A NEW ZEALANDER AMONG THE RUSSIANS

Evening Star, Issue 15480, 30 April 1914, Page 10

A NEW ZEALANDER AMONG THE RUSSIANS

INTERPRETS THE NATIONAL SPIRIT If one supposes that Russian litem ture has stopped since the days of Tolstoy. Tourgenieff, and Destoievsky, h< should read a small book by Dr Harold Williams, called 'Russia of the Russians.' It well justifies the title. Nc such valuable boot on Russia has appeared in England since the Wallace volumes in 1877. That is the fine iiitrocftction which th« ' Nation * gives to the latest -work of an ex-New Zealander, who has been living close to the heart and brain of the, Russian people. Educated chiefly in Berlin and .other Continental Universities, he has escaped the traditional prejudices of ordinary British caste. A remarkable linguist, able to make speeches to Finnish meetings, or to Poles, Letts, Georgians, and half a doaen other little-known peoples as well, he has been able to live among the Taces of. the Russian Empire almost on equal terms. He writes here of the Russian Government, of the Bureaucracy and the Duma, of merchants and peasants also. The distinction of Dr Williams is that he writes of Russian thought—of the direction the Russian intellect is taking, and of all the best that it has produced in the various forms of art and thought since the great epoch of the seventies. —The Intellectuals.— "The Press, the Church, Music. Painting, the Theatre, and Architecture—here ve find valuable chapters on them all. Bui we can only touch upon the two •hapters called 'The Intelligentsia' and 'Literature,' because in those the lines of change during the last 10 years are most clearly marked. It is something of a shock to find Dr Williams nearly always speaking of the ' Intelligentsia' in the past bense, as a phenomenon of a bygone age. WTe can hardly imagine Russia without the ?lass of men and women whom it was so tempting but so misleading to call by the French title "The Intellectuals.' Ten vears ago they . were the very life and hope of Russian progress. Highly educated people, in many cases endowed with fine imaginative and artistic powers, or with scholarship, science, and philosophic speculation, they gave all they had to the one and undivided purpose of liberating the Russian people. * Freedom first' was their motto, and in freedom's cause they abandoned arts, and comforts, and success, and social amenities, and freedom, and St. —A Russian Nonconformist Conscience.— •'Of the 'lntelligentsia' Dr Williams writes : "It had a. Nonconformist conscience Only the ideal pursued was not that of the salvation of the individual soul—for nearly four decades the majority of the Elrssian Intelligentsia did not believe in the aostenoe- of the individual soul—but the salvation of Russia, the salvation of the ioral liberty that demanded constant pergonal service and the subordination of all ttber interests to its attainment. It involved mtenee humanitarianism, an enattachment to the common people, because they were common people, becatise they -were poor, oppressed, and suffering. I —Why They Failed.— "All shared the common fate that attends mutual intolerance upon the revolutionary field, while the enemy stands in compact and indivisible array. It was, in fact, the- Revolution of 1905* that gave the ' Intelligentsia' its chance, and ended it—ended the genius as we used to know it. and as Tourgenieff drew it with pity and admiration in ' Fathers and Sons,' ' Virgin Soil,' *Rudin,' and 'Smoke.' The Revolution brought the Intelligentsia into rude »nd sudden contact with reality, puts its dogmas and doctrines to the severest possible test. Doctrines were brushed aside by elemental forces, and instincts, dulled by an inveterate habit of generalisation, faijed to respond adequately and decisively to the startling appeal of facts. There lies the tragic secret oi it all. Entirelv untrained in 'practical politics,' the devoted ' Intelligents' gave far too much time to the discussion of noble aspirations and doctrinal principles; far too much time to internal disputes about 'methods.' Methods would not have mattered if they had only been turned against the enemy But while the 'lntelligents' were engaged in abusing and excluding each other the enemy advanced, and the elemental forces of the rifle, the rope, and exile devoured them all. The collapse of the Revolution was followed by years of utter prostration and despair. Many abandoned themselves to the lowest sensuality, many to suicide. —Some After-effects.— "So the devoted, lovable, impractical old 'lntelligentsia' departed into history, and Dr Williams tells of their departure with pity and intimate knowledge. He traces the effects of it in practical life and politics, but especially in the younger schools of literature, such*as the 'Modernists,' who have returned to the pursuit of art and_ form, irrespective of the social and ethical ideals for which the giants of old were willing to sacrifice all beauties «nd adornments as so much trumpery: The events of the last few years (he •writes) have dissipated fond illusions, or have substituted for them the chilling illusion that life is not particularly worth living. The average Russian has, at the best, become cooler and more hardheaded ; and at the worst he has become a cynic and a sensualist. —Russia's Fearless Journev.—

" Still, his book is not without hope. It k the most hopeful account of Russia since despotism reasserted its old claims. Even of the gradual development of political freedom he is hopeful. He shows ua the peculiar Russian genius still at work; still eagerly pressing forward upon 'its fearless journey of clear-eyed discoverv in the wide realm of Life.' And as to desperate sensuality and death as means of escape from tha blank horror of living, he tells again of the miraculous uplifting of spirit which was Tolstoy's last and splendid gift to his "people:— - The days when Tolstoy lay dying (he writes) were days of national exaltation such as only those who lived in the midst of it can realise. It was as though a wave of purifying and uplifting emotion_ had swept across the country revealing the best that- was in everv man. And. this high and 6olemn emotion lingered on for many weeks after Tolstoy was at rett. ' Resurrection' was the title of Tolstoy's last- great imaginative work, and the last att of his life" stirred a 'resurrection of spirit throughout a whole -nation, similar to that which he depicted in a woman.