GOGOL AND ANGLO-RUSSIAN LITERARY RELATIONS DURING THE CRIMEAN WAR

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Gogol and Anglo-Russian Literary Relations during the Crimean War Author(s): Carl Lefevre Source: American Slavic and East European Review, Vol. 8, No. 2 (Apr., 1949), pp. 106-125Published by: {aaass} Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2491997Accessed: 13-04-2015 01:21 UTC

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GOGOL AND ANGLO-RUSSIAN LITERARY RELATIONS DURING THE CRIMEAN WAR

CARL LEFEVRE

GOGOL was little known in England before the Crimean War. Earlier there had been only one criticism of his works, and that an incompetent one (I84I); a sketchy, erroneous mention of him in a table of Russian literature published in a periodical (I 842); and the first translation of one of his supernatural tales, "Viy" (I 847). Then the Crimean War brought forth a malicious forgery of his masterpiece of social satire, Dead Souls (1854), which occasioned three long articles, two of them exposing it for what it was, and a third simply exploiting it to suit the propaganda needs of the hour. On the more constructive side of the wartime interest in Gogol, first translations of two of his tales, with prefatory critical comments, were published in periodicals. Excepting a scattered handful of lost translations and one pioneering critical study, there was no further English interest in Gogol until the i 88os.

So far as I have discovered, the first English comment on Gogol appeared in the Westminster Review for July, 1841.1 It is not surprising that an article of this date should be the first in English -to mention Gogol, because in those days commerce with Russia was extremely slow and uncertain, especially in books and ideas, and Gogol's greatest work, Dead Souls, had not yet appeared. By 1841 he had written all his important fiction and drama, but the first part of Dead Souls was not published until I842, when he was already considered to be a classic Russian writer, as indicated by the appearance of the first collected edition of his works in that year. After 1842 he wrote virtually nothing of literary importance, only the second, unfinished part of Dead Souls. But the world outside Russia and Continental Europe, most particularly England and America, knew little about him and his work at this time, and it is entirely plain that L., writing in the Westminster Review, had not the slightest inkling that he was dealing with a literary master. Of course, no English translations of any of Gogol's works had appeared as yet.

Actually, the Westminster Review article was not occasioned by the appearance of anything by Gogol, but by the publication of the first volumes of two Russian reference works which had "fallen in

X L., "Russian Literary Biography &c.," TWestmninster Review, XXXVI (July, 1841), 35-57. This periodical was originally a Benthamite organ and later was edited un- officially by John Stuart Mill (1837-40); it continued until i85i. See Graham, English Literary Periodicals, pp. 2 5 I-5 2.



Gogol and Anglo-Russian Literary Relations I07

the way" of the reviewer. He writes that "we have not scrupled to use them as a pretext, at least, for putting here together a few desultory observations" on Russian literature and literary men in general. Thus, although the reviewer discusses Gogol in particular detail, the article is also an invaluable source of information concerning contemporary English and Continental knowledge of Rus- sian literature. Its broad significance, however, lies in the author's stern insistence on the life-and-death importance to Englishmen of studying the intellectual life of Russia as an extensive and powerful empire which he fears will one day clash with the British Empire. The writer seems to feel himself a lone voice crying in the wilderness, for his premonitory concern with the menace of the Russian Empire, nowhere fully explicit, nevertheless sets the tone of the entire article.

There had been considerably more interest shown in Russian literature than L. himself was aware of, but it was not widespread, and his remarks give us clear evidence of the primitive condition of public English information about Russia and her literature at this time. We must admit the deadly seriousness of this critic, even though we must also convict him of a very poor sense of literary values with respect to Gogol. It should be borne in mind, however, that L. was entirely on his own. There were simply no precedents in criticism of Gogol outside Russia and Continental Europe, and where this critic was mistaken and somewhat ridiculous, the more important English critics of his time and even much later were either ignorant or silent.

Even so, there is no charity which will explain away L.'s comment on Gogol's Mirgorod, a volume which contains "Old-World Land- Owners," Taras Bulba, "Viy," and "The Tale of How Ivan Ivano- vitch Quarreled with Ivan Nikiforovitch." Although he does not state where, he seems also to have read some of Gogol's Ukrainian folk stories, so that altogether he could hardly have had a more representative collection of Gogol's works, short of the two masterpieces of social satire, The Inspector General and Dead Souls. It is clear, however, that to a considerable extent he was reacting against the favorable German opinion of one Koenig, in his Litterarische Bilder aus Russland.

L.'s pettishness of manner is carried rather far in his comments on Gogol (particularly on "Old-World Land-Owners"). He apparently feels that with this unknown and hitherto unheard-of writer he can give free rein to his feeling of aversion: And what shall we say of Gogol-that original talent, as Koenig calls him, whose writings have caused such a sensation-probably by this time quite forgotten-among the Russian reading public? . .. we have been fortunate



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-or else unfortunate-enough to read Gogol's "Mirgorod," which we are assured by Koenig is his chef d'oeuvre-at least the very best thing of the kind he had then produced. It consists of four tales which are intended to exhibit characteristic pictures of manners and the state of society in the province of Little Russia; and the first of them, which is also considered the gem of the whole, made us groan more than once as we turned over page after page, in the hope of meeting something like an incident, a scene, or a dialogue in it. It is nothing more than a tedious, prosy account of a stupid, good-sort-of Philemon and Baucis couple, who live in clover on their estate, and suffer themselves to be imposed upon by a set of lazy, cheating, overfed servants, among whom is a "fat boy," ' la Pickrwick, who, when not eating, is asleep! In fact, eating, drinking, and sleeping form the chief occupation of the whole establishment; pleasant enough for them, but confoundedly dull for their historian and his readers.... In Gogol's piece there is neither outline nor colouring, neither touch nor pencilling, while it is equally desti- tute of intelligible scope, lesson, or moral of any kind. All that we can make out from it is, that in Little Russia wealthy and respectable people-for as such are Athanasius Ivanovitch and lady ticketed by the author lead an exceedingly htugger-mugger life, in which sordidness and coarseness ac- company riotous profusion. They are merely animated digesting-machines . . . are not only intolerably stupid of themselves, but seem to have com- municated their own dullness to their historian, who has given us about one of the clumsiest and most wearisome attempts of the kind we have ever encountered in any language. Compressed into a dozen pages, the portrait of such a in-anage might have been made tolerably graphic and lively; whereas it is altogether devoid of either manners-painting or delineation of character-is without pleasantry, or humour, or satiric shrewdness, or force of any kind is, in fact, "sans everything" and anything, except thorough inanity and feebleness.2

