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University Microfilms international 300 N. ZEEB RD„ ANN ARBOR, Ml 48106 8121841

O s b o r n e , D a v id L y l e

RUSSIAN PHYSIOLOGICAL SKETCHES AND THE "NATURAL SCHOOL" MAN AND ENVIRONMENT IN THE 1840’S

The Ohio State University PH.D. 1981

University Microfilms International 300 N. Zeeb Road, Ann Arbor, M I 48106

MAN AND ENVIRONMENT IN THE 184Q's

DISSERTATION

Presented in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for

the Degree Doctor of Philosophy in the Graduate

School of the Ohio State University

By David Lyle Osborne, A.B., M.A.

* * "kick

The Ohio State University

1981

Reading Committee: Approved By

Jerzy R. Krzyzanowski, Chairman

Hongor Oulanoff / Adviser Depqttment of Slavic and Frank R. Silbajoris East European Languages and Literatures For my parents, Delbert and Delores Osborne

i i ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

There are many people to be thanked for their assis

tance and support in bringing this dissertation to its com

pletion. First of all, I wish to thank the Department of Sla

vic and East European Languages and Literatures of The Ohio

State University for its support during the years 1970-197 5,

and in the later years, 1979-1981. I also wish to express my

great appreciation to my adviser in this work, Professor Jerzy

R. Krzyzanowski, for his willingness to pursue the project to

its successful conclusion. Professor Hongor Oulanoff must be

acknowledged as the inspiration for this work: his stimulating

lectures on the physiological sketch and documentary prose piqued my interest in the topic. I wish to express my grati

tude to Professor Frank Silbajoris for his critical and inci

sive comments on the text and his careful and thorough exam

ination of the thesis at every stage of its preparation. My thanks also go to my employer of the past three years, The

Library of Congress, where I was able to use the collections

to pursue my research. On a personal note, I wish to thank my parents for their quiet support and encouragement over the long and, at times, difficult period of completion. The dis

sertation is dedicated to them. Finally, thanks to Ron and

Reiko, for that night when we determined our future course. iii VITA

December 20, 1948. . . Born - Omaha, Nebraska

1970 ...... A.B., University of Nebraska, Lincoln, Nebraska

1971-1974...... Teaching Associate, Department of Slavic and East European Languages and Literatures, The Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio

1972 ...... M.A., The Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio

1974 ...... NDFL Fellowship, The Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio

1978-1981...... Technical Information Specialist, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.

FIELD OF STUDY .... Russian Literature, Professor Jerzy R. Krzyzanowski, Adviser

i v TABLE OF CONTENTS

Page ACKNOWLEDGMENTS...... iii

VITA ...... iv

INTRODUCTION , ...... , ...... 1

NOTES TO INTRODUCTION...... 20

CHAPTER ONE...... 22

NOTES TO CHAPTER ONE . . , ...... 46

CHAPTER TWO...... 49

NOTES TO CHAPTER T W O ...... 103

CHAPTER THREE...... 107

NOTES TO CHAPTER THREE ...... 194

CHAPTER FOUR ...... 201

NOTES TO CHAPTER FOUR...... 281

CONCLUSION...... 286

NOTES TO CONCLUSION...... 293

BIBLIOGRAPHY...... 294

v INTRODUCTION

Our purpose in this introductory section is to sum marize the major critical opinions concerning the works of the decade of the 1840's which fall under the heading of the

"Natural School" (natural'naja Mkola). We shall distill the essences of these opinions and state our views concerning the relationship between these "Natural School" works and the genre known as the "physiological sketch" (fiziologi- ceskij o&erk). We shall find valid points in each scholar's work and indicate the value of his research to our study.

We shall also indicate where we feel a particular analysis is not especially helpful in analyzing these works.

There have been three major monographs on the works of the decade: V. V. Vinogradov's Evoljucija russkogo naturalizma (The Evolution of Russian Naturalism) (1929),

A. G. Cejtlin's Stanovlenie realizma v russkoj literature.

Russkij fiziologiceskj o£erk (The Rise of Realism in Rus sian Literature. The Russian Physiological Sketch) (1965), and Vasilij Kulesov's Natural'naja §kola v russkoj litera ture XIX veka (The Natural School in 19th Century Russian

Literature) (1965). Cejtlin and Kulesov completed ex haustive research, arriving at somewhat less than spectacu lar conclusions. Vinogradov's study is a thought-provoking 1 stimulating analysis of the two giants who stand at either end of the decade: Gogol' and Dostoevskij.

KuleSov's emphasis is on the label itself. He is concerned whether the term "Natural School" is valid or necessary. He attacks the problem through an examination of the group's literary output in order to determine the vali dity of the use of "school" with regard to these writers.

"When we use the term 'school' we think of an amalgam of masters around an artistic principle, or students around a teacher, some kind of intimate, special, creative closeness of writers in one direction."'*' One would draw a parallel with the "Jena" romantics or the "Lake School" of English romantic poets, coteries of artists within a larger literary movement with a platform or manifesto of creative purpose.

This manifesto acts as some type of governing force. Kule^ov correctly points out that there is no manifesto or close association of writers for creative purposes, although they did interact socially.

KuleSov concludes that the "Natural School" was the laboratory for all future styles of 19th century Russian 2 literature. This rather sweeping statement identifies his critical opinions. He reaches this conclusion on the basis of what he sees as the interchangeability of the terms naturalism and realism. The "Natural School" as a term 3 subsumed two concepts: realism and naturalism. The Soviet scholar views the "Natural School" as the high point in the 3 development of realism in Russian literature. This notion has obvious deficiencies when one must consider the realist prose of Dostoevskij, Turgenev, and Tolstoj later in the century. One of the problems with this judgement is the use of the term realism which, as we shall demonstrate in the following chapter, is semantically loaded. Kulesov assumes one possible definition of the label: le reel, real life, actuality. He has determined that these writers de picted everyday reality in their works according to the dictates of Vissarion Belinskij, the leading critic of the age. That conclusion is not totally erroneous.

This is the standard Soviet approach to the problem.

Realism means "critical realism": the portrayal of social evils with the intent to stimulate public awareness. It is a rejection of romantic prettifying. Such a view falls into place behind Belinskij's drive for a socially-responsive literature but is too narrow. KuleSov's interpretation fails to account for the problem of ambiguity in understanding the notion of verisimilitude: who shall determine what is

"real"? Who shall determine what is verisimilitudinous? He does not address the role of the artist in the process of rendering realistic details in literature.

Cejtlin's monograph is a catalogue of prominent

Russian sketch writers and their works. Its ideological focus is firmly rooted in the same "critical realism" which

KuleSov has asserted. That is to say, Gogol' is considered the founder of Russian realism. Belinskij (together with

£erny£evskij and Dobroljubov) are its theoreticians. The work contains the obligatory economic rationale for the rise 4 of realism ("this is the era of nascent capitalism." ). In the end we find a work, which has unearthed a great many minor "treasures", but has not shed any new light on the li terary development in the decade. How, for instance, is

Dostoevskij related to the movement? Cejtlin does not answer that query except to draw parallels between his works and the physiological sketch.

It is Cejtlin's view that Russian realism rests on the rise of the "Natural School" in the decade of the 1840's because it was this movement which focused attention on the depiction of Russian reality. "Depicting life as it is, without the slightest smack of romantic ideality and aestheticizing — that is the general goal which was placed before 5 the Natural School and its theoreticians." It is Cejtlin's opinion that the "Natural School" was a reaction against the penchant of the romantic writers to idealize nature, to create larger-than-life heroes, to depict fabulous settings, to bring supernatural or mythological forces into play in their creations. In connection with this development of depicting reality "as it exactly is", Cejtlin sees the phys iological sketch as the dominating genre in the decade. "It is possible to assert, without fear of exaggeration, that the natural school was more indebted to the physiological g sketch in its inception than to the tale or the novel."

He also asserts that "the physiological sketch illuminated

the contours of the new literary movement and lent the

necessary sharpness to the principles of early Russian 7 realism." It is primarily on this ideological base that

his work stands.

Cejtlin has posited a definition of realism which is

tautological: realism depicts reality as it actually is.

The problem resides in the ambiguity of reality as a concept.

Every artist has his own subjective determination of reality

and that determination is subject to scrutiny. The writer's

personal interpretation of reality is filtered through a

host of factors, not the least of which is the society in

which he lives and has developed. Cejtlin's work accepts

the notion that realistic literature is the highest develop ment of literary art, the only worthwhile achievement of any writer. The Soviet scholar's bias is evidenced by the fact

that he finds it sufficient to point to the realistic de

scriptions and details presented in the works he surveys.

V. V. Vinogradov's collection of articles is a good

literary analysis of the evolution of Russian naturalism.

"The theme of the six articles is the process of literary

evolution in the epoch of Gogol' and Dostoevskij. The method g is historical-philological analysis of literary forms."

Vinogradov sees the decade as one of transition, heavily in

fluenced by French works, notably represented by Jules 6

Janin's novels and roman-feuilletons of the 1830's. Vino gradov's primary emphasis is on the movement from Gogol' to

Dostoevskij, and he views the "Natural School" as a mixture of revived sentimentalism and philanthropic French socialism.

Through the six articles Vinogradov attempts to show how

Gogol''s creative imagination was powerfully affected by the works of l'ecole frenetique, above all, by the novels and tales of Janin. Janin's own professed anti-sentimentalism struck a responsive chord in Gogol' who, according to Vino gradov, spent his creative life struggling to overcome sen- 9 timental forms. At the same time he believes that the phy siological sketch and the "Natural School" were viewed by contemporaries as a continuation of the French school due to their emphasis on the most sordid types of naturalistic details.

Vinogradov's essays are enlightening due to the breadth of his erudition. He develops parallels between

English and French works and their Russian counterparts, positing a theory of cyclization in place of the concept of literary influence which he correctly sees as a misleading and dangerous notion. "Cyclization" (ciklizacija) is a view indicating the struggle which accompanies the interaction be tween two literary generations or periods, and is especially important during these periods of transition like the for ties. This idea of cyclization, which he develops in his essay "0 literaturnoj ciklizacii" ("Literary Cyclization") 7

(1924) concerning the relationship between Gogol''s "Nevskij prospekt" and Thomas De Quincey1s Confessions of an English

Opium Eater, in his attempt to postulate a theory of literary development.

Vinogradov was an early member of the movement which came to be known as Russian Formalism (albeit a peripheral member according to the historian of the movement Victor

Erlich‘S) . Vinogradov posits the theory of cyclization in order to avoid the problem of "literary influence". He cites the predominance of l'ecole frenetique works in Western Eur- 12 ope and Russia as "the product of collective creation."

The presence of general elements of the movement in such works as Gogol''s "Nevskij prospekt" and De Quincey's Con fessions is a sign that they belong to a cycle and makes the problem of individual "influences" irrelevant to the dis cussion. The forms of imitation are in fact adjoining forms.

The theory of cycles is of some interest to us since we are dealing with a genre, the physiological sketch, which came into prominence in France and to some extent in England, and came to Russia where it became extremely popular in the

1840's. The question of whether there was direct "influence" could arise in this instance, because the French physiologi cal sketches were widely read in Russia. It is only of peri pheral interest to us, however, and Vinogradov's study is of greater value for his analysis of parallel forms as an ex planation of the development of Russian naturalism. Several Formalist critics posited theories concerning literary change and evolution. Jurij Tynjanov addressed the problem in his essay "0 literaturnoj fevoljucii" ("Literary

Evolution") (1927), in which he asserted that the "main con- 13 cept for literary evolution is the mutation of systems."

This notion rests on the acceptance of the theory that a literary work is a system. This system contains elements which interact unequally and in which a group of elements may be placed in the foreground, the so-called "dominant element" or "dominanta". It is the concept of change in the interrelationships between elements which underlies

Tynjanov's definition of evolution as the "mutation of sys tems". Roman Jakobson's 1935 lecture on the "dominant" clarifies the theory. He cites examples from Czech poetry in which the identical elements of verse from the fourteenth century to the present — rhyme, a syllabic scheme, and intonational unity -- can be observed, but the hierarchy of 14 values accorded each of the elements is different. Not only does the elemental hierarchy change with time, but the evaluation of the hierarchy changes. What is recognized as acceptable in one period will be unacceptable in another.

Sometimes the works are actually "corrected" by later ar tists to fit the existing norm. Examples of this are Tur genev's editing of the lyrics or Fet and TjutSev, and Rim- skij-Korsakov's re-orchestration of Musorgskij's opera "Bor is Godunov". 9

We should also point out a critical theory which shall affect our analysis of the Russian physiological sketch in a subsequent chapter. When Soviet authorities began to con solidate their power after the success of the Revolution was assured in the late 1920's, the aesthetic theories of the

Formalists came under attack. They were deemed too far re moved from the social purposes which literature was to pro mote to be tolerated. The Formalist movement underwent a number of changes with many of the participants in the group abandoning their theoretical positions or their country.

About this time there arose in Prague, Czechoslovakia a circle of linguists and literary theoreticians who were in terested in an approach to literary analysis similar to that of the Russian Formalists. In this group, to which Roman

Jakobson had come in 1921, Jan Mukafovskjf posited some con cepts which served as a basis for what came to be known as the Prague School and later, structuralism.

Mukarovsky fundamentally agrees with the concept of the dominant as outlined by Tynjanov and developed by Jakob son, as well as the belief that the work of art is a struc ture of elements. In Aesthetic Function, Norm and Value as

Social Facts (1936) Mukafovsky seeks to discover in the work of art a dominant trait which directs or distorts all other 15 traits. The notion of the aesthetic function is similar to the Jakobson dominant — when the aesthetic function domi nates, the result is a work of art. "Any object and any 10 activity, natural or human, may become a carrier of the aesthetic function...In art the aesthetic function is the dominant function, while outside of art, even if present, it occupies a secondary position.""^

The dominant varies in every age as the audience's perception of the aesthetic function of art changes. Muka- fovsky believes that the primary purpose of art is the aes thetic experience. We need to recall the ideas of Viktor

§klovskij, a Russian Formalist, who posited the theory of

"ost.ranenie" (estrangement) as the leading device of art.

In £klovskij's view, "the aim of art is to render the sen sation of a thing as it is perceived and not as it is known; the technique of art is the device of 'ostranenie', the de vice of complicated form which magnifies the difficulty and length of perception since the process of perception is the end itself and should be prolonged. Art is a way of experi encing the artfulness of an object, the object itself is 17 not important." v The basis of Sklovskij1s argument lies m the process of aesthetic perception. The communicative function of art, with time, comes to dominate perception because response in the audience becomes automatic. Once automatic the value of the aesthetic experience is diluted. "If perception becomes 18 habitual, it becomes automatic." He views literary history as the process of changing language and imagery to create the environment favorable to perception. If the language of poetry is made difficult then the effect will be greater.

Mukarovsky asserts that literary history evaluates 19 by one criterion: the violation of tradition, novelty.

Does or does not the work change the direction of the evo lutionary series? The deformation of the aesthetic norm is the primary function of any competing artistic trend. De formation of the norm heightens the awareness in the audience and produces the desired aesthetic response. "Violation of the aesthetic norm is a primary means for achieving an ef fect."20

One can argue that the physiological sketch writers, with their avowed emphasis on verisimilitude and the illu sion of everyday reality, were attempting to create a new aesthetic norm by deforming the prevailing romantic tradi tion. Once the perception of this "device" of daguerrotypicality became automatic the works became clicheed and lost their value as transmitters of aesthetic experience.

This occurred in the later stage of the development of the physiological sketch, that period which is most frequently referred to as the "Natural School". The originality of the physiological depiction became trite and formulaic when the cardboard types were placed in a stereotyped conflict such as man vs environment. We shall examine this process in the course of our analysis.

There is another work which we believe deserves men- 21 tion here, a study of Jakov Butkov by Peter Hodgson. 12

Hodgson's analysis of what he terms the "reluctant natural ist" writers is a valuable piece of scholarship. Taking the lead from Mixail Baxtin's theory of the grotesque, he delves into the works of the decade to discover a trend which runs counter to Belinskij's prescriptive socially-oriented liter ature. He sees Butkov as a writer who links the creations of Gogol' and Dostoevskij via the use of the grotesque and what he terms the "manipulation of nonrealistic modes of 22 fiction." His work sheds new light on this transition period of the 1840's.

We undertook our research with the goal of discover ing a link between the physiological sketch, a popular genre in the decade, and the larger prose works of succeeding decades. We believe that the physiological sketch, which de veloped in France and became popular as a form of journal istic prose in Russia, initiated an attempt by Russian wri ters to inaugurate an era of daguerrotypical realism, ini tially as a reaction against romanticism. The popularity of the physiology coincided with another literary phenomenon, the "Natural School", falling under the ideological hold of

Belinskij as he pursued his program of social reform.

While all art, in any period, deals with the compre hension of man and his surrounding reality, the writers of the 1840's, grasping the significance of the research of the natural scientists in the decades preceding, came to a new understanding of that relationship. There was an awareness 13 on the part of writers that there existed an organic unity in which man played a key role. Within the context of that understanding the writers of the so-called "physiological sketches" imitated the methods used by the natural scientists in their studies. These included observation of the subject matter under investigation in the spirit of the impartial scientist and the "precise" rendering of these observed data in their literary sketches.

These writers accepted a notion of the organic theory of society which maintained generally that society was com posed of many diverse elements and that each of these ele ments had a role to perform which, when taken within the framework of the entire social organism, was important for the proper functioning of that society. Hence, street sweep ers, janitor, street clowns and organ grinders all seemingly had their place in society and became subjects worthy of artistic representation.

This form of artistic representation is often referred to as "daguerrotypic" because the reader's sensation that he is viewing a photograph (the "daguerrotype" was the fore runner of the modern photograph). The author arranges the field of vision for his daguerrotype. His claims to the con trary, this setting of the realistic stage is, in fact, cre ated by the author to suit his own artistic purposes. The

"slice-of-life" picture is filtered through the artistic perception of the writer. No matter how documentary the 14 writer purports to be, a certain amount of distortion affects the final image. The verbal medium is not an equivalent to the technological one: the human eye is not an impartial, inanimate camera lens. It is not simply a matter of the re production of details. It is rather the artistic purpose those details are to perform in the context of the literary work.

We shall discuss the problem of realism in greater detail below with the associated questions of verisimilitude and metonymy. We want to point to the movement in the decade of the 1840's from Gogol' to Dostoevskij as it were, through the physiological sketch and the Natural School. The "Natur al School", of which the physiologists were a part, went be yond the mere static representation of the human organism in his milieu. Writers of the "Natural School" posed a conflict man vs his environment. Out of this conflict there grew an easily repeated formula: in a confrontation between the es sentially good man and the essentially cruel social environ ment, the man will be the loser. Although he undoubtedly had no intention of founding such a movement, Gogol*'s works with their depictions of poor clerks being robbed and swindled, were taken as the model for these "Natural School" writers.

The literature of this period, with its man vs en vironment conflict, is marked by a notion of "transformation" a process of "education" to the ways of the world. In this scheme the naive hero (often a provincial who comes to the 15 city to make his mark in the world) confronts the "real world" and is either "educated" to survive or fails. In either case the "Natural School" writers depicted a distaste ful result: if he failed, he returned home disillusioned or defeated; if he succeeded he became a philistine.

This daguerrotypic realism depicted the world created by the "Natural School" writer: the "real world" of these sketches is, in fact, the world seen and understood by the author. Dostoevskij challenged this formula. He was not content to render a depiction of the world in such a daguerrotype fashion, either philosophically or artistically. In the "Natural School" understanding of realism there is pre sented the powerful force of determinism. Determinism is un derstood as a cause-and-effect relationship which will be discussed in greater detail below. At this juncture we wish to note how this cause-and-effect relationship affects the interaction of the two elements of the "Natural School" con flict.

The conflict presupposes the primary role of the social environment in understanding human activity: man’s actions are viewed as environmentally determined as he re sponds to environmental stimuli. In the "Natural School" mode wherein the author creates the field of vision, he de fines the character’s actions, experiences, thoughts, etc. within the framework of his own being. It is the author’s world, and his character lives within it. He describes 16 everything, in the case of the physiologists and "Natural

School" writers, the most sordid details of naturalistic coloration and lowly social types. It is a world external to that of the hero.

Mixail Baxtin, in his work Problemy tvorcestva Dos- toevskogo (Problems of Dostoevskij's Poetics) (19 29), has posited this as a monological technique. He opposes to this a Dostoevskian novelistic technique which he terms "poly phonic", a term borrowed from musicology to describe the

"many voices" present in Dostoevskijfs novels. These multi ple voices represent those of the characters which, Baxtin asserts, stand full-voiced and independent, equivalent in integrity to that of the author. The hero is not "a mouth- 23 piece for the author's voice," but independent, reflecting his own consciousness. What the "Natural School" writers presented as the totality of traits forming the hero's fixed social-characterological image is introduced by Dostoevskij into the field of vision of the hero himself. What is im portant in the Dostoevskian technique is "not how the hero appears to the world, but how the world appears to the hero 24 and how the hero appears to himself." The external world of the hero which the daguerrotypic realists worked so dili gently to re-create in a verbal medium, is drawn into the process of self-awareness of the hero by Dostoevskij. "There fore the elements from which the image of the hero is made

(constructed) are not the facts of reality — the reality of 17 the hero himself and his environment — but rather the sig nificance of those facts for the hero himself, for his self- ,,25 consciousness."

According to Baxtin, the Dostoevskian hero speaks in his own independent voice, with its own inner logic. The creator of daguerrotypic realism speaks about the hero, not with the hero. Everything is perceived within the author's omniscient field of vision. He interprets how it appears to the character. As Baxtin explains it, everything is from the same authorial position. There is no collision between the author's and the hero's fields of vision and attitudes which they could interpret differently in their own way.

The hero's point of view remains the author's point of view.

The functions which were performed by the author in the realism of the "Natural School" are now performed by the hero as he elucidates himself from all possible points of view.

How does this happen in the Dostoevskian novel? The hero's word, according to Baxtin, is created by the author, but created in such a way that it can freely develop its own inner logic and indepdendence as "the word of another person, 2g as the word of the hero himself." Consequently, the "word of the hero", to use Baxtin's terminology, is removed from the author's monological field of vision. According to the scholar's point of view, Dostoevskij's feat is a "small-scale 27 Copernical upheaval" since he brings the hero's self definition to the fore and reduces the author's formerly 18 firm and finalizing definition of the hero.

Since the "Natural School" writers had relied on the determinist cause-effect relationship to justify the char acter's actions and responses to environmental (read: social) stimuli in their pursuit of a social-reforming literature,

Dostoevskij's notion that the hero is self-aware, conscious of himself, of his own status and "psychology" as it were de stroys that causal link. Environmental causes are no longer necessarily the key to understanding human actions. This philosophically suits Dostoevskij since he abhorred the

"finalizing" and "categorizing" notions of the social plan ners. In later years he asserted man's right to be irra tional: "two times two equals five is sometimes a very char- 2 8 ming thing, too," says the hero in Notes from Underground.

We see the writers of the "physiological sketches" as those who made the attempt to accurately and faithfully re present contemporary Russian reality in their works. What began as pure daguerrotypic realism evolved into an oft-re peated formulation of a conflict between man and his environ ment when these writers fell under the sway of an ideology which saw the purpose of literature as social reform. Gogol' provided the style and subject matter for these writers as he was widely imitated in both. Dostoevskij's early works in this decade before his imprisonment and exile exposed the weak points in the formula by shifting the structure in his works. "The dominant of the entire literary vision and 19

structure was shifted, the world took on a new visage, de

spite the fact that Dostoevskij introduced almost essentially 29 no new, non-Gogolian material."

Ths dissertation is structured in four chapters. The

first is a d^cussion of the literary theories surrounding

realism and naturalism. Included is a short survey of the

advances in the natural sciences which stimulated the de

velopment of the physiological sketch. Chapter two is in

two parts. The first is a brief historical survey of the

physiological sketch in France and England before it was in

troduced into Russia. We concentrate on the works of Balzac

and Dickens, as well as the popular illustrated collections which the Russian publishers imitated. Part two contains an

analysis of the physiological sketch in Russian literature,

its themes and style. We analyze the works of major and minor writers. Chapter three is an examination of the "Na

tural School" writers and Belinskij's critical role in the

formulation of the movement. Chapter four considers Dosto

evskij and his creative works in the 1840's. A concluding

chapter summarizes our argument. NOTES TO INTRODUCTION

^V. I. Kuleiiov, Natural'naja skola v russkoj li terature XIX veka (Moscow, 1965), p. 8.

2Ibid., p. 261.

2Ibid., p. 19. 4 A. G. Cejtlin, Stanovlenie realizma v russkoj literature. Russkij fiziologideskij oderk (Moscow, 1965), p. 262.

~*Ibid. , p. 186.

^Ibid., p. 92.

^Ibid., p. 186.

^V. V. Vinogradov, fevoljucija russkogo naturalizma (Leningrad, 1929), p. 6.

9Ibid., p. 312.

10Ibid., p. 107.

^^Victor Erlich, Russian Formalism, History and Doctrine (The Hague: Mouton, 1969) , p^i 87. 12 Vinogradov, p. 126. 13 Jurij Tynjanov, "0 literaturnoj fevoljucii," Readings in Russian Poetics, Michigan Slavic Studies, No. 2, 1971, p. 101. 14 Roman Jakobson, "The Literary Dominant," Readings in Russian Poetics, Ed. by Ladislav Matejka and Krystyna Po- morska (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1971), p. 83. 15 Rene Wellek, The Literary Theory and Aesthetics of the Prague School Michigan Slavic contributions (Ann Arbor, MI: Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures The University of Michigan, 1969), p. 12.

20 21

*j rr Jan Mukarovsk^, Aesthetic Function, Norm and Value as Social Facts Trans, by Mark E. Suino, Michigan Slavic Contributions (Ann Arbor, MI: Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures The University of Michigan, 19 70), p. 1.

"^Viktor Sklovskij, "Iskusstvo kak priem," 0 teorii prozy (Moscow, 1929), p. 13.

^ Ibid. , p. 11.

^Wellek, p. 17.

2^Muka£ovsk;f, p. 32. 21 Peter Hodgson, From Gogol to Dostoevsky: Jakov Butkov, a reluctant naturalist in the 1840's (Munich: Fink, 19 76) . 22 Ibid., p. vii. 23 Mixail Baxtin, Problems of Dostoevsky's Poetics Trans, by R. W. Rotsel (Ann Arbor, MI: Ardis, 1973), p. 4.

2^Ibid. , p. 38. 25 Ibid.

26Ibid., p. 53.

2^Ibid., p. 39. 2 8 F. M. Dostoevskij, Zapiski iz pod'polja. Polnoe sobranie socinenij vol. 5 (Leningrad, 19 72), p . 119. 29 Baxtin, p. 39. CHAPTER ONE

In this first chapter we shall posit a theory of realist prose to which the writers of the "physiological sketches" adhered. Along with this theory we feel it is necessary to provide a brief survey of the developments in the biological and natural sciences immediately preceding the period under discussion. The revolutionary progress made in the sciences stimulated the imagination of the pub lic and writers. We feel such a survey is helpful in order to fully appreciate the subject matter of these sketches as well as to understand the very label "physiological sketch".

Before addressing the role of the natural sciences in the literature of the 1840's we should like to develop the con cepts surrounding the notion of realism in literature.

The arguments surrounding the theory of realism in imaginative literature are numerous. The "problem" of re alism is the confusion which the use of the term stimulates.

Roman Jakobson in his essay "0 xudo£estvennom realizme"

("Realism in Art") (19 21) addresses this fact almost exclu sively in his attempt to define the limits of the term. He first defines realism as "striving to maximum verisimili tude."'*' Then he processed to complicate the matter by noting three facts which blur this rather direct and unencumbered 22 23 definition. Jakobson discerns the existence of a fundamen tal dichotomy between a) what the author believes to be verisimilitudinous and b) what I, the reader/experiencer, making a judgement, perceive as verisimilitudinous. A third factor further complicates the issue: the use of the term to de signate the historical moment, that period of the nineteenth century which is usually referred to as the "age of realism."

The term is semantically loaded.

We must concern ourselves with both aspects of the problem: the mode and the historical moment. We shall ex amine the relationship between the "physiological sketch"

(fiziologij?eskij o<*erk) , a literary form borrowed from France and the nascent movement of the 1840's called the "Natural

School" ("natural'naja £?kola") with the purpose of elucida ting the transition from the descriptive, documentary, daguerrotypical prose of this period to that prose of later decades, specifically that of Dostoevskij, as exhibited in his early works.

As a critical term realism was borrowed from philo sophy. It originally served idealism and the scholastic doctrine that universals (goodness, justice, etc.) have real existence. 2 In this sense it opposed conceptualism, for example, which held that universals exist only in the mind, and nominalism, which held that they exist in name only.

The position that universals have a real existence reflects what one may call a correspondence theory. According to 24 this we may believe in the reality of the external world and may come to know it by observation and comparison. In the eyes of the naive realist there exists a one-to-one corres pondence between object and the perception of that object.

The truth of existence can be realized by the accurate and careful reproduction of its objects.

This theory has ramifications for literature. The fundamental component of literature is the word. The one- to-one correspondence which exists, or is held to exist, be tween an object and its perception, has a parallel in litera ture: a one-to-one correspondence between word and object.

How a writer perceives the function of the word is a deter mining factor in his artistic creativity. If the word is understood as a linguistic sign for an object of perception and, that the route between sign and perception is direct and unambiguous, then the word, as a sign, becomes an iden tifying tag or label. The naive realist uses language in just such a word-as-label fashion.

This interpretation of the use of artistic language seems opposed to §klovskij's theory of estrangement or Muka-

£ovsky's notions concerning the deformation of the aesthetic norm. Both of these theoreticians believe that the essence of art is the aesthetic experience, and that the most assured technique for transmitting that experience is the complica tion of the surface communicative function. This complica- V , , tion, or making difficult C"zatrudnenie" in Sklovskij's 25 theory), 3 heightens the artistic impression by disrupting the process of automatic perception which familiarity en genders. This making difficult the communicative perception

in the experiencer forces him to perceive the image. This v is what Sklovskij has called "explaining the ordinary m terms of the extraordinary," or the known in terms of the un known.^ His well-known example of this process is Tolstoj's description of Natasa Rostova's attendance at the opera in

War and Peace.

If a realist writer professes the belief that the communicative function should be unencumbered, that, for instance, "sleep" is sleep and not the illusion of the near ness to death, then it is likely that he will not obstruct the poetic language by complcation (what Sklovskij calls 5 "roughening") , but will remove confusion from his narrative.

On the one hand, this is what the physiologists did through their efforts to "document" reality as we shall show below.

This daguerreotypicality was furthered as a technique by

Belinskij who took this interpretation literally. On the other hand, this illusion of documentation may also be a de vice used to heighten perception. If the prevailing aesthe tic norm is consciously attacked by an opposing norm, then the audience will experience a heightened artistic experience.

In our case it is the prevailing norm of romanticism which is under seige by the "realistic" writers. In an his torical perspective, we may view this very attitude 26 of word-as-label as a reaction by these realists against what they believed were the excesses of romantic artists.

The romantics^, for example, placed emphasis on the imagina tion, an animistic natural world, and the power of intuition.

The naive realists excluded the fairy-tale-like, the fantas tic and improbable since they conceived of reality as the orderly, scientifically verifiable world of mid-19th century.

"It was the world of cause-and-effeet, a world of no mira- 7 cles." The facts represented must speak for themselves.

The question then arises concerning which facts of reality are selected to speak for themselves? Together with the word-as-label viewpoint there is a perceptible change in the subject matter considered suitable for art. Realists want to be sure that they are portraying the "most real" reality. "The naive realist believes that he can re-present the world by professing to do so and committing himself to g the task with simplicity and sincerity." The world which the realist attempts, in sincerity, to re-create is the en tire visible world. If we use Stendhal's dictum concerning the novel, which likens the genre to a mirror walking along a road, then, as an artist reflecting life truthfully and objectively we must include all of life's forms in that representation: the low, the ugly, the revolting. There tends to be a steady downward turn in subject matter with the advent of realism. There is a "kind of Benthamite doctrine that the most real is that experienced by the 27 9 greatest number." Hence, the emphasis on the lower end of

the social scale. If, as we have suggested, realism is a

kind of literature in opposition (it arose in opposition to

the prevailing romanticism), then it must launch an attack

against those principles it opposes. The reality it repre

sents will be that reality which was previously ignored or

considered unsuitable to artistic representation.

One of the "excesses" of romantic literature which

these naive realists attacked was the beautification of de

tails. The romantic penchant for beautifying peasant huts

and ancient ruins, for "picturesque" settings of orphans

freezing to death in the snow was rejected as an attempt to

surpass reality. Hence, in response, their attempt to re

produce external reality as accurately as possible. Nikolaj

terny^evskij later formulated a precept along this line of

reasoning in his dissertation fcsteti£eskie otno^enija iskus-

stva k dejstvitel’nosti (The Aesthetic Relationship of Art

to Reality) (1853-1855). "The first purpose of art," he wrote, "is to reproduce nature and life...Works of art do

not correct reality, do not embellish it, but reproduce it,

serve as a substitute for it."^ In other words, the attempt

to go beyond reality through the false beautification of it

is false, a betrayal of art which has as its primary func

tion the re-creation of nature and life. £erny£evskij be

lieved that most works of art were intended to serve as

support for the imagination: to revive memories of beauty in 28 people’s imagination. We shall discuss the limitations of this attitude below. At this point we should like to note the rather pretentious nature of this attitude. Real ists seemingly held an exalted view of themselves, maintain ing that everything worthwhile in literature could be con sidered realistic.^

Following the line of argument, developed by Rene

Wellek (see note 6), we may note the opposition to these realist propositions by those who clung to the previously dominant, in this case, "romantic", aesthetic norm. Many of the arbiters of taste (we note in particular the name Faddej

Bulgarin (1789-1859) who edited publications and whose opin ions are, therefore, more readily known than some others) were shocked and outraged by the subject matter selected by these daguerrotype realist writers. "In nature there is much which should never enter into the domain of art and literature and from which the well-educated man turns away." 12 Art as the servant to the metaphysical ideal was a deeply engrained notion. "The common eating-house has taken the place of the classical Olympus and romantic Valhalla and heroes have appeared in the literary world dressed in rip ped, baggy overalls, speaking the language of hallways and 13 couryards." The opponents of the realists did not sub scribe to the notion that beggars, drunks, street clowns and prostitutes were the worthy and valid subjects of literature.

The question of the representation of reality in art 29 may be traced back to the origins of western art in the for mulation of style separation in classical poetics which "be

queathed to posterity something perhaps more important even

than a body of work: a way of thinking about literary art, a 14 hierarchy of forms, styles, and values." In this system everyday reality, the low details, the common and ordinary

could only be treated through the comic. "The basic work of comedy was and is an irreverant look at what society agrees 15 to regard as reality." While the serious works could con tain prosaic details of life, the comic genres could not con

tain poetic details without "stylizing" or debunking them, thereby maintaining a comic pose. The highest literary

forms, epic and tragedy, dealt with human destiny, the ac tions of kings and noblemen struggling with the gods and fate.

The development of realism reflects an evolutionary change in literary development, the result of a long pro cess of change in social, historical, and intellectual at titudes which make themselves felt in literature. The re flection of reality in literature has been termed a process of mimesis, Erich Auerbach, in his classic study Mimesis:

The Representation of Reality in Western Literature, add resses this process of evolution. Without delving into an in-depth review of the entire work we shall isolate some of his more cogent arguments for their input into our dis cussion, Without giving a history of European realism (and 30 concomitant definition} Auerbach seizes upon a few leading motifs and tries them out upon a series of literary texts.

In his view the history of western literature is one of the breakdown of style separation. The separation of styles in ancient literature (wherein the everyday could be referred to only in light or comic genres, the serious genres being reserved for elevated, noble subject matter) eventually ceded its dominant position. This was a gradual process until the eighteenth century. "German intellectual development of the late eighteenth century laid the aesthetic foundation for X6 modern realism — historicism." There is evidenced a shift in world view from static to dynamic emphasis. This shift focused on the belief that societies are in a fluid state, not one of stasis. The great clock mechanism of the

Enlightenment philosophers yielded to a turbulent, revolu tionary structure shown to be in a constant state of flux.

The attitudes and relationships of dramatis personae are in timately connected with contemporary historical circumstan ces. Contemporary political and social conditions are woven into the action and are meant to be recognized by the reader.

In applying his theory to Schiller's Luise Millerin, for example, Auerbach asserts that "in order to understand Luise's tragic fate the contemporary auditor must visualize the so- 17 cial structure in which he lives."

Auerbach's theory rests on what he sees as the ever- increasing depiction of everyday reality in a serious manner. 31

According to the restrictions laid down by classical poetics

the comic genres had been the sole arena for the writers who

desired to depict contemporary life and mores. "The serious

treatment of day-to-day existence, the rise of more exten

sive and socially inferior groups to a position of subject matter for problematic-existential representation, on the one hand; on the other the embedding of random persons and events in the general course of contemporary history, a

fluid historical background — these, we believe, are the X8 foundations of modern realism."

Rene Wellek sees difficulties in Auerbach's thesis.

He sees a contradiction in the approach: on the one hand,

Auerbach speaks of existentialism, the agonizing revelations of reality in moments of supreme decisions; on the other he speaks of historicism, the nineteenth century realism of

France. Wellek sees these two concepts as opposing each other. In fact, Auerbach's theory fits French realism but 19 ignores English, Russian, and German realists. Contem porary reality as the backdrop and the desire to depict con temporaneity are the dominating facets of realist litera ture. Wellek defines realism as "the objective representation of contemporary social reality." 20 Society plays a cri tical role. It is not merely a standard against which to judge the comic, but a proper subject of its own. The low subject matter, the dynamic movement of social forces serve as the background for the actions of the characters. 32

In the Russia of the 1840's these concepts of realis tic writing were not well-established. The acceleration in the evolutionary process in the breakdown of style separation which Auerbach notes refers to the development of romantic philosophy. Neo-classicism, the aesthetic norm of the 18th century, had re-asserted the primacy of classical poetics.

