A history of Russia

received instruction at home by private teachers, augmented, with increasing frequency, by travel abroad. The French Revolution, while it led to the exclusion of France from Russian itineraries, brought a large number of French emigres to serve as tutors in Russia. But in education, perhaps

even more than in other fields, the division of Russian society was glaringly evident. Although the eighteenth century witnessed the rise of modern Russian schools and modern Russian culture, virtually none of this affected the peasants, that is, the great bulk of the people.

Language

The adaptation of the Russian language to new needs in the eighteenth century constituted a major problem for Russian education, literature, and culture in general. It will be remembered that on the eve of Peter the Great's reforms Russian linguistic usage was in a state of transition as everyday Russian began to assert itself in literature at the expense of the archaic, bookish, Slavonicized forms. This basic process continued in the eighteenth century, but it was complicated further by a mass intrusion of foreign words and expressions which came with Westernization and which had to be dealt with somehow. The language used by Peter the Great and his associates was in a chaotic state, and at one time apparently the first emperor wanted to solve the problem by having the educated Russians adopt Dutch as their tongue!

In the course of the century the basic linguistic issues were resolved, and modern literary Russian emerged. The battle of styles, although not entirely over by 1800, resulted in a definitive victory for the contemporary Russian over the Slavonicized, for the fluent over the formal, for the practical and the natural over the stilted and the artificial. Nicholas Karamzin, who wrote in the last decades of the eighteenth and the first of the nineteenth century, contributed heavily to the final decision by effectively using the new style in his own highly popular works. As to foreign words and expressions, they were either rejected or gradually absorbed into the Russian language, leading to a great increase in its vocabulary. The Russian language of 1800 could handle many series of terms and concepts unheard of in Muscovy. That the Russian linguistic evolution of the eighteenth century was remarkably successful can best be seen from the fact that the golden age of Russian literature, still the standard of linguistic and literary excellence in modern Russian, followed shortly after. Indeed Pushkin was born in the last year of the eighteenth century.

The linguistic evolution was linked to a conscious preoccupation with language, to the first Russian grammars, dictionaries, and philological and literary treatises. These efforts, which were an aspect of Westernization, contributed to the establishment of modern Russian literary culture. Lo-monosov deserves special praise for the first effective Russian grammar, published in 1755, which proved highly influential. A rich dictionary composed by some fifty authors including almost every writer of note appeared in six volumes in 1789-94. Theoretical discussion and experimentation

by Basil Trediakovsky, Lomonosov, and others led to the creation of the now established system of modern Russian versification.

Literature

Modern Russian literature must be dated from Peter the Great's reforms. While, to be sure, the Russian literary tradition goes back to the Kievan age in the Lay of the Host of Igor and other works, and even to the prehistoric past in popular song and tale, the reign of the first emperor marked a sharp division. Once Russia turned to the West, it joined the intellectual and literary world of Europe which had little in common with that of Muscovy. In fact, it became the pressing task of educated eighteenth-century Russians to introduce and develop in their homeland such major forms of Western literary expression as poetry, drama, and the novel. Naturally, the emergence of an original and highly creative Russian literature took time, and the slowness of this development was emphasized by the linguistic evolution. The century had to be primarily imitative and in a sense experimental, with only the last decades considerably richer in creative talent. Nevertheless, the pioneer work of eighteenth-century writers made an important contribution to the establishment and development of modern Russian literature.

Antioch Kantemir, 1709-44, a Moldavian prince educated in Russia and employed in Russian diplomatic service, has been called 'the originator of modern Russian belles lettres.' Kantemir produced original works as well as translations, poetry and prose, satires, songs, lyrical pieces, fables, and essays. Michael Lomonosov, 1711-65, had a greater poetic talent than Kantemir. In literature he is remembered especially for his odes, some of which are still considered classics of their kind, in particular when they touch upon the vastness and glory of the universe. Alexander Sumarokov, 1718-77, a prolific and influential writer, has been honored as the father of Russian drama. In addition to writing tragedies and comedies as well as satires and poetry and publishing a periodical, Sumarokov was the first director of a permanent Russian theater. Sumarokov wrote his plays in the pseudo-classical manner characteristic of the age, and he often treated historical subjects.

The reign of Catherine the Great witnessed not only a remarkable increase in the quantity of Russian literature, but also considerable improvement in its quality. Two writers of the period, not to mention Nicholas Karamzin who belongs to the nineteenth century as well as to the eighteenth, won permanent reputations in Russian letters. The two were Gabriel Derzhavin and Denis Fonvizin. Derzhavin, 1743-1816, can in fairness be called Catherine the Great's official bard: he constantly eulogized the vain empress and such prominent Russians of her reign as Potemkin and

Suvorov. Like most court poets, he wrote too much; yet at his best Derzhavin produced superb poetry, both in his resounding odes, exemplified by the celebrated 'God,' and in some less-known lyrical pieces. The poet belonged to the courtly world that inspired him and even served as Minister of Justice in the government of Alexander I.

Fonvizin, 1745-92, has received wide acclaim as the first major Russian dramatist, a writer of comedies to be more exact. Fonvizin's lasting fame rests principally on a single work, the comedy whose title has been translated as The Minor, or The Adolescent - in Russian Nedorosl. Pseudo-classical in form and containing a number of artificial characters and contrived situations, the play, nevertheless, achieves a great richness and realism in its depiction of the manners of provincial Russian gentry. The hero of the comedy, the lazy and unresponsive son who, despite his reluctance, in the changing conditions of Russian life has to submit to an elementary education, and his doting, domineering, and obscurantist mother are apparently destined for immortality. In addition to The Minor, Fonvizin translated, adapted, or wrote some other plays, including the able comedy The Brigadier in which he ridiculed the excessive admiration of France in Russia; he also produced a series of satirical articles and a noteworthy sequence of critical letters dealing with his impressions of foreign countries.

While classicism, or neo-classicism, represented the dominant trend in the European literature of the eighteenth century, other currents also came to the fore toward the end of that period. Again, the Russians eagerly translated, adapted, and assimilated Western originals. Nicholas Karamzin, 1766-1826, can be called the founder of sentimentalism in Russian literature. His sensitive and lacrimose Letters of a Russian Traveler and his sensational although now hopelessly dated story Poor Liza, both of which appeared at the beginning of the last decade of the century, marked the triumph of the new sensibility in Russia. Karamzin, it might be added, succeeded also as a publisher, and generally helped to raise the stature of the professional writer in Russian life. Other pre-romantic trends in the writings of many authors - rather prominent as Rogger's study indicates - included a new interest in folklore, a concern with the history of the country, and an emphasis on things Russian as opposed to Western.

Social Criticism

The history of ideas cannot be separated from literary history, least of all in the Russian setting. Social criticism constituted the dominant content of both in eighteenth-century Russia. This didactic tendency, highly characteristic of the Age of Reason, found special application in Russia, where so much had toi be learned so fast. Kantemir, 'the originator of modern

Russian literature,' wrote satires by preference, while his translations included Montesquieu's Persian Letters. Satire remained a favorite genre among Russian writers of the eighteenth century, ranging from the brilliant comedies of Fonvizin to the pedestrian efforts of Catherine the Great and