L. then goes on to say that it is "truly disheartening . . . to be com- pelled to report so unfavorably" on Gogol, but that he wvii console himself with the thought that critics are not infallible, and that Koenig has perhaps "fallen into a woeful mistake." Finally, he dis- poses of Gogol and washes his hands of him altogether:

However much to be regretted in itself, such a sickly taste cannot possibly be of any very long duration. Fortunately it seems to have been already pushed to its utmost limits; and as it is of a kind which "neither gods, nor men, nor columns" can endure long together, the mere thirst after novelty will produce something else, and almost anything else must be something better.3

Such was Gogol's first sad introduction to English readers. The next mention of Gogol which I have discovered appears in

an article which was intended to provide a chronological survey of

2 L., op. cit., pp. 42-43- 3jbid.



Gogol and Anglo-Russian Literary Relations 0og

the whole of Russian literature: "Tables of Foreign Literature," in the Foreign Quarterly Review for October, 1842. It is valuable mainly as an expression of the state of English knowledge of Russian literature at this time, but it is also of special interest to the scholar because it was prepared "to serve in some measure as an index" to all the articles on Russian literature which had appeared in previous issues of the Foreign Quarterly Review. It seems to be the first bib- liography of its kind in English. It provides two tables, requiring nine pages, and a rather surprising number of items at this early date. There is a table of eighteenth-century authors, giving each author's name, works, and dates of birth and death; and a table of living authors and artists, giving the name, work, and the date of birth of each. Gogol was a living author, of course, but he did not figure very prominently; the date of his birth (i 809) was unknown, and of his works, only A rabesques (1835) was listed, although he had by then completed all his first-rate literary productions. More- over, his name seems to have been crossed with that of Ivan Grech, author of "Historical Essay on Russian Literature," which had been reviewed in the Foreign Quarterly Review. "Ivan" Gogol and "Nikolai" Grech! Gogol was a long way from fame in England.

Between 1842 and the Crimean War (1854-55), with its sudden burgeoning of official and public interest in Russia and her literature, I have found only one published item relating to Gogol: in October, 1847, the first English translation of any of Gogol's works was published in Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine;4 it also appeared in the American Living Age for the same year. This was one of his short stories, "The Portrait," translated by Thomas Budge Shaw, a professor of English literature at the Imperial Alexander Lyceum in St. Petersburg. There is no reason to suppose that the publication of this story in England and America marked any great news wave of interest in Russian literature, or in Gogol, yet this translation was no mere space-filler for the magazine; it occupied twenty-eight closely printed pages. Moreover, it had been translated by an accomplished linguist, scholar, and poet, a man who translated several earlier novels and poems from the Russian about this time. Accord- ing to E. A. Osborne, some of T B. Shaw's English translations of Puskin's verse are among the best we have.5

Professor Shaw was one of the first important links between English and Russian culture in the nineteenth century, but in 1847 the time was not yet ripe for a lively reception of Russian literature in England. Of course it must be kept in mind that the Russian

4 Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, LXII (October, 1847), 457-84. 5 E. A. Osborne, "Early Translations from the Russian: II. Pushkin and His Con-

temporaries," London Bookmnan, LXXXII (August, I93 2), 268.



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novel itself had not developed at this time as it had before the great literary "invasion" of the eighties; Gogol had done his great work, it is true, but Turgenev, Dostoevskij, and Tolstoj had not done theirs; and Gogol, later known in England and America as "the father of Russian realism, was not widely appreciated until near the end of the century, after the reputations of his three successors had been established.

The preparations for war against Russia in the Crimea in i853, and the actual war of 1854-55, provided the motive for a decided increase in the number of translations from Russian literature and articles about Russian writers and their works. These evidences of a definite interest in Russian literature are to be found amid a veritable welter of more general articles and books about Russia, her people, her customs-in fact, everything about Russia. Naturally, there was great public and official curiosity about the "interior" of Russia at this time. Book and periodical publishers quickly responded to this curiosity, and at the same time stimulated it. Three of the most important Russian works of that period were published in English translations which introduced them to English readers for the first time: Lermontov's A Hero of Our Time was published as Sketches of Russian Life in the Caucasus (1853), without the author's name; Gogol's Dead Souls, as Home Life in Russia(i 854) a forgery and purposeful distortion, "by a Russian noble"; and Turgenev's A Sportman's Sketches, inaccurately translated from a poor version in French, under the opportune title of Russian Life in the Interior (I855), but at least with the author's name. In addition to these full-length books, there were translations of short stories by Tur- genev6 and Gogol in several periodicals, as well as many notices and reviews of books.

In tone and quality these wartime publications are anything but identical. On the contrary, they cover a remarkable range, from spellbinding patrioteering on the general crisis facing mankind, to casual and lighthearted skepticism about the official democratic aims of this particular war. On the basis of the available evidence, it is clearly inaccurate to generalize, simply, that "as a consequence of the war the English were eager for information with which to de- nounce their enemy";' or that "the Victorian sensibility ... was too fine to admit of Gogol."8 Very little of the comment on Gogol's works at this time will support these generalizations. The first Crimean War translation of one of Gogol's stories, for example,

6 Royal A. Gettman, Thrgenev itn England and America, "Illinois Studies in Language and Literature" (Urbana, Ill., 1941). See Chapter I.