In philosophy Classicism was reflected in the perfectly ordered Newtonian universe, frequently described as the great clock-work mechanism. The philosophers who professed the tenets of romanticism challenged this perfectly ordered universe of Newton. Notions were advanced concerning the fluid state of the universe. History and historicism were proclaimed valid pursuits of knowledge. The rationalism of

Neo-classicism and the Enlightenment were deemed insufficient for explaining man's position in the scheme of things. In tuition, feeling, the senses were believed by the romantics to be more suitable for understanding man's condition.

As we have noted, the realist movement in literature was, in a way, a reaction against some of these romantic tenets as expressed in art. Born from the rejection of the

"excesses" of beautification, metaphysical correspondences, symbolism, myth and legend which the early realists identi fied with romantic art, there is a qualified realism in thia period of the 1840's which shared the impulses of romanti cism. This is the basis of Donald Fanger’s argument in

Dostoevsky and Romantic Realism. Fanger has drawn a theory 33

of romantic realism from the contemporary literary analysis

of the works of Balzac, Dickens, and Gogol* which holds that

the "novelist has projected into the imaginary a real world which he has recorded to the best of his ability, and the

projection into reality of a personal myth, expressing his

self-knowledge, his knowledge of fate, his notion of material 21 and spiritual forces whose field is the human being." The

novelist does his best to record the real world, but the re

cording is shaped by his vision of the world. Fanger cites

the myth of the metropolis as the key to his theory uniting

the four writers.

The problem for the artist becomes one of convincing his reader that the action and the characters he portrays

are genuine. The principal problem of realism is verisimi

litude. Realists portray contemporary social conditions and motivate the actions of their characters by the steady accu mulation of contiguous factors of influence. Character re sponse to environmental stimuli is justified by the piling up of details. Artistic devices can create the illusion of a complete portrayal of reality. The emphasis on details is one such device which leads the reader to believe that the author knows everything possible about his characters, but, due to the impossibility of explaining all the details in a rather limited framework, he will give only a few of the de tails. Through such a detail-selection process the writer shapes the reality to suit his overall design. 34

The dominant factor in the selection process for the

writers of the physiological sketches is the documentary

nature of the details. The physiologists attempt to pro

vide the aura of the eyewitness in their pursuit of detail

justification. They wander the backstreets of the cities

to observe firsthand the characters they portray. They refer

directly to "documents": their conversations with their

heroes, notebooks, etc. In the reaction against the beauti

fication of details these early daguerrotypical realists do

not attempt to prettify the settings. Their artistic vision

of reality will subjugate the beauty and emphasize the sor

did, The "sordid" includes, the low urban types such as

street sweepers, janitors, low level clerks; squalid apart ment buildings with derelicts as tenants.

In conjunction with the sordid details and descrip

tions of those details the daguerrotype realists reject the

high flown, rhetoric-laden language of romanticism in favor

of a more direct, word-as-label language, often with an

abundance of dialect features and sub-standard literary

language to further their documentary purpose. One such writer in particular, Vladimir Dal', was an ethnographer by avocation and delighted in rendering those "peculiari

ties" of language in his works. The goal of these effects

is the creation of the illusion of that everyday reality.

It must be believable in order that he may achieve a high verisimilitude. Virtually every scholar notes volatility in 35

the term realism in his work. Donald Fanger, Damian Grant,

Henry James, Georg Lukacs, Philip Rahv, Austen Warren, and

Rene Wellek at some point begin to add qualifiers: critical,

romantic, socialist."The chronic instability of the word

is illustrated by the uncontrollable tendency to attract a 22 qualifying word, or words, to provide semantic support."

We have succumbed to the urge as well. Our emphasis will be

on what we shall call "naive realism". Naive realism indi

cates that style of writing in the decade of the 1840's in

Russia which has, as its overall effect, a daguerrotype

re-creation of reality. It is a realism which exhibits

rather naive notions about the artist's role in re-creating

the surrounding reality in fiction. The naive realist at

tempts to create the illusion of complete objectivity in his

detail selection. This naivet£ seems to be the failure to

perceive the effects of choices on the artistic design of

the creation. The result is the illusion of the re-creation

of life as if on a daguerrotype plate.

In addition to the various qualifying words for the

term "realism" we must address another troublesome label,

naturalism. In the third chapter our discussion confronts

the development of naturalist prose style in the 1840's in

Russia which antedated the naturalist movement in Western

Europe by a quarter of a century. Naturalism shares with

realism the struggle to represent the illusion of reality

in literature. The naturalist places greater emphasis on 36 the character's environment, in essence asserting that man's behavior is a function of his environment. There is a certain parallel with the animal kingdom. We recall Bal zac's "Introduction" to La Comedie humaine.

The animal is a principle which takes its exterior form in the milieu where it de velops. The zoological species result from these differences. Didn't society make of man, following the environments where his action is displayed, as many different men as there are zoological varieties? The differences between a soldier, worker, administrator, lawyer, the idler, poet, poor man, a man of the State, a businessman, a sailor, a priest are as difficult to learn as those which distinguish the wolf, lion, donkey, etc. It has existed, it will exist for all time Social Species as there are zoo logical species. If Buffon has made a magnificent work in trying to represent in a book the mass of zoology, should there not be a work of this type made 2 3 for society?

Balzac was fascinated with the comparison man and animal.

His great cycle of fiction is replete with it. Environment plays a key role. We are reminded of Grandville, the great illustrator/caricaturist whose fame resided in the drawings of creatures consisting of human form in human costume with animal features, fulfilling human social roles and functions.

One cannot distinguish the naturalist technique from that of the realist on the basis of accumulation of detail.

Surely both styles are detail-laden. We would have to agree with Philip Rahv who maintains that the distinguishing mark 37

of the naturalist resides in the relation of the character

to background. "I would qualify as naturalistic that type

of realism in which the individual is portrayed not merely

as subordinate to his background, but as wholly determined

by it — that type of realism in which the environment dis- 24 places its inhabitants in the role of hero." While the

naive realists were keenly aware of the relationship "man

and milieu", we shall not be able to produce a clear-cut

specimen of naturalistic prose of the type Rahv describes

among their works. His definition more precisely suits

the French and American naturalism of the last decades of

the nineteenth century. Nevertheless, the naive realists of

the 1840's in Russia exhibit naturalist tendencies, just as

Balzac draws the parallel between human society and the ani

mal kingdom. The parallels will be drawn and no discussion

of realism in this period can ignore the question of natu

ralism. It is a matter of direction and emphasis. The wri

ters of the 1840's view man from a sentimentalist viewpoint

as we shall show below. The writers of the late nineteenth

century (Zola, Maupassant, Dreiser, London, et al.) are the

products of Darwinism and view man as a species of animal.

The physiological sketch produced in Russia during

the 1840's demonstrates the attempt to transfer the advances

in scientific reasoning and experimentation into the realm

of art. The Russian physiologists emulated the French from which the genre sprang and flourished. Contemporaries used 38 the term "Natural School" to mean realism, for that term did not come clearly into the lexicon of literary critics until

1849. In that year Pavel Annenkov, in reviewing Jakov But- kov's tale "Temnyj £elovek" ("The Dark Man"), referred to the writer's attempt to "merge elements of the fantastic 25 with real life." Vissarion Belinskij was a prime mover m this linkage between the "Natural School" and realism. We shall concern ourselves with Belinskij's role in the devel opment of the "Natural School" in a later chapter. At this point we shall turn our attention to those advances in the natural sciences which stimulated the shift to the depiction of contemporary man and society.

"Nature, although it has an essential determination toward perfection and order, comprises within its manifold sphere all possible variations, even faults and deviations."

It has been two hundred years since Immanuel Kant wrote this in his essay "A General Natural History and Theory of the

Heavens or an Essay concerning the constitution and the me chanical origin of the entire universe, treated according to o /• Newtonian principles," in 1755. Today, few are profoundly stirred by its implications. When seen in the light of his contemporary world, however, it presaged an era of revolution in political thought, in science, in the arts, and in philo sophy. To men who believed that the universe was perfect in its harmony and stasis, any suggestion of imperfection or disarray was unthinkable. The political and social systems 39

were spawned by Enlightenment philosophy, and the very no

tion of universal instability threatened the existence of

the "Heavenly City". In Kant's view this orderly system had

provided the rationale for tyranny. The belief in the ab

solute power of human reason had established despotism.

Kant was profoundly stirred by the writing of Jean-

Jacques Rousseau in the 1760's. The freedom of the human

personality to unfold and fulfill its higher destiny is the

central issue of his thought. It was the writing of Rous

seau which caused him to "cast off his contempt for the com mon man" who, it was held, had no insight into the vast com

plexities of the laws of nature. It was Rousseau who taught

that man was by nature good; that it was only bad laws which had suppressed him. If these were removed the infinite

possibilities of man would rise to the surface. According

to T. E. Hulme, this is the essence of romanticism: man,

the individual, is an infinite reservoir of possibilities,

and if one can so arrange society by destroying the oppres- 27 sive order, then these possibilities will bring Progress.

Kant provided the theoretical bases for the revolu

tionary changes which flowed from these concepts. His work

De Mundis sensibilis atque intelligibilis forma et principiis

(1770) set forth a distinction between two worlds, that of

the senses and that of the mind. Logical principles, fol

lowing Newtonian laws, contributed to the organization of knowledge, but not to its content, which is derived from 40 experience. The ultimate purpose of metaphysics, in Kant's view, is defining the limits of cognition. "The pure con cepts of the intellect need not be abstracted from the re actions of the senses..,but they must have their origin in 2 8 the nature of the mind." Sense impressions reveal the things as they appear to us, the concepts of understanding reveal them as they are. There is an element in the uni verse which reason cannot define or interpret. It can only be felt. The senses have a role to play along with the power of reason. The basic question regarding the objective validity of knowledge in its relation to objects must be solved in terms of the process of knowing. In Kant's view man's capacity to experience the world through sensations, thoughts and actions is the ultimate reality. His life on this planet is a part of nature. This is the premise of

The Critique of Pure Reason (1780). This work questioned the validity of a belief in a limited man in the most profound manner. A cornerstone of Kant's philosophy is that man need not accept a priori judgements concerning the nature of things. Such an acceptance subtracts substantially from the freedom he sought: the deliverance of man's mind from the rigid confines of reason.

The Critique of Pure Reason produced a ripple effect.

The centuries-old dogmas and doctrines regarding man in re lation to the biological sciences began to be scrutinized.

Baron Georges Cuvier (1769-1832) was one of those question- ing the conditions of biological studies. Cuvier, a com

parative anatomist and natural scientist, had won acclaim

for his work classifying some 5,000 species of fish and mol-

lusks. In 1799 he published Lepons de 1 * anatomie comparle

in which he posited a theory of the correlation of parts.

According to this there exists an interdependence of func

tion and structure in the organ. As the function of the or

gan changes, so, in turn, will its structure. This is ap

proaching a concept of evolutionary change as applied to or

ganisms in a biological chain.

Jean-Baptiste-Pierre-Antoine de Monet, Chevalier de

Lamarck (1744-1829) published the Systeme des animaux sans

vert^bres in 1801 in which he espoused the fundamentals of

just such an evolution theory. Having conducted in-depth

observations of plants and compiled exacting descriptions of

plant species through his work at Le Jardin des Plantes,

Lamarck applied the same principles to the animal kingdom.

Lamarck saw organic evolution as the only possible explana

tion for the diversity of animal forms. He believed that

"the totality of existing animals constitutes a series of

groups forming a true chain, and there exists from one end

to the other of this chain a modification in the structure 29 of the animals comprising it." This study points toward

the theory produced a half century later by Charles Darwin.

The medical sciences were undergoing a similar ex plosion of new ideas and practices. Prior to the end of the 42

eighteenth century the practice of medicine had been con

sidered an art. A doctor studied Hippocrites and Galen, and

then committed their works to memory which qualified him to

practice. The entire concept of experimentation which had

raised the level of scholarship and achievement in the physi

cal sciences had been repudiated in the biological sciences.

The prevailing attitude may be summarized in the comment "ex

periments irritate nature, and when it is irritated, it acts

other than when one leaves it alone. Therefore, one must

not perform experiments."^

This doctrine came to be challenged by a profusion of

theories based on physiological premises: organic, solidist,

and humoral. One such theory developed and championed by

Barthez, Cuvier, and Bichctt gained predominance at the begin

ning of the nineteenth century. This was the so-called "vi-

talist principle". According to this theory the source of

all physiological phenomena was found neither in the spirit

nor in the organism but in a vital principle present in all beings in nature. These scientists observed vital phenomena without experimentation on living bodies. When their hypo

theses on the cause of physiological phenomena were not con

firmed by observation they were forced to explain the mys

tery of cause for the physiological manifestations in attri buting them to a "vitalist principle". "They explained the 31 obscure by something still more obscure." In a manner si milar to that employed by the eighteenth century scholars 43

who constructed philosophical systems based on the presence

or absence of God in the universe, these scientists trans

ferred the power of scientific observation to the arena of

physiology. The "principe vital" was invoked to explain

phenomena which proved to be inexplicable by observation.

Franpois Magendie (1783-1855) eschewed this vitalist

principle. In 1809 he advocated reinstating the ancient

practice of vivisection. The reliance upon passive observa

tion of phenomena in order to establish a philosophical sys

tem was inimical to his practice of active experimentation.

There would be no attempt to formulate philosophical systems.

His Precis ^l&nentaire de physiologie (1816-1817) explained

his practice. This work went far toward breaking down the barriers which had restrained intellectual and scientific progress in physiology for so long.

The experimental method assumes a cause-and-effect

relationship between phenomena. This, in turn, mandates a

deterministic attitude. The observed result is conditioned by causes which it is the object of observation and experi mentation to discover. Determinism is dynamic: it assumes

change. It was understood that man was a creature highly

responsive to environmental stimuli, that he functioned in

the universe much like any other creature. Since this was

the case, the mass of men, society, was viewed as a larger organism in which the different segments of that society, performing various functions, comprised the "organs" of that 44

larger social organism. As a result, those segments of so

ciety which had formerly been disdained by artists and

"proper" folk, were the subject of a new focus of attention.

The attention to the lower social elements was jus

tified by the organic theory. The janitors, clowns, street

sweepers, and organ grinders must have a role to fulfill.

These low types were also fit for recognition by writers and

came to be the subjects of artistic representation.

A factor which was important for the development of

literary genres in this period was the growth in journalis

tic media: almanac, weekly publications, monthlies. The

demand for journalism placed added pressure on editors for

genres attracting public interest. The sketch had been in

existence for a long time, but there was a new emphasis.

The "physiological sketch" was attractive to editors be

cause it provided the filler they needed and it played on

the public's interest in things scientific. The growth in

popularity of this type of sketch was spectacular. In

France, where Brillat-Savarin initiated the appellation with

his Physiologie du gout (The Physiology of Taste) in 1825,

and Balzac wrote physiologies for virtually every major

collection of sketches over a period of twenty years, there

were large collections published, extravagant in size and

luxurious in detail. In Russia during the period 1839-1848 32 more than 700 physiologies and sketches were published.

The subject matter of these physiologies tends to be ordinary, 45 crude, coarse, low, sometimes repulsive, always offensive to those contemporaries who believed that art should serve a higher purpose. Contemporary everyday reality is the empha sis. We find no historical settings or subjects. There are no "extraordinary" people or heroes struggling against powerful nature. These are ordinary types, so typical that they may not even have names. This writing has frequently been described as "semi-literary" or "non-art" by scholars 33 from that time to this.

Our research has led us to conclude that, despite the myriad variations, the plethora of extant material, there is one major factor which must be considered when coming to terms with the notion of realism in literature. This factor is verisimilitude, the creation of the illusion of contem porary reality by the artist in the mind of the reader/experiencer. It is clear that by the 1840's the writers of the so-called "physiological sketches" were striving for the maxi mum expression of this factor. Their use of concrete des criptive details, the representation of contemporary social types manifest the attempt to re-create contemporary society in all its detail. But it is a naive realism in which these writers do not perceive the result of their selection of de tails for representation. It is a daguerrotype realism, a criticism frequently leveled against these works by critics.

An in-depth examination of these "physiological sketches" follows. NOTES TO CHAPTER ONE

1 Roman Jakobson, "0 xudozestvennom V realizme," Readings in Russian Poetics, Michigan Slavic Studies, No. 2, 1971, p. 19. 2 Damian Grant and Rene Wellek provide excellent re views of the philosophical bases for realism. See, Damian Grant, Realism, The Critical Idiom Series (London: Methuen and Co. Ltd., 1970), and Rene Wellek, "Realism," Concepts of Criticism (New Haven, CT: Yale University Presi^ 1967).

^Viktor 3klovskij, "Iskusstvo kak priem," 0 teorii prozy (Moscow, 19 29), p. 11. 4 Ibid., p. 13. 5 Ibid., p. 11.

^We should like to note our agreement with Ren£ Wel- lek's judgement that these so-called period terms should not be conceived of as arbitrary linguistic labels nor as meta physical entities, but as names for systems of norms which dominate literature at a specific time of the historical pro cess. He notes that the term "norms" is a convenient term for the conventions, themes, philosophies, styles, and the like, while the word "domination" must not be conceived of statistically: it is entirely possible to envisage a situa- yion in which older norms still prevailed numerically while the new conventions were created or used by writers of the greatest artistic importance. See, Ren£ Wellek, Concepts of Criticism, p. 129.

"^Wellek, p. 241.

^Grant, p. 64. 9 Grant, p. 3.

"^Nikolaj £ernysevskij, "Esteti^eskie otnolenija iskusstva k dejstvitel'nosti," Estetika i literaturnaja kritika (Moscow, 1951), p. 42.

1 1 Both Grant and Dmitrij Cizevskij* V make note of this attitude by realist writers. See Grant, Realism and Dmitrij CiSevskij, History of 19th Century Russian Literature 46 47

trans. by Richard Porter (Nashville, TN: Vanderbilt Univer sity Press, 1974), p, 3. 12 "Severnaja piela," no. 106, 1845.

"^"Severnaja pcSela," no. 69, 1847. 14 Donald Fanger, Dostoevsky and Romantic Realism, Phoenix Books (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1967), p. 4. 15T, . , Ibid.

Erich Auerbach, Mimesis: The Representation of Reality in Western Literature, Trans, by Willard J. Trask (Princeton, N J : Princeton University Press, 1968), p. 443.

~^Ibid,, p. 440.

*1 O Ibid., p. 491.

"^Wellek, p. 236.

^Wellek, p. 240. 21 Fanger, p. 15. 22 Grant, p. 1. 23 Honord de Balzac, "Avant-propos," La Com^die humaine (Paris: Gallimard, 1976), p. 8. Translation mine. 24 . Philip Rahv, "Notes on the Decline of Naturalism,1 Critiques and Essays on Modern Fiction, ed. by John W. Aldredge (New York: Ronald Press, 1952), p. 418. 2 5 V. I. Kule§ov, Natural*naja skola v russkoj liter- ture XIX veka (Moscow, 1965), p. 18. 2 6 Immanuel Kant, The Philosophy of Kant, ed. by Carl Friedrich (New York: Modern Library, 1949), p^ xvii. 27 T. E. Hulme, "Romanticism and Classicism," Ro manticism, Points of View, ed. by R. F. Gleckner and G. E. Enscoe (Englewood Cliffs, N J : Prentice-Hall, 1970), p. 57. 28 Kant, p. xxv. 29 Alpheus S. Packard, Lamarck: The Founder of Evolution (New York: Longmans, Green, and C o ,, 1901), p. 241. 48

Donald L. King, L * Influence des Sciences Physio- logiques sur la literature Franqaise, de 16 70 h 1870 (Paris, 1929), p. 17.

31King, p. 161. 32 A. G. Cejtlin, Stanovlenie realizma v russkoj literature. Russkij fiziologi&eskij ofierk (Moscow, 1965) , p. 98. 33 v £izevskij refers to the physiology as "semi-liter ary" sketches of the life of various social classes. See his History cited above, p. 133. Victor Terras states, "the charge against the Natural School is well-founded: they presented the extreme banality of Russian life without the breath of the positive spirit." See Victor Terras, Belinskij and Russian Literary Criticism (Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin Press, 1974), p. 205. CHAPTER TWO

Physiology: "The biological science of essential and characteristic life pro--^ cesses, activities, and functions."

In the preceding chapter we noted the advances which had occurred in the theory of biological investigations and medical practice in the decades preceding 1840. The notion that man functioned as an integral part of the natural order of things attracted the interest of writers as well. The development of modern urban centers with their growing middle class contributed to interest in journalistic media (news papers, almanacs, monthlies) where many genres of popular literature such as feuilletons, travelogues, and sketches were published together with the "hard news" of the day.

The "physiological sketch" is a genre which reflects much of the public fascination with science.

In this chapter we shall analyze tje physiological sketch as it reached its maturity in Russia in the decade of the 1840's. Because this was not an autochtonic genre we shall briefly survey its development in Western Europe, par ticularly France. Finally, we shall seek to define the structural features of the sketch in order to develop the re lationship to the rising "Natural School" in the following chapter. 49 50

As we noted above, French scientists and thinkers were

playing a very active role in the scientific advances taking

place in the first decades of the nineteenth century. The

"physiologie" was a reflection of those scientific achieve ments. The sketch genre did not spring forth fully-formed

overnight. As early as 1782 Louis-Sebastien Mercier (1740-

1814) began publishing what would become a twelve-volume

series of sketches entitled Tableau de Paris in which he presented life on the streets of Paris in its many varieties.

It is a portrait not only of the capital's physical prop

erties, but of the character, diversions, and joys of the

city's inhabitants in the period 1782-1788, i.e., on the eve of the Revolution. His sketches are composed from the view point of the tourist marvelling at the excitement of the city

life appearing before his eyes: the modern metropolis.

The apellation physiologie was affixed in 1825 by

Brillat-Savarin who wrote Physiologie du goftt (The Physio

logy of Taste). This is more of a philosophical treatise than a literary work written to determine the basic prin-' ciples of gastronomy so that it too may "take its place among the sciences, and to propose an exact definition of what is meant by gourmandism and to distinguish between that 2 social quality and gluttony." Together with his philoso phizing Brillat includes anecdotes and sketches of character types. Scientific phraseology peppers the narrative ("we have been scrupulously scientific"). Taste itself is defined 51 as an operation "through numerous papillae scattered over the tongue's surface, it absorbs the rapid and soluble par- 3 tides of substances." Brillat successfully combines the scientific jargon with character types and their represen tation.

Paris, ou le livre de cent-et-un (Paris, or the Book of the One hundred-one) was published by Ladvocat in the years 1831-1834. This was a fifteen-volume series compiled by a group of writers comprising a collection of sketches which describe Paris, its society, and the manners of its in habitants. Its contributors included a "who's who" of phy siologists: Balzac, Charles Nodier, Victor Hugo, George

Sand, and James Fennimore Cooper, who contributed a piece on steamships. The preface reveals the collection's raison d '£tre. "Our plan is very simple: we want to depict modern

Paris as it is. We want to do for the Paris of our time 4 what Mercier did for the Paris of his." Unlike their ack nowledged predecessor's effort which depicted major city streets, these works peer into the various alleys of the city and into middle class homes. One should note the phrase "as it is". Here we have the first instance of the "documentary purpose" of the sketch writers. They will attempt to render the details of city life in as precise and accurate a manner as possible. This is a pose, however, since the very nature of the sketches points to their "literary" and not "documen tary" nature. We shall see this pose often repeated in the sketch collections which followed.

In 1845 J. Hetzel published Le Diable a Paris (The

Devil in Paris), a collection of sketches written by Balzac,

Leon Gozlan, Charles Nodier, George Sand, Frederic Soulie,

and others. The complete title of the work reveals its pur

pose and emphasis: The Devil in Paris, Paris and the Pari

sians, habits and customs, characters and portraits of the

inhabitants of Paris, a complete picture of their private,

public, political, artistic, literary, industrial, etc. (!)

life. The devil of the title refers to the figure who acts

as guide to the city.

One of the most successful editions of sketches was

P. L. Curmer's eight-volume series entitled Les Frangais

peints par eux-m£mes. Encyclopedie morale du XlX-e si^cle

(The French Drawn by Themselves. A Moral Encyclopedia of

the 19th Century), published during the years 1840-1842.

This is a full-fledged collection of physiological sketches,

the titles of the sketches being indicative of the "species"

of Parisian described: the grocer, the grisette, the law

student, the physician, the midwife, etc.

Jules Janin's Introduction sets the tone. "We intend

to examine how we may contrive to leave for our posterity a

record of manners and everyday life, bearing in mind the in

evitable truth that a time will come when we ourselves shall be referred to as ancestors and forefathers. We should

remember that our descendants will feel a natural curiosity 53 5 to know what sort of men we were, and how we used our time."

This multi-volume series is intended to be a written record of mid-century Parisian life. Much of the work is devoted to average, ordinary types. The majority of the sketches are anecdotal and humorous. Janin emphasizes the growing demand of the "realists" for accuracy and truthfulness in description. "It is necessary that the arduous task of ob serving and delineating character should be divided between several writers, that competent historians be selected for each section, that each writer has heard and seen what he g professes to describe." In addition to the accuracy of the depictions Janin notes their novelty. He makes repeated re ferences to the great moralists of the previous eras (La Bru- yere and Moliere), and notes that they did not bother to de pict all Parisians. "In the above feeble outline the Elec tor, the Juryman, and the National Artist and Author are no where to be seen; the Speculator and the Capitalist are for gotten. Neither the Parisian Grisette, nor the Gamin, nor 7 the Actress, nor the Courtesan can be seen." The new sketches will correct that neglect by providing the details of the lives of a vast range of urbanites. Because changes have occurred in society, the social history must be re written.

Janin has been considered by V. V. Vinogradov to be a revolutionary figure in this period. In his analysis of

Russian naturalism Vinogradov declares Janin’s influence on 54

Russian naturalist development to be greater than that of

Hugo, The Soviet scholar analyzes the novel L ’^ne mort et

la Femme Guillotinee (The Dead Ass and the Guillotined Wo

man) as the clarion for the destruction of romantic conven

tions, and he draws numerous parallels to the works of Go

gol1. We shall have the opportunity to comment on these no

tions below. It is the Janin novel of 1830, La Confession, which interests us here. Janin introduced a backdrop which

became a characteristic one for the physiologies: the apart

ment house. "There is something more fascinating than the

pyramids of Egypt, the Kremlin, and the Swiss glaciers, some

thing more marvellous than all the wonders that one goes to

see at such great expenditure in time and money. This is

the great Parisian house in a crowded section of town, ten

anted from basement to garret. Luxury and poverty coexist g under the same roof." Janin brings life from the street in

to the house. Many diverse social types may interact in in

timate surroundings in this one enclosure. The large house,

in effect, becomes the body of society.

Honore de Balzac used this same setting for the inter

action of his characters. If there were one name to link to

the physiologie it would have to be Balzac's. The apellation was suggested by Brillat-Savarin, but Balzac popularized it.

He wrote physiological sketches for a period of twenty years

(1825-1844) during the same period he was composing La Come-

die humaine. 55

Balzac’s imagination was piqued by the association between the world of animals and that of men. His "Intro duction" to the H\iman Comedy addresses this link directly.

His physiologies reflect this interest as well. He was in trigued by scientific findings and theories, avidly reading the works of Buffon, Cuvier, and Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire. He was a determinist: "sublata causa tollitus effectus — Latin words which may be translated 'there is no effect without a 9 cause 1."

The Physiologie du mariage (1829) is an example of his use of scientific jargon in the sketch. Structured in the form of "axioms", he introduces "case histories" as il lustrations for his principles. Intended as "a compass for the pilgrimage of marriage,it is, in fact, a satirical examination of the institution which is "contrary to all the laws of nature. He makes reference to contemporary analy sis performed by Brillat-Savarin. "Our present civilization has proved that taste is a science. Pleasure considered as 12 an art is still awaiting its physiologist."

His Physiologie de 1'employ^ (The Physiology of the

Civil Servant) (1841) belongs to a different style of sketch, a more doctrinaire, less feuilletonistic type. Balzac has determined that he can categorize the human species as Lin naeus had taxonomically classified the animal kingdom. First, he offers the definition, then the description of milieu.

"Nature for the civil servant is the Offices. His horizon 56

consists of the stacked cartons. Atmospheric conditions are

the air of the corridors, male exhalations in rooms without

ventilators, the smell of papers and pens...his sky is the

ceiling to which he addresses his yawns, his element is 13 dust." Having described the habitat, he sets forth the

nature of the species, all with the avowed purpose of study

ing the personality in relation to the surrounding environ

ment. It is a technique worthy of Buffon or Cuvier.

One of Balzac’s best known physiologies was included

in Le Diable a Paris, "Histoire et physiologie des Boule

vards de Paris" ("The History and Physiology of the Boule

vards of Paris"), written in 1844. This sketch describes

the lives of the Parisians in an hour-by-hour depiction of

the activities on the boulevards. The narrator leads the

reader on a tour of the city by observing the major thorough

fares: theaters, cafes, hotels, the Opera. His topic is

money, its possession which provides power, the lack of it

breeds hopelessness and despair. One need only think of

Eugene de Rastignac in Pere Goriot to realize the importance

of this topic for Balzac's creative imagination. "The his

tory of France, particularly its most recent pages, is 14 written on the Boulevards."

Balzac's satire adds piquancy to the sketch narrative, which in lesser hands becomes rather dry and marginally in

teresting for the modern reader. Much of his satirical tone

emerges through his pose as the natural scientist. "La Femme 57 comine il faut" and "L'Epicier", both composed for Les Fran- pais peints par eux-m^mes, contain liberal doses of scienti fic jargon. The former depicts a "rare flower" in the Pari sian garden. "As the botanist detects among the hills and valleys some choice and unexpected prize , so you, amid the

Parisian vulgarities, have encountered a rare and exquisite blossom...But this genus loves only the warmest latitudes — the most select longitudes of Paris. You will find it be tween the 20th and 116th arcade of the Rue Rivoli...from the 15 glowing equator of the Panoramas."

The satirical tone continues in "The Grocer". "He is in the bowels of society: the ancients would have deified him." Why? Because he is constant and faithful, always working, as well as sacrificing: "there is not one of these men but cheerfully cuts off his ears daily with his shirt collars.It is through this satire that Balzac succeeds in creating a full length portrait of the Parisian grocer: his uniform, his politics, his interest in the arts, his language, and his love life. He is in no way made an in dividual: this particular grocer is typical of the entire class of Parisian grocers.

The central theme of Balzac's sketches is the city of

Paris. It is the thesis of Donald Fanger1s study that the

"romantic realists" (he cites Balzac, Dickens, and Gogol') were the first writers to fully realize the potential of the modern metropolis as a subject for fiction. It is his view 58

that these writers determined that Paris, London, and St.

Petersburg were as much terra incognita as the exotic lo

cales used by the romantic poets and novelists in their

works. These realist-romantics projected their personal

myth into this urban setting. For Balzac the role of money

and position and the power they wield in the lives of people

is a central motif. We can see elements of that motif in

his physiologies.

We obtain a similar view of London through the writing

of Charles Dickens. In 1832 a young Dickens, "with fear and

trepidation," dropped his anonymous manuscript into the box

at a publisher's office. The manuscript was a collection of

four sketches, and was to become the first of the Sketches

by Boz, received enthusiastically by publisher and public

alike.

Dickens' scenes of urban life include its squallor

and human degradation. They also include humorous depictions

of social customs, events, and types. "The Streets — Morn

ing" is a good example of how he approaches the technique

of describing the urban environment. In a piece similar to

Balzac's "Boulevards" Dickens differs from the French master by his free-wheeling imagination. A close look shows a com

parative lack of restraint. There is boundless energy in the

sketch. He paints the landscape boldly, with broad strokes.

The streets become ever more lively as the hours pass. We

feel that the passage is worth citing in some length. 59

In the pre-dawn hours the sky is barely gray, only a late night drunk appears, wending his way homeward.

There is an air of cold, solitary deso lation about the noiseless streets which we are accustomed to see through at other times by a busy, eager crowd...The drunken, the dissipated; the more sober and orderly part of the population have not yet awa-^ kened to the labors of the day...

An hour passes and now the spires of the churches and roofs of the larger buildings are faintly tinged with light from the dawning sun. The streets,

by almost imperceptible degrees, begin to resume animation. Rough, sleepy- looking animals of strange appearance begin to remove the shutters from the early public houses. Another hour passes away and the day's activities begin in earnest. Servants begin to bustle about, chat with each other across door stoops. Half an hour more and the sun darts his bright rays cheerfully down the still half-empty streets. Shops are now open, working girls are at their labors and errand boys are busy. Eleven o'clock and a new set of people fill the streets. Goods are invitinly arranged...the streets are thronged with people, gay and shabby, rich and poor, idle and industrious, and we come to the heat,^g bustle, and activity of NOON.

The sketch is propelled like an object set into mo tion in the pre-dawn hours, momentum carrying it along throughout the morning, breaking free at noon. It is full of energy(even the sun "darts" its rays cheerfully down).

One frequently sees references to Dickens' ability to create 60 atmosphere. Here he uses the contrast of light and dark to create the sensation of energy and movement: dull, gray light of early morning leads into the white hot intensity of midday. The full vitality of the London streets is re flected in the sketch.

Dickens gives a free rein to his imagination in

"Meditations in Monmouth Street". The result is an animated romp. He describes clothes on the rack in a second-hand store. They become alive as he studies them.

We love to walk among the extensive graves of the illustrious dead and to indulge in the speculations to which they give rise; now fitting a deceased coat, then a dead pair of trousers. We have gone on specu lating in this way until whole rows of coats have started up from their pegs, and buttoned up, of their own accord, round the waists of imaginary wearers, lines of trousers have jumped down to meet them; half an acre of shoes have suddenly found feet to fit them, and gone off stumping down the street with a noise which has awakened us from our pleasant reveries.

Shoes stumping down the streetl Coats starting off their pegs! The image almost leaps off the very page. His own imagination has startled him: the scene he has imagined intrudes into his very imagination and "awakens" him from his dreaming. This somnambular state also permits him to en vision the garments having their own tales to tell. Once told, the sketch abruptly ends: he wanders down the street presumably abandoning the garments to their stumping about 61

the city.

The "Boz" sketches are marked by what we shall term a

demonstrative emphasis. The characters are ordinary urban

ites either unnamed or given non-distinctive labels: "Mr.

Smith", "Mr. Bung", "Mr. So-and-So". The reader has his at

tention directed: "Those two motherly-looking women," "that

diminutive specimen of mortality in the three-cornered pink

satin hat," "that singularly awkward and ungainly looking man." Or, forsaking demonstrative adjective, he uses im peratives: "observe the wig," "remark how materially the

great blinker-like spectacles are." 20 In "Vauxhall-Gardens by Day" he creates a scene similar to that depicted by Tol-

stoj in War and Peace: "It was a beautiful duet: first the

small gentleman asked a question, and then the tall lady sang

in answer; then the small gentleman and the tall lady sang

together most melodiously; then the small gentleman went

through a little piece of vehemence by himself, and got very 21 tenor indeed..."

Sketches by Boz is a rich collection for the student of Dickens' work. It provides the opportunity to peer into

the creative workshop and view the "first drafts" of the

characters to come in his novels and later tales. Although

one day he would look back on these works with disdain and view them as "coarse and crude, altogether work of haste,"

this criticism more properly suits the tales than these sketches. 62

The genre of the sketch had been in existence for some

time prior to the period when the "physiology" appeared.

The apellation was brought to public awareness in 1825, and

came to popularity in France and England by the works of the

leading writers of the day. Assuming the pose of the na

tural scientist these writers drew back the curtain on the heretofore private lives of the street people, the ordinary

laboring folk. Journalistic media provided the opportunity

for writers to satisfy public interest in the advances in

the natural sciences. It was not only in France that this genre captured attention. It was widely imitated in Russia as well.

The French "physiological sketches" showed that wri ters used the pose of the natural scientist to arrest the attention of their audience. This "disorientation", the ap plication of scientific terminology such as Balzac’s "Pari sian blossom of the warmest latitudes" or the habitat-type description of the civil servant species, served to startle the reader and capture his interest. These sketches were not routine descriptions of social figures, but supposed

"taxonomic" exercises in conjunction with the organic notion of social structure. The satire became especially effective because the juxtaposition of Linnaean taxonomic terminology in descriptive literary works produced attention-arresting pieces. When the reader's attention was caught the "message" of the satire could seemingly be more effective and 63 long-lasting.

The Russians had produced ethnographic, moralistic, and satirical sketches since the mid-eighteenth century. In a period when French culture was being so thoroughly assimi lated it is not unreasonable to expect the sketch to be imi tated as well. In 1769 there began an interesting, if short lived period of polemical confrontation between the Russian

Empress Catherine II and an editor/writer with a background of Enlightenment philosophy, Nikolaj Novikov (1744-1818), which was intended by the Empress to be an exercise in the improvement of public morals. Catherine II, attempting to be an "enlightened autocrat" following the ideas of the

French philosophes Diderot and Voltaire, gave royal imprima- ture to "Vsjakaja vsja£ina" ("All Sorts and Sundries"), a moralistic satirical journal to which she herself contribu ted articles.

In response to the appearance of this journal several similar publications sprang up, among them Novikov's "Tru- ten'" ("The Drone"). Like their models, the English "Spec tator" and "Tattler" of Addison and Steele, Catherine's pub lication criticized human failings (gossip, superstition, etc.). The satire was direct at vice, not institutions.

