A NEGLECTED RUSSIAN.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 20075, 16 April 1927, Page 4

A NEGLECTED RUSSIAN.

NICOLAI LYESKOV. By Constant Reader. “Lyeskov is the f truest of all Russian writers. He is entirely free from any outward influence. As one reads him one feels Russia with all its good and evil points more vividly, one sees more distinctly the confused and tangled Russian who contrives to become the_ slave of his faith and the oppressor of his neighbour, even when he sincerely believes in love and freedom.” This extract from Maxim Gorky’s introduction to an English translation of “The Enchanted Wanderer” (Jarrolds) is coupled with a declaration that as a literary arist Lyeskov is worthy to be placed on a level with such masters of Russian literature as Tolstoy, Gogol, Turgenev, and Goncharov. Yet Lyeskov has been virtually ignored by the critics and scarce any of his books are available to English readers. In his "Outline of Russian Literature Maurice Baring seeks for a reason for this neglect. He says: "The character of Lyeskov’s work, its reception by the reading public on the one hand, and by the professional - critics on the other, is one of the most striking object lessons in the history of Rusian literature and Russian literary criticism. Lyeskov has been long ago recognsed by educated Russia as a writer of the first rank; what is best in his work, which is bulky and unequal, has the unmistakeable hall mark of the classics; he is with Gogol and Saltykov and the novelists of the first rank. Educated Russia is fully aware of this. Nobody disputes Lyeskov his place, nor denied him his supreme artistic talent, his humour, his vividness, his colour, his satire, the depth of his feeling, the richness of his invention. In spite of this there is no Russian writer who has eo acutely suffered from the didactic and partisan quality of Russian criticism.” Nicolai Lyeskov, who was born in 1831 and died in 1895, began to write in 1860. yet up to 1902 no biography of him had been published, no work of criticism had been devoted to his books. He is not even mentioned in Professor Leo Weiner’s twovolumed anthology of Russian literature, and Prince Kropotkin ignores him in his “Ideals and Realities of Russian Literature.” Yet in Ruseia his stories are as popular as Dickens in England. Of all this Maurice Baring gives the following explanation:—

Lyeskov saw what was going on in Russia; with penetrating insight and observation he realised the evils of the old order; like Saltykov he was filled with indignation, and perhaps to a greater degree than Saltykov he was filled with pity. But whereas Saltykov’s work was purely destructive—an onslaught of brooms in the Augean stables —Lyeskov begins .where Saltykov ends. Like Saltykov and like Gogol before him, the old order inspires him with laughter, sometimes with bitter laughter, at the absurdities of the old regime and its results; but he does not confine himself to destructive irony and sapping satire. . . . Lyeskov was the first Russian novelist to have the courage to criticise the Reformers, the men of the new epoch; and his criticism was not only negative, but creative; he realised that everything must be “reformed altogether.” He then asked himself whether the new men who were in the task of reform were equal to their taskHe came to the conclusion, not only that they were inadequate, but that they were setting about the business the wrong way, and he had the courage to say so. He was _ the first Russian novelist to say he disbelieved in Liberalism, and this was a which no Liberal in Russia could admit then and one which they can scarcely admit now.

Admittedly Lyeskov is one of the most difficult of Russian authors to render adequately into English. It is well-nigh impossible to reproduce his verbal humour and his effects of comedy, but in this version of “The Enchanted Wanderer” Air A. G. Paschkoff has done his best, and lie gives a good idea of the gusto and breathlessness of the narrative, which is, above all else, adventurous. The hero of the book, who tells his own story, is Ivan Soverianitch, and, like the majority of Lyeskov’s heroes, he is a simpleton, but of a most engaging character. He eventually becomes a lay brother, a monk of a kind unknown outside of Russia, but not before he has experienced strange adventures, some of which are real and others supernatural. The wanderer was converted when a boy in this wise: He acted as postillion to his father, who drove a team of half a dozen horses of the famous Kirghiz breed. A monk would not got out of tho way of the carriage, and Ivan slashed at him with his whip and accidentally killed him. He had a vision in which the dead monk commanded him to enter a monastery, but not until lie had had his fill of adventure. He describes a whipping match with a Tartar, in which both lash away at each other until one falls dead in order to decide the ownership of a horse. Ho has the soles of his feet “horsehaired” —a barbarous process described in detail —so that the Tartars who have made him a prisoner may keep him in captivity. He threw Guslia, a Tziganta, or gipsy girl, in the river so that her soul might bo saved from, damnation. He has courage and goodness of heart, sincerity and naive piety, qualities in striking contrast to the barbarity of many of the incidents related. The value of the story lies in its truth to the life of the average Russian peasant, that strange mixture of cruelty and gentleness, sentiment and cynicism. And Lyeskov is an artist, a magician of the word, Gorki calls him, and he adds: “He narrates and in this art he has no equal. His tale is a spiritualised song, the simple essentially Russian words joined together in ingenious language, at times pensive, at others cheerfully resonant, and you always hear in them a tremulous love for humanity, a tenderly concealed, almost human love which, being pure, is a little, just a little, ashamed of itself. The characters of his stories often speak of themselves, but their words are so alike, so truthful and convincing, that they stand up in your imagination quite as mysteriously perceptible, as physically distinct, as the heroes of Tolstoy and the others. In other words, Lyeskov attains the same result by using a different artistic method.” NELSON’S REPRINTS. The latest, instalment of Nelson’s reprint novels at Is 6d net per volume includes four capital stories, of tho utmost interest to new readers, and able still to stand tho test of tho reading. Memories of that delightful fantasy by George A. Birmingham, “The Inviolable Sanctuary,” will remain with the majority, and the opportunity to turn the pages of the novel, in the present handy pocket form will be hugely relished. Miss Marjorie Bowen has few equals in the field of historical romance, and in “A Knight of Spain” she is seen at her best, with its striking contrast between the Prince of Orange and the Spanish prince. In “The Saint on Speedway,” Mr Hidgwell Oullum tells of the lure of gold exercising the same fascination over the seeker, whether in Northern Australia under burning suns, or amid the ice and snow of Alaska. The fourth book on the list is “Thornley Weir,” in which Mr E. F. Benson displays to advantage hig intimate knowledge of literary, artistic, and dramatic London. As companions during the Easter holidays nothing could be better than copies of four reprints.