7 Ibid., p. 14. 8 bid, p. 29.



Gogol and Anglo-Russian Literary Relations I I I

could hardly have had less to do with denouncing the enemy, or with a superfine Victorian sensibility. So far as I can tell, this tale seems to have been regarded simply as a pleasant piece of Russian fiction, presented in a periodical miscellany at this time because, presumably, nearly everyone in the family would be interested. The editor was frankly light and playful in his references to the war, not to say a trifle naughty.

This translation of Gogol's "Viy," the earliest I have encountered in English, was published anonymously under the title "A Russian Ghost Story," in Sharpe's London Magazine for December, 8j4. Neither the name of Gogol nor a translation of his title appears at the head of the article, but both are to be found in the introductory material. Nor is there any indication of the immediate source of the translation, other than several untranslated Russian words which are explained in footnotes. There had been prior translations in both French and German, however, which the translator might have used.'0 In this version of Gogol's "Viy" there are a few departures from the original in the names of the characters, but nothing difficult or inexplicable. The story is presented with the following introductory comment: The highest legal authorities in the kingdom have declared the Russians to be "alien enemies," and their goods and chattels, real and personal, to be lawful objects of spoil for any British subject who may choose to seize them. Now, be it understood, we have not the smallest fancy for invading Moscow, or driving a foray on St. Petersburg. Great guns though some of us may be, our innocuous thunder never resounded at Silistria, or waked the echoes of Bomarsund; yet, in a small and peaceful way, we feel much inclined to make prize of some of the mental riches lavished on his countrymen by their distinguished novelist, Nicholas Gogol. We are thus induced to present our readers with an abstract of one of his wildest tales, the "Gnome-King," as it contains many illustrations of the manners, customs, and superstitions of Russia." I

The translation is accurately called an abstract, for although it is only about one-third as long as the Garnett version, it does preserve the essential action of the story of Homa Brut and the witch, except the very end, which has been completely changed to make the ad- venture appear to have been only a dream. In Gogol's tale the ad-

9 "A Russian Ghost Story," Sharpe's London Magazine, XX (n.s. V) (December, 1854), 353-60. Founded in 1829, Sharpe's London Magazine was "a genuine literary periodical" which was discontinued after three numbers had appeared. Revived in 1846, it was published until 1870 with various slight changes of title. See Graham, op. cit., pp. 288-89.

10 Nouvelles russes, trans. L. Viardot (Paris, 1845). Russische Novellen, nach L. Viardot, iibertr. von H. Bode (Leipzig, 1846).

ii Op. cit., p. 353.



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venture is no dream, Homa Brut really dies, and the alehouse obsequies performed by his two best friends conclude Gogol's story with a characteristic irony and satire which are not to be found in the Sharpe's London Magazine version.

It is noteworthy, however, that the omitted and condensed parts are mainly just those which would serve best as "illustrations of the manners, customs, and superstitions of Russia," especially to an editor bent on reviling the enemy. Except for the omissions and condensations, which of course have the effect of distilling out the specifically Gogolian quality of the story, this translation is about what one would expect from the general spirit of the introductory comment. Such was the first English version of "Viy."

In sharp contrast to the lightness and fun of this translation of "Viy," a rich atmosphere of arrant skulduggery and florid jingoism surrounds the first English translation of Dead Souls and some of the comment it provoked. This was a two-volume edition published in London by Hurst and Blackett in I854, under the arresting title of Home Life in Russia, by a Russian Noble. Prominent on the title page was the additional information "Revised by the Editor of Revela- tions of Siberia." The "editor" of Home Life in Russia was actually the Polish colonel Lach-Szmyrna, an expatriate residing in England. He seems to have been spoiling for a fight with Russia, or anything Russian, even a literary masterpiece by Gogol-especially since it could be converted into powerful anti-Russian propaganda for English consumption during the war. According to E. A. Osborne, the colonel, editor of Revelations of Siberia as well as of Home Life in Russia, had studied at Vilna and Edinburgh, translated "many popular books into Polish, and edited several bogus translations from the Russian for Messrs. Hurst and Blackett." He goes on to say that "it is to be hoped that the blatant falsehoods in this connection were committed without their knowledge, but the evidence rather points to the existence of smart publicity methods in the 1850's."" So far as Home Life in Russia is concerned, it was an arrogant and vicious forgery, involving the grossest omissions and interpolations.

Short as it is, the "Preface by the Editor" of Homne Life in Russia is a very important document of Gogol's early history in England, and it is Exhibit A in the heated controversy that developed around the "translation" at the time. Since we shall thread our way through this melee directly, we need to have this important document before us:

In laying before English readers a Work, of which the scene is exclusively

12 E. A. Osborne, "Early Translations from the Russian: IV. Nikolay Vasilevich Gogol (1809-1852)," London Bookmnan, LXXXIII (October, 1932), p. 68. 1



Gogol and Anglo-Russian Literary Relations I I 3

laid in Russia, and which, it is confidently anticipated, will be recognized as furnishing a most interesting and graphic account of the manners and customs of a very extraordinary nation, the Editor considers it his duty to devote a few words to an explanation of the circumstances connected with the publication of these volumes.

The Work is written by a Russian nobleman, who offered the MS. in English to the publishers, and the Editor's task has been confined to altering such verbal errors as might be expected, when we bear in mind that the Author has written in a language which is not his own.