Novikov, however, attacked the evils of Russian life, the abuses of serfdom attracted his particular attention. The polemic between the journals consisted of letters to the editor and lasted roughly a year until pressure from the 64 government officials forced Novikov to change the character of his journal and sales slacked off. After the failure of

"The Drone" in 1770, Novikov established "Pustomelija" ("The

Twaddler"), "Zivopisec" ("The Painter"), and "Koselek" ("The

Net").

The nature of the Novikov journals is satire, and we can see the presence of satirical sketches in them. In

"The Painter" Novikov relates, for example, a walk along the

Neva and his encounter with an enthusiastic reader of his journal. This fellow whom the editor meets is very excited about the imitativeness of Russian society. "We are accus tomed," he continued, "to greedily copy everything from for eigners, but, it is our misfortune that we adopt only their 22 vices." Now, the fellow asserts, the Englxsh have taken the place of the French: everything English seems good to us.

In the process of adopting English ways, just as had occurred with French culture, the indigenous Russian talent is ignored.

He begs the editor to print a section entitled "English Walk" where these ideas could be noted.

The imitation of French culture, which dominated most of the eighteenth century and which was reflected in liter ary borrowings and adaptations, came to be the object of ri dicule and scorn. In addition to the "correction" of public morality and vice, the works of this period satirized the dandy, the Frenchified petit-maitre ("petimetry"). Denis

Fonvizin’s (1745-1792) plays, the very popular "Nedorosl'" 65

("The Young Hopeful") and "Brigidir" ("The Brigadier") sa tirized the adoption of the trappings of French culture in

Russia.

Aleksandr Radii^ev (1749-1802) published his Putesest- vie iz Peterburga v Moskvu (Journey from St. Petersburg to

Moscow) in May 1790. This work, modelled on Laurence

Sterne's Sentimental Journey through France and Italy (176 8) is a strident and powerful attack on the Russian system of justice and the evils of serfdom. The Journey is an imagin ary trip from Russia's new, "modern" capital to its ancient one, stopping in twenty-five post stations. We can note

"physiological" elements in those places he "meets" the peasants. In "Ljubani" he spots a peasant plowing a field and uses it as a pretext to attack the forced labor of serfs.

In "Edrovo" he compares "city girls" to "country girls", finding the former immoral and disease-carrying, the latter

"natural" and pure. "On your cheeks there is rouge, in your heart rouge, in your conscience rouge, in your sincerity

— soot. Rouge or soot, it's all the same. I shall gallop 23 from you at full speed to my village beauties."

In "Mednoe" he encounters a sale of serfs and decries the practice. In "Gorodnja" he is witness to the army re cruitment procedure. In "Klin" he meets a blind beggar.

"His silvery head, closed eyes, and the peaceful expression on his face caused the singer's audience to stand in awe before him." 2 4 In this scene we see evidence of Radiscev's • v s? 66 sentimentalism and the influence of the emerging romanticism: the "natural talent" of the blind minstrel is superior to any other (a la Rousseau), This sentimental vein imitates

Sterne’s work. There is an incident parallel to this scene in the Englishman's work, "Calais: the snuff box". In this scene the Englishman encounters a poor monk and they exchange snuff-boxes. A few years later, returning to Calais, the traveller learns that the monk has died. He bursts into tears. RadiSfiev does the same when he returns, he says, to

Klin and learns of the beggar's death.

In "PeSki", the only detailed description of a real place in the Journey, he describes a peasant hut. "For the first time I looked attentively at all the household accou trements of a peasant hut...The upper half of the four walls and the whole ceiling, were covered with soot; the floor was full of cracks and covered with dirt at least two inches thick; the oven without a smokestack, but their best pro tection against the cold; the smoke filling the hut every morning, winter and summer; window holes over which were stretched bladders which admitted a dim light at noon; two or three pots (happy the hut if one of them contains each day some watery cabbage soup!)...A homespun shirt, footwear given by nature, leggings with bast shoes for going out- 25 side." In the main, this description could come from one of the sketches of mid-century when Grigorovic revived this rather sentimental vein. He is looking at the scene with 67 new eyes, a freshness: "for the first time I looked inside a peasant hut,"

There are also fragmentary descriptive sketches among

Radi£2ev's other works. There is a detailed description of

Petersburg and its environs in "Opisanie Peterburgskoj Gu- bernii" ("A Description of St. Petersburg Province") and one of the Tobol'sk region ("Opisanie Tobol'skogo namestni- fiestva"). The former provides an analysis of the facts and figures of the capital, its precise geographical location, population, agricultural activity, and so on. The latter describes the Tobol'sk region in a similar fashion: physi cal dimensions, commerce, agriculture, and trade fairs in which the author takes special delight. "This is all I can say about this particular region of the country, a trip which will always be inviting for any curious fellow, but in which the stay, speaking from my conscience, cannot be pleasant."^

In Radi£<*ev's Journey we see the beginnings of the theme which will come to dominate the works of the "Natural

School" in mid-century, namely the relationship between man and his social environment. As we shall see, this relation ship is posed as a conflict by the later writers in which the basically good, decent little man is defeated by a cruel social circumstance. We see Radiscev treating this same theme in those places he depicts the evils of the system of justice (the selling of serfs and the army conscription) and 68 the system of forced labor. The peasants are viewed through sentimental eyes because Radi§£ev is attempting to arouse the sympathies of his fellow countrymen to rid themselves of this social abuse.

In the early years of the nineteenth century the so- called "bytovoj" sketch evolved, in which customs and life styles of urban inhabitants were described, & la Mercier.

In 1811 Konstantin Batju^kov published his "Progulka po Mos- kve" ("A Stroll through Moscow") in which he depicted the street life and social customs of the Muscovites. Written in the form of a letter, BatjuSkov assumes a personal, first person narration and chattiness appropriate to the form.

"You want a description of Moscow from me, my dearest friend. 2 7 In the style of Tableau de Paris, Batjuskov directs his reader's focus by acting as the guide to the sights, pointing out physical features and landmarks: "on the left we see..." "Now once again we are on the street. Look to the right, then left..." He takes the reader into a restau rant, has dinner and goes to the theater. At last the day is over, and he closes the sketch.

This sketch is of interest to us not only because of the similarity to the French works of the time, but due to the motif of contrast between St. Petersburg amd Moscow. By the time of the 1840's it will become a constant source of comparison. Radiscev made the connection in his Journey,

Puskin, Belinskij, Goncarov, Panaev and others draw the 69 comparison. BatjuSkov also continues the theme of Russian imitativeness and he ridicules those who shun their heritage:

"why do they all want to pass as foreigners, give themselves airs?• o . . 2 8

A. P. Ba&uckij prepared an in-depth study of the capi tal's activities and lifestyles in 1834 with the publication of Panorama Sankt-Peterburga (The Panorama of St. Peters burg) . This is a large-scale work consisting of three vol umes : Volume I is the history of the city's founding in the period 1703-1725. It represents that period when Peter I was engaged in building the capital of the new Empire. Vol ume II provides statistics: population, structures, buil dings, etc. and is similar to Radi££ev's description, al though on a much larger scale. Volume III is a history of the life in the city, tracing its cultural development and social life. His purpose is "to present a broad and various picture of the capital, preserving as much as possible, the 29 v accuracy in measure and local color." One of Basuckij's aims was to dispel the false impressions of the city genera ted by foreigners. There is the recurring feeling of in feriority which Belinskij will also address. Jakov Butkov, in his Peterburgskie versiny (St. Petersburg Heights), de veloped the notion that a man's position in society could be determined according to the floor on which he resided. Ba- suckij depicts a man moving street-by-street closer to the

Nevskij prospekt as he rises in society. This motif is 70

V V picked up by Dal' in his sketch "Zizn' celoveka, ili progulka po nevskomu prospektu," ("A Man's Life, or a Walk down

Nevskij Avenue"),

We can also draw a parallel with the sketches of Bal zac and Dickens, the "Parisian Boulevards" and "The Streets

— Morning", respectively. Basuckij describes the city streets in a vein similar to that found in these sketches:

Four a.m. has struck. In silent streets resounds a monotonous drone; the squeal of shovels and the shuffling of brooms. Thousands of janitors silently sweep and clean the streets and sidewalks of the city. Another hour has passed... crowds of peasants appear from all sides; during the day you don't notice them... they are busy at work, they silently work or rest, they belong to the city; but now the city belongs to them...After eight new people appear in frock coats — these are the civil servants...By noon ladies begin to appear.

Basuckij continues his description of the city until the hour has struck midnight.

While the shape of the work is similar to that of

Dickens, it lacks the energy and imagination of the latter.

Compare it with the opening passages of Gogol''s "Nevskij prospekt" (1835), which is as exciting and engaging as the

Englishman's piece:

Let's start in earliest morning when all Petersburg smells of fresh-baked, hot bread and is filled with old women in tattered dresses and coats...Then Nevskij prospekt is empty: the fat shopkeepers 71

are still asleep in their fine linen shirts or are washing their noble cheeks and drinking coffee; the beggars are clustered at the doors of the coffee shops where a sleepy Ganymede, having flown about yes terday like a fly with cups of chocolate, crawls out with a twig broom in his hand without a tie and hurls stale pies and scraps at them...Sometimes a sleepy civil servant plods past with his briefcase under his arm if the path to his department^ office lies across Nevskij prospekt...

Gogol''s sketch, lively and inventive, continues throughout this prologue section as a description of avenue activities at designated hours. He has observed how the sights change when different segments of the population appear. For ex ample, at noon the governesses, tutors, and their charges appear — "a pedagogical Nevskij prospekt!"

Ba§uckij's scene depicts an ideal place, one lacking vice or ugliness. Every group has its place and its function to perform. "On the streets during the day movement, voices but in that very multitude there is no rowdiness or trouble in the very meannest; there are no folk shouter-orators, coarse cabmen. At night — quiet, peace, complete safety 32 even in the most deserted streets." This cannot compare with Gogol''s eye-popping juxtaposition of details: "freshly- baked hot bread...and old women in tattered dresses..."

Basuckij began publication of NaSi, spisannye s natury russkimi (We Russians, Copied from Nature by Our selves ) in 1841. This alamanac openly imitated the popular

Les Franpais peints par eux-memes, and was published serially 72 for almost a year when it abruptly ceased printing. There is no documented explanation to the publication’s demise, but there is a suggestion of problems with the censorship.

A sketch which appeared in the first number, ’'Vodovoz" ("The

Water Carrier) had definite "democratic tendencies" and, according to A. V. Nikitenko, himself a censor, this piece 33 raised some problems for the author. The publication was well-received by many critics, especially by Belinskij, who 34 proclaimed it "the mirror of contemporary Russian reality."

Na^i published fourteen numbers and seven physiologies in all

Another outlet for the publication of physiological sketches was the "Finskij vestnik" ("The Messenger of Fin land") edited by F . K. Derlau. This was a monthly issued in a relatively small number of copies. The almanac con tained a section entitled "Nravoopisatel1" which was a space devoted to sketches of a culturally descriptive nature. The introduction reflects the editor’s understanding of his audi ence’s reading preferences and the spirit of the age, "In our time analysis has developed so powerfully in all of Eur ope that cultural description ("nravoopisanie") has almost totally absorbed fiction...We live in an age of self-cog nition, we are beginning to turn to the critical investiga- 35 tion of ourselves," The "Finskij vestnik" began publica tion as a monthly in the early 1840's and published many well-known physiological sketches by Basuckij, Dal' and Gre- benka. That the French and English publications were known 73 and read in Russia is attested to by the reviews of the

French editions and the publication of Russian translations of French and English works. "Le Diable a Paris", published in Paris in 1845, was reviewed in "Severnaja pcela" no. 123,

1845 and translated into Russian in 1846. There are reviews of French sketches as early as 1840 in no, 10 of "Otefiestven- nye zapiski". "Literaturnaja gazeta" no. 7, 1841 published a Russian translation of Dickens' "London by Morning and

Evening". "Severnaja p£ela" no. 227, 1841 published Grand- ville's "Scenes de la vie privSe et publique des animaux", a collection of satirical drawings, and no. 253 of 1842 pub lished a review and discussion of La Physiologie du gout.

It is clear from an examination of the papers during this period that French physiologies were known and popular in

Russia.

The zenith of the Russian physiological sketch almanac was reached in the publication of Nikolaj Nekrasov's Fizio- logija Peterburga (The Physiology of St. Petersburg) in April

1845. Nekrasov was active in the collecting and editing of many similar publications, several of which never reached the bookshops, either for reasons of censorship or lack of funds. Among these are Pervoe Aprelja (The First of April),

Zuboskal (The Chatterer), and Illjustrirovannyj almanax (The

Illustrated Almanac).

Fiziologija Peterburga, sostavlennaja iz trudov rus- skix literatorov (The Physiology of St. Petersburg, Composed of the Works of Russian Writers) is one of those beautifully bound and illustrated editions in the French model. Belin- skij referred to the illustrations as excellent, and "the 3 6 edition is, in general, beautiful." Illustrated by Vasja

Timm C1820-1895), it is a large, richly bound volume in two parts. Part I contains the Introduction and article "Peter- burg i Moskva" ("St. Petersburg and Moscow"), both of which were contributed by Belinskij, "Peterburgskij dvornik" ("The

St. Petersburg Janitor") by Dal', "Peterburgskie ^arman^iki

("St. Petersburg Organ Grinders") by GrigoroviS, "Peterburg- skaja storona" ("The St. Petersburg Quarter") by Grebenka, and "Peterburgskie ugly" ("The St. Petersburg Corners") by

Nekrasov. Part II contains "Aleksandrinskij teatr" ("The

Alexander Theater") by Belinskij, "£inovnik" ("The Civil

Servant") by Nekrasov, "Omnibus" ("The Stagecoach") by Go- vorilin, "Peterburgskaja literatura" ("St. Petersburg Liter ature") by Belinskij, "Loterejnyj bal" ("The Lottery Ball") by Grigorovic, and "Peterburgskij fel'etonist" ("The St.

Petersburg Feuilleton Writer") by Panaev. This collection represents some of the most prolific of the writers of physiological sketches. We shall use this almanac as a ba sis for our analysis of the sketch as it developed in Russia

Before the explication of our methodology a few words are needed to elucidate its orientation. The problem of literary evolution has been adequately reviewed by Ren^ Wel- 37 lek. He notes that the concept began with the connection to Darwinian and Spencerian evolution theory. The linkage

between the biological concept and literature is false be

cause there are no fixed genres comparable to the biological

species which serve as the substrata of evolution. There is,

in Wellek's words, "no inevitable growth and decay, no trans

formation of one genre to another, no actual struggle for 3 8 life among genres." Likewise, he faults Hegelianism for

its rigid determinism and schematism of triads (thesis-anti-

thesis-synthesis principle), but adds that the notion of con

flict and revolution in art is valid. He praises the Hegel

ians for "seeing the relationship of art to society as dia- 39 lectal give-and-take,"

The Russian Formalist critics and later the theore

ticians of the Prague Linguistic Circle posited the theory of confrontation and conflict in the evolution of literary

forms. According to this theory there is an aesthetic norm which dominates in a given era and as the audience becomes aware of and accustomed to the given norm, the art becomes clich^ed. In effect, the art becomes boring. Recognition of the norm in a given era becomes automatic and aesthetic experience, the essence of art, is reduced. Artists are not satisfied with such a condition, and to avoid producing a series of these cliches, they do violence to the norm in order to provoke interest. It is an ever-repeated cycle of artistic norm being violated and distorted to produce new art. Viktor Sklovskij called this process "ostranenie" or 76

"making it strange" in his essay "Iskusstvo kak priem” (."Art as Device"). Jan Mukairovsky of the Prague Linguistic Circle wrote that "the violation of the aesthetic norm is a primary 40 means for achieving an effect." He believed that the aes thetic norm suffers the fate of being constantly under at tack. "The history of art if examined from the viewpoint of the aesthetic norm is the history of revolts against the 41 reigning norm." Unlike the Formalist critics, however,

Mukairovsky did not analyze the process in terms of its ef fects on literary genres and styles, but noted that "the pro cess of change itself is basically a social and not a liter- 42 ary mechanism." The aesthetic function of a work is con trolled or regulated by aesthetic norms, and these norms de pend upon value judgements by their audience for their va lidity. In other words, the aesthetic norm develops accor ding to changes in the aesthetic values manifested by the perceiving/experiencing society.

The aesthetic norm, according to Mukairovsky, is al ways in a state of flux to one degree or another: either it is in the process of establishing itself as the norm, or it is withstanding opposition. "A living work of art always oscillates between the past and future status of the aesthe tic norm. The present, from which we observe the work of art, is felt as a tension between a former norm and its de struction; the destruction is intended to become a part of 43 the future norm." 77

In the decade of the 1840's we are confronted with a period of transition between an established movement with verse as a leading artistic form, and an emerging one with prose as the dominant form. In his discussion of the "do minant" Roman Jakobson notes that this concept may also be sought in a given epoch (not only in a literary form). In the Renaissance it was visual arts. The other art forms oriented themselves toward visual arts. In Romantic art, music was supreme. Romantic poetry was oriented to music: verse is musically focused; verse intonation imitates musi cal melody. "The Realist aesthetic dominant was verbal art and the hierarchy of poetic values was modified according- ly."44 Romanticism exhibited certain artistic norms which the writers of "realistic literature" challenged, among which were extraordinary heroes, exotic settings, great historical moments, and the sweep and grandeur of nature. Romantic literature strove, we might say, for a heightened sense of aesthetic fulfillment: beautified details, the service of metaphysical ideal. "Realistic" writers attacked these attitudes. "(In Formalism) if a linguistic element (for ex ample sound, sentence construction) is used just as it is in common language it will not attract attention. But as soon as the poet distorts it, by subjecting it to a certain or ganization, it will attract attention and thus become the 45 object of aesthetic perception." Can the converse of this 78 process also be a valid artistic pursuit? Can the aesthetic norm be subverted or distorted by "de-poeticizing" or "de- aestheticizing" language and literary forms? The writers of the physiological sketches attacked the norm by composing works in which the heroes were ordinary, lowly social types, often without any individualizing characteristics (they were frequently given no surnames), set in everyday contemporary locales, described as they pursued their everyday routines.

The stylistic properties of the physiological sketch include attention to descriptive detail from contemporary urban reality; the lack of a highly developed plot and in trigue; a hero who is a low level bureaucrat or laborer, for example titular councillor, copy clerk, street sweeper, janitor or coachman, a person occupying the lower rung on the social ladder; a language which frequently reflects pro fessional background (such as jargon) or social background

(dialectal variants of the standard literary language or

"gallicisms").

The stylistic properties stand in marked contrast to the works of the preceding era by a principle of ordinariness.

The writers of the physiologies emphasize the ordinariness of character depiction and setting in their efforts to render a daguerrotypical literature. They have as their ostensible aim the exact reproduction of contemporary urban reality.

The fact that the audience expected plotted tales and exotic locales with extraordinary heroes and instead were confronted 79 with, works negating all these expectations created heightened perception. The aesthetic norm is distorted to the point of rejection. One may view the very juxtaposition of physiolo gy-biological science and literary sketch as an attempt to create an effect.

These writers professed a documentary purpose. The question must arise regarding the possibility of fulfilling such a purpose. One of the frequent comments made about the sketches concerns their so-called "daguerrotypicality". The daguerrotype, a forerunner of the modern photograph, was in vented by Louis Jacques Monde Daguerre (1789-1851). His revolutionary process captured a scene permanently as the eye beheld it. Whatever appeared within the field of vision was recorded on the daguerrotype plate. The physiological sketches, because of their predominant descriptive detail and their common, everyday subjects, were likened to the in vention. We believe the goal of developing a literary coun terpart to the daguerrotype may be seen not only as an artis tic device, but as a reflection of the public's awareness of innovation in contemporary science and technology, and the attempt by writers to capitalize on that awareness.

However, the physiologists manipulated the scenes they described to suit their own artistic, or, in some cases, philosophical purposes. Filters were placed over the lens of the daguerrotype camera which shaded or distorted the de tails depicted. We shall determine that the writers of these 80 works may be classified according to filter and amount and type of distortion. It is from these considerations that we may begin to understand the volatility of the concept of verisimilitude and the depiction of reality "as it actually is." We shall approach the analysis of the physiologies from this context.

We have seen that Balzac's sketches are strongly attached to contemporary French society. The effectiveness of his description of life on the Boulevards of Paris depends on the reader's recognition of the contemporary urban social environment. The audience must know that at a given hour of the day particular phenomena occur so that Balzac's satire will be effective. This is true of his depiction of specific social types as well (."La Femme comme il faut", for example).

Evgenij Pavlovi^ Grebenka's (1812-1848) "Peterburgskaja storona" ("The St. Petersburg Quarter") is a similar description of a region of the capital. The motif is one which is popu lar for the genre: a provincial who leaves the countryside and arrives in the city to make his fortune. In this respect it is similar to his earlier physiological piece "Provincial v Peterburge" ("A Provincial in St. Petersburg"), subtitled

"Fiziologi£eskie zametki" ("Physiological Notes").

Like BatjuSkov's "Stroll through Moscow", Grebenka's provincial narrator is chatty and prepares the reader for a leisurely walk through this area his grandmother had recalled so fondly. The sketch is a loose collection of anecdotes. 81

As he strolls along the narrator recalls a joke or a tale and this launches him into a digression. For example, he notes that people rap on gates in place of ringing at doors because doorbells were never installed in the area. This reminds him of a tale about an albino. In the process of relating anecdotes, he gives various bits of information on restaurants (there are few since most residents dine at home) entertainment possibilities (there are no public theaters), birthday celebrations, transportation problems. In these bits of useful data the sketch is similar to Lukin's play

"3£epetil'nik" ("The Punctilious One") (1765) in which the title character, instructing a friend's nephew in personal ity types and customs, gives various tidbits of information.

In Grebenka's sketch, when he has finally defined the area's geographical limits he loses interest and abruptly ends.

Grebenka's narration includes explanation of the most mundane items, such as the streets which are impassable in the winter and spring when they turn to mud and no two are the same. He gives precise directions for the city resident on how to reach the area: "If you are coming to the Peters burg Quarter from the Troickij bridge along Kamenoostrov Ave- 46 nue..." Nikolaj Nekrasov (1821-1878), editor of Fiziolo- gija, took quite a different approach to the details he gives in his sketch "Peterburgskie ugly" ("St. Petersburg

Corners"), which is a dreary, depressing description of a poor neighborhood. Once again the hero is a provincial who 82

has come to the city. The tone of this work is established

in the sketch's first lines. "The house, the courtyard of

which I entered, was remarkably decrepit and untidy. I was 47 struck by an intolerable stench." The details throughout 48 are of this nature: "Outside was a horrible filth..."

This sketch, introduced into the almanac, is from a

chapter of his unfinished novel £izn' i proxo^denija Tixona

Trostnikova (The Life and Adventures of Tixon Trostnikov).

Composed in memoir form, this chapter concerns the hero's

attempts to find suitable lodgingupon arrival in St. Peters

burg. The narrator dwells upon descriptions of unsavory

types and sleazy surroundings. The details are unpleasant

and shocked some contemporary readers. The hero describes

one inhabitant as he sees him lying in a gutter near the

door, "a thousand flies swarmed all over his face, heaps of 49 them on his lips, in his mouth." The room the hero rents

is noted for its "foul air...bloodstained walls and floors... 50 one of the ceiling boards was black with flies." The weight of the sketch typically rests upon the description,

although Nekrasov introduces some social commentary near the

end as the hero/narrator holds a conversation with a couple

of the unfortunates.

We find no such overt social commentary in the des

criptive passages in Dal''s sketches. Vladimir Dal' who

used the pseudonym Kazak Luganskij (1801-1872), was a medical

doctor and his training as a scientist may be seen in the manner in which he controls the data of his sketches. In addition to his medical training, Dal' was an amateur anthro pologist/ethnographer and collected anecdotes and folk pro verbs, (His Sbornik poslovic (Dictionary of Proverbs) was published in 1862 and to this day he is best known as the compiler of the Tolkovyj slovar1 %ivogo veliko-russkogo jazyka (The Defining Dictionary of the Living Great Russian

Language), published in 1861). His "Peterburgskij dvornik"

("The St. Petersburg Janitor"), included in the Fiziologija after it was originally published in "Finskij vestnik", is a good example of his attention to detail as well as his humor. Dal' does not merely refer to the bedbugs which in fest the hero Grigorij's bed (and which scurry off when he must get up to answer the bell, only to return as soon as he lies down), he calls them "domaSnjaja skotinka" ("domestic livestock"). Similarly we discover that the cooking pots are cleaned only during the Lenten fast, and then not be cause they are soiled, but only to avoid sin.

Dal' devotes attention to bodily functions of his hero: how and what he eats, what remedies he uses when he falls ill, as well as the numerous trips back and forth to the door, etc. We do not learn Grigorij's political views nor are we as readers subjected to diatribes against social ills. Dal' does not allow his hero to rise above the level of the ordinary in which case he would be individualized.

Yet the fellow is so interesting because no matter how 84 ordinary he may seem, he is a memorable character. Dal' points out the most common events in his hero's day: his mischieveousness with the wagon driver whose wagon loses a wheel hub; his playfulness with the visitor who inquires after a tenant. The facts of the bedbugs and filth are re pugnant, yet Grigorij's tolerance of the little beasts and his "rationale" for not washing the dishes removes the nega tive features of these details. Nekrasov emphasizes the re pulsiveness of the house and its inhabitants in "Petersburg

Corners" by the lack of restraint: the landlady, for in stance, is a humorless, ugly creature who drools as she talks. The difference in part lies in the two author's varying approaches to the depiction of reality.

Nekrasov colors the narration by allowing his hero/- narrator to make judgements on the details. "I looked with horror...it appeared as though there wasn't a spot of land 51 in which one wouldn't sink into slime up to one's ears."

There are none of these comments in Dal''s sketch, and his characters are no less poor or lowly than Nekrasov's. Nor are they any less pitiful than Grigorovi£'s organ grinders and street clowns. Dmitrij Grigorovic (1822-1899) contribu ted "Peterburgskie sarmanSciki" ("St. Petersburg Organ

Grinders") to Nekrasov's almanac. This sketch is a descrip tive study of the capital's street musicians and performers.

Grigorovic notes in his memoirs that he "wandered around for days at a time in the back streets where the 85

organ grinders then, for the most part, settled. I entered

into conversation with them, went through unbelievable slums, 52 noted everything I saw and heard." While appealing to his

audience to accept the veracity of his description, Grigoro-

vi£ nevertheless shades the depiction by his open display of

sympathy for these lowly folk. "Look at that fellow slowly

plodding step-by-step along the sidewalk; look closely at

his entire figure. The torn cap out from under which long,

jet-black unkempt hair falls on his lean, sun-burned face...

An organ grinder frequently must feed an entire family, and

you can imagine the terrible feelings agitating the poor

devil in every vain attempt to move a public, which for the

most part is indifferent to him. Of all the trades, of all

the possible methods one can utilize to earn his daily bread,

the most pitiful, the most uncertain is that of the organ

grinder.

While appealing to the sensitivities of his audience

Grigorovi£ lays out an organized presentation of the class of

organ grinders in the capital: Italians, Germans, Russians,

street clowns, the organ grinder's public. He describes the

costumes, instruments, concertizing routines, and lifestyles

of the various ethnic musicians in his attempt to reveal all

aspects of this social/professional group. While there is

an effort to inject some humor into the narration (the Ger man technique is to annoy and irritate their listeners to

the point they will be paid to leavel), most of the 86 description is colored by attention to the pathetic circum stances of the sketch's "heroes". The sentimental tone is not unlike that in Radi^^ev's Journey as he described the poverty and mistreatment of serfs. To some degree, as we shall see in the works of the Natural School writers (among whom we include Grigorovic), the sketches of the 1840's are seen as a return to the sentimentalism of the early years of the century.

When Dal' picked up the ethnographic theme, for ex ample "£uxoncy v Pitere" ("£uxony in St. Petersburg") (1846,

"Finskij vestnik") which like the "Organ Grinders" is a description of a social group instead of an individual who serves to represent a group, we do not find the emotional coloring present in the Grigorovi£ piece. Dal' describes this Finnish tribal population of the city in a manner simi lar to his janitor: evenhandedly and humorously. He care- v fully delineates the geographical area of the city the Cux- ony inhabit, describing their national and professional traits. He does not judge his subject. Noting that "the

Cuxony in general are the most honorable people, that is, true to their word," he nevertheless points out that the dairymen among them water down their butter and freeze it.

He stratifies their society according to professional accom plishment: the upper circle is represented by silversmiths, the lower by chimney sweeps. Having described their dress, he ends the sketch by noting that while he could not call 87

them drunkards, he could not say that they are a completely

sober lot either. For a reading public habituated to read

ing about Chechens and other "exotic" Central Asian natives

in the Caucasus tales by Marlinskij, Lermontov, and Pupkin,

these Finns had a lifestyle which must have been amusing in

its ordinariness. Here we have evidence of a direct opposi

tion to the Romantic adventure tales.

Dal,ls disinclination to pass judgement on his sub

jects can be seen in his other sketches, for example in the

"St. Petersburg Janitor". Grigorij is experienced in the ways of the urban underground. He is "street wise". He can

take care of himself among the petty swindlers and card

cheats who try to take advantage of him. One of the amusing

scenes in the sketch revolves around his attempt to teach his

neighbor, Ivan, the jargon. Dal' takes a similar approach

to Jakov, his orderly in "DensdSik" . This fellow does what

ever is necessary to carry out his master's demands and ful

fill his master's needs. Dal' notes that

A thief was a shameful word in Jakov's eyes, a thief was one who was ready to steal in that half of the universe which he had named we and our. Jakov spat on such a fellow and left. But if you would tell him that he himself is a thief be cause some item finds its way into his household which he did not purchase, a skillet grabbed in passing somewhere...

But, that is our Jakov, says Dal'. It is his nature. The

division in the universe refers to Kant's division into the rational and the sensual world.

Dal' represents one pole of the physiological sketch,

a pole which is more purely descriptive and even-handed in

approach. He has no axes to grind: no social program to

propagandize, no social manners or mores to "correct". He

is interested in his characters as characters, unique in one

sense (Grigorij, Ivan, and Jakov are memorable as individuals)

yet typical of their social group. The other pole is rep

resented by the satirists, for there are many physiological

sletches which are satirical portraits. Balzac assumed the

pose of the scientist for the purposes of irony. Nekrasov's

"£inovnik" ("The Civil Servant") and Ivan Panaev's "Peter burgski j fel'etonist" ("The St. Petersburg Feuilleton Wri

ter") are good examples of the satirical sketch in the Fizj-

ologija.

"^inovnik" is a humorous portrait of the prevailing

social type in the physiological sketch genre: the civil

servant. Unlike the other works in the almanac it is a nar

rative poem, with variable length stanzas and alternate line

rhyme. Nekrasov aims his barbs at the fellow's professional performance ("Never did he get into an argument with a su perior...But he knew how to maintain his dignity as a civil

servant before underlings"), his physical lethargy, and his

intellectual lethargy ("Reading, isn't it really usesless to waste time?"), and, when he is dragged out of boredom to the

Aleksandrinskij theater, he condemns the author of the 89 satire as "a sponger and a lout,..and he ought to be sent to

Siberia]

The sketch is similar to other physiologies in that the hero is closely associated with his social environment and Nekrasov goes to great lengths to depict his interaction with the surrounding milieu. In this instance the subject and the milieu are the object of the author's satire. Our

"hero" reveals his true nature (he is a status-seeker) among his cronies and his family. Nekrasov describes his dietary habits, his work habits, his leisure, in a word, everything that forms his personality. He is a typical representative 56 of his group: "Like a fellow of the reasonable average..."

He is a great philistine. GrigoroviS's "Loterejnyj bal"

("The Lottery Ball") is a similar satirical look at the society of the civil servant, in this case the subject is an inheritance for the status-conscious bureaucrat and his efforts to assure that his superior wins the lottery.

One may not find any greater boors in the physiologi cal literature than in the sketches of Ivan Panaev (1812-

1862). The "Peterburgskij fel1etonist", added to Nekrasov's almanac, is a good example of this type of satirical work.

Written in 1839 and published in "Ote^estvennye zapiski" (or published in 1841 for the same paper with the difference in dates reflecting the differing data from Cejtlin and F. M.

Ioffe, editor of the most recent edition of Panaev's works), this piece was originally subtitled "Zoologiceskij o£erk" 90

("A Zoological Sketch1')., and establishes a tone which is

quite consistent throughout the author’s works. He fre

quently compares social (professional) types with animal

species a la Balzac and Grandville.

In this case Panaev satirizes the hack writer, a

rather consistent object of scorn in his sketches. During

the 1830's writers moved from the realm of avocation (for

the very wealthy man who had little real need of income or

financial reward for his creations, this writing was a hobby) to a profession. As literature began to be "indus trialized", the writer became "professionalized". There was heated debate over the issue of the writing profession and

certain editors (Sevyrev and Bulgarin) made references to the 57 "mercantile trend of our literature."

Panaev's feuilleton writer is at the heart of this heated debate. We view him entertaining his fellow pupils with his school stories and follow his career in the profes

sional ranks. We watch him degenerate from a moderately

successful writer into a rather worthless hack. The flavor of the contemporary conflict is related through scenes at the theater (where the hack playwrights assemble their cla- quers), at the bookshops (where the book dealers and publish ers cheat the writers on their royalties), the amateur wri ters who beg for favorable reviews, and the nasty personal invective unleashed in the hero's own printed sketches,

Panaev continues in this hack theme in "Literaturnaja tlja" ("The Literary Aphid"). (1843). In this work his hero's milieu is described in even greater detail with emphasis on those immediate environmental factors which contribute to his devolution into a hack. He makes a direct zoological comparison, rendering a textbook definition of the creature.

"The most worthless insects which multiply at an unbelievable rate, live mostly in a husk, similar to a pod...They exhibit a remarkable amount of activity or, if one could say of them, fussiness, but this motion serves no purpose, for they fid- 5 8 get in the same spot, they never move forward." For this

"aphid" relief from the ceaseless activity comes from his decision to return home to the provinces. "No one noticed 59 his departure." We see how the social environment of the capital is a constant factor in the development of Panaev's heroes, and it is always the object of great satirical barbs.

In these two sketches the hack writers begin their careers with promise and the best of intentions but, due to peer pressure and bad examples, they lose sight of their intention to serve "holy art" and degenerate into aphids.

Pelageja Petrovna, heroine of "Barynja" ("The Grande

Dame") (1841) is another example of Panaev's emphasis on edu cation and milieu. In this case we view her own education as well as that of her daughter. The goal of this education process is "success" in society: prestige, wealth, possess ions. "Prekrasnyj £elovek" ("The Excellent Fellow") (1840) is the male counterpart to the "barynja", A perfectly ironic 92 title, this fellow is anything but "excellent", allowing his father to die in poverty and his mother to be hounded by creditors. This fellow succeeds because he adapts to his environment,

How well the depicted character type succeeds in adap ting to his milieu is a problem addressed not only by physio logists but also by writers of the "Natural School" as we shall see below. Indeed, the physiologists tended to empha size the position of the character vis-a-vis the milieu (note

Dal''s Grigorij or Jakov, or Nekrasov's civil servant or even

Panaev's feuilleton writer) whereas the writers of the "Na tural School" tales stress the relationship, the interaction, the transformation or "education" motif. How well does the character learn to cope or adapt? How is he "educated" to the ways of the world? As the above discussion shows, there is only a fine line between the physiologists and "Natural

School" writers. It serves to highlight and more carefully define the trends in this period of literary development.

The physiologies contain an abundance of descriptive material. Grebenka's works describe characters' appearance and lifestyles, Dal' describes a janitor's daily activities,

Nekrasov satirically describes the life of what he determines to be an average bureaucrat. All of this description serves only to develop character. Nothing "happens" in the sketches.

The material is not plotted, there is no intrigue, no denoue ment. The goal of these works is not plotted action, but 93

"documentary" description. This is, of course, a noticeable contrast to the prose tales which include those features of plot. This could have had an unsettling effect upon the audience which had grown to expect intrigue, and, as a re sult, "deformation" takes place. The notion of satirical deformation is not innovative in this era. Satire exagger ates and deforms characteristic features in order to expose defects and social ills. The eighteenth century Russian writers Denis Fonvizin, Aleksandr Sumarokov, Antiox Kantemir, and numerous others wrote satires in which the adopted French airs, the petit-maltres and "zemanstvo" ("mincing mannerisms") were attacked in plays and fables.

The physiologists' satire similarly attacked social ills and negative character traits but without benefit of the plot which the audience expected. What this unexpected lack of plot produced was a heightening of awareness, a

"making new" the reality depicted. As a result the aesthetic experience could be greater.

Looking at Dal''s "St. Petersburg Janitor" we see the following "action": Ivan and Grigorij discuss unrefined grease, Grigorij teases the coachman who has lost the wheel hub from his drozhky, Grigorij confronts a visitor requesting a boarder's apartment and tricks him, Grigorij pursues his daily labors (sweeping, hauling water, etc. the so-called

"bytovaja scena"), "and so it goes, day after day.Gri- gorij's apartment is described with its furnishings, his 94 holiday is described, his explanation of criminal "street"

jargon to newcomer Ivan and a few words about his family are

given. The sketch trails off in ellipsis on a note concern

ing the janitor's possible future.

What has happened to the hero? What adventures has he pursued? What intrigues involve his fate as a hero? In

deed, what kind of "hero" is he? He isn't a hero at all in

a traditional sense, yet he has captured our imagination and

attention because Dal' has skillfully led us through the man's ordinary daily routine, infusing it with humor and

showing us how much we as readers can learn about a character

through the revelation of ordinary detail. Grigorij is an honest fellow who has learned fenough from his experience in the city to survive the hustlers and sharpers. He performs his daily tasks.

We learn all of this through the unfolding of descrip tive detail, not through the hero's adventures. One could point out that the confrontation with the coachman or the encounter with the visitor are adventures of a sort. But these are far removed from the romantic tales of the preceding era. They are ordinary characters of lowly social classes.

