field," "From the Log Cabin to the White 

 House," etc., are known by everybody in 

 Russia who reads, and I need not add that 

 "Uncle Tom's Cabin" is known to all 

 Russians, not only by those who read. 



In Russia books are published in edi- 

 tions not of one thousand or five thou- 

 sand copies, but in editions of ten and 

 twenty thousand, and if an edition is re- 

 peated, a book often has a sale of about 

 80,000 copies a year. 



The Russian youth begins to read very 

 early. I remember that when I was four- 

 teen years af age we had circles for the 

 purpose of self-education, and we studied 

 economic questions — sociology ; and when 

 I was fifteen and sixteen we studied in 

 our circles philosophy — Kant, Schopen- 

 hauer, Fichte, Hegel, and the French Hu- 

 manists. 



It sounds rather "abnormal" for "per- 

 sons" of that age to be occupied with such 

 questions, and some may have doubts as 

 to the seriousness of our readings, but I 

 have never felt myself so grown up and 

 so able to understand things clearly as 

 then. ... It may be that the Rus- 

 sian youth in those days — fifteen or 

 twenty years ago — felt intuitively that he 

 had a great responsibility toward his 

 country and that upon the youth of 

 twenty years ago would fall the great task 

 of reorganizing his country and bringing 

 her institutions to the level of other 

 democratic nations. 



FIFTY MILLION COOPERATIVES 



The cooperative movement in Russia 

 was a great help to the education of the 

 rural districts. It celebrated its jubilee in 

 191 5, the first cooperative society having 

 been sanctioned in 1865, during the great 

 reforms, when the serfs were freed, and 