The story may be said to be unique. It gives us an insight into the internal circumstances and relations of Russian society, which only a Russian could afford us. The Nosdrieffs are an exceptional class, whose type is peculiar to a half-civilization where a blow is accounted no disgrace, and "giving the lie" imparts no stigma. And yet men who quietly pocket such insults, we find are tolerated in good society, and, strange to say, are not thought the worse on that account. The Napoleonic dictum "grattez le Russe, et vous trouverez le Tartare," is in this instance most fully verified. But we will not spoil the reader's enjoyment by any further intimation of the persons, whose acquaintance he will make while perusing the following pages. The author affirms that the story is true, and that the main facts are well known in Russia. There is hardly a class of Russian life and society which is not introduced upon the scene, and the Author displays their foibles with an unsparing hand. Still he must not be regarded as an enemy to his Fatherland: he acts under a salutary impression that the expose can do no harm, and may possibly effect some good: and if he have such good fortune that his book gains access into his own country, we feel sure that its truth will be im- mediately recognized, and its severity pardoned, at least by those not in authority, on account of the Author's strenuous exertions to do his part manfully in ameliorating the conditions of his fellow sufferers in Russia.

In conclusion, we may regret that we are not at liberty to mention the author's name-not that the work itself requires any further verification, for its genuineness is avouched by almost every line but the truth is that the writer is still anxious to return to his native country, and is perfectly well aware that the avowal of his handiwork and such a display of his satirical powers will not serve as a special recommendation, except, possibly, as a passport to the innermost regions of the Siberian wilds.

With these preliminary remarks, the Editor begs to offer "Home Life in Russia" to the English readers, as a worthy companion to the "Revelations of Siberia," and as adding one more to our scanty list of books which throw light upon the domestic life of our "ancient allies" and present foes.13

Despite the seeming sweet reasonableness of the "editor," a Polish nationalistic bias is definitely expressed here, most obviously in "the Napoleonic dictum," but its malevolence is fully revealed only after we have noted two important aspects of Home Life in Russia: the deep-dyed falsehoods of this preface, and the malicious "revision" of

13 Home Life in Russia, by a Russian Noble (London, I854), Preface, pp. i-iv.



114 The American Slavic and East European Review

Gogol's masterpiece which it introduces. In attempting to impose such a fraud on the English public, Colonel Lach-Szmyrna and his English publishers gambled brazenly on universal English ignorance of Gogol-but they lost, ignominiously.

A scholarly reviewer for the Athenaeum 14 was the first to expose the fraud. After quoting the Preface, he remarks: ... the facts of the case are somewhat different. The book is not original, but a translation. Instead of its being a remote chance that the story will find its way to Russia, it has been one of the most popular books in Russia for the last twelve years. It was published at Moscow, in 1842, under the title of . . . The Adventures of Chichikov; or, The Dead Souls. The work received the sanction of the censor.... The author was not sent to Siberia; it is understood, on the contrary, that some of his writings are in high favour with the Emperor Nicholas, who has no dislike to see his subordinates ridiculed. Though the English editor is not "at liberty to mention the author's name?" the book when published bore the name of Nicholas Gogol. ..

These are certainly the main facts, yet the writer had never seen the original Dead Souls, nor even a complete Continental translation. His evidence consisted of three long critical essays, two in Russian periodicals of 1842 (twelve years earlier) and a third by Prosper Merimee, printed as an appendix in his Carmen (Paris, I852). These essayists had sketched the plot in such detail that the English critic realized it was essentially the same as that of Home Ijfe in Russia. Moreover, this scholarly critic had compared a dialogue as repro- duced in the Hurst and Blackett publication with the translation of it in Merimee's essay, and had found that they "corresponded not with minute exactness, but in every essential particular."

He notes further that the translator has made "interpolations by no means in the best taste" and that "to balance these insertions, passages which the Russians regarded as gems have been omitted. He specifies "two or three rhapsodies on the immense extent of the Russian Empire, and the grandeur of Russia's destinies," and quotes

14 December 2, I854, pp. II54-55. This periodical was a very important weekly journal of belles-lettres, and was especially noteworthy for the quality of its scholarly articles. See Graham, op. cit., pp. 3I8-I9.

The article is unsigned, like most others of the time. It is worth noting, however, that W R. Morfill writes in the Academy for February 25, i893 (XLIII, i69-70), that "the fraud [Home Life in Russia] would probably have passed unnoticed if it had not been for the protest of the late W. R. S. Ralston" (p. I69). He does not indicate the nature of the protest, however, nor name a periodical or book in which it may be found; and Poole's does not attribute the review to Ralston. Ralston was interested in Russian literature and he wrote several articles on it in this period and later, but nothing on Gogol. His scholarly specialty was Russian folklore, and he published one of the earliest works in English on this subject, Russian Folk Tales (i873). He also wrote Kriloff and His Fables (I 869) and The Songs of the Russian People (1 87 2).



Gogol and Anglo-Russian Literary Relations I

the celebrated troika passage, in full, as one example. The motive behind these omissions, he suspects, is that "they would not have chimed in well with the fictitious origin which it was thought ad- visable to attribute to the transplanted story." So far so good.

But after so much clear, incisive reasoning, our excellent scholar comes face to face with the unpleasant question of who is to be held responsible for the outrage. He weakens. He states that he believes that the "respectable publishers" have been deceived, and that the writer of the Preface was not "a party to the imposture." Who then could have been guilty? Only the mythical Russian noble to whom the work was attributed in the half title. Thus the anonymous scholar allowed the respectable publishers to escape scot free, but a more hardy reviewer challenged them later, as we shall note more fully in a moment.