The physiologists did not initiate the practice of the realis tic treatment of lowly types. In Russian literature we can point to Puskin's Povesti Belkina (Belkin Tales) in which he depicts a stationmaster and coffin maker, for instance, or

Gogol''s tales which feature lowly civil servants. PuSkin 95 even begins his "Stancionnyj smotritel'" ("The Stationmaster") like a physiological sketch: "Who hasn’t cursed station- masters, who hasn't quarreled with them? What is a station- 6.1 master? He's a downright martyr of the fourteenth class..."

But PuSkin's interest is not in "physiologically" describing the position of the stationmaster in Russian society. His tales reflect the depiction of this character in given circumstances: how he will respond to adversity, etc.

Characters in the physiologies are marked by their ordinariness: they do not rise above their milieux. Gri- gorij is so closely associated with his environment he is like a "snail in his shell". The fascination of these writers is in the observation of types. Dal' uses a foot note to lend authenticity to his documentation: "Grigorij assured me that he washes all his dishes annually — on

Monday of Fast, not for cleanliness, but to avoid sin as he 6 2 himself expressed it." Grigorovi^ made notes of his ob servations and conversations with street people.

The effort to document and render precisely the de tails of everyday reality, to re-create in literature life as if on a daguerrotype plate is a type of deformation since the details of reality can never be rendered without the minimum of selectivity: the author selects his details and, through the act of choice, deforms the reality he is portray ing. The details are colored or deformed according to the artistic principle of the creator. In Dal1's sketches, the 96 details are selected for their humorous effect and their uni queness, By uniqueness we mean that however typical Grigorij is, for instance, however perfectly fitted to his milieu, he is unique enough to have created an effect upon the reader.

Dal' has guided the material with that in mind. We are not bored with Grigorij because Dal’ does not allow him to become boring. One method for maintaining interest in the fellow is his language. The opening conversation is a good example.

Grigorij, our hero, is talking to his neighbor, dvornik Ivan, across the street:

"Nikak Ivan, u tebja maslo-to ne- varenoe?" skazal tot, £to s metloj. "A 6to?" "Da tak, c$to-to ne slyxat' ego £erez ulicu; a to byvalo, taki-perenosit' ot tebja k nam." "I to syroe. Tut ne do varki, a vy- mazat' by tol'ko, ctob ne potjanuli opjat1."

("It seems, Ivan, that you are using unrefined oil?" said the one with the broom. "Why?" "Well, I can't smell it across the street; it used to carry over from your side to ours." "Yes, it's raw. I don't have time to process it, just get it spread before^ it's stolen again.")

This combination of peasant dialect and urban slang stimu lates interest in the fellow and his situation. He also adds interest by the sequence in which he describes the street slang Grigorij has learned in order to survive by his wits in the swindler-ridden city. The scene is one in which 97

Grigorij is attempting to teach Ivan the terminology since

he is a relative greenhorn from the provinces. The result

is a slang-to-standard Russian dictionary, untranslatable

into English:

rStyrit' kamljux1, t.e. ukrast1 iapku; 'peretyrit' £uliki konfki i grabli1, t.e. peredat1 pomolcniku-malcSiSke Sapogi i percatki; 'dpbyt1 birku', t.e. pasport; 'uvesti skamejku', t.e. lo£ad'...v s e ^ ^to ponimal Grigorij bez perevoda...

Dal' uses phonetic distortions to render dialect vari

ants in character language. For example, in "£uxoncy v

Pitere" "Ja vedka is Fiborg," replies a cook, probably of

Swedish origin. Frequently a physiologist puts French (or

"Russo-French") into the mouths of his characters, a tradition which goes back to the eighteenth century works.

Grigorovic gives Petru^ka (the puppet character) in the "Or gan Grinders" some French dialogue: "Da, Sto s tebja, mus'ju,.," "daze dva monsera..." "za mamzel’ Katerinoju.,."

Panaev puts Frenchified Russian words and phrases into the speech of his characters as satirical commentary on their self-importance. His hero from "Onagr" ("The Wild Ass") and

"Akteon" ("The Dung Beetle") displays his superciliousness in his use of French. "A, mon-ser! — zakrical oficer vo vse gorlo, tak cto vse fiitavsie nevol'no vzdrognuli, -- bon zur,,„v£era my vse ob tebe govorili s Bazilem.,.GarsonI"

Dal’ selected his realistic detail with an eye for humor as a 98 dominant selection criterion. Nekrasov and GrigoroviS make

their detail selection on the basis of social philosophy.

All, by their genre selection, have ostensibly processed reality as if on a daguerrotype plate. However, Nekrasov, for example, renders value judgement of the details. He has

"arranged" the scene but colors the image by his commentary.

In "Petersburg Corners" his hero/narrator remarks "outside was a horrible filth...I looked with horror...it appeared as though I would sink into slime up to my ears..." The hero reacts to the scene.

Grigorovi8 adds similar emotional coloring to his

"documentary" description of the organ grinders. "For a long time the pitiful figure of the organ grinder will ap pear in your mind's eye, a figure you have met in a dark alley late at night, and unwittingly you will think: perhaps, at this very minute, shivering from the cold, tired, weak from hunger, alone, amidst lifeless nature, he was recalling his native mountains, his old mother, the olive tree, vine yard, his dark-eyed sweetheart, and you involuntarily ask: why, by what wind, was he put down God knows where, in a foreign land, where there is no affectionate word, no friendly smile, where, arising in the morning, he doesn't know how 6 5 his day will end, where he is cold, burdened..."

Ostensibly the photographer uses his camera to pre cisely render the scene which is in the frame of the lens.

Only the photographer deforms the reality through the choice 99 of details. The "daguerrotype" realist makes a similar ar tistic choice. He carefully observes the scene and proceeds to render the details in a written artistic form. How much

"filtering" of detail depends upon the artist. Dal''s

"filter" is humor; Nekrasov's and GrigoroviX's is emotional- sentimental; Panaev's is satirical.

The illusion of "documentation" or "daguerrotypicality" is an artistic device used by the physiologists to estab lish an identity as a valid artistic movement. We have noted how all these writers to some degree distort the details of the scene they depict. That is, after all, their function as writers: to transform reality through artistic vision. By emphasizing the documentary nature of their description they were establishing a new aesthetic norm, one which would stand in sharp contrast to that which dominated at the beginning of the era. We must recall that these sketches emerged from the journalistic media: newspapers, almanacs, monthlies. In such an environment of "reportage" they adopted the attri butes of journalism as a literary device.

We view the development of the physiological sketch as part of the process of literary evolution. Formalists referred to the emergence of secondary forms as primary ones 6 6 and the "pushing to the rear" of dominant genres. The sketch had existed as a literary form for many years, but in the 1840's it emerged as a prominant genre, challenging the prose tale and lyric poem for reader attention. Part 100 of that challenge lay in the presentation of opposing de vices; ordinariness of characters, settings, details; de poeticized language; documentation of the "events" described.

Unlike the romantic heroes who were marked by extraordinary features, the physiologists emphasized the mundane. We may note this in Dal''s janitors, GrigorovicS' s organ grinders,

Nekrasov's derelicts, Panaev's hack writers. How routine are the events described? How ordinary are the character types depicted? They are all artistic creations and are subject to th’e artistic vision of their creators. The ar tistic deformation comes from the illusion that they are ordinary.

The physiologists described man in his environment in a static condition. Their chief device may be seen as the illusion of documentary realism. In their view of the or ganic society, borrowed from the teminology used by natural scientists, they depicted social or professional types as

"organs" in the social body. No longer adhering to notions that certain subjects were unsuitable for literary represen tation, they found artistic merit in relating the lives of janitors and water carriers. These lowly types do not rise above their surroundings: they do not experience extraordi nary adventures. They are depicted in their day-to-day routine of existence. In the hands of skilled writers such as Dal' or Balzac, the physiological sketch rose above the level of reportage and documentation to a plateau of genuine 101

aesthetic experience. These two artists in particular turned

the journalistic form into literature worthy of attention by

any generation of readers. In lesser hands, however, these

sketches are mere curiosities for the literary historian, valuable when viewed as a stage of literary evolution.

Using the techniques of the Russian Formalists and

others, we have concluded that the physiologists raised

journalistic techniques to the level of artistic norm. We have discussed those stylistic features which contributed to

the new norm. The writers of the so-called "Natural School" were also interested in the relationship between man and his

social environment, but they went beyond journalistic re portage to a relationship which they posed as a conflict.

This conflict, which involved "education" as a motif or

character transformation, as we shall determine, became stan

dardized and formulaic as the writers expanded from the sketch to other genres, namely the tale and novel.

There is a further complicating factor involved in

coming to terms with the artistic merits of these works: the role of Vissarion Belinskij. Belinskij was a dominating

figure in the decade and he did much to propagandize these works as valid literary forms. He did this because of his desire for the development of a social-oriented literature.

As we have seen, several of the physiologists presented characters and their social circumstances in such a manner as to cry out for social reform. Belinskij seized upon those 102 depictions as a basis for his philosophical goals. It is to the works of the "Natural School" and Belinskij's role in the decade that we now turn. NOTES TO CHAPTER TWO

This definition of "physiology" as a biological science comes from The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, ecfl by William Morris (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co., 1973), p. 989. 2 Jean-Anthelme Brillat-Savarin, The Physiology of Taste (Baltimore,MD: Penguin Books, 19 70), p. 295.

^Ibid., p. 37. 4 Paris, ou le livre des cent-et-un vol. 1 (Paris: Ladvocat, 1832), p . v i . 5 Jules Janin, "Introduction," Les Frangais peints par eux-m&mes (Paris: Curmer, 1841), p. x.

^Ibid., p. xiv.

^Ibid., p. xii. g Jules Janin, La Confession (Paris: Flammarion, 1973), p. 290.

^Honor£ de Balzac, "Avant-propos," La Com^die humaine (Paris: Gallimard, 1976), vol. 1, p. 8.

■*"^Honor£ de Balzac, "The Physiology of Marriage," Balzac's Works vol. 24 (New York: Chesterfield Society, 1901), p. 149.

i:LIbid. , p. 19.

~^Ibid., p. 13. 13 Honor^ de Balzac, "The Physiology of the Civil Servant," Balzac's Works vol. 24 (New York: Chesterfield Society, 1901), p. 356. 14 Honore de Balzac, "Histoire et physiologie des Boulevards de Paris," Le Diable k Paris (Paris: Hetzel, 1845), p. 104.

■^Honor£ de Balzac, "Le Femme comme il faut," Les Franpais peints par eux-m^mes (Paris: Curmer, 1841), p. 3. 103 104

^Balzac, "L'Epicier," Les Francais..., p. 12. 17 Charles Dickens, "The Streets — Morning," Sketches by Boz vol. 1 (Geneva: EditoServices, Inc.), p. 55.

*1 O Ibid., p. 59. 19 Dickens, "Reflections in Monouth Street," Sketches by Boz vol. 1 (Geneva: EditoServices, Inc.), p. 88. 20 Dickens, "Some Notable Personages," Sketches... p. 187. 21 Dickens, "Vauxhall-Gardens By Day," Sketches... p. 149.

22Nikolaj Novikov, Izbrannye proizvedenija (Moscow, 1956), p. 119. 23 Aleksandr RadiSdev, Putedestvie iz Peterburga v Moskvu. Polnoe sobranie socineni> vol. I (Moscow-Lenin- grad, 1938), p. 303.

24Ibid., p. 373.

2^Ibid., p. 377. 2 6 Aleksandr Radisfiev, "Opisanie Tobol1skogo namest- nidestva," Polnoe sobranie sodinenij vol. 3 (Moscow-Len- ingrad, 19 3877 p7 142. 27 Konstantin BatjuSkov, "Progulka po Moskve," So- cinenija (Moscow, 1955), p. 307. 2 8 Ibid., p. 308. 29 Aleksandr Petrovi£ BaSuckij, Panorama Sankt-Peter- burga vol. 3 (St. Petersburg, 1834), p. vi. 30 BaSuckij, Panorama..., vol. 3, p. 42. 31 Nikolaj Gogol', "Nevskij prospekt," Polnoe sobran ie so^inenij vol. 3 (Moscow, 1938), p. 10.

22BaSuckij, Panorama... vol. 3, p. 45. 33 A. V. Nikitenko, Zapiski i dnevnik vol. 1, 1905, p. 321. 105 34 v V. G. Belinski;], "Nasi, spisannye s natury russkimi," Polnoe sobranie soffinenij vol. 5 (Moscow, 1955), p. 603. 35 Cited in A. G. Cejtlin, Stanovlenie realizma v russkoj literature. Russkij fiziologi&eskij o£erk (Moscow, 1965) , p. 114. 3 6 V. G. Belinskij, "Fiziologija Peterburga," Pol noe sobranie so£inenij vol. 9 (Moscow, 1955), p. 55. 37 Ren^ Wellek, "The Concept of Evolution in Liter ary History," Concepts of Criticism (New Haven, CN: Yale University Press, 1967), p. 37-53.

^ Ibid. , p. 51. 39T^.„ Ibid. 40 v ✓ Jan Mukarovsky, Aesthetic Function, Norm and Value as Social Facts Trans, by Mark E. Suino, Michigan Slavic Contributions (Ann Arbor, MI: Department of Slavic Langu ages and Literatures THe University of Michigan, 1970), p. 32. 41 Ibid., p. 33. 42 Ren£ Wellek, The Literary Theory and Aesthetics of the Prague School Michigan Slavic Contributions (Ann Arbor, MI: Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures The Uni versity of Michigan, 1969), p. 100.

^Mukarovsk^, p. 36. 44 Roman Jakobson, "The Literary Dominant," Readings in Russian Poetics, ed. by Ladislav Matejka and Krystyna Po- morska (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1971), p. 83. 45 . Rene Wellek, "The Revolt Against Positivism in Re cent European Literary Scholarship," Concepts of Criticism (New Haven, CN: Yale University Press, 1967), p. 276. 46 Evgenij Grebenka, "Peterburgskaja storona," Fizi ologija Peterburga (St. Petersburg, 1845), p. 215. 47 N. A. Nekrasov, "Peterburgskie ugly," Fiziologija Peterburga (St. Petersburg, 1845), p. 255. 48 , . , Ibid. 49 I b i d . , p, 267, 106

5°Ibid.y p. 261.

51Ibid.y p. 256, 52 . v . . . D. V. Grigorovic, Literaturnye vospomxnanija (Leningrad, 1928), p. 130. 5 3 D, V. GrigoroviX, "Peterburgskie £arman££iki," Peterburgskie garmanSEiki i drugie rasskazy (Moscow, 1960), p. 15, 54V. I. Dal1, "DenSXik," Polnoe sobranie so£inenij vol. 3 (St. Petersburg, 1897), p. 362.

33N. A. Nekrasov, "£inovnik," Fiziologija Peter burga (St. Petersburg, 1845), p. 93,

^ Ibid. , p. 83.

^Boris fejxenbaum, "Literary Environment," trans. by I. R, Titunik, Readings in Russian Poetics, ed. by Ladislav Matejka and Krystyna Pomorska (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1971), p. 62.

C O I. I. Panaev, "Literaturnaja tlja," Sobranie soSinenij» vol. 2 (Moscow, 1912), p. 324.

59Ibid., p. 422.

I. Dal', "Peterburgskij dvornik," Polnoe so branie so£inenij vol. 3 (St. Petersburg, 1897), p. 344. 61 A. S. Puskin, "Stancionnyj smotritel1," Sobranie so^inenij vol. 4 (Moscow, 1969), p. 237. 6 2 Dal', "Peterburgskij dvornik," p. 345.

63Ibid., p. 339.

64Ibid., p. 350.

Grigorovic, "Peterburgskie sarman££iki," p. 39. 6 6 Jakobson, "Literary Dominant," p. 85. CHAPTER THREE

The world has grown up: it needs not the motley kaleidoscope of imagination, but the microscope and telescope of reason... Reality (dejstvitel'nost') is the slogan and latest word of our contemporary world! Reality in facts, knowledge, in the convictions of feelings, in the conclusions of the mind — in everything and every where reality is the first and last word of our age. ^ — "Discourse on Criticism"

The clarion has sounded] The cymbals have crashed!

One can almost hear the cacophony of sound as Belinskij un sheathed his pen and brought forth this declaration. The

citation is extracted from a lengthy discussion composed

in 1842. It was stimulated by the appearance of Aleksandr

Nikitenko at Moscow University where he delivered a series of lectures on criticism and critical practice. Belinskij did not intend this article for the narrow audience of

literary critics alone. Like virtually all of his pieces

Belinskij expected that a broad reading and writing public would examine it.

That Vissarion Belinskij (1811-1848) was the ideo

logical father of the "Natural School" ("natural1naja skola") in Russian literature is not seriously questioned. Whatever the differences among scholars and critics concerning the definition and composition of the movement labelled the 10 7 108

"Natural School", no one w ill dispute that there was one figure who towered above all the rest in the decade of the

1840.'s by virtue of his intellectual acumen and personality:

Vissarion Belinskij.

We have examined the physiological sketches which were so popular in the decade of the 1840's, noting their composition features and the artistic aims of their writers.

These writers posed the problem of man in his social en vironment, how that environment shaped his perception and attitudes, and what role each man in society played in the totality of that society. We shall now provide the ideo logical framework for these sketches and place them within the broader movement of Russian prose in the decade, the so-called "Natural School". In order to accomplish this task we shall have the need to investigate the aesthetic creed of the man who shaped the literary trend of the era.

Belinskij is the key figure in this discussion because of the enormous influence he wielded. We shall demonstrate how Belinskij's view of the role of literature in Russian society is reflected in his own works and in the artistic works produced in the decade. Finally we shall examine the

"Natural School" in order to uncover the relationship between the physiological sketch and this movement.

Belinskij was committed to the development of an ideologically-bound literature, one in which the fundamental social issues and concerns would be addressed. The works 109 which resulted from Belinskij’s critical direction were dubbed the "Natural School". This was originally a label of derision and reproach referring to the depiction of ugly, sordid details of Russian life which the physiologists deemed worthy of artistic representation in literature. Belinskij himself subsequently adopted the label to defend these works from the attacks of their detractors. As early as his first important series of articles, "Literaturnye meStanija"

("Literary Musings") in 1834, he had formulated in rough form the concepts which became the ideological basis for this movement.

This group of writers, known collectively as the

"Natural School" must be examined from many sides. Is it in fact a literary "school" at all? Is it more likely a cur rent in the larger body of works which appeared in this decade of the 1840’s? Is it a misnomer altogether? The

"school" existed in fact before a strongly defined philo sophy existed for it. It took its lead from an influx of

French philanthropic works and the prevailing interpretation of the works of a contemporary Russian writer: Nikolaj Gogol'.

Finally we shall determine the place occupied by the physiological sketch in the decade in terms of its relation ship to the "Natural School". The physiological sketch pro vided the "natural" setting and social types for which

Belinskij called, and, without exception, belong within the framework of the "Natural School". However, the "Natural 1 1 0

School" is not limited to this genre and survived the demise of the sketch.

Belinskij was a student of the German romantic philo sophers, in particular, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770-

1831). The distinguishing feature of Hegelian philosophy is the dynamic of the so-called dialectic. According to this notion an idea or thesis is transformed into its opposite or antithesis and fulfilled by it. The combination of opposites is resolved into the synthesis, a higher form of truth. It is no mean feat to synthesize Belinskij's aesthetic philo sophy: this man was a living example of the Hegelian dia- 2 lectic. According to several accounts his personality was such that he embraced whole-heartedly and with great fervor any idea of which he became enamored. We shall briefly de scribe the operation of this process in relation to his aesthetic philosophy below.

There are two excellent works on Belinskij and his contributions to Russian literary development and each takes a different approach to the problem because each has a sli ghtly different goal. The works are by two Western scholars,

Herbert Bowman and Victor Terras. The former wrote Vissarion

Belinski 1811-1848. A Study in the Origins of Social Criti cism in Russia (1954). This work emphasizes the philosophi cal roots of the critical theory which came to dominate

Russian literary studies in the nineteenth century. The second work is also interested in the philosophical basis of I l l

Belinskij’s criticism, but it is investigated from the stand point of aesthetic theory as reflected in literary criticism.

The title of Terras’ study is Belinskij and Russian Literary

Criticism (1976). Both are of great assistance to the scho lar in attempting to understand this important figure in

Russian literary history.

By the early years of the decade Belinskij had passed through the initial thesis of his philosophical quest (the dominance of the concept of the "eternal idea" and the in fluence of German transcendental idealism on his thinking), and was emerging from the antithesis (the so-called Hegelian

"reconciliation with reality") period. By 1841 he was em barking upon the critical synthesis period which would have the greatest impact on Russian literary development: a philosophy of social activism which rejected the existing social reality.

Belinskij's entry into literary criticism had been on the wings of German transcendental idealism. This metaphys ical bias was supported by heavy doses of Schellingian phil osophy and literary theory based on Schiller, How did Be linskij obtain this German idealist aesthetic philosophy, given his known, indeed famous, lack of expertise in foreign languages? He undoubtedly derived it from the StankevicS circle at Moscow University,

The political oppression of the years of the reign of

Nikolaj I (1825-1855), especially after the events of December 14, 1825 which ushered in his rule, is well known.

This oppression was as severe as it was complete: press cen sorship was strict, university curricula were tightly con trolled, and any form of dissent, no matter how minor the offence, was summarily and cruelly punished. In this atmos phere of political tyranny, where magazine and book publi cation were closely supervised, a group of young university students gathered around Nikolaj Vladimirovi£ Stankevi# (1813-

1840). In this circle, fostered by Professor M, G. Pavlov, professor of physics and agriculture at Moscow University

(the Chair of Philosophy had been abolished in 1826), who gave an introduction to philosophy, ideas could be discussed and an audience could be found for original poetry and other literary output. "Isolated in an ignorant and hostile environment, these young men naturally drew close to one another. The circle became a close-knit, exclusive group providing its members the intellectual stimulation that 3 could not be found elsewhere."

It was the writings of Schelling and Schiller which provided the members of the circle with the notions about art as the summit of philosophy. The figure of StankeviJ: lent itself to these romantic concepts. As is frequently the case, Aleksandr Herzen provides a memorable picture of the intellectual life of this period in his Byloe i dumy

(My Past and Thoughts) when he paints the picture of Stan- kevi£ and his circle: 1 1 3

Rather sickly, peaceful in character, a poet and a dreamer, it was natural that StankeviS should have preferred contem plation and abstract thinking to living and purely practical questions; its artistic idealism suited him...This circle was quite remarkable, from it came a whole legion of scholars, writers, and professors, among whom ^ were Belinskij, Bakunin, and Granovskij.

The figure of Stankevic came to dominate the others in the circle. His personality was one of those which dominated 5 and at the same time attracted others to his side. It is difficult to pinpoint the man himself, not that we find it mandatory to do so here, if for no other reason than he died at a very young age (he was 27) and thereby forever held a magnetic power over his friends who remembered him so fondly. The latter-day biographies are frequently little more than exercises in modern hagiography.^ He was clearly an inspirational figure to his circle of friends.

None of the group was closer to Stankevic than Belin skij . According to Brown this was an intimate relationship between the angry plebeian critic and the aristocratic philosopher which is a psychological and social paradox.

"While the relationship was one of the most important ex periences in Belinskij's early life, the actual influence of 7 Stankevic on his basic thought and activity was minimal."

What is clear, however, is that this circle did have pro found impact on Belinskij, if for no other reason than it served as a forum for ideas. 1 1 4

Belinskij assimilated many ideas in this circle, most of which reflect their German romantic origin: the "e- ternal idea" of the universe which makes itself manifest through the creator and art; the almost mystical qualities attributed to the creative process; the demand that the nation be reflected in its literature and that literary works not be imitative; the organic conception of a work of art, wherein a "successful work of art has certain proper ties which have a parallel in a living biological organism and in that work of art all the parts should be in keeping g with the whole, as well as with each other."

The link between art and nationhood is a modern ro mantic phenomenon, according to Terras. The nation bears a national spirit (Volkgeist) through which the universal spirit of humanity makes itself known. This narodnost1

(national spirit, spirit of the nation) is a reaction against the cosmopolitan, universal nature of rationalism and Neo- classicism. Romantics wanted peoples to exhibit their uni que characteristics through their art.

As early as 1834 in his first series of articles en titled "Literary Musings" Belinskij echoed the statement made by Prince Vjazemskij some ten years previously: "We have no literature! The history of our literature is no more nor less than the history of the unsuccessful attempt, by means of blind imitation of foreign literatures, to create our own literature; but this literature has not been 1 1 5 created," (1,87) He offers three possible definitions for literature: "Some say it is the entire circle of a people's mental activity which has appeared in written form,..Others believe it to be the collection of an accepted number of famous works, i.e. chefs-d'oeuvres de literature. Others hold a third opinion...the collection of a type of artistic- written works, 'created as art'...which express the spirit of the nation among whom they were born and reared, the life they live and the spirit of which they breathe, ex pressed in their creative works." (1,23) He believes the last to be the most accurate and it is on the basis of this third definition that he judges Russian literature to be nonexistent.

Belinskij's view of the development of Russian liter ature is predicated upon the belief that it has lacked a

Russian spirit and that the lack of "Russian-ness" was caused by the great fissure in Russian society. He labels the two segments the people (narod) and society (ob^estvo) , which bifurcated due to the westernizing reforms of Peter the Great.

The people remained in their former, coarse, and half-wild state with their dismal songs. The other segment changed visibly and forgot everything Russian — even the language.

This critical attitude toward the latter group is a mani festation of the romantic spirit which condemned aritifici- ality of court life, and viewed the common people as the bearer of the national spirit. 116

These concepts were hardly new to the Russian intel lectual circles. Mixail ^^erbatov (1733-1790) composed a satirical work entitled "Journey to the Land of Ophir" in

1787 in which he pointed out that this land of Ophir [Russia) had been propelled upon a dangerous path by Peregab [Peter I) which had caused isolation of the government and the people lost touch. Petr £aadaev (1794-1856) decried Russia's cul tural direction in his Philosophical Letters. The poet

Dmitrij Venevitinov (1805-1827) had proclaimed that Russian thought was inundated with a spirit of imitativeness. He mourned Russian literature, which he proclaimed to be a literature without foundation. "Russia has received every thing from without...hence the absence of freedom and genu ine achievement, Russia has assumed an external form of culture and erected a false structure of literature without foundation,.,Our position in the literary world is a com- 9 paratively negative one."

Belinskij represented a new element in the intelli gentsia. For the first time the participants in the circles and the literary life were from the lower economic groups.

To be sure, there had been isolated cases when individuals from the lower social class had entered the mainstream of intellectual life (Lomonosov is a prime example), but these had been isolated instances. For the overwhelming number of intellectuals their experience was decidedly upper class.

Belinskij was from the lower end of the socio-economic scale. 1 1 7

He is one of the first of that group which was to become the mainstay of the Russian intelligentsia: the so-called razno-

cincy (literally from 'Various ranks and classes"). With

the growth in public education in the first decades of the

nineteenth century, the sons of average professional and

provincial families became university students upon success

ful completion of examinations. Many of these came from

the families of country priests. Once educated, they became

the backbone of the civil bureaucracy.

Unlike the upper class aristocrats who tended to

idealize Russian life and obscure the facts, Belinskij was

all too aware of the horrors of Russian life, having lived

in their shadow. His idealism was drawn "from intellectual

sources,"^ The dominant problem of this period was how to

determine and articulate a cultural identity. The narodnost1

theme is present in virtually all of his writings from the beginning of his career to its end. In 1834 he wrote:

What is narodnost' in literature? The imprint of our native physio gnomy, the type of native soul and life; but do we have our own native physiognomy? Our native physiognomy is most maintained in the lowest levels of society, that is why our writers are native when they depict in novel or drama, the customs, events, feelings of the mob. (1,92)

I n 1847 he wrote: 118

In other words: narodnost’ is the essence of the personality in humanity. Without nationality humanity would be a dead logical abstraction, a word with out content, sound without meaning, Man is strong and secure only in society; but for man society in its turn, in order to be strong and secure, an inner, direct, organic link — nationality — is necessary. (X,29)

As we shall see below, there was a large group of intellectuals who did not share Belinskij's view. The call for a national direction to literature was answered from diverse quarters. This call for narodnost1 is not to be confused with the patriotic feeling espoused through the use of the term "official nationality" in that triumverate of the Nikolaevan regime: Autocracy, Orthodoxy, and Na tionalism, "which played only a negative and reactionary role in the literary renaissance that was to take its origin in the term narodnost1.

This is not to say that the concept of "national character" remained stable in Belinskij's thought over a period of thirteen years. At this early stage he is imbued with the fire of German idealism. The idealist German philo sophical concepts leap into the negativism of his criticism of Russian cultural life. "The entire limitless, beauti ful God's world is nothing other than the breathing of the single 'eternal idea', appearing in manifold form, as a great spectacle of absolute unity in infinite variety." (.1,30)

Soaring along he continues, "What is the purpose, the aim 119. of art? To depict, to re-create in word, in sound, in traits, and in colors the idea of the universal life of na ture: this is the single, and eternal theme of artl " Cl,32)

How does he reconcile the eternal idea and national specifi city? As Bowman points out, he really does not — at least not in a clear manner. He seems to be saying that the con cepts are linked in stages or levels of participation. The

"eternal idea" manifests itself in humanity, humanity is expressed in the nation, and the nation is expressed in the poet. "Thus, the theorems that art is the expression of the general life of nature and that art is the expression of the inner life of the nation, appear as equally valid state- 12 ments of the same ideology."

What is clear is that the fault of Russian literature lies not with the literature, but with the national culture: there is no coherent national culture to be expressed due to the bifurcation of Russian society. As a result, the nation as a whole was not being represented by the poet. This notion has its roots in Herder. Both Terras and Bowman link this "gospel of humanity" to the German philosopher, whose philosophy concerned itself with the terms "true art," and

"vital principle" as applied to the art and poetry of all peoples and epochs,

If narodnost' in literature means depicting the national culture in all its aspects, then an entire range of possibilities develops regarding the subject matter considered 120 appropriate for literary representation, "Our narodnost1 consists of veracity in depicting the pictures of Russian

life." Cl,93) Belinskij viewed the works of Nikolaj Gogol' as the perfect examples of truth in the depiction of Russian reality. Gogol' represented the ugliness of serfdom and the po^lost' (banality), of Russian existence. The test for

Belinskij's theory came shortly after "Musings" appeared.

In 1835 he tackled the works of Gogol' in the article "The

Russian Short Story and the Stories of Gogol'". The prob lem raised by the Russian writer is fundamental to Belinskij's theory, If the "eternal idea" is the ultimate end of art, how can the work of an artist who portrays the unadorned

Russian reality be accomodated? Belinskij relies upon his idealist foundations by referring to a doctrine of "poetic somnambulism". "Before the artist has taken pen in hand, he already sees his creatures clearly... But where has he seen these figures, where has he heard of these events?..No where has he seen the figures which he has created, he has not made a copy of reality. He has beheld it all in a prophetic vision; in the brilliant moments of poetic inspiration, in these moments known only to talent, he has seen with the all- seeing eyes of feeling. And such is the reason why the char acters he has created are so true, so exact, so well-formed."

(1,287)

The thrust of Belinskij's remarks justifies Gogol''s depiction of everyday, humdrum reality. The reader is 121 struck by how familiar all the characters are, how he him self has seen them, lived with them, and how true-to-life they are. "Kak possorilsja Ivan Ivanovi# s Ivanom Nikiforo- vi£em" and "Starosvetskie pome££iki" are depictions of

Russian reality showing all the "warts" of that reality. The narodnost1 is an integral, indivisible aspect of his work because it flows naturally along with the reality. It is not forced.

The question immediately arises concerning Belinskij's understanding of the term "real". In this same article on

Gogol' he makes the distinction between "ideal" and "real", only one of the first times he will make the attempt to render definitions of these terms. "The poet either re creates life according to his own ideal, which .depends upon his way of looking at things and his relation to the world, his age, and the people among whom he lives; or he repro duces existence in all its naked truth, in fidelity to all the details, colors, and shadings of actuality. Poetry may thus be separated into two divisions: the idealistic and the realistic." (1,262) The "ideal" is understood in the collo quial sense of idealized, imaginary, fanciful. In other words, the poet of ideal poetry ignores lowly, everyday, or dinary life. "Every immature, early people is hostile to reality...In order for the sun to become an object of inter est to these early people, it must become the chariot of

Phoebus." (1,262) Real poetry is that created by the poet 122 through the reflection of all the "nakedness and truth," re maining faithful to all details of color, etc. The poetry of the ancient Greeks illustrates his point: "He (the Greek) looks at nature with th.e gaze of the admirer, and not as a thinker, he loves it, he does not study it," (1,264).

Belinskij is rather naive on this point. While he differentiates between "ideal" and "real" on the basis of transformation (ideal poetry transforms life according to its own ideal whereas "real" poetry portrays "life as it is") Belinskij neglects the fact that all art transforms 14 life, He confuses empirical with poetic reality. He un doubtedly believed that, considering the times in which he lived with police repression, etc., any presentation of

"real" life, no matter how sordid, was a protest against those conditions. As we shall show below, it is on this basis that he defended the works of the "Natural School".

Belinskij came to the belief that the age of the early, primitive people's interpretation of life and art had come to an end. "The youth of the ancient world has passed? faith in the gods and the marvellous has perished; the spirit of heroism has vanished; the age of real life has ar rived." (1,265) He condemns the tales of Bestuzev-Marlinskij as pre-meditated, calculated, and lacking the truth of life.

We may understand this view since Marlinskij composed several

Byronic Caucasus tales with romantic heroes, etc, Belinskij has declared that the "age of heroism" is over. He believes 1 2 3 that there is nothing Russian in the poetry. The figures in Marlinskij's tales speak and act like German knights. The depiction of Russian "national character" that he seeks is absent. Yet, Gogol* has managed to transform the ordinary into art. This fact runs counter to all that he had learned from German transcendental idealism: art is above the grue some Russian reality. According to Belinskij, Gogol* is one of those occasional geniuses who passes by.

Bowman argues that Belinskij's career was marked by the struggle between the idealist bases of his criticism and the cruel reality of Nikolaj's Russia. His defense of

Gogol' as the artist who depicted everyday commonplace reality in an idealist framework is preparation for the Hegelian

"reconciliation with reality" phase. Terras understands Be linskij *s career as the establishment in Russia of an organ ic aesthetic, Isaiah Berlin states that "as a critic he re mained, all his life, a disciple of the great German roman- 15 tics." He believed in the manifestation of intuitive knowledge as revealed in art and a universal mystical vision as spoken of by Schelling.

In the period of the 1830's when Belinskij was absorb ing the metaphysical doctrines of Kant and Schelling, his approach to literature was commensurate with this German transcendentalism. Artists create through "poetic somnambu lism", the "ideal" is transcendent. Gogol' was able to transform the real into art by his powers of great poetic 124 transformation, This appealed to the critic as a social re former, It meant that the social ills he saw with such dis taste could be represented in artistic form.

His exposure to Hegelian philosophy (via Bakunin) in troduced him to the Hegelian emphasis on historicism. The historical frame of reference amounted to placing events on a continuum where they could be explained in terms of the dialectical process. The eternal idea was also an evolving concept, placed within the context of its period in history.

In one of the important articles which appeared at the be ginning of this synthesis stage in his career, the "Re<5?' o kritike" ("Discourse on Criticism") (1842), Belinskij dis plays the results of lessons learned from his struggle with

Hegelianism. He wrote, "Art is subject, like all living and absolute things, to the process of historical development, and the art of our time is the expression, the realization in artistic form of contemporary thought, contemporary thought about the value and goal of life, the paths of human ity, the eternal truths of being..." (VI,280) He continues in a similar vein later in the work. "Each work of art should constantly be examined in relation to the epoch, the his torical present, and in the relationship of the artist to so ciety, ,. (VI,284) The eternal idea, the Absolute, is not the unchanging concept it had formerly been believed to be in the 1830's, Hegelian dialectics provided the historical framework for the idea: it evolved with time. 125

It must be borne in mind that for Belinskij art is dominated by the idea. Reality consists only in the idea.

The artist's portrayal of reality is the portrayal of the idea. Criticism of art means criticism of the work's idea.

The importance of the idea in art did not change for Belin skij throughout his career: the interpretation of the idea and its relation to reality went through the dialectic pro cess, but the role of the idea in art was always of primary importance, "All serious questions to Belinskij were always in the end, moral questions. All books embody ideas, even when least appearing to do so; and it is for these that, before anything else, the critic must probe,

The year 18 42 seems to have been the turning point in

Belinskij's career: the so-called social protest. One of the important articles for the theoretical position behind this stage is the above-mentioned "Discourse on Criticism."

This article was written in response to a series of lectures given by Aleksandr Nikitenko at Moscow University, and Belin skij quickly abandons his review of Nikitenko's ideas. His thesis is that art and criticism are engaged in the analysis of contemporary reality. "The spirit of analysis and inves tigation is the spirit of our time." (VI,267) He defines criticism as being derived from the Greek word to judge.

Therefore, in a broad sense, criticism means judgement.

"What is art in our time? Judgement, analysis of society, consequently, criticism." CVI, 271) 126 This is Belinskij’s view as the physiological sketch was becoming a popular genre. He saw literature as having a definite role in criticizing the reality he saw around him, and he saw the true poet of his time as the figure who must lead the change. He viewed Pupkin as the first great

Russian artist. The appearance of Pupkin was the first step in the creation of a truly independent Russian literature.

Pupkin was the first artist to be dependent on Russian his tory and society, hence was the epitome of the true artist.