Having eliminated all ground for personal unpleasantness between himself and the publishers and the writer of the Preface, the scholarly Athenaeum reviewer goes on to express a few opinions about the novel itself. He believes that Dead Souls would have had an "additional chance of success" if it had only appeared in its "genuine shape." Still, he thinks some value might well be found in such a picture of Russian manners, particularly because it has been pro- nounced a likeness in Russia. But notwithstanding this possible appeal, he feels that Home Life in Russia has little chance of being read through except by someone comparing it with the original, because the English is so very bad. He stresses the point that the Russian original is said to be remarkable for the beauty of its language, and then cites a number of glaringly bad sentences from the translation. In his opinion, however, "the novel itself is not an attractive one." He supports his position by reference to the differ- ences of critical opinion about it in Russia, a controversy in which he takes sides with the "malcontents." After summarizing the ingenious plot, he points out that in the original the purpose of the proceedings is kept a mystery until the last chapter, according to Merimee, but that in Home Life in Russia "it is let out at the outset, so as to destroy any little interest the secret might otherwise have excited."

Near the end of his essay, after having brilliantly exposed the fraud and tamely allowed the perpetrators to escape, the writer, seeming to recall that the Crimean War is in progress, taps weakly on the war drum before he concludes. He avers that he is persuaded, from his reading of Home Life in Russia, that Gogol has been "eminently successful" in only one characterization: "Nosdrieff a liar, bully, gambler, cheat, and coward-is drawn with a strong pencil, and may be placed side by side with some of the most vivid



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and hideous pictures of Fielding and Smollett." If he had known the entire work in the original or in a respectable translation, he might have said that only this one character suited Colonel Lach-Szyrma's purpose well enough to be left intact. Of the rest, "the most remarkable feature about the whole of them is the absence of anything attractive or even endurable." In conclusion, he cites Merimee's opinion-and a just one it is that the plan of Dead Souls can be carried out only by a combination of swindlers, and adds: "That the general tone of the work in regard to swindling is not sufficiently distasteful to swindlers is proved by the circumstance that the adventures of one Russian imposter [Chichikov, the "hero" of Dead Souls] have, as we have seen, been introduced into England by another."15 The other imposter was not a Russian, of course, but the Polish colonel, Lach-Szmyrna, probably cooperating with the English publishers, Hurst and Blackett.

The publishers were not long in making a public response to the revelations of the Athenaeum review of their product. Taking from the reviewer the cue of using the mythical Russian noble as a scape- goat, they sent a reply to the A thenaeum editor which was published the following week in "Our Weekly Gossip.'"16 The editor is content to say merely that "the following correspondence speaks for itself," and to print the letter from the publishers. It says, in substance, that Messrs. Hurst and Blackett have seen the article of the previous week, and that they want to report that they purchased the manuscript from a Russian baron, in residence in England, as his own original production. They say that they have written to him, and enclose his reply, as follows: The ms. which I sold you under the title of "Adventures of Tchichikoff" is a composition of my own, based on the facts that happened in Russia, and which became so very popular and familiar to everyone there, that many Russian authors wrote on the same subject, with more or less deviation from the truth. I knew Nicolai Gogol (he is now dead), he wrote a very clever and long poem on the same subject, so did also, to the very best of my recollection, the authors Gontcharoff, Grigorovitch, Boutkoff, and several others; that subject has been handed down in Russia by every one, and with all has had an immense success. . .17

The publishers' letter continues, "Messrs. Hurst and Blackett do not wish to make the name of the writer public, but they enclose the original letter, begging the editor of the Athenaeu-n to consider it as confidential." The editor did what he could for the shy and embar-

15 Athenaeum, p. II 5s5. 16 "Our Weekly Gossip," Athenaeum, (December 9, i854), I496. 17 Ibid.



Gogol and Anglo-Russian Literary Relations II 7

rassed publishers by saying only that "our readers have both sides of the question before them:-and will not need our prompting in their final judgment."

Some indication of what their final judgment was may be found in an article published some time later in the Eclectic Review."8 Here the critic minces no words in dealing frankly with the fraud, and he considers the publishers' letter ridiculous enough to be quoted in full. He asserts, derisively, that "the hero, Tschitchikov, is outdone by the cool impudence of this speculation on English ignorance of Rus- sian literature to palm off, under an attractive title, and as an original work, a very bad translation, with some verbal alterations and sup- pressions to give color to the fraud, of a novel which has run a twelve years' popularity." But this article is interesting mainly for its detailed analysis of the enormous misrepresentation of Dead Souls which Hom;e Life in Russia actually is. The article has savor, too, because of its saucy tone of satire throughout. It begins, "If our statesmen in this war have prohibited privateering, they have not prevented piracy," and the entire following treatment of the fraudu- lent aspects of the translation is highly satirical. The reviewer quotes the Preface and easily refutes it by citing the relevant facts.

At the beginning of his article he appears to echo the Athenaeum reviewer on several points, but he has examined Home Life in Russia very carefully and speaks of it on his own authority. Perhaps the most striking thing in his article is his comparison of Dead Souls in a German translation with the English "revision." He must have translated his text of the German version into English in order to present the two English translations in parallel columns for his readers. It should be said that although this critic appreciates Gogol's literary genius, he does use the novel to arouse antagonism to the tsarist regime, with definite reference to the war then in progress. On the other hand, it should also be said that none of his allegations against the Russian government is unfounded, and that he does not attack the Russian people as a nation or "race.??

As for the literary quality of the novel, this critic feels that Dead Souls does not have many attractions for English readers, its value being primarily that it may help to develop an understanding of Russian life. In support of his position he says that even "if the hero is a rascal, he is a reality drawn from Russian life," and then discourses at some length on the reasons for his belief. The following quotations are illustrative:

18 "Modern Russian Literature" [reprinted from the Eclectic Review], the Eclectic Magazine, XXXIV (Aprils i855), 450-6i. This periodical was a "sectarian religious organ of the Dissenters," and a close imitator of the Edinburgh Review. See Graham, Op. cit., p. 239.



IJ8 The American Slavic and East European Review The foremost works of Russian literature have the sombre hue of a Russian sky ... they paint likenesses of nature as nature is in Russia.... one must use these pictures as we have them, not for our pleasure but for our profit. . . . Fiction by a master hand is only history in miniature. Without these little histories great history would be but a skeleton. Gogol and other writers of Russia . . . paint life in that aimless dreary listlessness, without object or hope, in which life lingers under the dreariest despotism that ever scourged the world. Had Dead Souls no other value, it would be invaluable for its pictures of Russian life drawn by a Russian-pictures acknowledged by Russians to be true to life. . . . These pictures are not devoid of art, but it is a low art in its forms; the drunken boers of a Dutch painter to the graces of a Raffaele.19

As for the characters, he writes that they

represent not merely a corrupt and venal official life-they are representative men, as Mr. Emerson would say, of the worthlessness, stolidity, and heartlessness of the privileged provincial nobles, who feed and riot on the slavery of millions of men. A terrible and saddening picture of humanity debased has Nicholas Gogol drawn in his Dead Souls. No title could so aptly describe the life of that wilderness.20

This broad, social-conscious view of Gogol's satirical novel accurately summarizes the reviewer's criticism, and at the same time it exemplifies the general attitude that seems to have been most commonly taken in England and America, at this time as well as later.

The Athenaeum and Eclectic reviewers whose articles we have just been discussing accounted quite satisfactorily for the enormity of the misrepresentation of Gogol's masterpiece. Home Life in Russia was not intended to be literature in any serious sense, but war propaganda, pure and simple. As such it was probably quite effective. The use of it in the spellbinding of a contemporary superpatriot writing at length about "Russians at Home Past and Present" in the British Quarterly Review21 illustrates the point all too clearly. The writer was definitely seeking information which he could use in denouncing and reviling the enemy.

What might be called the thesis of the article is this statement: "England has now known Russia and the Russian people, for about 302 years, and from the earliest accounts we have in our language

19 Ibid., p. 454. 20 Ibid. 21 "Russians at Home-Past and Present," British Quarterly Review, XXI (January and

April, I855), 1 30-57.The British Quarterly Review is an important source of material reflect- ing Anglo-Russian literary relations of this early period. The first full-length essay in English which deals with everything Gogol wrote appeared in it in i868, and the first essay on Turgenev which discussed all his novels, in i869, both written by C. E. Turner. The publisher of this periodical issued a translation of Turgenev's On the Eve in book form in 1871.



Gogol and Anglo-Russian Literary Relations I I9

the natives seem to have made little change in their laws, their re- ligion, their morals, customs, or habits of life."22 Since in all par- ticulars the Russians are unconscionably bad, it is only logical that they should be exterminated as soon as possible. The anonymous patrioteer speaks of his own experience in Russia repeatedly,23 and most of his comments on Homie Life in Russia are recommendations of its truth and accuracy, on the assumption that he is competent to judge the truth of all observations on Russia because he himself knows Russia thoroughly, at first hand.

At the head of his article stands a list of eighteen numbered series of books on Russia, in English, French, and German. Home Life in Russia is the first title of the first series, accompanied by Memoirs d'un seieneur russe (Paris, I 854; a translation of Turgenev's A Sports- iman's Sketches). No reference is made in the article to this work of

Turgenev, however, probably because the expert on Russia found more of the blood and thunder he was seeking in some of the other books on his list. The tone and intent of this scholarly article can be judged from the following passage: Everything relating to home life, or intimate history of our bitter enemy- and we may add to the enemy of liberty and the enemy of humanity-is at this moment deeply and painfully interesting. Seen at a distance or abroad, or in the fulfillment of functions high or low, out of their own country, Russians are ever playing a part and wearing a mask, more especially if they be in the pay or in the confidence of the Emperor. Their object then is to delude and to deceive by false representations, by magnificent de- scriptons, and by toning down the colouring so as to suit the taste of more civilized countries.... in order to know their inner and intimate life, you must penetrate to their hearth, you must sit by their fireside, you must tread not merely the land that bore them, but enter under their roof, sit at the same table, break of their bread, drink of their drink, and eat of their salt. This has been done by four or five of the authors, the titles of whose books we place at the head of this article: one of them at least a Russian by birth we mean Ivan Golovin-and the other, the author of Home Life in Russia, a Russian subject, most likely a Pole, or peradventure an Esthon- ian, Livonian, or Courlander, or a German, long domiciled, or possibly a Russian-born subject, of German parents.24

The writer has heard of the controversy over Home Life in Russia, for in a footnote he cites certain facts from the Athenaeumn review and refers to the Russian author as "Nichs Gogel." His note concludes: "That an abominable deception has been practiced on the public no one can doubt. It is true the publishers may have been the

22 Ibid., p. 143- 23 Ibid., pp. 1 3 2, 1 3 3, 1 3 6, for example. 24 Ibid., pp. 13I-32.



I 20 The American Slavic and East European, Review

deceived, but if so, they are bound to unmask the deceiver, who is an impostor trading on false pretences." Having thus disposed, in a footnote, of the little matter of literary forgery and crass revision, he goes on to exploit the contents of the work in a manner obviously calculated to provoke British disgust with the Russian people as a nationality or "race." This is the only article I have seen of which this allegation may be made with justice. Others speak out against the tyranny of the Tsar and the governing classes, but this writer for the British Quarterly Review deliberately attempts to stir up hatred for the entire Russian people as enemies of humanity.