Because Pupkin's artistic impulse was so pure his works were purer and the truth which they embodied was clearer and more profound, "He remained faithful to the romantic doc trine that the best and least alloyed art was necessarily the expression not merely of the individual artist but al ways of a milieu, a culture, a nation, whose voice, con scious and unconscious, the artist was, a function without which he became trivial and worthless, and in the context of which alone his own personality possessed any significance."

The age of Pupkin had passed, however, in one sense; that was the era when society molded the artist. The true poet reflected the nation in which he lived. That age had been replaced by a new one in which the artist molded so ciety. "For us, those Russian writers are important who, through their moral opinions, expressed the spirit of the age or gave it a new direction." CVI,32Q) 127

Belinskij has high praise for the works of the physio logists for several reasons. In his article "Russkaja literatura v 1845 godu" ("Russian Literature in 1845"! he extols

Dal’’s "DenSfiik" ('"The Orderly") as "one of the capital works of Russian literature," (IX,398) He notes that Dal' does not have great talent in weaving a plot, but when it comes to "fiziologizm" he is a master. He re-creates reality in all its truth. (IX,399) In addition to praising the works of Dal1 he cites the virtues of the physiological sketch.

"This passion for light reading is an indication of the spread of education in society which, in turn, testifies to the successes of science." (IX,39.9) Literature will lead the way in educating the public.

It is on the basis of the accurate depiction of reality that he proclaims Gogol’ to be the greatest living writer. In his 18 42 review of Mertvye du&i (Dead Souls) he states that "Gogol’ is a great talent, a genius and the first writer of modern Russia...Gogol’ first looked boldly and directly at Russian reality." (VI,214) It is that de piction of Russian reality which causes Belinskij to believe that although Russian literature had never been the ex pression of the people, historically speaking, "we now see in it the beautiful beginnings of a great future." (VI,216)

His praise of the works of Gogol’ fostered imitation and, together with the writings of the physiologists, the litera ture of the 1840’s came to be known as the "Natural School", 12 8

That there was a literary movement commonly referred to as the "Natural School", and that this phenomenon was an occurrence of the 1840.’s, are about the only facts of Rus sian literary history on which there is agreement concerning this decade. The debate over terminology has been loud. We may divide the currents of opinion regarding this era into two large categories: the contemporary controversy and the current Cthe last fifty years). . The former refers to the polemic between the "radical critics" beginning with the

Belinskij and Nekrasov camp (.and proceeding through Cerny-

^evskij). and the so-called "rhetorical" (Belinskij's appe llation) or establishment critics (which included Bulgarin, laevyrev, Samarin) . The second category, the modern contro versy, includes Vinogradov, Kule^ov, Cejtlin, and Jurij

Mann who have all contributed monographs and/or literary ar ticles on the subject of the "Natural School" writers. We shall attempt to define the movement in terms of themes, categories, and conflicts. This will include setting forth a time frame and elucidating the positions in the controver sy as well as establishing the role Belinskij played in pro moting the movement.

The time period under examination is itself in some dispute. It is generally agreed by all that the movement was determined at the beginning of the 1840’s, In the Is- torija russkoj literatury published by the Soviet Academy of

Sciences, A, G. Cejtlin gives the following dates for the J.29 movement: 1840-1844; the beginnings of its formation; 1845- J-8 1848: the flowering of its output. He places within the first period such works as "Andrej Kolosov" by Turgenev, the early sketches by Grebenka, satirical sketches by Panaev, as well as some verse (.including Turgenev's "Parana", verse by Ogarev and Nekrasov) and dramas by Turgenev and Nekrasov.

In the second period he places the "physiological sketches" by

GrigoroviS, Dal', et al, along with Grigorovi^'s "village stories" "Anton Goremyka" and "Derevnja" ("The Village"), the early sketches from Zapiski oxotnika (Notes of a Hunter) by Turgenev, Herzen's Kto vinovat? (Who is to Blame?), Gon-

Sarov's "Ivan Savi£ Pod£abrin" and Obyknovennaja istorija

(The Same Old Story), Dostoevskij's Bednye ljudi (Poor People)

Dvojnik (The Double), and "Belye no£i" ("White Nights"),

Kedrin's "Zaputannoe delo" ("The Muddled Affair"), Druzinin's

"Polin'ka Saks", and Butkov's Peterburgskie versiny (The St.

Petersburg Heights). We shall discuss the relative merits of his judgement below. It is clear from his classification of the works that he considers the physiological sketch to be the flowering of the "Natural School". That is the po sition he elucidates in his monograph on the physiology.

Kulesov cites data from an unpublished dissertation by A. N. Dubovikov (1947) for a more precise delineation of the time frame. His scheme is as follows: 1839-1842; the pre-history; 1843-1845; the theoretical, organizational for mulation; 1846-1848: the flowering of the movement; 13Q

1848-1850.: epilogue. He begins with 1839 because it was in that year Belinskij took up residence in St, Petersburg and began working on the staff of "Ote£estvennye zapiski” (."The

Notes of the Fatherland"! , a journal published by Kjraeyskij.

From this we may deduce the importance Dubovikov and KuleSov place on Belinskij's role in the decade. The remainder of the dates correspond fairly closely with those noted by

Cejtlin with slightly more elaboration.

For our purposes the exact time frame, precise to the very moments of inception and expiration, is not critical.

Our primary interest is in the theoretical basis of the move ment. The decline of the "Natural School" is generally a- greed upon roughly as 1848-1850, coinciding with Belinskij's death.

The specific term "Natural School" was first used by

Faddej Bulgarin (1789-1859), the writer of various moralis tic sketches and historical tales (he was reported to be an informer of the Third Section, reporting the activities of

"dangerous".intellectuals to the police) in a review of

Nekrasov's Peterburgskij sbornik in "Severnaja pcela", num ber 22, dated 26 February 1846, in which he wrote: "From the review of Fiziologija Peterburga our readers know that

Mr. Nekrasov belongs to the new, that is natural literary school, which affirms the right to depict nature without em- 3.9 bellishments," Bulgarin cannot be assigned full credit for the appellation, however. The label had its first 131 reference a year earlier in the same publication when Leo p o l d V, Brandt, also in a review of Fiziologipa (number 236,

1845). referred to the natural, "Gogol" school".

In this manner the formal term came into being, its meaning being understood in negative, derisive tones. Belin skij adopted the term as a positive one and used it consis tently until his death in 1848. He had pointed in the di rection of using such a term as early as 1842 in his review of Gogol""s Dead Souls when he indicated that these works were "piercing the conscience of society" and were giving rise "to a new school in art and literature." (VI,212)

When placed within an historical context we can more easily understand the vociferousness of the controversy.

Gogol""s works had raised the eyebrows of certain critics because of the subject matter with which his works dealt:

Ukrainian peasants, low level civil servants, and "poslye" middle class types. These works were composed at a time when Marlinskij was writing his romantic tales and histori cal novelsts were imitating Walter Scott. Gogol' was linked with French writers of the so-called "ecole frenetique":

Victor Hugo and Jules Janin.

V. V. Vinogradov, in his collection of articles dealing with this period, &voljucija russkogo naturalizma

(The Evolution of Russian Naturalism), emphasizes the con nection made by some Russian commentators. He specifically points to the influence of Jules Janin and the publication 132 of his novel L ’^ne mort, et la femme guillotinde (The Dead

Ass and the Guillotined Woman! in 1831. This novel is a manifesto on behalf of a new literary reality, one which re jects sentimental, romantic stylization, in favor of a raw, brutal depiction of urban reality. All sentimentalism and romantic idealization is discarded. "We need a terrible and gloomy nature. Let’s perform an operation: a young and healthy man lies on a broad, black stone and two experienced butchers remove his skin, fresh and bloody, as from a hare, not separating a shred. Here is the nature I have selected 20 in my depiction." The novel concerns the evolution of a prostitute. The narrator is a reporter who follows a young and decent woman as she is transformed into a prostitute and is murdered. In the course of the narrative the reporter/- narrator records the travels of the young woman, including the most unsightly details of the city morgue with its un claimed corpses.

Vinogradov maintains, and he cites numerous editorials from contemporary contributors to substantiate his claim, that Gogol1's works were linked with this French literature.

It is his contention that these works were associated by contemporaries due to the rejection of sentimentalism and sentimentalist motifs. He asserts that Gogol’’s life-long struggle was with sentimentalism. "Gogol’’s creativity at the highest degree of his ascent was prepared to constitute itself as an antithesis to sentimentalist poetics and the 133 21 overcoming of romanticism." In Russia this controversy

centered on the question of the poetic formulation of nature.

He cites an editorial comment by "Severnaja pcela"; "It is

impossible that educated people should find such prejudices,

low morals, spiritual paucity which frighten so in real

life,,.The novels of Dickens, the awful novels of the latest

French school are excluded from fiction...After this can the

depiction of a rotting corpse, drunks, etc. be the subject

of art?..You say that the error of the former literary art

is that it consisted of raising nature, putting life on

stilts. Maybe so, but selecting from nature only the dark

things, the filth and manure and vice, does this depict life

truthfully?"22

As a contemporary, the editor of "Severnaja p£ela"

could not see that the aesthetic norm to which he subscribed was under attack and that a new norm was in the process of

being established. In place of the beautification of real

istic detail performed by romantic artists, these new writers were deforming reality in the opposite direction, by empha

sizing the sordid and grotesque. The public was being ex

posed to a new aesthetic experience by heightening the per

ception of reality, what Sklovskij called "making it strange."

Belinskij, as we shall see below, did not perceive this as

an artistic device. He saw it as the depiction of "reality

in all its naked truth." which meant, for him, exposing the

social evil in Russia. 134

When the physiological sketches began to appear in

the press they were condemned by these critics for the same

abuses. In a review of Nekrasov's "St. Petersburg Corners"

Bulgarin wrote, "The new literary school torments and tor

tures you, forcing you to read boring and limp absurdities

for which their purpose is only to describe or draw in words

(daguerrotype?) any drunk, vile old woman, dirty room, i.e.,

the so-called nature in action, under the name physiology,

poem, fantasy, etc...into the literary world have appeared

heroes in ripped, baggy overalls, speaking the language of 23 hallways and courtyards."

Bulgarin insisted that artistic depiction should be

otherwise. "You see, in nature, there is much which should

never enter into the area of art and literature, and from 24 which the well-brought-up man turns away." As we have

noted in the previous chapter, certain writers, notably Ne

krasov, relished the depiction of the most sordid details and

unsavory types. Bulgarin refers to Marlinskij's dictum,

stated in "Poezdka v Revel1", that "nature is only good when 25 it is washed and cleaned."

Because the physiological sketch was drawn into this

criticism and indeed, a physiology was the stimulus for the

appellation of the movement itself, Cejtlin claims that the

"Natural School" is indebted to the genre. Kule^ov places

emphasis on the "school" problem. He is primarily concerned with determining whether we have a bona fide literary school. 135

He concludes that it is not a school like the "ecole fr^ne-

tique", nor is it a branch of a larger movement, such as the

"Lake School" of English, romantic poetry. It is "the most mature stage of the development of the realistic trend,

which has its roots in the middle of the preceding decade...

The 'Natural School' is almost all the progressive, re

alistic literature of the '40's, the organs of which Belin

skij headed. With the 'Natural School' came the first fresh 2 6 realization of the victory of realism." We must bear in mind that KuleSov follows the critical path established by

£erny§evskij, Dobroljubov, and Pisarev who rallied behind

the cause of "critical realism". We shall have more to say

about this below.

Thus far we have established that the "Natural School" was a movement in literature which lasted roughly from 1839

to 1850, with its beginnings in the mid-30's with the trans

lation into Russian of French "l'ecole fr^n^tique" works

and the publication of Gogol''s stories and tales. It a- roused a storm of controversy because of its lack of atten

tion to beauty in art and its emphasis on the raw, sordid details of reality. Some controversy continues to exist con cerning terminology and genre (Cejtlin believes that the phy siology is the dominant manifestation of the school). In our view the "Natural School" is a general term for a literary movement which reflects the common opinions of a heterogene ous group of Russian writers, not linked by any literary 136 manifesto, concerning the accurate and precise depiction of contemporary reality in imaginative literature.

What are these shared opinions of contemporary Russian reality? For the most part "reality1' to these writers is the oppressive regime of Nikolaj X, and literature reflects the impact of this reality on the "little man" in Russia: the low level bureaucrat (copy clerks, titular councillors), razno-

£inec, and serf. Frequently the setting is urban Russia, and more specifically, life in St. Petersburg. The general themes of the "Natural School" works are the active, struggling

"raznocinec", the evils of serfdom, the liberated woman, and the psychology of the little man.

The term has been the center of controversy and dis cussion for over a century primarily because of the exception to some of the above conditions. Most of these exceptions stem from the fact that the school served as the initiation into literary life for many writers. While Turgenev may be considered an early participant in the movement, no one will argue that Otcy i deti (Fathers and Children) or Dvorjanskoe gnezdo (The Nest of the Gentry), or any of his novels or late tales belongs to the group. It is similar with the works of

Dostoevskij. "Each of the great writers of the Natural School eventually established his own trend in literature. At the 27 time this was not clear." It is for this reason that so may diverse artists were included together into one school during the early period of their activity. 137

The dominant category of the "Natural School" is man and the environment, Jurij Mann has developed a lengthy article on this topic in which he defines the movement in 2 8 terms of this relationship. The physiological sketch gen re is clearly a member of this movement in its rudimentary stage: the physiology expressed the relationship but did not interfere with it. Dal,fs janitor is described in terms of his environment and we do not obtain a portrait of his inner self or psychology. The argument may be made that these writers did in fact "interfere" through the distortion of the realistic details depicted. On the one hand, the sketch writers colored or shaded the depicted details through a "lens filter" placed over their self-professed daguerrotype cameras: humor, satire, or sentimentalism. On the other hand, they used the pose of the natural scientist through documen tation, eyewitness accounts, observation, etc. and its con comitant terminology to create the illusion of photographic accuracy, then the illusion of verisimilitude prevailed over the shading or coloration of the details. As we shall deter mine below, the "Natural School" writers viewed the relation ship in terms of an active conflict with the milieu. This conflict developed because the writers, under Belinskij's tu telage, saw literature as the forum for exposing social ills and pursuing a policy of social reform.

While the physiologists described man as a social animal functioning in his organically structured society, the -138 sketch genre precluded plot development to the extent that the depths of the relationship man-social environment could not he explored. The "Natural School" tales and novels, plotted by their very nature, are marked by a process of transformation in the confrontation of man and his, milieu.

The process of the heroes education to the ways of the world, his success or failure in that process, is the dominant category of the "Natural School" works.

There are two major sub-divisions within the Natural

School output: the social-psychological (which is represented by the works of Grigorovi#, Dostoevski j, Gon^arov, Turgenev), and the social-political (.represented by the works of Herzen and Nekrasov). With any broad classification the possibility exists that some works may not "fit" perfectly into the sys tem. One such work is Turgenev's Zapiski oxotnika which in its early sketches reflects the influences of the physiolo gical sketch genre. Turgenev's work, however, is both so cial-psychological as he probes the psychology of his heroes, and political as he uncovers the evils of serfdom. The clas sification is, nevertheless, a useful tool in organizing this broad range of "Natural School" works.

The first type concerns itself with the psychology of the hero and how he is affected by his role in society.

This social-psychological work is often referred to as sen timental-naturalist, Sentimentalism assisted in creating a sharper separation of human nature from the social 139 environment. This type of sketch accentuates the good quali ties of man among environmental circumstances which, are un just or damaging to his well-being. This sentimentalism has its antecedent in Gogol''s "Sinel'" (."The Overcoat"), in which

Belinskij read the misfortunes of Akakij Akakievic as crimes against humanity levelled by an unfeeling social environment.

Akakij became the model for the titular councillors represen ted in the works of the "Natural School" writers. We may also like to point out that this sentimentalism is the dis tinguishing feature of this movement: there will not be found any sentimentalism in the naturalism of the late nine teenth century works. Those writers tended to view man as a

"species", reflecting the Postivisit philosophy.

Here Belinskij looked only at the surface of the work, extracting its "idea" (as he determined it): a socially abused poor devil suffers at the hands of a cruel society which permitted poverty and human degradation to exist. It took a later generation of critics and theoreticians to find an entirely new "message" in the Gogol' tale. Boris &jxen- baum, for example, investigated the verbal texture of the work to show how Gogol' played with artistic language to 29 create an effect. Belinskij frequently failed to look at a work as an artistic statement. As Iosip Brik, a Formalist critic, notes, "for Belinskij, poetic form was only wrapping 30 paper placed around an ordinary speech complex." While he never believed that a work of art should specifically 14Q

instruct, it was his position that the idea in the work was

of primary importance and it was this central idea core for

which he searched. Because his following was so devoted to

him and shared his goals, his interpretation of GogolM s

tale led many "Natural School" writers to repeat the image in

the decade of the 1840's: titular councillors and oppressed

copy clerks became standard figures in these works, which were often tinted by sentimentalism.

At times the sentimentalism borders on the pathetic,

as in the case of A. N. Ostrovskij's (1823-1886). "Zapiski

zamoskvoreckogo &itelja" (."Notes from a Resident of Zamosk-

vore^'e") (1847), in which the hero, a man who feels rejected

and who himself has faced degradation but who is ready to

assert himself, begs the narrator (who has discovered these

notes), "show me to the public; show them how bitter, how un

fortunate I am! Show me in all my formlessness, and tell them

that I am a man just as they, that I have a good heart, a 31 warm soul." This message sounds familiar to that found in

Dostoevskij's Poor People. We shall elaborate on the con nection between Ostrovskij's hero and Dostoevskij's Makar

Devuskin in the next chapter. Here are Belinskij's comments

from the same period (his "Review of Literature in 1847"):

"Nature is the eternal example of art, and the most remarka ble and noble example in nature is man. Is a muzik not a man? But what can be interesting in a coarse, uneducated man? How, what? His soul, mind, heart, passions, 141 inclinations — in a word, everything that is in an educated man. Is a wild Australian organism not as interesting for the anatomist and physiologist as that of an educated Euro pean? On what basis should art differ from science in this regard? But then you say the educated man is superior to the uneducated...Education only develops the cultural forces in man, it does not bestow them; nature bestows them on man."

CX,300)

These comments underscore the critic's belief that literature, to express narodnost", must show true Russian nationality. Belinskij believed that Russian literature should be the reflection of contemporary Russian reality.

He rejected highly imitative works (for example what he called Marlinskij's "Russian-speaking German knights") and narrow provincialism of "local color". Narodnost' is the expression of the indigenous culture in life. "Narodnost' means veracity in the depiction of mores, events, and characters of one or another folk." (1,295) It is the re flection of the art's relationship to the life of its age and must exhibit a strong connection with the course of his tory.

The poet, if he is true to his own poetic gift, will naturally exhibit the traits of his society. As a true poet his works will incorporate moral and national ideas if he 32 follows his inspiration freely. 142

We see the movement of Russian literature away from

Romanticism toward a nearness with, life, with reality, more national, more Russian," CX,3Q11 A work which was considered a good example of this movement was Grigorovic's "Organ

Grinders", which is a rather sentimental work. The author took great pains to depict the evolution and lifestyles of these street professionals. His introductory comments are an attempt to draw attention to the fact that these are also human beings. "Under his coarse exterior you find hidden a 33 good conscience."

According to Vinogradov, the sentimental-naturalist work is one in which there "is a naturalistic or realistic description of a civil servant whose life is complicated by philanthropic tendencies, ambition, and, later on, social 34 utopianism." This return to sentimentalist motifs was conditioned by the appearance of "^inel1", as interpreted by

Belinskij, and the parallel philanthropic aspirations of

French literature, which caused "a re-birth of a cycle of sentimental subjects, devices, images, stylistic props, and 35 symbols." The effect of this French literature on the forms of the Natural School descriptions was recognized by the writers themselves. Grigorovic, in his memoirs, wrote,

"the forefather of such a type of description was the Paris edition 'Francuzy, opisannye sami soboju' (Les Frangais pe- m■ t X. s par eux-memes) A A . 11" ^ 6 .143

Akakij AkakieviS was viewed in a sentimentalist vein, as a poor, downtrodden little man whose sole ambition in life was to own a great coat, and, once he sacrificed to obtain one, saw it stolen from him. Belinskij viewed Gogol**s works as being dedicated exclusively to the depiction of

Russian life. He believed that this was the inexorable move ment of Russian literature away from the "rhetorical" school begun by Lomonosov, and toward the realistic description begun by Kantemir. "Our literature was the fruit of conscious thought, it being a new phenomenon having begun by imitation.

But it did not stop with this, but constantly strove for in dependence, narodnost1, from the rhetorical it strove to be come natural. We should not be in error saying that in no single Russian writer has this success been so marked as in

Gogol1. This could be completed only by the exclusive atten tion of art to reality, instead of any ideal." (X,29 4) Here

Belinskij uses "ideal" to mean "fanciful" and "imaginary".

Antiox Kantemir (.1708-1744) was noted for his satires

(nine are credited to him). . Belinskij accepted these as the

"beginnings of the 'realistic' trend in Russian literature" because of their attacks on the anti-Petrine reforms which

Belinskij, as a "Westernizer" held sacrosanct. Kantemir's first satire, "K umu svoemu" ("To My Mind") (1729) is an attack on ecclesiastical foes to Western reformers and is subtitled "Against Detractors of Learning". The critic over looked other writers in the history of Russian literature who offered perhaps better examples of the "realistic” trend for which he propagandized, namely Nikolaj Novikov and Mixail

£ulkov (1743-1792),

Culkov's "Prigo^aja povarixa ili poxo^denie razvratnoj

£en££iny" ("The Comely Cook or the Adventures of a Debauched

Woman") (1770) is a fragment from a picaresque-type novel similar to Daniel Defoe's Moll Flanders, concerning a

"fallen woman". 5ulkov introduces proverbs into the work through which Martona, the heroine, "explains" her decisions to follow her nature rather than society's dictates. His short work "Gor'kaja uSast'" ("A Bitter Fate") (.1789) is more closely associated with this period of the 184Q's than most others which Belinskij ignored in his historical survey.

This tale describes a peasant village and a peasant hero in a realistic, serious depiction with truly "veristic" coloration a multiple murder in a peasant household. The short piece is also noteworthy because of the absence of sentimentalism.

V Culkov deals with the event in stark terms, but without any emotional appeal for social change, although the criminal justice system is attacked for its inability to uncover the circumstances of the crime.

Why Belinskij ignored these works can only be specu lated upon. He may have simply been ignorant of them. He had his own particular bias in his literary analysis. He viewed Russian history in terms of a struggle (b la Hegelian dialectics) between a "satirical" trend and a "rhetorical" 145 trend which began with Kantemir and Lomonosov and proceeded down to the contemporary era to himself and Bulgarin-Gred:-

V Sevyrev, The ”rhetorical" trend was imitative, provincial literature which Belinskij believed was far removed from

Russian reality. Hence his view that Kantemir’s satires which criticized detractors of the Western reformist trend were "realistic" and the interpretation of Lomonosov’s odes as derivative and "false" to the true nature of Russian life.

While many of the works of the "Natural School" belong in the category of sentimental-naturalist or social-psychological, there is another category which may be termed so cial-political. In works of this group we find that social activism is of primary importance. Nekrasov ridiculed civil V , , servants: his portrait in "Cinovnik" is bitingly satirical.

Herzen is coldly observant of Bel'tov and Kruciferskaja in

Kto vinovat? We shall examine these works in due course, but at this juncture we shall further the discussion of the theory behind these works by elaborating upon the response to attacks upon it by critics.

The attacks upon the works of the "Natural School" writers followed along the same line of reasoning used again st Gogol’, who was considered the head of the movement.

Belinskij became the great defender. We have seen how he had called for a "native Russian literature" as early as 1834, and he came to view Gogol' as the supremely Russian writer,

Russia's true poet. He had determined that the appearance 146 of a writer like Gogol' was the result of historical de velopment and evolution in Russian literature.

In his "Review of Literature in 1846" he furthered his theory concerning the realistic and idealistic trends.

He states in this essay that Lomonosov began a Latinized, bookish approach which had effectively isolated literature from the mass of people, a cleavage which he had noted in the "Musings" of 1834. "You will see that up to Pupkin the entire course of Russian literature has consisted of the striving, even if inconscious, to free itself from Lomono sov's influence, and to approach life, reality, and therefore, to become independent, national, Russian." (X,10)

He expanded this argument in the "Review of Litera ture of 1847", his last major essay (Part II of which was dictated from his bed). In his defense of the "Natural

School" he asserts that the phenomenon under attack by cri tics from the so-called "rhetorical" school is as old as modern Russian literature itself. "Our literature begins with naturalism: the first secular writer was the satirist

Kantemir. Despite his imitation of the Latin satirists and

Boileau, he could remain an original because he was true to nature and wrote from it." (X,289)

In his survey the highpoint was reached in the works of Gogol', for he is the champion of the "Natural School".

This school has succeeded in turning Russian literature to ward the realities of life. "All of Gogol''s works are 147 devoted exclusively to depicting the world of Russian life, and he has no rival in the art of re-producing it in all its truth." (X,294) This interpretation places Gogol' in the commanding position, the leader of modern Russian literature, and it is this interpretation which narrowed the critical perspective for future generations of literary scholars.

One of the strongest attacks on the movement came from the "Moskvitjanin", the Moscow publication representing

Slavophil views. In 1846 the editors, Sevyrev and Pogodin, launched an attack on "Sovremennik" and Belinskij rose to the challenge. He identified the "rhetorical" critics with the Slavophils, claiming the latter had their roots in the opposition to Karamzin's reforms of the literary language

(the Karamzinite-SiSkovite struggle). He asserted that the

Slavophil trend is not solely Moscow's movement, and the attempt to "divide and conquer" the new literary school by dividing Russia into an alignment of allegiance to Moscow and St. Petersburg will not work: both capitals have some thing to offer Russia, and the nation needs both. Moscow supplied Petersburg with everything "Russian", and Peters burg supplies Moscow and Russia with European thought. He had expressed similar views in his essay "St. Petersburg and

Moscow", published in Nekrasov's Fiziologija.

The "Moskvitjanin" claimed that the "Natural School" slandered Russia because it depicted only the bad and ugly.

Belinskij turns that argument on its end by declaring that 148

"depiction of only the negative side of life is not slander, but means only finding one-sidedness; to slander means to introduce into reality those charges, those dark blemishes which are not there." (X,239) He is clearly intimating that the ugliness which the "Natural School" writers are intro ducing does in fact exist. These writers are being true to their natures. "How can you have the right to demand from an author that he note and depict not that aspect of reality which strikes his eye, which he recognized, studied? You have only the right to demand veracity, that he is true to his depiction of reality." (X,251) He had suggested this in

1834 when he referred to narodnost' as truth in depicting the pictures of Russian life. Not only are these writers being true to their natures, they are being true to the spirit of the times. "The spirit of analysis and investi gation is the spirit of our time...our age pines with the hunger for the truth." (VI,267)

What are the ramifications for literary art from these demands for the "truth" and "veracity" in depiction?

One need only look at Grigorovic1s "Derevnja" ("The Village") the work whose appearance sparked the editorial comment from the "Moskvitjanin". Grigorovic's tale is a pathetic depic tion of a serf girl whose life is destroyed by an evil social system. The tale was composed for "Otecestvennye zapiski" in 1846. The plot reportedly came from a story his mother had related to him in his childhood. Akulina, the central 149 figure, is an orphan who suffers repeated abuse at the hands of cruel landowners and her own even more ruthless fellow serfs. In the tale Grigorovi# depicts the horrors of serf dom and the inhumanity of serfowners, who are shown living in comfort and speaking only French, bored with their lives on the country estate.

The pathos becomes maudlin in his next tale of coun try life, "Anton Goremyka", written in 1847 for "Sovremennik".

This is without question the most pitiful figure in any work in the decade. Not only does the estate manager persecute the old man, Goremyka is led away to prison with a gang of thieves into whose clutches he has mistakenly fallen at the conclusion. As in "Derevnja", the ruling element is depicted in the most heavy-handed fashion, shown to be boorish louts who are cruel and totally without redeeming qualities. Gri- gorovi£ is oppressive with his use of pathetic phrases. His favorites are "bednaja sirotka" ("poor orphan"), "bednyj re- benok" ("poor child"), "gor'kaja dejstvitel'nost1" ("bitter reality"). In order to underscore the veracity of the tale

Grigorovi^ enters into a first person narration at times to focus the reader's attention on the sordid details. "Al though the narrator of this tale senses an inexplicable en joyment in speaking of enlightened, educated, and upper class people; although he is completely convinced that the reader himself is incomparably more interested in them than in the crude, dirty ones and stupid mu£iks and old babas, 150 he nevertheless moves quickly to the latter group as the characters comprising, alas!, the main subject of his nar- 37 ration."

Grigorovi£ is almost apologizing for his depiction of the peasant situration instead of the more elevated sub ject matter suitable for "higher art". In effect he is ack nowledging the destruction of the prevailing artistic norm and is attempting to persuade his audience to accept his description as worthy of artistic representation. The very act of open discussion of norm distortion lends itself to creating the illusion of verisimilitude, since he notes that he would rather accomodate the artistic sensibilities of his readers, but he feels "obligated" to present these lowly types in an accurate portrayal of contemporary Russian re ality. The estrangement here enhances the illusion of reality. "Alas!" indicates that he is saying "You know the upper class, educated folk are more artistically pleasing, but that is merely art as pleasure. We see art as having a more 'serious' purpose so you, as readers, will have to bear with us in this descriptive tale because truth in art is very important to us."

Grigorovi^ composed several tales in this style, one of which, "Bobyl'" ("The Landless Peasant"), depicts a phil anthropic serf owner among the mass of heartless gentry.

Grigorovic makes it clear that in his view the mass of the serf owners are cruel and pitiless. He took a broad leap 151 away from the measured, dispassionate narrative tone of the physiology toward openly programmatic literature. This di rection was furthered by Belinskij's comments on the role of literature when he attacked the "rhetorical" critics for their objections to these "realistic" descriptive tales.

In his "Rejoinder to the 'Moskvitjanin'" the critic declares that these writers of the "Natural School" are in fact the most faithful to the Russian reality and are not slandering the nation. "The critic himself said that the author of 'Derevnja' put everything crude, horrible, and brutal that one could find in peasant life into his tale.

If it is possible to find it, then it is not imagined, it is taken from life, it is true and not slander." (X,251)

How may one account for the shift in Belinskij's position from the "eternal idea", the "breath of the Ab solute" in 1834, to the depiction of "accurate pictures of reality" in 1847? If taken within the context of his entire critical output the shift is not as extreme as it may appear.

We see the 1842 essay "Discourse on Criticism" as a key to understanding the apparent shift, for it is with this article that the true impact of Hegel's dialectic theory on Belin skij 's thought may be seen. His definition of what is "real" changes.

It will be recalled that the writings of Schelling had pointed him in the direction of the "ideal striving of art". The artist does not imitate but competes with nature. 152

Reality means "spiritual reality": if a work is truly ar tistic in representing a character, event, or landscape, then the essence of that subject is expressed more truthfully 3 8 than nature itself can express it. By 1842, however, the reality on the higher plane was given a new frame of refer ence: an historical perspective. Hegel, after Belinskij's initial reading which carried him to the extreme of being reconciled with that empirical reality he detested, provided the historical context. "Art, like all living and absolute things, is subordinated to the process of historical devel opment, and the art of our time is the expression, the re alization in images of contemporary cognition, contemporary thought about the value and goal of life, the paths of hu manity, the eternal truths of being." (X,280) If art is the expression of contemporary reality, the idea as envisioned by the current epoch, then literature can, and must, be the expression of social questions. It is on this basis that he defends Herzen's Kto vinovat? and rejects Gon^arov's Obykno- vennaja istorija, despite the fact that the former is overly involved with ideas and has only a minimum of "artistic transformation" (Belinskij's phrase), and the latter is a rich, artistic, poetic work. He defends the novels of Eu gene Sue on the basis of the accuracy of the depiction of contemporary society and contemporary problems.

"Denying art the right to serve social interests means not raising, but lowering it, because it means depriving it 153 of its very life force, i.e. thought, making it the subject of some sybaritic gratification, the plaything of idlers."

(X,311) He became ever more opposed to aesthetic satisfac tion in art as he became increasingly convinced of the need for literature to express social problems. "Belinskij's work, the work of his thought inspired to seek constantly the ideals of morality and grand philosophical solution to life's problems, went on unabated while censors numbered him among the second-rate writers. It is a piece of great good fortune that the censors missed seeing in Belinskij during those early stages a moral philosopher who, under the pre text of analyzing works of Russian literature, was concerned with attempts to uncover sound conceptual bases on which a rationally ordered personal and social existence could be 39 built."

Pavel Annenkov's memoirs of this period, The Extra ordinary Decade, are quite revealing in their attempt to out line and explain the fluence of the 1840's. The comment by

Annenkov that Belinskij was a moral philosopher operating under the pretext of literary analyst is revealing. Despite the fact that these memoirs were composed after a lapse of many years, we see that Belinskij was interpreted even by contemporaries as one who was creating a new critical appro ach. His fostering of social-oriented criticism demonstrates his primary concern for a work's idea content. Any attention to artistic devices or form would lend itself to "art for 154 art's sake." Belinskij is the cocus of Annenkov's work be cause he was the focus and primemover of the decade. Annen kov describes the intellectual activity in the following passage:

By the 1830's the educated Russian world had awakened, as it were, for the first time and seemed all of a sudden to sense the impossibility of living in the situation of in tellectual and moral consternation which had obtained until then. No longer willing to be dragged along by the current of events, Russians searched for bases of a fully ra tional existence in Russia...To this same time also belongs the ap pearance of the so-called "Natural School" which ripened under the in fluence of Gogol' — Gogol' inter preted in the way Belinskij inter preted him..One could well claim that the real father of the Natural^ School was — Belinskij.

From his initial review of Gogol''s works in the mid-1830's until his final literary article of 1847, Belin skij's praise for this writer's works only grew. Gogol''s stories, plays, and novel epitomized for the critic the role of literature in Russian society as he envisioned it. The pictures of Russian urban and rural life portrayed in these works fed Belinskij's hunger for an ideologically-bound literature: filled with the evils of serfdom, corruption, pettifoggery, and banality. His influence in this direction was great enough to dominate generations of literary critics. 155

It was on the basis of the Gogol' criticism that the

"Natural School" arose. Everyone seemed to have recognized the writer as the founder of the movement. "One group dis likes the Natural School even more disliking Gogol' as its head and founder." (X,239) Belinskij makes a comparison between the artistic works of Gogol' and those "genre pain tings" of Teniers. Once again we see the naivete of the critic with regard to the depiction of "reality" in litera ture. He does not address the poetic transformation of realistic detail. His "accurate representation" comment simply refers to details and events which describe the

Russian social reality, as he saw it. David Teniers the

Younger (1610-1690) was accused by his contemporaries of artistic transgressions similar to those of the "Natural

School" writers: "indelicate" peasant huts, landscapes, etc. In Teniers' case, however, he used the luxurious, sweet style of Rubens to depict peasants and countrysides, in a sense distorting the prevailing artistic norm. The

Rubens style was appropriate for nymphs, goddesses, wealthy aristocrats but not for peasants. Belinskij had high praise for the Flemish master who depicted such realistic scenes and yet created great art. He defends Gogol''s tales on the same grounds. Belinskij was interested in Teniers canvases because of their subject matter and he had ready access to them: one of the world's largest collections of the Teniers paintings is housed in the Ermitaz (The Hermitage). 156

"The Natural School did come from Gogol', from the

'poSlyj side of our reality' to use the critic's words."

(X,243) Poglost' for Belinskij meant sordid and banal. The

"po^lyj" side of life was interpreted as coarse, crude so cial reality (serfdom, corrupt officials, acquisitiveness) a la Gogol''s Dead Souls. He ignored the "quiet horror" of sweetness and blandness of "Starosvetskie pome£c?iki" which is poslost' in its own way according to Gogol'. In that sense Teniers could possibly be interpreted as "po^lyj" as well, but evidence points to the former as Belinskij's de finition of the Russian term which has no accurate English equivalent.

The "rhetorical school" critics disliked the works of

Gogol' in the critic's view, because his books were popular and sold so well, while their remained on the shelf. His reasoning was that they did not sell well because they had nothing in common with life; they were allegories, depicting unreal events. In Belinskij's lexicon allegory meant fan tasy, a false picture of reality. He condemned Marlinskij's works as allegories, for example. He rebukes the critic of the "Moskvitjanin" who claimed that Gogol' represented only the poslost' of life by declaring that this writer was the first to depict reality as it is, in all its completeness and truth.

This striving for the completeness of depicting Rus sian life meant, for the critic, that Gogol''s works 157 represented the best Russian literature had to offer: "The simplicity of invention, narodnost1, complete truth of life, originality and comic animation...Gogol' is a poet, a poet of real life...I have already said that the outstanding traits of Gogol,,s works are simplicity of thought, com plete truth of life, narodnost1' ." (1,248) Belinskij's praise

V for the author of "Sinel'", "Revizor" ("The Inspector Gen eral"), and Mertvye du§i is based upon his belief that na rodnost 1 is the most valuable and desirable quality of art.

His praise for the writers of the "Natural School" was also, in part, based upon his perception of the spirit of the times, namely, the spirit of scientific inquiry. We have noted above that there was a growth in interest in the sciences and there were great advances made in biology and physiology (Chapter I). Belinskij saw this literary movement as both a reflection of the interest in scientific inquiry and rejection of romantic illusion and fantasy. He was not alone in this perception. In Byloe i dumy Herzen describes his classes at Moscow University in the following passage:

I was able to get a closer view of the students of philosophy. Through out the entire academic year of 1845 I attended the lecture on comparative anatomy. In the lecture room and in the dissecting theater I became acquainted with a new generation of young people. Their prevailing tendency was ab solutely scientific, that is, posi tively scientific. It was these university students, 158

devoted with all the impatience and fire of youth to the world of realism that was opening before them, with its ruddy flush of health, who discerned where it was that we differed with Granovskij. Passionately as they loved him, they were beginning to ^ revolt against his 'romanticism'.