He speaks of "the cunning inherent in the Russian character . . . as well as the utter baseness of the national character," which are well delineated in Home Life in Russia, and like the more gentlemanly critics he takes special note of the character of Nosdrieff: "Such villains are not uncommon in Russia, and the man who drew Nos- drieff connaissait parfaitement son monde." Another proof that "Nichs Gogel" knows his Russia well is that "none of these characters are made frank, natural, or attractive. The men in office are brutal, gluttonous, false, frivolous, and dishonest; and the landowners and magnates silly, savage, finical, or roguish." Nevertheless, even Colonel Lach-Szmyrna's Home Life in Russia is too tame for this eager patriot, who declares that the second and third series of volumes in his list are "much more interesting" than the first series, which includes only Home Life in Russia and Turgenev's A Sports- man's Sketches in a French version.

This unknown jingo seems to have had considerable faith in the notion "that the character of a nation can be deduced from its cookery; and if this be so, much cannot be expected from a people whose chief soup is made from rancid cabbage, and whose drink is quass."26 This entertaining theory is the conclusion of a long description of the "singularly correct" account of "the table, or eating and drinking life of the Russians" which he states may be found in Honie Life in. Russia. The rancid cabbage and the quass (kvass) were not to be found there, however, but in an early account by Giles Fletcher.27 The patriotic writer also mentions, in passing, A Brief History of Muscovia by "the immortal Milton." In fact, one of the few real values of this article is its history of Anglo-Russian trade relations and its mention of a large number of books in English dealing with Russia long before the Crimean War. It should be useftil to historians interested in tracing Anglo-Russian relations from their very beginning.

25 Ibid., p. '39- 26 Ibid., p. 138. 27 Giles Fletcher, The History of Russia; or, The Government of the Emperor, with the

Manners and Fashions of the People of That Country (London, 1643).



Gogol and Anglo-Russian Literary Relations 1 2 1

After many florid pages of denunciation, vilification, and provoca- tion, the author attempts to taper off his article with this judicious summary: We have endeavoured to show the Russian as he was and as he is; as we have seen him, and as he is painted by his own countrymen, and by men of most other nations; we have set down naught in malice, for we have no private malignity. But wve feel the time is come when a stand must be made against a false and faithless Czar, and a nation proved by ancient and modern authorities to be a nation of liars, drunkards, plunderers, and slaves. In conclusion we say that, if the Russians be not vanquished and driven back nowv, seventy millions of slaves may at no distant date be prompt and apt instruments in imposing a bondage like their own on the civilized world.28

And that was the end of the controversy over Home Life in Russia, an arrogant forgery of a great literary masterpiece, and a craftily distorted version to boot.

It is good to turn from the sound and fury of "Russians at Home- Past and Present" to the last of the Crimean War articles I have discovered which deal with Gogol.29 The real point of it is to present a translation, the first one in English, of "Old-World Land-Owners," the tale which aroused so much antipathy on the part of L., writing in the Westminster Review for July, 1841.

In addition to presenting the story itself, the anonymous translator provides an introductory discussion which in several ways suggests the main lines of many later English comments on Gogol and his works. He discusses the despotism and the censorship of Russia, and their baleful effect on writers; Gogol as a social critic; his early life as a native of Little Russia; his masterpieces, The Government In- spector and Dead Souls; and his unhappy later years and miserable death. This little introduction is an early example of the type of essay or lecture on Gogol which is to be found time and again in later criticism. Both the article and the translation are also noteworthy for a certain tone of humaneness and understanding.

This Dublin University Magazine writer knows a great deal about Gogol and his writing, considering how little had been published in England at this time. It is likely, however, that he based his article on the criticism of Prosper Merime'e.30 He knows that Gogol had died in I852, "in the prime of life" (he was forty-three), and that

28 British Quarterly Review, p. 157. 29 "Russian Literature," Dublin University Magazine, XLVI (September, i855),

298-308. This periodical was one of the outstanding miscellanies of the time, according to a contemporary article in the London Review. See Graham, op. cit., p. 335.

30 Prosper Merimee, "La Litterature en Russie," Revue des Deux Mondes, S.6, XII, (November ix, i85i), 627-65o. Also reprinted as an appendix to his Carmnen (1852). This article undoubtedly influenced most of the English critics of Gogol in this period.



I 2 2 The American Slavic and East European Review

he had established "a reputation which is beyond the reach of tyranny to destroy." Then he presents a general but succinct characterization of Gogol's particular genius: As a painter of the manners of his time he is unrivalled. His writings, which have a grave, social meaning, are distinguished by great originality, and a vein of humour as genuine as that of Swift or Sterne. His portraits of the different phases of Russian life which have fallen within the sphere of this observation are very striking, and place him in the foremost rank of his contemporaries.31

He declares that Gogol's The Government Inspector, which is "distinguished by singular boldness of thought and a power of comic humour, exhibits a picture of Russia the accuracy of which is in- contestable." The translator then states the dramatic situation con- cisely, and notes that Gogol passes in review "every class of provincial administration, which he shows to be utterly corrupt, full of grossest profligacy, and not only servile, but tyrannical." This is the first English comment on The Government Inspector, yet despite its brevity it accurately foreshadows what many later critics were to say in greater detail.

This writer knows, too, that "the most famous work of this author was a work called Dead Souls." He explains the meaning of the title and the effect of the plot. Gogol "completely exposes not only the system of fiscal administration, but many strange phases of Russian life; and he thus displays in a bolder outline than the stage could give him, all the crimes and vicious practices which the curse of despotism can inflict upon a country."'32 This comment, with varied emphases, becomes another of the commonplaces of English and American criticism of Gogol.

There follows a somewhat exaggerated account of Gogol's later years and of his death. The translator mentions that he has "three short sketches" by Gogol, and that he has chosen one for his readers "less as a specimen of the author's peculiar style than as affording an accurate picture of the domestic life of the great country with which we are now in collision, and drawn by the hand of an artist qualified to portray it."33 This is the first hint in English criticism that there is anything remarkable or peculiar about Gogol's style, yet there are many comments on this point in later criticism. And once more we have emphasis on the fact that Russian literature affords a means of understanding Russia herself, a recurring theme in almost all English criticism of Gogol and his fiction.

31 Dublin University Magazine, p. 298. 32 Ibid., p. 299. 33 Ibid.



Gogol and Anglo-Russian Literary Relations 1 23

Following this introductory sketch, the writer presents a translation of "Old-World Land-Owners," without a title of any kind, and with only a triple space to indicate the change of material. It is probably the first English translation of this tale.34 Here, as in the Sharpe's London Magazine version of "Viy," we have a translation shorter than the original, but a version true in the most essential respects. No -event is omitted from the story, though some events are condensed and the whole story has been streamlined by the omission of some of Gogol's characteristic digressive comments. Such omissions have been rather skillfully accomplished, however, so that the story remains essentially intact and keeps its original quality quite surprisingly. Since this translation appeared during the Crimean War, perhaps it is well to examine typical passages which reveal a humane quality in general and, more specifically, a sympa- thetic understanding of the Russian people-which, after all, Gogol had.

In speaking of one of her recipes for mushrooms, the old wife, Pulherya, says: "I learned how to dress them from a Turkish lady, at the time when we had the Turkish prisoners. She was a very good woman, and you never would have perceived she was a heathen. She did everything like one of ourselves, only she abstained from meat [pork], saying it was forbidden by their law."35 If we recall that Turkey was an ally of Britain in the Crimean War, this little bit of naYve folk sentiment takes on additional interest. Even more to the point is the amusing thumbnail description of "the visitor, who has, perhaps, never left his country circle, [who] indulges himself in political speculations, and relates with a terrified and mysterious air, how the French and the English were secretly leagued to send a new Napoleon into Russia, and discerned the probable events of the war, which would certainly take place."36 Gogol himself seems to have been poking fun at this idea, but it must have had a queer effect, an effect he never dreamed of, on English readers in 1855, when his country was at war with England and France in the Crimea.

There is also a striking bit of philosophy on the futility of war, this time Gogol's own, in one of his digressions:

By the strange disposition of sublunary events, causes, frequently almost imperceptible, lead to grave events, as vast enterprises not infrequently

34 This translation is not indexed in Poole by the title or the author, nor under any other subject heading I have been able to conjure up; the introductory material is re- ferred to and briefly discussed by Professor Gettman (op. cit., pp. i5-16), but he does not mention the translation which is the substance of the article. I have encountered no reference anywhere to this translation.

35 Dubizn University Magazine, p. 304. 36 Ibid., p. 303.



I 24 The American Slavic and East European Review terminate in results which are unimportant. A conqueror assembles all the forces of his empire, makes war for a succession of years, his generals cover themselves with glory, and the whole thing terminates, perhaps, in the acquisition of a scrap of ground where one could scarcely sow turnips. Again, on the contrary, two manufacturers of sausage quarrel about a trifle, and their dispute involves villages, cities, and whole states in con- flagration. But let us leave these reflections, which are out of place here, and proceed with our narrative.37

It is interesting that the translator did not omit this passage, as he did other digressive comments having no part, in the action of the story.

The most striking passage in terms of its tendency to arouse sympathy for the Russian people is a dialogue between the old couple concerning the "new Napoleon" that their provincial visitor has warned them will be sent against them by the French and English:

Athanase, affecting not to look at his wife would say- "I should certainly take an active part in the campaign-I could do a

little fighting still." "Don't believe a word he says," Pulcheria would reply, addressing her-

self to the stranger. "How could he, such an old man, go to the war? The first soldier he met would kill him; yes, he would knock him on the head, and kill him at once."

"Nay," Athanase would reply, "it is I that would kill him." "Only listen to what he says," Pulcheria would reply; "his pistols are

covered with rust and laid up in the storeroom years ago. WVould you like to see them? They are a pretty sight, and whoever tried to use them would, probably, be disfigured for the rest of his life."

"What of it? I can purchase new arms; a cossack lance or a sabre will answer my purpose well enough."

"How ridiculous! He will talk about this new crochet [sic] for the next month," Pulcheria would reply, with a certain air of chagrin. "I know he is only in jest, but it is by no means agreeable to listen to such nonsense."38

It speaks for itself. From the end of the Crimean War in i855 to i886, when Isabel

F. Hapgood's translations of a number of Gogol's works were published in America, there appears to have been only one other published translation in English of any of his works, a volume containing English versions of Taras Bulba and "The Night of Christmas Eve."39 I have encountered no reviews or other mention of these translations except a reference in one of E. A. Osborne's articles in which he says

37 Ibid., p. 304. 38 Ibid., p- 303- 39 Cossack Tales, trans. from the Russian by George Tolstoy (London, i86o).



Gogol and Anglo-Russian Literary Relations 1 25

that the tales are described as by "Nicholas Gogot" and that they are "rather imperfect renderings."40 They are almost certainly the first English translations of these works, but apparently they aroused no interest. In his great pioneering study of Gogol's life and works, Charles Edward Turner speaks of an English translation of The Government Inspector as having been done sometime before i868,41 but no one else I have read mentions an English translation of this famous play before i890. I have been unable to find a trace of it anywhere. Gogol's solid and substantial reputation in England and America did not develop until after 886, which, in the excellent phrase of E. A. Osborne, was "the vintage year" of translations from the Russian.42

40 E. A. Osborne, "Early Translations from the Russian: IV. Nicolay Vasilevich Gogol," London Bookinan, LXXXIII (October, 1932), p. 69.

41 Charles Edward Turner, "Nicholas Gogol," British Quarterly Review, XLVII (April, i868), 32 2-45.

42 E. A. Osborne, "Early Translations from the Russian: 1. Before Pushkin," London Bookman, LXXXIII (July, I932) , 217.



GOGOL AND ANGLO-RUSSIAN LITERARY RELATIONS DURING THE CRIMEAN WAR

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