J Belinskij repeatedly asserted that the 'spirit of the age' demanded realism, not fantasy. "There have always been talents, but formerly they prettified nature, idealized reality, i.e. they depicted the nonexistent, they talked about the imaginary, but now they re-create life and reality in all their truth." (X,15) His terminology at times also reflects this scientific awareness. "Is it not remarkable that the outstanding character of the most recent works gen erally consists of a ruthless frankness, that in them life is as if in shame, in all its nakedness... is disclosed by an anatomical knife? We demand not the ideal of life, but life as it is." (1,272) This reminds us of Janin's artistic mani festo in L 'cine mort "pull the flesh off.. . "

"Naturalism" in this period means "realism". "Thus we see the phenomenon corresponding to naturalism, i.e. the striving toward reality, real life, truth — a rejection of fantasies." (X,315) Together with the concept of "realism" there is a change in genre. The romantic period was one in which lyric poetry was the prevailing genre. According to

Belinskij, the "new" literary emphasis has placed prose on the first level of genres. "The novel and the povest1 have 159

become the chief form of poetry. In them, better than in

any other form, is the sense of convergence with reality, the

drawing from nature." (X,315)

Belinskij, however, overlooked the fact that the

depiction of reality "as it is" is a static, idea-free repre

sentation. The artist adds the idea-content according to his

own artistic dictates. The critic also "discovers" the idea

in a work and enunciates it for the audience. This ability

of the artist or critic allows him to construct his own his

torical or thematic curve which is what Belinskij did. That

content must be judged in terms of its idea. For Belinskij

the idea presented in the work is the sole criterion on which

the quality of the art may be judged. The organic conception

of art which he established in Russian literary criticism de

pended upon the critic's ability to ferret out the idea of

the work and pass critical judgement. The critic who is in

capable of grasping the idea of the whole is incompetent to 42 pass judgement on the work of art. The idea which must be present for the work to be evaluated as good art is re

quired to be a socially-determined issue, reflecting contem

porary Russian reality. "Art and literature in our time are more than they were formerly, having become the expression

of social questions because in our time these questions have become common, accessible to everyone..." (X,306)

Pavel Annenkov, himself a critic, referred to Belin

skij's critical methodology as philosophical criticism. 160

"Once having diagnosed the idea of a work of art, the philo sophical critic abstracts the idea from the work, elaborates it as an independent entity in its philosophical way, draws all the conclusions that can be drawn from it and then re turns the idea to the work to observe whether everything that philosophical analysis of the work had brought to light was expressed in the images and details. If so, fine and good; 43 if not, so much the worse for the work." We shall examine

Belinskij's methods of analysis as we investigate specific works which belong to this "Natural School" movement.

Belinskij was not the lone defender of these writers and their works. Nikolaj Nekrasov was also an ardent cham pion of the movement. In 184 7 Nekrasov, as editor of "Sov- remennik", composed an editorial concerning the "Muzej sovremennoj inostrannoj literatury" ("The Museum of Current For eign Literature"), a publication devoted to the translation of foreign literature. In this article he defends the

Russian literary scene, which was under attack by the oppo sition press ("Severnaja pcela", "Moskvitjanin", et al.). 44 "Russian literature is rapidly approaching its maturity."

The basis for his conclusions is that the writers of the contemporary generation "do not produce lyric poetry, re frain from depicting powerful, strong, and boiling emotions 45 and passions." He praises these writers for not losing grip on their purpose in the face of taunts and criticism from various quarters, and for pursuing their depictions of 161 people who are coarse, "in which there is nothing romantic 46 and attractive." Nekrasov indicates that translations of foreign works are necessary and popular because of the lack of good works in Russian. Granted, Herzen's Kto vinovat? and Gon^arov's Obyknovennaja is torij a are the rage, "but how 47 many such works will appear in a given year?"

Belinskij and Nekrasov cut to the core of the Natural

School writer's attempt to dissociate himself from the ro mantic prose and poetry of the preceding era. In place of the high-flown language, exotic settings, and larger-than- life heroes, he introduced street jargon, and heavily de tailed descriptive language, urban alleys, and peasant huts, and low class street people or petty civil servants. The physiological sketch, imported from France, forms a part of the movement, but its genre restrictions served to limit its influence and, in effect, precipitated its decline.

The "Natural School" survived the popularity of the sketch.

One reason for its popularity may have been the diversity of genres: povesti, ocSerki, romany. We shall analyze the works of the "Natural School" in terms of theme, characters, and conflicts. These will be compared with the physiology in order to determine the relationship of the sketch to the broader range of works in the period.

As we have shown in the previous chapter, the physio logical sketch is a genre which is quite static in its in ternal development. It is predominantly descriptive prose 162 and relies upon the accumulation of realistic details to con vey a complete portrait of the character type under examina tion. The lack of plot, and its concomitant features of in trigue, conflict, etc., was compensated for, to the extent possible, by this abundance of realia. The genre gained popularity due in part to the broadening of the reading pub

lic, the growth in numbers of periodicals, the interest in the urban environment, and the desire on the part of the ur ban populace to read about this urban life. In addition, the physiology in Russia coincided with the interest in low so cial types, and, as we have seen, the genre was almost ex clusively concerned with the lower stratum of urban society: janitors, porters, street sweepers, street clowns, and organ grinders, all of whom were a fixture in the city, and famil iar by sight to urbanites.

The label was coined by Bulgarin to ridicule the low degree of "poetic transformation of nature". "Natural" sig nified ugly, low, tawdry natural details. It represented an art with no redeeming, uplifting qualities. Art, in his view, is meant to be the servant of the ideal and beauty. Belin skij, as we have shown, liked the term because "natural" meant "real", not fanciful or idealized nature. This inter pretation coincided with his intensifying desire to foster a literature with idea-content which exposed social ills in

Russia. 163

The writers of the so-called "Natural School" had no manifesto of literary principles (although Kulesov believes that Belinskij's essay "Russian Literature in 1845" serves as one). "In the history of literary forms the processes of aesthetic interactions create the unification of artistic works into groups which it is acceptable to call a literary school. Understanding a literary school is determined not solely by its content, not by the poets included in it, but by the identification of general features in subjects, ar- chetectonics, and style. Thus, understanding a school in an historical-literary study is developed by means of an ab straction of similar essential signs from a series of artis tic works, chronologically adjacent and attracted to one 48 aesthetic center." In other words, according to Vino gradov, a manifesto and close personal contact and identi fication of literary aims, are not requisite properties for the determination of a school. Vasilij Kulesov, who has two monographs on the subject, is, in our opinion, overly con cerned with defining the existence of a bona fide school.

We are interested in discovering the techniques those writers used to depict the world around them in artistic terms.

We cannot say too much about Gogol1's influence on the literature of this period. His effect upon style, themes and characters is pervasive. He undoubtedly had no intention to foster the socially-oriented, critical literature which was proclaimed in his name, but the interpretation of his 164 works, especially his late prose pieces ("Nevskij prospekt",

"§inel'", and Mertvye du§i) as social criticism had that ef fect. It is difficult to find one work of this period with out a trace of Gogolian humor, character type, language or theme (as interpreted by contemporaries). His own work,

Selected Passages from Correspondence with Friends is a re buttal to the critical interpretation produced by Belinskij.

That Belinskij reacted with such vehemence to the publication of this late Gogol1 work bears witness to the intensity of his belief in the justness of his critical in terpretation. His "Letter" from Salzbrunn dated July 1847 is a statement of his critical philosophy. He feels be trayed by Gogol'. He had placed all of his faith in Russia's future in this writer's works. "I loved you with all the passion with which a man, bound by ties of blood to his na tive land, can love its hope, honor, glory, one of its great leaders on the path toward consciousness, development, and progress." (X,212) He has evaluated the writer's works as

"astonishingly artistic and deeply truthful." (X,213)

The letter, in addition to being a statement of his critical views, is a statement of his social philosophy.

Literature alone "shows life and progressive movement. That is why the title of writer is held in such esteem among us...

And here the public is right, for it looks upon Russian writers as its only leaders, defenders, and saviors against

Russian autocracy, orthodoxy, and nationality." (X,217) 165

This view of Gogol" as the progressive reformer held dominance throughout the nineteenth century. Not until the last decade of the century did the Symbolist theoreticians begin to examine his work from the aspect of language and word play, genre diversification, etc. In many of these in- tepretations Gogol" lost his status as social reformer who depicted the "poor devils" victimized by cruel society, and his artistic merits as an innovative creative genius were displayed. These literary scholars were attempting to under mine and overturn the interpretation which had become fixed by Gogol""s contemporaries. One may be virtually certain that such criticism and analysis performed by the Symbolists,

Formalists, and others in recent years would not be found anywhere in the 1840"s. No, in the eyes of Belinskij and his followers, Akakij Akakievi£ was a poor civil servant, humili ated at every turn in his meager existence, the victim of a cruel society.

In addition to the motif of the titular councillor hero, another characteristic feature of Gogol'"s prose is the city of St. Petersburg itself, populated by the very wealthy and the pitiably poor. It is depicted as an "un natural" city, with a dreadful history of suffering and hardship. Such a motif has its roots in the history of its founding in the first quarter of the eighteenth century, and the legends of swamp plagues, floods, insect invasions, etc. which killed thousands of workers. Many of these legends 166 came into being by those peasant workers who escaped to their provincial peasant huts and by the "raskol'niki" (Old Be lievers) who believed the city was unnatural because it was the instrument of the Antichrist, whom they saw in the person of Peter I.

The weather of the locale itself added substance to these apocryphal beliefs. Gogol' virtually made the weather a character in his St. Petersburg tales. There are repeated references in his stories to the unhealthy weather, fit for neither man nor beast. Akakij Akakievich is described as being "slightly bald on the top of his head, with wrinkles on both cheeks, and a rather sallow complexion. There is nothing we can do about it: it is all.'1 the fault of the St.

Petersburg climate." His complexion is rather "hemorrhoidal" due to the weather. The physiologists borrowed from this traditional motif. The first words in "Peterburgskij dvornik" refer to the weather. Butkov's "Pervoe Sislo" ("Pay

Day") represents the weather as "the usual thing, rain and slush." Grebenka draws attention to the newcomer to the city by the "fresh, rosy, healthy color of his face ("Provincial v Peterburge").

The city plays an active part in "Nevskij prospekt", where the atmosphere is evil, false, and the devil's abode.

The gay setting, the brilliant attire of the inhabitants, all turns out to be deceptive. The street lamps, "invest everything with an alluring, magic light." The deception 167 of the setting is merged with the misadventures of Piskarev and Pirogov, both of whom are deceived in this city: the former by his "beautiful lady" whom he had imagined to be virtuous, the latter by the German woman whose husband raps him about the head for his daring behavior. It is all to be expected in this city where "the devil himself lights the street lamps to show everything in anything but its true colors."

Gogol'1s works are filled with low level bureaucrats

(titular councillors and the like), low ranking military people and officials (Xlestakov, <*icikov) eeking out a mis erable existence in the city or running about the country side exposing the po^lost1 rampant in the land. These same figures play a prominent role in the works of the "Natural

School". Butkov writes about petty office clerks, Grebenka draws attention to scriveners, Panaev to would-be writers.

Belinskij, of course, recognized these social types as repre sentative of the social reality of contemporary Russia, and he defended its depiction as "reality as it is, in all its truth."

The writers of the "Natural School" developed a new aspect for the low level bureaucrat who was beleaguered by nasty circumstances. He was not merely pitiful, he was human, too. He had feelings. In fact, he often exhibited ambition to improve his lot and social position. The physi ologists depicted man as an organism in his social 168 environment, reacting to and responding to external stimuli.

In the "Natural School" works this environmental relation ship develops into a conflict: man vs environment. The question posed by these writers is: how is the hero "educa ted"? They ask, "what does he learn from his surroundings?

Does, he survive or fail? The struggle becomes the dominant motif. A new character emerges: the little man with ambition.

Jurij Mann has called this the dominant category of the "Na tural School". How long will this character's true nature remain suppressed? Will the deeply buried characteristics 49 of his nature ever emerge? The major theme then becomes the subordination of man to his environment. An opposition arises between the "good" human nature and the "evil" en vironment. This reflects the so-called "education" motif.

How does the character respond to his social circumstance?

What is the extent of the human will?

Herzen's 1847 novel Kto vinovat? (Who is to Blame?) strikes at the heart of this theme. This work, which like most of the longer prose works of the decade, is less a novel than the vehicle for a character study, was praised by Belin skij in his "Review of Literature in 1847" for its ideologi cal content, although the critic had reservations about its artistic merits. "The author possesses remarkable facility for accurately relating the phenomena of reality. But his strongest power is not creativity, not in art (xudozest- vennost'), but in thought." (X,310) Nevertheless, Belinskij 169 believed the work to be important because of the author's

inspiration: the supreme worth of the human being and the

injustice man suffers at the hands of ignorant, prejudiced people.

Vladimir Bel'tov is Herzen's hero, a "superfluous man". This is an ideologically-loaded work. It is tenden

tious and not terribly well-written. The circumstances in which Bel'tov finds himself do not reveal his nature, Herzen

explains his actions. He informs us of the details of the young man's education: tutored by a Swiss scholar, Bel'tov becomes a disciple of Rousseau, a figure who can find no place in his native land.

The work is divided into two parts with only a tenu ous link between them. The first part concerns Dmitrij Kru-

ciferskij and his biography, including his meeting and subse quent marriage to Ljubov'. Kruciferskij is "inexperienced 50 ■ and knew absolutely nothing about the practical world."

The son of a poor country doctor, he is taken under the wing of a local resident/patron and sent to Moscow to attend the university. (These details are somewhat similar to Belin- skij's biography.) He becomes a tutor to Negrov's children and falls in love with Negrov's "natural daughter". Here part one ends.

Part two concerns the experiences of Vladimir Bel'tov a man of great intellectual breadth and depth of thinking.

He is a man who can find no place in the Russia to which he 170 has returned. He can find no useful activity: he cannot fo cus on any academic pursuit (he has studied law, medicine, and the humanities) and is unable to find his niche. He cannot abide government service, and military service is out of the question. That limits his possibilities. "Bel'tov found himself in a country completely unknown to him, he did not have the qualities of being a good landowner, an out- 51 standing officer, dedicated public servant." It is at this point that Herzen levels his indictment: "This is our ver satile inactivity, our active laziness. Bel'tov belonged to this group of people; now past thirty, he was like a sixteen- year-old, ready to begin his life, but without noting that the door, nearer and nearer opening, is not the one through which the gladiators enter, but out of which their bodies 52 are borne."

Herzen puts the dilemma into the mouth of the hero.

"The fact of the matter is that I — am a useless man. There are few illnesses worse than recognition of useless pow- 53 . . . ers." His spirit is revitalized by his relationship with

Ljubov' Kruciferskaja, a strong, determined woman. It is the intellectual attachment between these two characters which provides the motivation for the novel. That his rela tionship is weak in its development is an indication of the lack of Herzen's concern for traditional plot motivation.

The novel's subject concerns the three lives (Bel'tov,

Ljubov', and Kruciferskij) which are virtually wasted and 171 destroyed by the limitations of socially-demanded adherence to marriage. Dmitrij and Ljubov' lead an isolated, quiet existence until the outsider Bel'tov arrives. Ljubov', in

Herzen's characterization, has many sharp intellectual abili ties which have lain dormant through years of marriage, and

Bel'tov re-awakens these abilities. However, despite her attachment to the wandering nobleman, she knows that her husband cannot live without her, and she rejects her liason in favor of remaining true to her marriage. As a result, she is doomed to a pointless (from an intellectual point of view) marriage in which she forever longs for Bel'tov's companionship, and Kruciferskij, destroyed by the knowledge that his wife loves another, begins to fail and falls to drinking heavily. Bel'tov, rejected by the one attachment in his existence, leaves to wander across Europe.

The answer to the question posed by the title is that no one is to blame for Bel'tov's condition. Herzen would like the reader to believe that Kruciferskaja should have abandoned her husband for Bel'tov and allow Kruciferskij to find his own path to happiness. Traditional morality will not allow such an answer. The "villain" in the work is the gentry society. Kruciferskij is an intelligent man who is reduced to becoming a tutor in a crude landowner's family.

Ljubov' is the illegitimate daughter of the same crude fel low and is mistreated by his family and his ill-bred wife.

Bel'tov's mother was born a serf but becomes an educated 172 woman who becomes a respected governess. She becomes free through her marriage but lives in a socially humiliating po sition. The gentry society is harshly condemned by Herzen, who was himself a "natural" son ("Herzen", "child of the heart"). All the landowners in the novel are negative types.

The women suffer the greatest humiliation in the novel, with

Ljubov' and Bel'tov's mother being the most obvious cases.

Martin Malia asserts that Herzen's fiction is largely autobiographical. He sees Bel'tov as the "even mixture of 54 Herzen himself and the futilely wandering Ogarev." The critique of Bel'tov's education is also one of his own and that of his own generation. Bel'tov's inability to find use ful activity in service to Russia during the repressive reign of Nikolaj I is representative of Herzen's own frus tration. "Nowhere has Herzen described his own dilemma more eloquently, nor stated better the reasons which eventually 55 led him to emigrate." The young hero, so drastically mal- educated for his times, is reduced to standing as a candidate for the nobleman's assembly which is politically meaningless.

He is not elected to the body primarily because the gentry class sees him as dangerous. He is an alien at home and a- broad. Malia sees the novel as an accurate reflection of 56 Herzen's attitude toward his own generation.

While Malia's analysis of Herzen and the novel is useful from the point of view of the evolution of Herzen's socialist philosophy, it adds nothing to the position of the 173 work within the confines of the literary movement of the

1840's. There are elements present which reflect its place in the Natural School. The scene which he paints as Bel'tov arrives in the provincial town reflects a physiological per spective.

Two or three grimy babas were seated near the walls of the guest house with pears; enjoying the fact that their fingers were not freezing, they were knitting culki, and only once in a while turned to each other, holding the needles in their teeth, sighing, yawning and making the sign of the cross over their mouths. Not far away an old merchant, just under seventy, with a gray beard, in a tall beaver hat, slept sweetly on a neat little stool. Frequently those who were seated would run back and forth into and out of the shops; no one, it seems, was buying anything; almost no one was walking,^ along the streets...

The passage continues in this vein at some length. The de tails of this scene remind us of similar passages in Dal' and Grigorovi# as they described urban street scenes in their physiologies, particularly the descriptions of low types.

In addition, Herzen shows the virtually required Go golian grotesque flavor in the works of this decade. In a following passage he describes the entrance into town of a member of the local gentry.

Then a carriage of some strange form passed by, similar to a melon from which a quarter had been precisely cut out; this melon was carried by four 174

horses...In this melon sat another melon — the good and fat father of a family and a landowner, with some kind of special configuration in blue on his nose and cheeks; nearby the continuous fellow traveller of his life, not resembling a melon, but sooner a pepper pod, concealed in some kind of taffeta hut, put on in place of a hat; opposite them a pleasant bouquet of the three rural graces, probably the sweet hope of papa and mama...this moving garden^g passed by...

Gogol' had painted a similar scene in Dead Souls with the entrance into town of Korobo&ka's carriage. Not only is the scene strikingly similar to that created in the earlier work, but the novel's hero, £i£ikov, the collector of the

"dead souls", is mentioned in Herzen's work as having arrived in town to attend the elections for the provincial noble assembly.

In the poetics of the "Natural School" the question concerning the repression of man's nature to external factors is left unanswered. Herzen delineates the failure of edu cation in each of the three principal characters. None of the three is capable of rising above the restrictions imposed by the environment. It is the nature of this particular

"superfluous man" that he is destined to wander aimlessly, unable to find his place in the scheme of things. Krucifer- skaja is subjected to the pressures of society, pressures which the "Natural School" writers believed were unjustified.

The "problem" of the emancipated woman is a major theme. 175

Herzen aims his condemnation primarily at the society which has created the environment which stifles creativity and individual fulfillment. His harshest comments are not directed at Kruciferskij whose character is weak, nor at

Ljubov', whom society restrains by "outdated moral stric tures," nor even at Bel'tov, whose education did not prepare him for a proper role in Russian society. The criticism is aimed at the social environment which produced such tragic results.

Not all of the heroes of the movement face this tra gedy. Some return in triumph to rise above the environ ment. One such hero is Aleksandr Aduev, a major figure in

Ivan Gon^arov's 18 46 novel Obyknovennaja istorija (The Same

Old Story). This novel was hailed by contemporaries when it appeared, but it was not GonSarov's first effort. His literary career had been undertaken in 1842 with a sketch en titled "Ivan Savi£ PodSabrin", not published until 1848.

This is a humorous piece concerning the amorous adventures of the title character.

The work begins with a theme familiar to the resi dents of the capital: a search for suitable lodging. Ivan

Savi5 is moving because of an unfortunate turn of events in his latest romantic escapade, what he terms "enjoying life".

We are confronted with a scene reminiscent of that in Dal''s

"St. Petersburg Janitor": the fellow confronts the concierge requesting assistance in locating an apartment. After 176

awakening the fellow Ivan Savi£ decides to take the rooms be

cause he notices several attractive females. Gon^arov con

tinues in the playful tone as Ivan Savi£ continues his es

capades. Standard comic devices of role-changing, mistaken

identity, and costuming are used. We have a servant who is wiser than his master, and a match for his wits:

"What a fool! And see that you ans wer like a human being!" angrily observed Ivan SaviS. "I am talking like a human being, since it is evident that I am a human being. I can't answer like^g a gentleman," punned Avdej.

GoncSarov pokes satire at the civil servant who is self-satis

fied and lazy. Ivan Savic refuses to go to the office since it is so dreadfully boring. He would rather "enjoy life" and spend his time reading "philosophical" works. "Ivan

Savic sat down with a book in his hands on a little sofa in a picturesque pose. But if anyone had glanced at the book, he would have seen that he was holding it upside down."^

The descriptive details are indicative of the physio

logical sketch and the established style of the "Natural

School". There are references to greasy doors, and the peasants who make their appearance are coarse and crude. The

furniture which Ivan Savic owns reflects his status, a sta tus which Dickens would call "shabby-genteel": "A mahogany divan, upholstered in a worn woolen cloth with spots,

another oilcloth covered divan, half a dozen chairs of Ill 61 imitation mahogany, an old commode..." The work is de rivative and it may be for this reason that it lay unpub lished for six years.

His first published work, Qbyknovennaja istorija, is a type of BiIdungsroman: a novel in which the hero is edu cated to the ways of the world. This hero is taken under the guidance of a mentor who will instil idealism and bring him into harmony with the universe. Goethe's Wilhelm Meister is considered the first such novel. Balzac altered the out line of the plan by placing emphasis on the formation of a career, bringing power and money. Pere Goriot shows Eugene

Rastignac as the young provincial who comes to the city, filled with idealism, in search of success. He finds it, but at the loss of his idealism.

Aleksandr Aduev comes from the provinces full of ro mantic notions: eternal friendship, unbridled emotional ef fusions, naive to the ways of "modern" urban life. His uncle serves as teacher. But Petr Ivany£ does not instil idealism into his charge. Rather, in an ironic twist, he attempts to convince his nephew of the means for success: ras£et (calculation).

One of the motifs Goncarov develops is that of the provincial who comes to the city to make his future. This had been a popular theme in the physiological sketches in the decade. For the country boy St. Petersburg is a mys terious, if exciting place. Many of the legends noted above 178 had been popularized in the provinces. Gon£arov develops this "unnatural" place motif from the very beginning. Alek sandr's mother, disturbed over the "loss" of her son, draws attention to the sense of foreboding in the impending jour ney by referring to the "bounty of the lands" and the "swamp" into which he may be heading.

He silently and thoughtfully indicated into the distance with his hand. Anna Pavlovna looked and the expression on her face changed. There, between the fields, the road wound like a serpent, and beyond the forest, the road ran ^ to the Promised Land, to Petersburg.

A short time later she tells him that he is headed for a

"foreign" (cu2oj) land. This motif also reflects the mythic maturation process in which the young man leaves his protec tive mother's arms and joins the adult world, the world of his father. In this case, the father figure is his uncle,

Petr Ivany£.

The journey to the city is part of the education pro cess. From afar St. Petersburg appears to him in a magical light: a wondrous, glittering place. From a nearer vantage he sees cold and unfeeling people, and his youthful idealism seems misplaced.

Jurij Mann has identified the conflict in the "Natural

School" as one between man and environment. He sees three stages in this conflict: 1) a character is taken from a po sition of high, noble aspiration, 2) he collides with his 179 environment and suffers defeat, 3) the environment not only 6 3 acts as a negative force toward him, but brings disgrace.

This interpretation affirms the belief that the writers of the "Natural School" went beyond the limitations of the phy

siological sketch writers who described the human organism in his social environment, to assert an active, open struggle between the human organism and that environment. In effect, once the "native essence" of the character began to be ex plored by these writers, the scientific approach of the 64 physiologists could not stand. As Mann states it, the overriding question of the "Natural School" writers is, "is 65 a good man possible or not?"

In GonSarov's novel we see emphasis on the first two steps in the conflict. Aleksandr "dreamed of colossal pas

sions, he dreamed about service which he would bring to his country...most of all he dreamed about the glory of being a writer." 6 6 Petr Ivanyc v serves as a foil to these colossal passions, for he has succeeded by pursuing a philosophy of self-interest. He has grasped the essence of the ways of the world. Aleksandr suffers one defeat after another. His

love for Naden'ka is not returned as she opts for someone else. His literary endeavors go unrewarded and unrecognized: they are not proclaimed works of genius. When he retaliates

for his lost love by torturing Liza, the young girl's father

intercedes and forces him to recognize his dangerous game. 6 7 "I did not foresee the consequences..." 180

In despair, Aleksandr turns to his uncle for advice.

Petr Ivanyi?, convinced that his nephew will never learn and

become "educated" to the world, recommends that he return to

the family estate. After eight years in the capital, he

returns home. He has suffered defeat in the collision.

"Farewell, farewell. I stood here face-to-face with modern 6 8 life for eight years...I lost my life force." Aleksandr has, however, been educated, for his happiness is not to be

found at home. In the Epilogue Aleksandr returns to the city,

determined to be a success. In a final ironic twist, Gon-

Xarov shows that his mentor is a failure in his own life.

Goncarov's novel is an ironic Bildungsroman. Goethe's hero is educated to be in harmony with the universe. Bal

zac's Eugene is a lowering of this idea: he is educated to

the world so that he can succeed financially. The ambitious young provincial departs for the city where he hopes for a

career. He is successful in his ambition, but he loses his

idealism. Goncarov's hero follows a similar route in that his romantic effusions are abandoned. He has become a cal

culating fellow, not unlike his uncle, hence his "education"

is not to the "enlightened" man in harmony with the natural

universe. It is the universe, the world of St. Petersburg, which is corrupt. Aleksandr's history is not unusual, it is

"the same old story".

This transformation motif marks the works of Panaev

as well. We have noted how the young men who begin their 180

In despair, Aleksandr turns to his uncle for advice.

Petr Ivanyi?, convinced that his nephew will never learn and become "educated" to the world, recommends that he return to the family estate. After eight years in the capital, he returns home. He has suffered defeat in the collision.

"Farewell, farewell. I stood here face-to-face with modern life for eight years...I lost my life force.Aleksandr has, however, been educated, for his happiness is not to be found at home. In the Epilogue Aleksandr returns to the city, determined to be a success. In a final ironic twist, Gon-

Xarov shows that his mentor is a failure in his own life.

Goncarov's novel is an ironic Bildungsroman. Goethe's hero is educated to be in harmony with the universe. Bal zac's Eugene is a lowering of this idea: he is educated to the world so that he can succeed financially. The ambitious young provincial departs for the city where he hopes for a career. He is successful in his ambition, but he loses his idealism. Goncarov's hero follows a similar route in that his romantic effusions are abandoned. He has become a cal culating fellow, not unlike his uncle, hence his "education" is not to the "enlightened" man in harmony with the natural universe. It is the universe, the world of St. Petersburg, which is corrupt. Aleksandr's history is not unusual, it is

"the same old story".

This transformation motif marks the works of Panaev as well. We have noted how the young men who begin their literary careers with high ideals are eventually corrupted

and transformed into hacks. His heroes are confronted by

their "inner voices" of conscience as they descend the human

scale into their zoological types. The feuilleton writer is

upbraided by his conscience: "You have none of your own

opinions, you have no will power of your own; you sing, my

friend, with another's voice...you are an automaton, a doll...

You don't have the will power to become a man and ilive in 69 human society." If he cannot be a man, then he must be outcast from human society and become a representative of

some zoological species.

That species is the "aphid" and we again watch the

descent into the realm of insects. His "voice" tells him the "education of the critic ought to be based on the firm foundation of science, on the study of the great works of poetry and life..."^ Panaev's most scathing indictment of the human devolution which occurs in modern society is presented in his two tales "Onagr" ("The Wild Ass") (1841) and "Akteon" ("The Dung Beetle") (1842) in which the hero,

Petr Aleksandryc Raznatovskij, regresses into the non-human world.

The "onagr" is a social type: "we Russians have pre tensions to European external features... as a result, we for merly had dandies and fashionables, now we even have 'lions'.

Have you heard the interesting news? Not long ago some sharp-witted Parisian invented a name for their rulers of 182 middle class society. It is a lovely and sonorous name:

onagr!.. I don't know, perhaps,: this weak sketch will give a greater understanding about what the St. Petersburg onagr

71 is." In "Akteon" Petr AleksandryC returns to his provin cial estate with his reluctant and unhappy wife and we see

the completion of the transformation process begun in the

capital. The "wild ass" becomes a "dung beetle". Panaev

opens the work with a direct definition from Blumenbach's

Guide to Natural History: "This insect is 'extremely pro

lific' and defends itself against its natural enemies by its

stench." 72 Panaev adds, rather heavy-handedly, that "he

[Raznatovskij] seemed shorter than before, and concealing

the bald pate which began to shine on his head, he began to comb his few hairs up in the shape of a small horn. All of 73 this made him remarkably similar to a bug called 'akteon'."

Like Goncarov's transformation of his hero, Panaev's characters are subjected to the corrupting influence of the social environment. There is nothing unusual about this transformation into onagr and akteon in Panaev's world. The illusion comes from the fact that it is ordinary. In sup pressing human nature to the forces of the age ("vek"), all elements cannot be subordinated. What becomes of the man who cannot find the inner determination of Aduev to overcome the obstacles nature has placed in his path? Aleksandr is educated to the ways of the world and returns to make his fortune. Not every hero can do that. One example of this 183 type is Ivan SamojlyS Miifulin, the hero of Saltykov-Kedrin's

"Zaputannoe delo" ("A Muddled Affair") (1847-1848).

Unlike GonSarov, whose irony is dominant, Scedrin's is biting satire. It was believed to be such a strongly worded statement that after its publication he was exiled to

Vjatka. MiSulin, like young Aduev, is a provincial who has journeyed to the capital to establish a career. In his case, unlike Aleksandr, his father sent him for a government job, expecting the lad to be welcomed with "outstretched embraces" but Ivan Samojly£ meets with failure. There is no position for him. Unlike Aleksandr, Mi&ulin is not terribly bright

("da, ostroumija net!"), his creative powers are limited to the sphere of copying documents (like Akakij Akakievi?).

Life in the city is not turning out as expected: he had en visioned, like young Aduev, "life in a rosy color, where people were sweet and virtuous...they extended their hands 74 to each other with feeling." Instead of that he sees self- satisfied, materialistic people pursuing their own paths to wealth and power.

It is this persistent dilemma of finding his own "place" in the scheme of things that is at the heart of the "muddled affair." As he looks about him he sees people who, at his very age, have done well. He is forever flailing himself with the question, "others have a place! others eat, others 75 drink, but there is no place for me! Where is my place?"

His noble aspirations crushed by repeated failure to gain a 184 position, he steadily deteriorates, mentally and physically.

The one thousand rubles given him by his father have dwindled to one silver coin. His mental condition leads him to halu- cinate, and eventually to death. His very death is mys terious and its causes are not clear: physical collapse from lack of food, or psychological factors. The police can not explain it: it is a muddled affair. S^edrin has used the formula: the decent fellow collides with the evil social environment and suffers defeat.

The physical setting provides the gloom which accom panies the hero’s situation. The story is set in the Autumn when it is damp and cold. "The weather is raw, some kind of 76 unknown, indefinable material is coming out of the clouds."

In addition to the weather there is the Gogolian atmosphere of magic and mystery: "this gives the city some kind of poetically vanishing physiognomy, a kind of deceptive color ing, making all the surrounding objects into strange, indif- 77 ferent substances."

§£edrin juxtaposes scenes of Miculin's misery with those of gentlemen in comfort which provides jarring contrast and reinforces the abject position of the hero. Miculin sees a gentleman riding about in a comfortable carriage, on pil lows, "the fog and wind do not disturb his fat and satisfied 78 cheeks." Ivan imagines that the fellow is lulled into dreams of childhood. No such lullaby exists for him. He must wend his way up the four flights of stairs, "the dark 185 79 and dirty staircase," to his tiny apartment.

Like Dostoevskij's Raskol'nikov who dreamed of power in his coffin-like garret apartment, Miculin also dreams, although these dreams reveal his insecurities, his fear of the "usurper" ("samozvanec"), a psychological dilemma ex plored by Dostoevskij as well as Turgenev (the prototype of which may be seen in his early "Diary of a Superfluous Man").

Mifiulin has no position because there is always someone else there to take his rightful place. Ivan, as a result, harbors grave fears that he is not needed. "He alone was superflu- 8 0 ous on earth; no one wants him, no one needs him." He con jures up bucolic visions of his country home. "Why did he 81 leave all this?" He dreams of wealth and grandeur, of

Naden'ka, the boarder whom he loves. But "the foul wizardry which pursues him night and day" breaks into the charming scene. When, in the course of his dream, he is about to pay for the dainties they have enjoyed, he discovers that his pockets are empty! He awakens from his dream as officials lead him away. He dreams of the time when he and Naden'ka are married. They have a son who is crying for food. "To day only the wolves eat. There will be food tomorrow for 8 2 us." But there is no food; the wolves have eaten it all.

He suffers a final hallucination after being fleeced by a couple of swindlers. He sees a social pyramid in which the pillars holding up society are people in his lowly po sition. It is a depiction of Fourier's social pyramid. 186

Unlike Aduev, MiSulin is incapable of the struggle against the environment. He has no wise uncle to instruct him. We see the hero's noble aspirations crushed by circumstances.

The police officer's judgement is one of condemnation for the hero's failure to be satisfied with his lot. "How was this not a life for the fellow? He was sated, clothed! He had a title, my good sir! I assure you there isn't a more thankless creature on earth than man. Give him shelter, feed him — it stings, it certainly stings! That's just his nature!"^ Kedrin's satire is not subtle.

The tale is a good example of the type of ideologi cally-loaded composition for which Belinskij called. The

"wolves" devour the food. The fat, comfortable gentlemen ride about in their cushioned carriages while the destitute are left to wander the streets in the unhealthy elements.

These "descriptive talents" were making Russian literature

"an expression and mirror of Russian society." The mirror, like the camera lens, only reflects the object. It does not project an idea of its own, accord. The reflection of the image created by the photographer may distort the image.

Belinksij, pursuing his ideological bent, ignores this fact when he speaks of the "Natural School" writers as truthful depicters of "reality" as it is. Art is a process of trans formation which, in his later years, he chose to overlook.

In his review of Dead Souls in 1842 the critic began to forsake his view of support for the objective aspects of 187 art which the Hegelian "reconciliation with reality" period had fostered. Gogol''s work introduced the vision of em pirical reality which he desired. He sees a social message in Gogol''s art. By 1847 and the appearance of Herzen's and

Goncarov's novels this subjective dominance was complete. In

Belinskij's lexicon, "subjective" meant "social message".

His "Review of 1847" part two presents an interpretation of these two novels together with his critical opinions of other contemporary works.

His preference for the subjective element can be noted in his comparison of the two novels. He reduces Kto vinovat? to an essential idea: recognition of suffering at the sight of "unrecognized human dignity, spurned with malice afore thought, and still more without it; it is what the Germans call 'Humanitaet'." (X,343) Belinskij's critical technique is dependent upon the distilling of the work's essential idea. "Everything in the novel Kto vinovat? that pertains to this idea is distinguished by its fidelity to actual life."

(X,343) Herzen, the critic remarks, does not have great poetic talent, his forte is idea. He is more the philosopher than the poet.

The critic contrasts that notion with Goncarov's novel which, he has determined, is a very poetic, artistic work, "and nothing more". He sees no social message in the novel, hence, it is of less value than Herzen's work. He damns with faint praise in referring to Obyknovennaja istorija 188 as an example of pure art. The "art for art's sake" aes thetic position is repeatedly condemned in his writings be cause art needs idea content. In the final analysis, "in

Iskander's [Herzen's] talent, poetry is a secondary agent, and thought is primary; in Mr. GonHarov's talent, poetry is the primary, principal, and sole agent..." (X,344) The form of the art is ignored in favor of the content or message.

If Belinskij sinned against art by the emphasis he placed on ideological content at the expense of artistic form, and we believe he did, this critical method is never theless true to his philosophy of criticism. In the "Dis course on Criticism" he states, "to be a critic means to seek and discover in a particular phenomenon the universal laws of reason, according to and through which a living, breathing organic relationship exists." (VI,267) The or ganic relationship means that the inner unity of a work of art must reside in its convergence with the life of its age, 84 and with its historical sense.

It is on the basis of this dominance of ideological content that Belinskij interpreted Gogol' as the culmination of the historical development of Russian literature. The very term "Natural School" signified "real" in his lexicon.

"Real" signified empirical reality and its representation in literature. He praised the works of the physiologists on this basis. The representation of contemporary reality in the works of the "Natural School" were valued because of the 189 social ills which they illustrated. "It is the critic's task by way of analysis, to transform public opinion into a conscious awareness." (X,205) According to Terras, this notion that art is both a mirror and builder of society is primarily a French ideal. "A poet, by expressing his con cerns of his society, by pointing out its ills and by pre aching humane and progressive ideas would act as society's 8 5 heart and conscience." The scholar goes on to say that

"what Belinskij learned from the French was to see literature as a means of creating and organizing a society, of giving it a certain direction." 86 It is on this basis that Belin skij supported the works of the "Natural School".

Unlike the physiologists who depicted characters in their milieu in rather static fashion, establishing a daguerrotypical norm for the period, the writers of the "Na tural School" saw a conflict in the relationship. This con flict became a literary formula for those writers who pri marily composed works in the social-psychological vein.

These works concern low level civil servants or rural peasant- serfs who are subjected to cruel injustice at the hands of an unfeeling society. The interpretation of "Sinel"' stimulated the resurgence of sentimentalism.

Frequently these downtrodden types hunger for recog nition and cry out for it. This is the so-called "little man with ambition," exemplified by Ostrovskij's Muscovite, and several of Butkov's heroes whom we shall examine below. 190

It was Dostoevskij who explored this motif in his first work

Bednye ljudi (Poor People).

In addition to the social-psychological tale which examined the psychology of the little man, some writers of the "Natural School" emphasized the social-political life of the era. These writers satirized the civil servant or emphasized the depiction of social ills. These included serfdom and the role of women in society as oppressed figures.

They also depicted the life of the so-called active, strug gling raznocinec who became the foundation of the bureaucracy in this mid-century period.

The works of the "Natural School" encompass a period of roughly ten years, from 1840 to 1850. We believe that there are two rather distinct periods. The first is the physiological sketch era which saw its flowering in the first half of the decade with the publication of Nekrasov's Fizio- logija Peterburga in 1845. The second half of the decade saw the development of other genres and the expansion of the man and milieu motif. The physiologists posed the problem in terms of an organic relationship in which man functioned as a part of the larger organism, society. In his role each segment of society had its function to perform, and these writers described empirical reality creating the illusion of daguerrotypicality. The latter period saw the development of a man and milieu conflict with the resulting rather for mulaic result. 191

In the process of confrontation the motif of educa tion evolved to demonstrate the submission of the hero to his social environment. It may be an ironic process as in

The Same Old Story, a satirical devolution into the non-hu man world as in Panaev's tales, or it may be a biting social satire as in §<*edrin's dreary tale. In the process of con frontation we witness the character transformation, the process which "marks" the works of the "Natural School".

Belinskij played a crucial role in the development of this literature. As he passed through the Hegelian philoso phy at the turn of the 1840's he drew others along with him.

He established an organic literary criticism which held that

"art is organically linked with the moral, intellectual, so- 8 7 cial, and national life." This organicism emphasized the inner unity of a work with the life of its age and its his torical sense. The core of the work must be the idea rep resented in it, a work may be judged according to how well it expresses that idea.

It was the works of Nikolaj Gogol' which became the touchstone for Belinskij's criticism. He saw in this writer's works the exposure of social evil. He overlooked that aspect which modern critics value so highly in the gifted artist's prose: his language. In the review of the second edition of

Dead Souls (December 1846), Belinskij notes that one of the minor flaws in the work is the language, "which, in general, is the weakest aspect of Gogol''s talent...fortunately the 192 number of lyrical passages in comparison with the volume of the work is small...one may skip them when reading without losing any satisfaction." (X,51) As Brik noted, for Belin skij, the language is merely wrapping for the idea. To our modern eyes, it is the language which is so exciting in

Gogol''s tales.

"Thus Belinskij took Gogol' as the founder of Russian realism. His works were set on a lower social plane and represented a 'lowering of genre1 which was Closer to Belin- 8 8 skij's empirical reality." Belinskij was persuasive as a moral authority. His historical bias and skill in propa gandizing his point of view led writers to create works along his particular ideological line. The "Natural School" is a response to his ideological purpose. He began a tra dition of social-oriented criticsm in Russia, the roots of which are in the works of the "Natural School".

As Isaiah Berlin notes, Belinskij was above all a moralist. He believed that objective truth was discoverable in nature, in society, in the hearts of men. It was the duty of the artist to tell the truth as he alone could see it and utter it. Since man lives in society and is largely made by 89 society, this truth must necessarily be largely social. He invented a critical method which blurred the line between art and life and as a result derogated from the purity of art. He did not notice that art is also a part of life.

"Do we need to look for some special utilitarianism of 'art' 193 if we do not look for a utilitarianism of 'life'? How many misunderstandings have arisen among cultural historians be cause they took an 'object of art' as an 'object of everyday life'! Whenever everyday life enters literature, it becomes 90 itself literature and should be evaluated as such."

Not all writers of the decade of the 1840's adhered to the strictures of the critical dogma and went in their own directions. Three writers who are commonly grouped with the "Natural School" because they composed many of their works in the decade, but whom we believe worked well beyond the limits of the formulaic writing of the movement, were

Jakov Butkov, Ivan Turgenev, and Fedor Dostoevskij. It is their works which now attract our attention. NOTES TO CHAPTER THREE

^7. G. Belinskij, "Rec' o kritike," Polnoe sobranie socinenij vol. 6 (Moscow, 1955), p. 268. All citations are from this edition and all future references shall be rendered with volume and page number only. 2 Pavel Annenkov, The Extraordinary Decade, trans. by I. R. Titunik (Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press, 196 8). Annenkov's memoirs, written well after the death of Belinskij, shed an interesting perspective on the period. His accounts of the relationship between Belinskij and the members of his group are enlightening. Herzen also presents a personal view of Belinskij's personality in Byloe i dumy. 3 Edward J. Brown, Stankevich and his Moscow Circle 1830-1840 (Palo Alto, CA: Stanford University Press, 1966), p. 12.

^Aleksandr Gercen, Byloe i dumy (Moscow, 1973), p. 342.

^Brown refers to several biographies of Stankevic, among them the reminiscences of Januarij Neverov, Stankevi^'s closest and most trusted friend which, according to Brown, relates very little about the circle. Written during a period of serf reform (1857-1858), the book is not trust worthy concerning Stankevic's position on social issues. Konstantin Aksakov's Reminiscences of My Student Days (1832- 1835) is another source of information concerning Stankevid, which, Brown concludes, makes the fellow into an idealized figure. Herzen's Byloe i dumy is also mentioned as a possible source of data, but Herzen confuses dates and information to such an extent that it is difficult to ascertain a convincing picture of the man. The sum of the material leads us to be lieve that Stankevifi had a personality which attracted a large and devoted following, but due to this devotion, their posthumous accounts are rather unreliable for specific data on the circle. Brown's work goes a long way toward more clearly illuminating the period. g Brown, p. 42. 7 Brown, p. 83.

194 195 g Victor Terras, Belinskij and Russian Literary Cri ticism (Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin Press, 1976), p. 10. 9 Herbert E. Bowman, Vissarion Belinsky 1811-1848. A Study in the Origins of Social Criticism in Russia (Cam- bridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1954), p. 17. 10 Bowman,„ p. 32.

11Bowman, p. 19. 12 Bowman, p. 67. 13 Neither scholar makes in-depth analysis of Herder's contributions to Belinskij's thought, but it does seem evi dent that the German philosopher contributed most of Belin skij 's notions concerning the folk poetry and nationhood motifs. Terras refers to Herder on page 50; Bowman on page 69. 14 Terras, p. 140. 15 Isaiah Berlin, "Vissarion Belinsky," Russian Thinkers (Baltimore, MD: Penguin Books, 1979), p. 160.

"^Berlin, p. 156. 17 Berlin, p. 161. 18 A. G. Cejtlm, "Realizm — Magistral'naja linija literaturnogo razvitija," Istorija russkoj literatury vol. 2 (Moscow-Leningrad, 1963)" p^ 636. Cejtlin basically de velops the line of reasoning which he explored in his mono graph on the physiological sketch. We believe that the cri teria he has developed are too broad. 19 We fxrst found reference to the Bulgarin articles in KuleSov's monograph on the Natural School. See V. I. KuleMov, Natural'naja skola v russkoj literature XIX veka (Moscow, 1965), p. IT! 20 ✓ Jules Janin, L'clne mort et la femme guillotinee (Paris: Flammarion, 1973), p. 16.

V. Vinogradov, Evoljucija russkogo naturalizma (Leningrad, 1929), p. 312. 22 Cited in Vinogradov, p. 301. 196 23 Faddej Bulgarin wrote the editorials during this period for "Severnaja pEela", one of the periodicals leading the opposition to Belinskij and the "Natural School". This editorial is found in "Severnaja pcela", #235, 1845. 24 "Severnaja p£ela", no. 106, 1845. 25 "Severnaja p£ela", no. 235, 1845.

^^KuleSov, p. 22.

2 7 v Jurij Mann, "Celovek i sreda," Voprosy literatury IX (1968), p. 134. 2 8 It is Mann's idea that the identifying character istic of the "Natural School" is the localization feature, in which the writer localized his content, focusing on a specific social type.

Boris Ejxenbaum, "Kak sdelana 'Sinel'' Gogolja,” Literatura (Leningrad, 1927), p. 149-165.

3^*Iosip Brik, "Contributions to the Study of Verse Language," trans. by I. R. Titunik, Readings in Russian Poetics, ed. by Ladislav Matejka and Krystyna Pomorska (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1971), p. 123. 31 v A. N. Ostrovskij, "Zapiski zamoskvoreckogo zitelja," Polnoe sobranie socinenij vol. 13 (Moscow, 1952), p. 16 32 Berlin, p. 160. 3 3 D. V. Grigorovic, "Peterburgskie ^armans£iki," Peterburgskie sarmanl£iki i drugie rasskazy (Moscow, 1960), p. 16.

3 4 V. I. KuleMov, p. 112. Kulesov v expands the argu ment made by Vinogradov. 35 Vinogradov, p. 337. 3 6 D. V. Grigorovi£, Literaturnye vospominanija (Leningrad, 1928), p. 126. Just how reliable these memoirs are is not certain, since they were composed some thirty years after the fact. 3 7 D. V. Grigorovic, "Anton Goremyka," Povesti i rasskazy (Moscow, 1973), p. 53. 197

38Terras, p. 83. Terras goes on to add that during this period Belinskij cam to understand Hegel's idealist aes thetic to mean that a work of art created by a great poet's imagination is superior to any factual rendition of an actual event. This notion flies in the fact of £erny£evskij's later thesis that art and reality have nothing to do with each other. Art is inherently inferior to nature in <5erny- Sevskij's view. Belinskij's understanding of Hegel closely parallels that of Dostoevskij who, in a rebuttal to Dobro- ljubov ("Mr. ov and the Idea of Art"), makes a lengthy argument for this same point, citing the diversity of opinion from a group of spectators who witness an event. "It is the purpose of talent to create an impression." Dostoevskij is concerned with the gift of poetic transformation, which is what Belinskij is pointing toward at this point.

"^Annenkov, p. 6. 40 Annenkov, p. 84. 41 Gercen, p. 496. 42 Terras, p. 58. This Schellingian precept is fil tered through Terras' judgement concerning the development of Belinskij's idea-centered criticism. 43 Annenkov, p. 31. As we shall see in Belinskij's critical analysis of contemporary works, his usual technique is the extraction of lengthy passages from the work and the subsequent analysis of the work's content, i.e., its idea. 44 N. A. Nekrasov, "Muzej sovremenno] mostrannoj literatury," Polnoe sobranie so£inenij i pisem vol. 9 (Moscow, 1949), p. 180. 45 Ibid. 46 .,., Ibid.

^ Ibid. , p. 181.

^Vinogradov, p. 33.

49It is Mann's contention that as the demand for development of individual personalities increased, a con comitant increase in the "demand for the destruction of the physiology" arose. He terms this "anthropologism", a movement in criticism which placed man higher than his temporary po sition in society. He cites PleSceev as a leader in this movement away from physiologism. "That which is placed by nature into the depth of the soul, sooner or later ought to 198 come to the surface; but these are essences which all germs of good are added, by the terrible weight of circumstances, of which they were the victim from early youth." Literature he asserts, must depict these things, but also must depict the reasons why they became as we see them. Jurij Mann, "Celovek i sreda," Voprosy literatury IX (1968), p. 123. 50 Aleksandr Gercen, Kto vinovat? (Moscow, 1969), 42, 51 Ibid., p. 145. 52 Ibid., p. 146. 53 Ibid. 178. 54. Martin Malia, Alexander Herzen and the Birth of Russian Socialism Universal Library (New York: Grosset and Dunlop, 1965), p. 272. 55 Ibid. , p. 273, 56 Malia is most concerned with underlining the reasons for Herzen's development into the premier spokesman for the radical cause after Belinskij's death. His interest in the novel centers on this interpretation. 57 Kto vinovat?, p. 141. 58 Ibid.

^1. S. Goncarov, "Ivan SaviS Pod&abrin, Sobranie so&inenij vol. 8 (Moscow, 1954), p. 13. 60 Ibid., p. 25. 61 Ibid., p. 26. 62 v I. S. Goncarov, Obyknovennaja istorija (Moscow, 1972), p. 17. 63. 'Jurij Mann, "0 dvi£us6ejsja tipologii konfliktov," Voprosy literatury X (1971), p. 93. 64 . This notion is allied with that expressed in his other oft-mentioned article and noted above. Once an indi vidual essence is delineated the process of type breaks down. There are questions raised which cut to the quick of the scientific objectivism of the physiologist, namely, that there are features which may not be identified scientifically. 199

6 6 Goncarov, Obyknovennaja istorija, p. 45.

67Ibid., p. 243.

68Ibid., p. 259. CO I. I. Panaev, "Peterburgskij fel'etonist," Iz- brannye proizvedenija (Moscow, 1962), p. 152.

78I. I. Panaev, "Literaturnaja tlja," Sobranie so- Einenij vol. 2 (Moscow, 1912), p. 341.

71Panaev, "Onagr," Izbrannye proizvedenija, p. 171.

72Ibid., p. 159.

73Panaev, "Akteon," Izbrannye proizvedenija, p. 324.

74M. E. Saltykov-§£edrin, "Zaputannoe delo," So branie so^inenij vol. 1 (Moscow, 1965), p. 205. 75,., Ibid., P- 207. 76,., Ibid., P- 203. 77 Ibid. 7 8 . , Ibid., P- 204. 79 Ibid., P- 208. 80T, . , Ibid., P- 221. 8L,., Ibid., P- 206. 82,., Ibid., P- 227. 83T, ., Ibid., P- 274. 84_ Terras / P- 139

85Ibid., P- 140.

86Ibid., P- 73. 87T, . , Ibid. 88 , . , Ibid., P- 140. 89 Berlin, p. 181,

90Jurij Tynjanov, Problema stixotvornogo jazyka (The Hague: Mouton, 1963), p, 123, CHAPTER FOUR

In previous chapters we have analyzed the physio logical sketch and studied the development of the "Natural

School" as the dominant literary movement in the period of the 1840's. It is recognized, however, that there are writers who represent a sort of underground. This under ground or undercurrent may be an opposing literary movement, and some scholars (notably the Russian Formalist critics V.

V. Vinogradov and Jurij Tynjanov) go so far as to posit a form of literary parody in these underground works which they prefer to term "stylization".^ This is determined to be a less specific critical term. Vinogradov has ascertained that Gogol' wielded a powerful influence in the decade of the

1840's, and others have concluded that writers of the sta ture of Dostoevskij and Turgenev had to overcome that Gogo lian force.^

In this chapter we shall concern ourselves with the writers who diverged from the mainstream of naturalistic prose in an effort to explain the role of naturalist writers in the development of Russian realist prose. We shall exam ine the works produced in the decade by three artists: Jakov

Butkov, Ivan Turgenev, and Fedor Dostoevskij. We shall study the Peterburgskie versiny (The St. Petersburg Heights) by 201 202

Butkov, the early sketches and poetry by Turgenev, and the early works by Dostoevskij.

These writers borrowed the themes and characters popularized by the adherents of the "Natural School" move ment. We shall find titular councillors as heroes. We shall find the oppositions which were the motifs of the move ment: man vs social environment, feeling vs "ras£et", the power of money. Butkov and Turgenev were both proclaimed great contributors to the "Natural School" when their works

The St. Petersburg Heights and Zapiski oxotnika (Notes of a

Hunter), respectively, were published in mid-decade. Belin skij declared that Russia had a "new Gogol'" in Dostoevskij when that writer's Bednye ljudi (Poor People) was pub lished in 1846 because he saw the signs of the earlier mas ter's "Sinel"1 as the core of the novel.

Turgenev and Dostoevskij, as history has shown us, established their own styles and went far beyond the pre scriptions of the "Natural School". They borrowed the motifs of the popular literature, but were not limited by the for mula. Butkov is a transition figure, utilizing more heavily and directly the style and language of Gogol''s prose. It has recently been asserted that he acted as a conduit through which the native Russian literary tradition, which had been 3 so highly developed by Gogol', passed to Dostoevskij. We shall examine his Peterburgskie verSiny in terms of the modifications he made in the prevailing "Natural School" 203 techniques and themes, as a prelude to the more complete dis ruption wrought by the works of Dostoevskij.

Ivan Turgenev is best known for his novels which were published in later decades, but he too, like Dostoev skij, was considered to be a follower of the Belinskij-inspired literature when his first sketches of Russian rural life, subsequently collected and published as Zapiski oxotnika, appeared in 1852. it was a title suggested by Ivan

Panaev, editor of "Sovremennik". His hunter sketches began to appear in 1847. His earlier works provide a better starting point for our discussion.

Turgenev composed two original works for Nekrasov's

1846 almanac Peterburgskij sbornik: the narrative poem

"PomeSSik" ("The Country Gentleman") and the narrative tale

"Tri portreta" ("Three Portraits"). He also submitted trans lations of Byron's "Darkness" ("T'ma") and Goethe's "Roman

Elegy" ("Rimskaja ^legija"). This Nekrasov collection is of some historical interest because it also contained Dosto evskij 's Bednye ljudi.

Nekrasov's Fiziologija Peterburga had been published on 5 April and 28 June, 1845 and met with considerable suc cess. The Peterburgskij sbornik was published 15 January,

1846. Unlike the first work, only Panaev's Parl^skie uve- selenija (Parisian Diversions)may be considered to be a rep resentative of the feuilletonistic genres which dominated the

Fiziologija. The genres of the works changed, from the 204 physiological sketch to tales and a novel.

Turgenev's "Pome£dik" is a rural provincial setting for a work similar to Nekrasov's "£inovnik" ("The Civil Ser vant") both in satirical style and genre. Turgenev came from the rural gentry and knew this milieu from firsthand experience. In the place of a self-satisfied civil servant

Turgenev depicts a self-satisfied, poSlyj member of the provincial gentry. He is introduced to us at the dining table, dressed in his housecoat, "his gentry soul infinitely 4 satisfied." He is a glutton ("He especially loved fatty bliny") (60) and a narrow-minded bigot ("He loved to curse

Germans and Frenchmen after having downed five or six melons") (60) We obtain a complete portrait of our hero in the writer's tour of his "study": the desk and books are dust-covered, papers are strewn about, a dust-covered bust of a wise ancient Greek on the shelf — clearly a place of little use.

Turgenev provides a picture of the gentry class by taking his hero to a neighbor's party where the local digni taries preside. The town politician is present ("everyone knows he takes bribes") (70), as well as the resident army officers. We are introduced to a social lion from the capi tal ("You see, in the country he is a lap dog. The debt co llectors follow him everywhere")(71). The return trip ex poses his lack of a poetic soul. Our narrator launches into a paean to nature: "0 Rus'! I love your fields when, under 205 the bright summer sun, our tender land glistens, brightly, luxuriantly, entirely warm,,."(73) But our hero is fast a- sleep in his carriage. He is rudely awakened when an axle of his carriage shatters and he is hurled into the road. So much for pleasant reveries. He is saved from walking fifteen versts to his estate by the arrival of a neighbor lady who offers him a ride.

This is a satirical twist of the final passage in

Gogol''s Dead Souls. In this lyrical poetic outpouring Go gol' porjects his vision of the Russian future:

And art not thou, my Rus', soaring along like a spirited not-to-be-outdistanced troika? The road smokes under you, the bridges thunder, and everything is left behind you. The one who has witnessed you has come to a stop by God's wonder: is it a bolt of lightening hurled from heaven? What is the unknown power con tained in these steeds, whose like is not known in this world? Ah, these steeds, these steeds, what steeds they are!..and the troika tears along, God- inspired !. .Where are you rushing, Rus'? Give me your answer! But there is none. The bell trills with a wondrous ring; all things on earth fly past and, eyeing it askance, all other peoples and nations stand aside and give it the right of way.

Where Gogol' projects a glorious future, Turgenev's hero's toika collapses in a heap and all he is concerned about is getting home without having to walk.

Turgenev is a bantering narrator, repeatedly inter jecting his sarcasm into the flow of the tale. This 206 chattiness is a mannerism borrowed from PuSkin's Evgenij

Onegin. '’But what about my pome££ik? Isn't it time to fi nally return to him? While we have been jabbering away all the domestic servants have been busy."(70) He even apolo gises for dragging out his tale. "Isn't it time to end my tale now? I am afraid my verses have palled for you. For give me my sins for the purity of my morality," (78)

The sketch loosely reflects a lowering of style from

Evgenij Onegin. In place of the Larin estate we have a coun try house with little activity. In place of Lenskij, the young romantic poet and dreamer, we have Adam Adamy£, the

German tutor who is found in the emotional throes of Plato.

Provincial society here has none of the charm of Pupkin's novel in verse. The poem is an exercise in descriptive de tail in verse form, a satirical portrait suitable for the

Nekrasov collection of physiologies.

An even more direct relationship exists between his narrative poem "Parana", published in the Spring of 1843, and Puskin's work. Here the title heroine is a mock-Tat'jana

(the heroine of Onegin): not a romantic dreamer but an or dinary Russian girl. He reflects the Puskin heroine in con nection with his title character. Some scholars have refer- 6 red to this work as an example of Turgenev's naturalism.

Turgenev knew the members of the Stankevic circle as early as

1841, including Bakunin, Granovskij, and Kavelin, and in late 7 1842 he became acquainted with Belinskij, When viewed from 207

the perspective of his earliest works, romantic-style verse,

the development of Turgenev's talent throughout the early

years of the decade of the 1840's may be considered a move- g ment away from the preoccupation with romanticism. This movement must be understood within the context of his asso

ciation with Belinskij, who was beginning to argue for a more socially-critical literature.

Belinskij waxed ecstatic over "Parana" because he saw

the re-emergence of verse which he considered similar to that

of Lermontov. He interpreted the poem as an example of that

type of poetry which has as its source a "deep sense of 9 reality, a sincere sympathy with everything living." There

is little in the poem which may be regarded as effusively romantic. When Viktor awakens in the garden and sees Parasa, he quite prosaically asks for the time of day. Unlike PuS- kin's hero and heroine who are destined to be unhappy, Tur genev's pair marry and settle into a staid and rather ordi nary married life. Our narrator even returns after an ab

sence of five years and finds Viktor a bit heavier than be

fore, but the couple is still quite happy.

It is the light and bantering narrative which assists

in maintaining reader interest. "I have jabbered long enough

it is time for me to finish. I have bored you and am tired myself. Farewell, my reader] I don't know whether my tale has lulled you to sleep."(58) The substance of the tale is quite ordinary, and the figure of the heroine does little to 208 sustain interest. Nevertheless, it may be noted that it is one of the few works by Turgenev in which the heroine is allowed to live happily ever after.

In 1845 Turgenev composed a short dramatic work en titled "BezdeneS'e ("Penniless"), or "Scenes from the St,

Petersburg Life of a Young Nobleman", This little work il lustrates a familiar theme from the "Natural School", namely, the severe indebtedness of the young provincial living in the capital. This topic may be seen in works by Panaev,

Grebenka, and Butkov: the provincial comes to the city, spends his money freely, buys expensive furniture (usually

English), clothes, and spends money lavishly on entertain ment and gambling. He falls into the clutches of money lenders, all the while promising to pay off his debts as soon as his allowance arrives from his country relative (usu ally a suffering mother),

Turgenev's work is a humorous piece in which the traditional slapstick comic routines are used: costuming, hiding behind the scenes, etc. Our hero, Timofej PetroviS

^azikov, has determined that his sojourn in the capital must come to an end and he must flee his creditors by returning to the country estate. Just as he has made this decision an old friend from the provinces appears, lends our hero the money he needs in return for being shown a good time in the city. Suddenly, the trip to the country does not seem ne cessary, besides, life there is terribly boring. As he goes 209 out on the town with his friend, we have the distinct impression that he will not return to the country after all, but that his spendthrift ways will continue.

Turgenev composed several "dramatic scenes" and minor plays during the 1840's. Most, according to Richard Free born, are derivative. We can see the motifs of the "Natural

School" present in several of them, as well as strong hints of the plays to come in Turgenev's future. "Xolostjak" ("The

Bachelor") (1849), is of interest to us because of the con frontation between feeling and "rasSet". The situation pre sented is similar to that in Obyknovennaja istorija. A Ger man, Rodion Karlovi£ von Fonk a titular councillor, con vinces a young man, collegiate secretary Petr II' i25 Vilickij , that his pending marriage to the orphaned niece of his good friend, Moskin, is not a good idea. Mar'ja Belova is not well-educated and, asserts von Fonk, could be a detriment to a successful career. Vilickij is a bit like Aleksandr Aduev; von Fonk is the Petr Ivanyc character. When Vilickij calls off the marriage, Moskin resolves to marry the girl himself.

Moskin, a shy and retiring fellow, is one of the

"little men" of the period. The 1848 play "Naxlebnik" (."The

Hanger-on"), is the depiction of a buffoon-type character.

Vasilij Semenyc Kuzovkin has been living on 01'ga Eleckaja's estate as a "guest" for years when she returns with her new husband, a bureaucrat who is "heartless". This buffoon, a man without self-respect, plays his part and is ridiculed by 210 the unfeeling Eleckij, He becomes drunk and is trapped into confessing that he is Ol'ga's father. Later, he disavows his remarks and Eleckij buys his silence, sending him to a distant estate.

These plays, of which we have presented only the barest outlines, are of interest to us because of the simi larity in theme with the other works of the period. "The

V Bachelor" was undoubtedly inspired by Gogol,,s "Zenit'ba"

("The Marriage"), and the "Hanger-on" concerns a problem which Dostoevskij will probe in his early works as well: the voluntary buffoon. What is of importance in these dra matic scenes is the lessons Turgenev learned in their compo sition, There is only a hint of the underlying dramatic tension which he would later develop in his works. Con flicts emerge into the open in these scenes: Moskin con fronts Vilickij, Mar’ja confronts Vilickij in "The Bachelor",

Eleckij forces Kuzovkin to play out his role as buffoon.

Later plays will underplay these confrontations. The ten sion will be expected to rise to the surface but may not.

His mature play "Mesjac v derevne" ("A Month in the Country")

(1850) may be considered an example of the use of underlying dramatic tension.

We shall also find tension in the Notes of a Hunter.

The first sketch of what was to become Zapiski oxotnika was published in "Sovremennik" in 1847. This sketch, "Xor1 i

Kaliny^", was received enthusiastically by virtually all 211 contemporary critics. The editor of "Moskvitjanin" had high praise for the sketch and expressed the hope that "Mr.

Turgenev continue on this path,"^ Belinskij, as one would expect, extolled the work because of its critical treatment of the institution of serfdom. The Slavophil critics wel comed the work for several reasons. Firstly, Turgenev was a member of their own class, the landed gentry. He was not a raznoffinec like many in the Belinskij camp of Westernizers.

They expected a more truthful look at rural life. Secondly, the Slavophils, like their counterparts, rejected the in stitution of serfdom and called for its abolition.

Our purpose in examining the Zapiski oxotnika is to show Turgenev's link to the physiological sketch genre and the "Natural School" movement of the 1840's, and, at the same time, explore the ways in which he diverged from the group and became independent of this group's ideologically- bound literature. We shall examine the role of the narrator in these sketches, as well as the role of descriptive detail, speech "samples", and other attributes of the "physiological sketch" genre which had become so popular. As we shall de termine from this examination, Turgenev abandoned the genre because of the artistic restrictions placed upon him by the

"Natural School".

The appearance of these sketches coincided with, the general trend which had existed since the 183Q's; the de scription of peasant life. Works by Berthold Auerbach 212

(.Schwar zwalder Dorfgeschichten\ (.1843) and George Sand

(.Jeanne) contributed to the popularity of the native works produced by GrigoroviS ("Anton Goremyka" and "Derevnja") in

1847, Panaev reportedly requested material from Turgenev because he had some extra space in his publication.

We do not maintain that Turgenev was a "physiologist" and can be categorized with Panaev, GrigoroviS, et al. His

Zapiski oxotnika were recognized by contemporaries as part and parcel of the "Natural School" because of the sketch form and subject matter. Those two details plus his close acquaintance with Belinskij facilitated a successful entry onto the literary stage. However, Turgenev went far beyond the restrictions of the physiological sketch and the relative ly narrow limits of the "Natural School".

With Turgenev's works we have reached a higher plateau.

Unlike Belinskij and the writers who surrounded him and fol lowed his artistic ideas, Turgenev did not confuse empirical and poetic reality. His realism is not daguerrotypical or excessively documentary, but reflects a poetic transformation of the realistic details he depicts. The first sketch, "Xor' i KalinyJS" is constructed as a contrastive study of the two peasant types. Turgenev begins his contrasts in the broadest vein, the differences between the peasants in Orel and Kaluga provinces. These differences are recorded as physical manifestations of their economic conditions, as the narrator describes the huts, costume, shoes, and physical 213

settings of the two areas. Eventually the narrator intro

duces the two peasants, separately. Later he provides a

direct comparison: "The two friends were not in the least

similar, Xor' was a positive, practical fellow, an adminis

trator, a rationalist. Kaliny£, on the other hand, belonged

to the category of idealists, romantics, enthuiasts, and

dreamers . . . "^

The details of the description are external as the

narrator recounts his observations. Polutykin tells the

hunter abour Xor1, then he meets the fellow, then Xor' and

Kaliny£ meet. It is the opposition of character types which

seems to interest Turgenev and this opposition is used to

create reader interest as well. Xor1 is a clever fellow

and knows how to get ahead, always questions the master and

discovers how to get around him. Kalinyc is "a man of the

happiest and most gentle character one could imagine."(79)

He is a child of nature and is more attuned to its intri

cate signals than Xor',

The narrator describes many details of their country

lives. Note the description of Xor''s hut: "There were none

of the colored prints stuck to the clean boarding of the walls; in the corner, in front of the heavy icon with its

crust of silver, an oil-lamp glimmered; the table of lime- wood had been freshly scraped and washed,.."(77) These par

ticular details set the stage much as a physiologist would

to prepare for the entrance of his subject. However, the 214

narrator reveals his divergence from this particular pattern

by phrases such as "Fedja happily lifted up the dog, which

wore a constrained smile, and set him on the bottom of the

cart.” (77) One would not necessarily find dogs wearing con

strained smiles or pigs "grunting reflectively” in other

physiological sketches. Turgenev anthropomorphologizes the

creatures. The details are not included for documentation

purposes.

The narrator serves as the unifying force of the work.

The connections between the two men are completed only

through the device of the narrator. The first p e r s o n : .nar^

ration brings an immediacy to the reader as the flavor of

an eyewitness account unfolds. The hunter is not the chat

terer of "Parana": his is a more "serious" topic and not

satirizing a provincial gentry character, or playing with the

attributes of another literary work (e.g. Onegin), These

so-called peasant tales were educative in function, "the

lower classes being studied most of all in their differences 12 from educated society, as curiosities." There are elements of that educational function in the work as the narrator

learns how landowners cheat their serfs, how the peasants

live and treat their families.

This first sketch is different from the remaining twenty-four in the completed collection. It is the most

"physiological" of the group, being structured around the two personality types and composed as a series of contrasts. 215

The progress of the narrative is furthered predominantly by a series of author descriptions. At the same time there are introduced into the sketch many of the elements which are present in the following sketches. The action between Xor' and Kaliny£ is initiated by the meeting between Polutykin and the hunter-narrator, and the two character-types. Most of the sketches are constructed along these same lines: the hunter meets a fellow and listens to a tale, or relates an incident to the reader. The location of the meeting is usually supplied. "In the evening the hunter Ermolaj and I..

.A quarter of an hour before sunset, during the Spring..,"(88)

("Ermolaj i me l ’ni£ixa") "At the beginning of August the heat frequently becomes overpowering. During this season, from twelve to three..."(100) ("Malinovaja voda") "It was a beautiful July day..." (1.59)( "Bezin lug") "Give me your hand dear reader, and follow me. The weather is glorious; the May sky is a tender blue..."(265)("Tat'jana Borisovna i plemjannik")

One of the ostensible reasons for writing these ske tches was to depict peasant life and that peasant existence could not be drawn without noting the problem of serfdom.

During the forties, Turgenev was considered a member of the

Belinskij camp. The Notes of a Hunter was serially published over a period of five years (with the exception of three of the sketches: "Konec Certopxanova", "Zivye mo§ci", and "Stu-

Xit’I" which were written in 1872 and 1874), appearing in 216

"Sovremennik", the publication of the Westernizer group. So cially-burdened literature was a major tenet of Belinskij's criticism and it was for that reason that he promoted the

"Natural School" works.

It is interesting to examine the sketches in terms of the period in which they were composed, for the final arrangement of the works into the collected volume does not reflect the order in which they were written, Turgenev com posed eight sketches in 1847: "Xor1 i Kaliny£", "Ermolaj i mel'ni^ixa", "Moj sosed Radilov”, "Odnodvorec Ovsjanikov",

"L'gov", "Burmistr", "Kontora", and "Petr Petrovi£ Karataev".

With the exception of "My Neighbor Radilov" each of these sketches has a strong flavor of the injustice of serfdom.

The miller's wife, a former house servant, had been denied permission to marry the man of her own choosing and had been shipped off by her mistress to become the wife of the miller and suffer an unwanted, unhappy fate. Ovsjanikov relates to the narrator a tale of his father's beating over some land,

"there was nothing good in the old days."(130) "The Bailiff" presents a horrible picture of cruelty as the landowner ab dicates his responsibility for the well-being of his serfs by allowing his bailiff ("a born administrator") to run roughshod over the peasants. The narrator reveals the true nature of the estate operation by noting that as the bailiff stoodin the doorway, "I managed to get a glimpse of the bai liff's wife quietly beating another woman in the passage," 217

(206). Such a powerful example of understatement is unlikely to be found in GrigoroviX’“s tales, for example, who insisted on attempting to prove how the serfs were mistreated, Tur genev provides a grim picture of life by the use of the phrase "quietly beating".

The sketches composed in 1848 ("Malinovaja voda",

"Uezdnyj lekar1", "Birjuk", "Lebed j an ’11, "Tat’j ana Borisovna i plemjannik", and "Smert’") also reflect a strong repre sentation of the landlord-serf relationship, although this motif has subsided. Turgenev is more interested in repre senting the serfs and peasants in their own milieu. "Malino vaja voda" contains an episode of landlord cruelty, but the thrust of the sketch is the representation of the two peasants in the natural setting of the spring. The evocation of the natural background, which Turgenev will come to use so effec tively in later works, is present in many of these early sketches. The stifling summer day serves as an appropriate backdrop to the stifling lives these serfs lead.

In comparing these Turgenev sketches with those by the physiologists such as Dal' or Grigorovi£, we may note several distinctions. The peasants represented by Turgenev are not depicted at their daily labors. They are removed from their routine when the narrator encounters them. We do not envision any plowing or working the land by these "repre sentatives of the peasant society". The question naturally arises whether these are representative peasants at all. 218

Dal' depicted his janitor at his daily labors and included

native dialectal speech as documentary evidence. He was

primarily an ethnographer, interested in people as social

types,

Frequently these lyrical nature passages reflect the

unity of the peasant with nature. The hunter’s companion,

Ermolaj, is an example of such a type. His attitude toward

his dog, "Why should I feed him? A dog is a clever beast and

should be able to find his own food,"(89) is a commentary

on the attitude his master has toward him. He has a "native"

sense. This is one of the major distinctions between these

sketches andGrigorovic's tales: the latter is intent on de

picting the horrors of serfdom and infusing his works with

sentimentality. Turgenev's peasants have an innate nobility which surfaces in spite of their hardships. The peasant in

"Raspberry Water" who has just walked back from Moscow to which he had journeyed for relief from his high rents, only

to be denied and thrown out by the landlord, faces his dilemma with a strength of purpose, "The peasant told us the whole

story with a grin, as if he were talking about someone else;

but on his small and shrunken eyes a little tear hovered, his

lips twitched,.."(108) In the face of being "quietly beaten"

he exhibits a sense of the nature of things.

In 1849 Turgenev composed only three sketches, one of which, "Les i step'" ("Forest and Steppe"), was intended to

be the epilogue for the collection. "He had not determined 219

the content and volume of this ’'poem from peasant life’, 13 and in 1849 he thought about not continuing the series,"

This sketch retained its epilogue status in the final assem blage of the sketches in 1883, The two other sketches of that year, "£ertopxanov i Nedopjuskin" and "Gamlet S^igrov-

skogo uezda", reflect the change in Turgenev's emphasis, away

from the serf-landlord motif toward his notions of the "uni versal types", which he later labelled Don Quixote and Ham

let, Succeeding years' sketches are witness to a continua tion of the movement away from the serf problem. Some critics have asserted that the immediate cause of this shift in em phasis was due to the death of Belinskij in 184 8 and the loss of his immediate influence, the failure of the revolutions in Europe in 1848 to establish fundamental social change, and, not the least of all, the development of Turgenev's 14 talents,

The year 1850 saw the publication of "Pevcy" ("The

Singers"), and "Svidanie" ("The Meeting"). "Be^in lug"

("Bezin Meadow") was published in 1851 together with "Kas’jan of Fair Springs", Only one sketch was published in 1852,

"Dva pomescika" ("Two Landowners"). There was a twenty-year hiatus after the publication of this sketch in 1852. It was not until 1872 that "Konec Sertopxanova: ("The Death of Cer- topxanov") appeared and, two years later, in 1874, the final two works were published, "Zivye mosci" ("The Live Relic") and "Stucit’i" ("The Knocking"), 220

While there are admittedly similarities with the genre of the ''physiology", Turgenev's prose is not daguerrotypical,

Just how like the peasants of Orel Province are Xor', Kaliny£,

Kas'jan, Ovsjanikov, and the rest? These are not Orel or

Kaluga Provinces in the 1840's, "These are images of Tur genev's spiritual condition dressed in the figures, life- 15 styles (byt), and psychology of Orel peasants," That is the prerogative of the artist, "Any vision is the selection and combination of subjectively-selected signs of reality, but the artist's vision is the most selective selection and design. The traits of byt and psyche, from which Kas'jan is extracted were really from Orel Province in the 1840's, but only among the teeming multitude of other distinguishing and opposing traits; Turgenev selected these and through creative power imitated nature, made a complete image from them." 16 It was the purpose of Dal' as ethnographer, for in stance, to record the lifestyles of his urban types, Turgenev was not interested in documentation.

Over the period of the first five years in which the majority of the sketches appeared Turgenev's attitude toward the peasants changed. The first works of '47 and '48 depict the relationship between peasants and landlords, often in an openly tendentious manner. "Ermolaj and the Miller's Wife",

"L'gov", "Raspberry Water", tend to accentuate the theme of man's inhumanity to man. The later sketches are more revealing of peasant life and attitudes. "Pevcy" (1850) is a 221 masterful description of a singing contest in which the native talents of these ordinary people are revealed. Even in this work the touch of the physiology is present. He de scribes the country tavern in a manner which seems like Dal1.

Without a doubt few of my readers have had the opportunity to look inside a country tavern; but our brother, the hunter, drops in any place 1 The arrangement of these taverns is remarkably simple. They usually consist of dark canopies and a white hut, divided in two by a partition behind which none of the customers is allowed. A large longitudinal opening has been cut in this partition over a broad oak table. On this table or counter, the drink is sold. Sealed flasks of various sizes stand on shelves in rows directly opposite the opening. In the front portion of the hut, in that area open to the customers, are benches, two or three empty barrels, and a corner table. (295)

This passage is remarkable for its clarity of description and detail. However, having described the tavern Turgenev resumes his tale of the singing contest. The description of the tavern is not included because Turgenev is documenting country taverns for the urban readers. The above paragraph sets the stage for the action which is to follow.

The following year, 1851, saw the appearance of two more remarkable sketches, "Bezin lug" and "Kas’jan s krasi- voj me£i". The former depicts a group of Russian youngsters possessing vivid imaginations and artistic ability, much like 222 the peasant singers in the previous year's sketch. The struc ture of the sketch is roughly the same as the others, The narrator provides the time of year (July), and the location.

The narrator overhears the boys1 nighttime telling of ghost stories. The natural setting and description of the boys around the fire at night provides the mysterious touch ne cessary to the ghost stories to follow.

"Kas'jan" is the portrait of a native faith-healer,

It is the image of the fellow which evokes the memory of the

Russian "dvoeverie": Orthodoxy and animism. The description of the natural setting reveals Kas'jan's closeness with nature.

In the brush, in the small scrub, and in the clearings, you will often find small gray fowl flitting from tree to tree, whistling and suddenly swooping as they fly. Kas'jan imitated them and conversed with them; a young quail flew up chirruping from under his feet, and he chirruped back at it...The weather was magnificent, even better than earlier; there was no relief from the sweltering heat...For a long time Kas'jan and I tramped around the clearing. Young saplings, not more than two feet high, surrounded the low and blackened tree trunks with their slender, smooth stems...(188)

Kas'jan proceeds to "charm" the birds away from the hunter because he believes that hunting is sinful. Certain creatures are set aside by God for man, but there are free fowl and to kill for sport is wrong. He is the evocation of the ancient 223 poet-magician.

There are many analyses which are applicable to these sketches concerning their structure and artistic de sign. We will not perforin such analyses which are not ap plicable to our thesis. We link these early sketches to the motifs and characters which dominated the Russian literary scene in the decade of the 1840's known as the "Natural

School". One of the motifs is that of man and his environ ment. We have shown that the writers of this movement posed this relationship as a conflict. Turgenev was also posing this relationship in Zapiski oxotnika; man and his natural environment.

Mixail GerSenzon notes that the epigraph for this work could appropriately be the words from a letter Turgenev wrote to Count Lambert in 1856 in which he said: "One should 1 study in nature its true and peaceful course, its humility."

We can see that the characters who see the course of nature and understand it, Xor', Kaliny#, Kas'jan, Ovsjanikov, are at peace. Kas'jan, the faith-healer, speaks with the birds and "charms" them away from the hunter. Turgenev points out that those who cannot understand or who try to change things, struggle in vain. The "Hamlet" of Scigrovo is one such figure. In him, ego is dominant.

Turgenev divided human nature into two major cate gories which he identified with the two figures of world li terature: Hamlet and Don Quixote. The "Hamlets" of the world are condemned to inaction and unhappiness because of their incessant reflection. The "Don Qhixotes" are men of action but may suffer defeat because of their lack of reflection.

"The problem of Turgenev's young life was how to live.

There are no paths back to nature for modern, bifurcated man. But this bifurcation is torture. With the loss of wholeness he is powerless and unhappy. He is enervated ar- 18 v v. txculatxons." Kas'jan is beautxful; Hamlet of Scxgrovo xs ugly. Gersenzon goes on to note that the "wholeness of the 19 spirit is in the image of the bird." We may recall that

Kas'jan has a deep perception of the bird's nature and can communicate with them. It is also interesting that the hunter/narrator is always hunting birds, shooting them. Here is "modern" man destroying the image of wholeness, creating his own unhappiness.

Richard Freeborn has referred to these two sketches as "minor masterpieces" because of Turgenev's ability to create universally acceptable types. 20 Indeed, one may see the evolution of Turgenev's art in them. The earliest sketches were studies in physiological types, developed by a series of contrastive portraits. This idea of contrast or oppositions runs throughout his creative work (note the op position of the two human "types"). Later sketches are no longer representations of generalized peasants, but individ uals with human characteristics. The strictures of the phy siological sketch were not suitable for Turgenev’s art. 225

Where GerMenzon believes that artistic objectivity is subjectively an illusion and objectively no more than a stylistic device, Victor Terras believes that Turgenev's aesthetic philosophy was eclectic. He cites two letters written by the author in 1855 and later, in 1868, to sub stantiate his claim. In a letter dated June 29, 1855 the writer says to Botkin, that "there are epochs when litera ture cannot remain merely art, when there are interests higher than poetic interests." So, the writer becomes an enlightener, a public figure, an intellectual leader whose 21 literary works are immediately "useful". His Zapiski oxotnika may be viewed in such a light. In this period he was still affected by Belinskij's presence and the early sketches were hailed as monuments to the abolition of serfdom.

In a letter to Jakov Polonskij dated January 14,

1868 he wrote "One cannot deny all these Slepcovs, Re^etni- kovs, Uspenskijs, et al. have ability — but where is inven tion, power, fiction, imagination, where? 'Why, this way 22 we're closer to the truth,' they think." In these early works, which are closest to the "Natural School of all, (and we have noted how restrictive the formula was for his art), we see the power of his imagination. "The Singers" and "Bezin

Meadow" are masterpieces of imaginative fiction.

Turgenev's works are not confined to one plane of representation. He does not allow his hunter to don the 226

apparel of the natural scientist as he tramps through the

countryside with his dog and his guides. Everything enters

the sketches through the eyes of the hunter, with the excep

tion of the late sketch "Konec Certopxanova" in which there

is an omniscient narrator. The hunter is reporter and ob

server of the scene, but there is little of the doumentary

flavor so often present in the physiologies. Turgenev is

not content merely to describe the external features of a

characteristic social or professional type in his milieu and point out the social ills which drove the human specimen into

confrontation with the environment. Turgenev explored the

character behind the facade. In a letter to Pauline Viardot

dated January 1848, he wrote: "art is not a daguerrotype".

He attempts to distinguish his art from that of the physi

ologists .

The descriptions of natural settings which are used by the physiologists to shock the reader by their sordid de

tail are used by Turgenev to set the tone or atmosphere of

the piece and are not present for the purposes of authenticity of reportage. In "Be^in lug", for example, in which the ghost stories are told by village boys, the sketch begins with the hunter's disorientation in the area he thought he knew well. "Instead of the plateau which I expected and knew...I saw totally different, unknown places."(160) Not only is the hunter lost, the landscape and the approach of night intensifies the effects of mystery. "Immediately an 227 unpleasant, stagnant dampness surrounded me, as if I had entered a cellar...walking over it was somehow eerie...Bats were darting above the slumbering treetops..."(160) The descriptive details serve to enhance the impact of the work and are not present merely to create the illusion of "real" setting.

Turgenev's use of descriptive detail frequently fol lows this pattern. In "Pevcy" the portrait he paints in the opening paragraphs of the ravine and village (the village itself is not described since the hunter never really enters a village in these sketches to describe "how the peasants live") serves to intensify the incongruity of these talented singers in the "cheerless site". In "Birjuk" the nighttime thunderstorm enhances the emotional conflict within the game warden himself.

Turgenev also does not supply peasant jargon or idioms for the purpose of documenting the lives of his sub jects. He is not an ethnographer like Dal1 who is fascina ted with nonstandard language. The dialecticisms and bits of peasant language serve to highlight the distinctiveness of his characters. The Zapiski oxotnika are not documentary portraits of peasant life.

Unlike Turgenev who shed the image of a "Natural

School" writer, Jakov Butkov has been considered a leading member of the group since his own time. One reason may be the fact that Tugenev lived to produce great works well 228 beyond the era of the naturalists, whereas Butkov died before he could escape the permanent connection with the period. He died in 1856 at the age of thirty-three. This rather ob scure writer has been called the "founder of the sentimental 23 naturalist tale," and a writer who was "born in the cru- 24 cible of the Natural School." Recently, however, a study has been made of Butkov's works from the vantage of a gro tesque theory of art which hypothesizes an evolutionary link between Gogol' and Dostoevskij supplied by Butkov. Peter

Hodgson has argued for a classifying term which more properly identifies Butkov and a few other writers of the 1840's as rebels against Belinskij's ideologically-loaded literature. 25 He calls Butkov a "reluctant naturalist". We shall have occasion to comment on Hodgson's thesis below.

It becomes clear from even an initial reading of

Butkov's sketches and tales that this writer is more directly in a line from Gogol' than other naturalists. His tales are marked by an overt grotesquerie and humor which the ten dentious tracts of the "Natural School" lack. While the

Gogolian flavor is present in the works of the "Natural

School" writers (the poor civil servant as hero, the episodes of vaudeville humor, the emphasis on low details from reality all of which are borrowed from Gogol'), Butkov seems to ridi cule many of these naturalist trappings. We are interested in this writer because he does not fit the template which is obvious to anyone who peruses the works of the 1840's. We 229 believe that he did, in fact, diverge from the mainstream of works produced in the decade, and may be viewed as one who exposed the flaws in the "Natural School" formula.

The work which is most widely referred to in the standard literary histories is his Peterburgskie versiny 2 6 (The St. Petersburg Heights), published in 1845 and 1846.

It is a collection of stories consisting of two parts and

Introduction. Part One (Autumn 1845) consists of the In troduction, "Porjado&iyj £elovek" ("A Proper Gentleman"),

"Lentocka" ("The Ribbon"), "Po£tennyj Selovek" ("An Honor able Gentleman"), "Bitka" ("The Go-getter"), and "Sto rublej" ("One Hundred Rubles"). Part Two contains "Pervoe

Xislo" ("Pay Day"), "Xorosee mesto" ("A Comfortable Position"), and "Partikul'jarnaja para" ("The Dress Suit"). Our dis cussion of these works will concern the elements of the phys iology and "Natural School" poetics present in the tales showing how Butkov altered the established patterns.

The "Nazidatel'noe slovo o petexburgskix verSinax"

("An Edifying Word about the St. Petersburg Heights") elabo rates the rationale for the stories which follow in a manner typical for the "Natural School" writers. Bemoaning the fact that writers have been too selective in their subjects, the

"editor" establishes a new perspective from which to view the metropolis" vertically. Literature heretofore was written about and for those who resided in the middle, this is where the well-to-do lived. In actual fact, Butkov asserts, over 230 half of the city's population resides in the basements and on the upper floors of the large houses. The people who live on the uppermost floors, the St. Petersburg "heights", have a great deal in common with those who live in the basements, although there are differences which may never be surmounted.

"The ascent of the fellow to the heights, like any ascent, is incomparably more complicated than the corresponding move from there to the depths. The low people, like swamp plants, strongly hold on to their soil, and the soil holds them."(31)

The stories which follow will be the stories of these forgot ten people. "These strange inhabitants of the sub-nebular heights of St. Petersburg occupy the first place in the following sketches, and we consciously did not give the name

St. Petersburg Sketches or any such name which refers to St.

Petersburg in general to these sketches. Here, special people act, people St. Petersburg may not even know, people who com prise not society, bu the crowd [tolpa]."(31)

Butkov has hoisted the flag of the "Natural School" writers: he will write about the forgotten "little man", who is also decent and worthy of literary depiction. But, how serious is he in this depiction? The comments made about the downtrodden population of the city which he makes in this in troduction, are the only such comments in the entire cycle.

One must also have doubts about the seriousness of purpose, for example, when he describes the female residents and the progress of love. "Rising in the St. Petersburg heights, 231 she makes love on the second floor, curses love on the third, suffers for love on the fourth, sells her love on the fifth, and dies from the consequences of love still higher, under the very roof, in that lodging which doesn't even have a name for the floor, called simply: an upper corner." (31)

There is more of the flavor of the physiological sketch in a review of the work. "All the fourth, fifth, and sixth floors of the capital city of St. Petersburg fell under the inexorable knife of Butkov. He took them, cut them off, took them home, cut the joints and distributed them in the 27 world as parts of his anatomical preparations." What we find in the sketches are depictions of titular councillors, and copy clerks, and collegiate registrars attempting to sur vive in the bustling city.

"Porjado£nyj celovek" ("A Proper Gentleman") con cerns one Lev Sili£ CubukeviS, a fourteenth rank collegiate registrar who lives on the fifth floor of a large Petersburg house. His "garret" can only be reached by ascending "a nar row, dirty, and dark staircaseff" (34) where this drudge (his co-workers call him "losad'") carries out his meager exis tence. His name is noteworthy: this meek retiring fellow,

"whom deprivation and need had turned into a writing machine,"

(34) is named Lev ("lion") Silic (from "sila", strength).

This weak fellow with the powerful name, is totally submis sive. "There was no job, no humiliation he would not bear silently and patiently. The recognition of the insignificance 232 and hopelessness of his situation destroyed all traces of ego in him."(34)

He begins his life in the sketch as a genuine re production of Akakij Akakievi£. But his life changes drama tically when he hosts a few of his office mates and his boss at a party in honor of his promotion. He wins one hundred rubles at cards and the possession of money has a profound impact on his demeanor. He begins to notice how other people live. He notices that they are not ridiculed and mocked.

When he is late to the office he marches straight to his desk, through the front door, even when two hours late!

Formerly he had sneaked in by a circuitous route and apolo gized to his boss when only fifteen minutes late. "Inside of a month he seemed to be genuinely a 'proper gentleman', no one would have recognized in him his former humble, thought less, liver-eating self."(39) He dines in the best restaur ants, learns a few Italian opera arias, discusses trifles, andgrows lazy at the office. Eventually he finds a suitable bride and becomes "an honorable gentleman".

In his review of Peterburgskie versiny Belinskij notes that "Gogol' had a powerful influence on Mr. Butkov's talent. Especially the figure of Akakij Akakievic is re flected in his heroes. Cubukevic, the hero of his first tale, is at first very similar to Akakij AkaieviS, but then, by some miracle known only to the author, he becomes thin, bold, and a brazen knave." (IX,357) Belinskij was clearly 233 more comfortable with the downtrodden Lev Sili£ of the open ing pages.

The hero of "Lentocka" ("The Ribbon") is not so fortunate in his desire to attain personal happiness. We recall that the physiologists and writers of the "Natural

School" who composed works which concentrated on life in the capital emphasized two items undeniably necessary for suc cess: money and rank. Ivan Anisimovi#, hero of "Lentocka", is a modest copy clerk. Butkov describes hims in a most humorous manner. The fellow is, he begins, of another gen eration: "The passion of the younger generation is to judge and think about various abstract notions."(57) Not so our hero: he is twenty-seven years old but will not ponder the serious questions of the age. He has sat in the same chair, at the same desk, in the same office, at thesame salary for ten years. He is valued only for his calligraphic talent.

No one pays any attention to him. This modest fellow is acrophobic. He lives in the basement for three reasons: it is cheap, it is impossible to fall out of a window, and one can swim on one's suitcase during a flood.

This poor devil falls in love with his German land lord's daughter because she plays the piano. In his mind she "could be compared only with a clear, bright little star in the heavens, or a fresh, airy biscuit on earth."(60) His hopes for marriage rise dramatically when he receives a rib bon of merit from his superior. The irony of it is that he 234

receives the ribbon because he can't think! The superior wants a secretary who can keep the office secrets. It seems

that Ivan AnisimovicS copies his work without reading it, so

the office secrets are safe! He can copy ("perepisat'") but he cannot write ("so^injat"') . When he proudly shows his

ribbon to his "Minxen", his hopes are shattered: she already has one. "Who doesn't have one these days! Here's one. My

fiance gave me his!"(65)

Ivan Anisimovic came out of his shell when he heard

the piano music. He essentially dreams that he can win his prize because of his merit award. He is crushed at her re sponse. He immediately leaves, saying he has some copying

to finish. His semi-delirious "Minxen...Minocka...Lentocka!"

(reminiscent of Germann in Puskin's "Pikovaja dama") demon strates that he is prostrate in the face of fate. Butkov has made him such a comic figure that the consequences of

fate arouse no pity in us. He is a poor devil, but the

grotesquerie outweighs the pity. He is the butt of Butkov's satire.

Money, not status, is the subject of "Poctennyj celovek" ("An Honorable Gentleman"), in which the hero is anything but "honorable". The narrator, beset by creditors,

(a familiar circumstance in St. Petersburg), sets out to find

a subject for an article he can write and earn some needed money. He meets an old acquaintance, a "mediocre civil ser vant (whose name, Pa£kunov, derives from the word for "hack") 235 and even more mediocre writer,"(68) who has done very well in the world since last they met. It seems that the "honor able fellow" is a swindler: he raised a fortune by falsely advertising financial aid for the poor and unfortunate. His reputation as a philanthropist creates demand for his mediocre poetry. He is not merely a "genius" (so described because of his work on Russian history, written without bene fit of historical sources), but an "honorable gentleman".

The motif was a hackneyed one used by Panaev.

"Bitka" ("The Go-getter") is a similarly ironic tale about a fellow who is anything but ambitious. This tale is a good example of Butkov's ability to construct a plot around the slimmest of threads. He begins with a lengthy discussion of the problem of genius (the topic he had touched upon in the previous sketch), introduces our hero, and immediately launches into a digression concerning taverns, their hours of operation, wares, and clientele, before returning to the hero and the history of his lost hopes. In the digression he has managed to discuss railroads, affairs in China, asses sed the qualities of different types of vodka, tavern buffets, and specialties. The sketch is filled with puns, humorous names (Kuz'ma Terent'eviS — Terentij Kuz'mic, Mitjuxa —

Andrjuxa) and complex expressions: "Traktir, gorot kytaj, izdavna slavitsja, a v traktire slavitsja bufetcik, osobennym prigotovleniem 'Adamovyx slez1, po novejSemu, usoversenstvo- vannomu sposobu, i mnogie, ocen' mnogie xoro^ie ljudi 236

uslaSdajut svoi goresti ebtimi gor'kimi slezami..." ("The ta vern, the gorot Kytaj, has long been celebtrated, and in

the tavern the bartender is famed for the special prepara

tion of "Adam's tears", according to the latest, most ad vanced technique, and many, very many good people ease their misfortunes by these bitter t e a r s . (85) The sketch ends on

a rather elegiac note as the hero, Samson Samsonovi£ (also

ironic), wistfully recalls the twenty years past that he had been referred to as a "go-getter". This fellow had failed

in his bid for fame and status, and is reduced to spending his time in a dark corner of the neighborhood tavern.

In "Sto rublej" ("The One Hundred Rubles") Butkov begins with another topic which fascinates him: the power

of money. He may have been intrigued by the subject because he was so desperately poor himself (he died in a charity hospital). The poor devil of the sketch is a figure directly

out of the "Natural School" (and in his review of the work

Belinskij liked this story most of all): the lowest copy

clerk in his office, supporting a widowed mother and sister.

This fellow's self-esteem could hardly be any lower. "When he was sixteen there was no place or vacancy anywhere in all

St. Petersburg — neither in school the chancellery, any where" (89) and he has been faced with "no vacancy" signs ever since. He only knows how to copy and can find no po

sition. After he manages to land a job, he doesn't survive

until the first pay day: the position has been cancelled. 237

Avdej ApollonoviX, our hero, does find a lowly job

in a business office. There he is befriended by another

clerk who buys a lottery ticket for him. The grand prize is

100 rubles. Avdej, beaten down by adversity all his life,

sees no hope of winning the prize. Nevertheless, he dreams

of the possibility of helping his poor mother and sister. In

fact, he is a dreamer, much in the line of Dostoevskij's Vas-

ja Sumkov ("Slaboe serdce"): he would rather dream about win ning than to see whether he has won. He does win, but he

loses his mind from the news. He pours forth "a terrible, unnatural laughter."(103) He cannot stop laughing. In a

final twist of irony his friend takes him to the asylum only

to learn that, for this patient, "net vakancii!" (no vacancy!)

(104).

Part Two of Peterburgskie ver^iny begins with a sketch concerning the most magic of days: pay day. Even the

St. Petersburg weather (rainy and gloomy) is ignored: The

"sun shines, the moon glistens, and the stars burn brighter and more luminously... and in the St. Petersburg heights ac tivity is aroused, noisy gaiety reigns. The tiny sub-nebular cells, falsely called 'furnished rooms, water, separate en trance, and 'firewood' are lighted by whole candles..."(105)

Our heroes, resminiscent of Ivan Ivanovi# and Ivan Nikiforo- vi£ because of their mirror-like reflection of each other, or Bob£inskij and DobSinskij (all Gogolian characters) are

Evtej Evseevic and Evsej Evteevic, who live together in one 238 of those places between the eaves and the roof of a five- storey house, equidistant between the earth and the moon.

Fate has played a nasty trick on these two: their natural abilities (or lack thereof) and positions in life are reversed. One copies while he enjoys thinking and cre ating; the other is chief assistant in an important position but dreams of being a copy clerk. The entire sketch is built on ironic twists of fate. Evtej is a great thinker but is carried away by the pleasures of the moment: he cannot save a kopeck of his salary. Being a thinking, reasoning man, he has "iron will power." He has his pay in his pocket, has determined to pass by the tavern and go home. The next thing he knows he has entered the shop and has ordered a glass of the latest "most advanced" liquor. He enters into a philosophical discussion, eats and drinks up his entire month's salary.

Both of our heroes' superiors have decided to marry off their mistresses to Evsej and Evtej. They have not sur mised that she is a "fallen woman" and go ahead with plans to marry. The tale comes to a bitter conclusion when Evtej arrives unexpectedly at his intended's apartment only to find

Evsej already there: both superiors have the same mistress.

Evtej, in anger, throws his frock coat into the fireplace when he returns home, only to discover when he confronts

Evsej with his suspicions, that he had thrown Evsej's coat into the fire. A final ironic twist is revealed: Evsej's 239 coat had all of his life's savings sewn into the coat's lining.

"Xoro^ee raesto" (''A Comfortable Position") high lights a theme typical for the "Natural School": the young man from the provinces strikes out for the capital to make his fortune. "V Peterburg! Moe mesto tarn!" ("To St.

Petersburg! I'll find my position there!")(144) In this case, as in many of his stories, Butkov distorts the clicheed motif. The young man, Terentij JakimovicS Lubkovski j, finds his comfortable position as a coffin inspector, not quite what he had in mind when he set out from his Ukrainian vil lage. But he found the circumstances similar to those found by other Butkov heroes: twelve applicants for every job.

When he does find a position he is not happy, but Butkov's status-seeker heroes, poor devils with ambition, repeatedly face rejection.

The last sketch, "Partikul'jarnaja para" ("The Dress

Suit"), opens with a discussion of luck and changing one's luck. A man is always dissatisfied with the state of things and wants to change his luck. So it is with our hero: Petr

V y . Ivanovifi Sljapkin, a.k.a..Carockin. He believed that his name had stifled his good fortunes, and decided to change it.

He wanted to create ("socinjat'") himself a last name, and itemizes a list of literary ones: Onegin, £ubukov, Cubukevic,

Knutikov, Butylkin, Petuxov, and Vyzigin — however, he was afraid of the popularity of this last one. It turns out that 240 he admired ladies' hats, hence the name he selected.

His fortunes do change: he earns a good position, a salary of 2 7 rubles, 11% kopecks a month (Butkov is fas cinated with strange numbers), and devises a technique for earning addition income: he makes envelopes and sells them to the offices of the capital. Butkov introduces the mer cantile world through his in-depth description of the offices

Slapkin visits, in particular, Gel'dzak and Co.

After an evening at the theater he happens to escort

Gel'dzak's wife and daughter home when their carriage is no where to be found. This service makes him a friend of the family and gives him entree into their society. He is in vited to the daughter's name-day party. Alas, he has no dress suit and cannot go. He discovers that luck and hap piness depend upon a dress suit! "A rich man can have a new dress suit and hew happiness every day. He can change his luck like the latest fashion plate!"(187) The sketch ends in a tableau familiar to the readers of the "Natural

School works: a street scene peopled with organ grinders, V vendors, and other urban low types. Slapkin pauses to view the scene, realizes how little he has to complain about.

"Walking hastily down Voznesenskij prospekt to the tavern, he thought: 'how little a man needs for happiness!'"(188)

# ^ The scene is an ironic re-working of Grigorovic's

"St. Petersburg Organ Grinders", ironic because the pathos engendered in the latter work is clearly absent in Butkov. 241

While GrigoroviJ? sought to evoke a sentimental response from his readers, Butkov mocks the "plight" of the organ grinder and his family. The coachmen only ridicule and laugh at the

German artisan and his "fat wife, ten starving mutts, and four rag-tag children."(188) Petr Ivanovi#, responding in a similar fashion, begins to re-evaluate his unhappy condition.

Casting a glance at this living portrait of deprivation, borne patiently, or at least without fits of despair, he was distracted from his own grief to a philanthropic sympathy for this crowd of musicians...walking into the tavern he mused 'How little a man needs for happiness!'(188)

Butkov's work was almost immediately proclaimed as a great representative of the "Natural School". As we have noted in Belinskij's review of the work, despite some reser vations the critic evidently had concerning Butkov's ren dering of the "Natural School" motifs, he enthusiastically welcomed the artist into the fold of "progressive" writers.

This interpretation holds true even today in Soviet scholar ship. Kulesov, who has done a great deal of research on this era and has sought to define the 1840's in terms of the de velopment of the "Natural School", has asserted that "Butkov, in his Peterburgskie versiny, developed the line of senti mental naturalism. He shows poor 'little people' as human beings. He also depicts the little man 'with ambition', the dreamer preceding the work of Dostoevskij. This work, due 242 to its character and name, its programmatic introduction and, finally, its content and style, ought to be numbered among the most important phenomena contributing to the development 2 8 of the "Natural School." Boris Mejlax, the editor of the first new edition of Butkov's collected works to appear since the nineteenth century, wrote in his introduction to this 1967 edition, that "the 'Introduction' to the collec tion serves not only as the key to understanding the subjects and heroes of the book, not only makes clear'the author's position in the literary struggle, but serves as a unique creative declaration of the direction to which Butkov was 29 attracted." Mejlax later suggests that Butkov was the ardent champion of the urban oppressed.

We believe that these Soviet scholars are mistaken in their assessments. While Butkov presented the stock figures and conflicts which the writers of the "Natural

School" depicted in their sketches and tales, most of these trite categories are made less than genuine. One of the most prominent such stock representations is the imitation of

Gogol''s Akakij Akakievic?, who was the model for most of the downtrodden civil servants represented in the "Natural School" works. Lev Sili£ 6ubukevi£, hero of "Porjadocnyj Selovek", begins his life as a model of the Gogolian hero, but soon asserts his personality and, after winning at cards, proceeds to become a card sharp himself, abandoning his lowly position for a more "successful" one in society. "Lentocka's" hero, 243

Ivan Anisimovi£, is a remarkable likeness to the hero of

"Sinel"1 in his limited professional abilities. He is asked by his superior to summarize what he has copied, but he can not remember. Akakij Akakievi^ was asked by his superior to change a few verbs from first to third person and he panics, pleading "for something just to copy". Another Gogolian hero, PopriHscSin, found himself in a similar situation when he could not remember what he had copied. Of course, Butkov takes this situation one step further toward the absurd by having Ivan's superior grant him a meritorious service award because of his limited ability!

There are other evidences that Butkov was actively engaged in mocking the Belinskij movement. One recalls that

Belinskij's clarion rang out that the age was one of cogni tion and reason ("The spirit of analysis and investigation is the spirit of our time...our age craves convictions, it pines with the hunger for the truth.")(VI,26 7) Ivan Anisi- moviH is not a member of his generation. He doesn't ponder the burning questions of the day. One may also point out that Butkov's so-called "programmatic" introduction may be interpreted as a somewhat satirical commentary on the theo retical posing done by Nekrasov and Belinskij. Belinskij had opened his "Peterburg i Moskva" article for Nekrasov's

Fiziologija with the comments concerning the founding of the city: "Our forebears, forced to become acquainted with the shores of the Neva, never imagined that the Russian 244

Empire was destined to rise on these wild, poor, low lying

and swampy shores...Butkov's Introduction refers to

the natural setting of the city as well: "Of all the capitals of the ancient and modern world, perhaps only St. Petersburg has the unique facility of standing on unstable, marshy

foundation at sea level." (29) But his comments, given the material which follows, should not be taken seriously.

Nekrasov wrote in his review of the Fiziologij a

that it "is a humorous but truthful work...whose goal is to uncover all the secrets of our social life, all the sources of the joyful and sorrowful scenes of our home life, all the 31 sources for our street scenes..." Butkov "responds" to

Nekrasov by noting that "There are people in this crowd whose grief and joy are determined by the going rate for beef, whose dreams fly around in the firewood supply yards... passion for the pastry shop..."(30) His cataloguing of the topics for discussion is as random as Nekrasov's is socio- 32 logically specific.

Butkov represented the themes and motifs from the

"Natural School" movement but his emphasis was humor, not sentimentalism as Kuleshov and others have maintained. He wrote of hack writers and the relatively low level of ar tistic talent in the works of people which were praised by an

ill-educated public and tolerated by incompetent critics who

referred to these hacks as "geniuses". He presented the power-of-money theme, but turned his success stories around 245

by depicting the hero as a card sharper or swindler. He de-

picted hackneyed types in such a fashion that the humor in

these unfortunates' status in society outweighed the sen

timentalism perpertrated by the progressives,

Butkov1s works reflect a frame of reference differ

ent from that of the "Natural School" writers. His sketches

refer to other literary works, a plane different from that of

those artists inspired by Belinskij. He has made an appar

ent reference to PuSkin1^ hero in "Pikovaja dama" ("The

Queen of Spades") who loses his senses when his cards fail

to turn up and he loses the gamble, muttering "Trojka.sem-

erka..,tuz1,..trojka,,.semerka,..dama!" Lev Silic Cubukevi£ mutters "Minxen,.,Mino&ka.,.Lentocka!"

The most numerous references are to the tales, of Niko-

laj Gogol1, the writer whose works played such a dominant

role in the formulation of the "Natural School" literature.

The play with character names is one of the most clear-cut

references. Evsej Evteevic and Evtej Evseevic in "Pay Day"

are mirror images of each other as are Ivan Ivanovi£ and Ivan

Nikiforovi£: one radish turned up, the other a radish turned

down ("Kak possorilsja Ivan Ivanovi# s Ivanom Nikiforovicem") or Bob^inskij and Dobcinskij, the "twins" in "Revizor" ("The

Inspector General"), He also plays with famous names, in other works of literature. In "Partikul*jarnaja para", for example,

the hero, trying to change his luck, Carockin/Sljapkin,

tries to select a new name, 246

Gogol,,s "Sinel"' ("The Overcoat") is one of the most widely stylized works, reflecting this work's acknowledged significance in the decade. We have noted the several char acters in Butkov's sketches who are images of Akakij Akakie- vi£. We should also note the coat motif. In "Pay Day" Ev- sej has made his coat the most important thing in his life because he has sewn all of his savings into its lining. We recall that Akakij Akakievi# worked extra hard to save enough to buy his new coat, hence he too had all of his savings invested in his coat. Evsej's coat is "stolen" from him when Evtej takes it by mistake and throws it into the fire.

Akakij's coat, of course, was stolen off his back by a St.

Petersburg thief.

A theory has recently been advanced which concerns this phenomenon, namely, that there existed a group of writers who did not fall into line with Belinskij's sociologically- oriented literature, and that Butkov is a prominent member of that group. It has been asserted that this trend took its lead from the maste of humor and grotesque: Nikolaj Go gol'. Peter Hodgson's From Gogol to Dostoevsky: Jakov But kov, a reluctant naturalist in the 1840's takes as its thesis that Butkov manipulated nonrealistic modes of fiction, some of which he adapted from Gogol' and passed on to Dostoevskij, 33 and placed him outside the limits of the "Natural School".

In addition, he hypothesizes their use of a so-called native prose tradition, rooted in vaudeville and the carnival 247 baroque grotesquerie, to avoid Belinskij's strident utilitar- 34 ian naturalism.

It is Hodgson's view that Butkov's use of the stan dard stock figures of the period is an attempt to draw atten tion to them as worn-out literary devices, in essence, troping the device. Much of Butkov's originality in this period stems from his continuation of the Gogolian tradition of punning and the "explosion of words" so characteristic of Gogol''s writing. His narrator loves to play with words.

"Meanwhile Apollon gave birth, after Avdej, to an even larger volume of verse and a small daughter." ("Sto rublej")

(89) "...And it branches out'into the breadth, the depth, and the height, and becomes more and more firmly fixed in its swamps and its concepts on its islands and piles." ("Na- zidatel'noe slovo") (30) In "Xorosee mesto" Butkov's nar rator recalls the Moscow-Petersburg debate between the Wes- ternizers and the Slavophils over the relative importance of each city to Russia, that "each soil, every climate produces its exclusive product: the Ukraine — large tasty melons,

Cerkassk — fattened cattle destined for the Petersburg mar ket, and Petersburg — thin and dreadful pany who come to the

Ukraine for fattening." (146)

Butkov's Peterburgskie versiny touches thematically on the little man's quest for status and position, money and its power, the role of fate or luck in man's life, and the struggle for a place, a "vacancy". The traditional elements 248

of the physiological sketch and the motifs of the "Natural

School" are present in the sketches, but the technique is more Gogolian than that of the writers of the Belinskij

camp. His poor clerks and ne'er-do-wells move about in

jerky, mechanical fashion, much like the figures in Gogol''s

tales. Cubukevi^ is a "writing machine," Evsej and Evtej

"as if automatons, moved by a single spring, arose from their beds..." "Petr Ivanovic mechanically followed her." "Petr

Ivanovic walked mechanically into his apartment."

We also find the theme of madness and doubles in

these works. Gogol' dealt with the madness theme in "Nev skij prospekt" and "Zapiski sumas^edSego." Butkov's treat ment of the subject is more serious than Gogol''s, whose madness motif may be seen as an aspect of his grotesquerie.

Avdej Apollonovic ("Sto rublej") goes mad from an identity

crisis. He has no place: there is no vacancy for him. The

"usurper" ("samozvanec") has taken it. He is also a St.

Ptersburg dreamer, a character Dostoevskij will explore in his early works. This was by no means a theme unknown to the writers in this decade. We need only recall the "poor

devil" in Ostrovskij's "Notes" who cried out for his right

ful place in the scheme of things. Avdej, having no place

in real life, succumbs to the world of dreaming: he would

rather fantasize about winning the money and how he would

spend it than find out whether he had won thereby bringing

the dream to its end. Butkov makes the situation even more 249 poignant by his ironic twist at the conclusion: there is no vacancy for Avdej even in the asylum.

Just as the theme of madness had been present in the works of Gogol', Pupkin, and the romantic writers of the

1830's, the notion of doubles had been a popular fictional motif before Dostoevskij made the quantum leap by pursuing the psychological ramifications of doubles in his works.

E.T.A. Hoffmann had popularized the concept and Russian 35 writers also pursued the theme. Jurij Tynjanov pointed out that Gogol''s Ivan Ivanovi^ and Ivan NikiforoviS repre- 36 sent an attempt to expose the characters as verbal masks.

Grebenka composed a sketch entitled "Dvojnik" ("The Double")

in 1836. Butkov developed the concept into a major theme in his later works (for example,"Nevskij prospekt, ili Pute-

Sestvija Nestora Zaletaeva" and "Temnyj celovek" (1848)). In

Peterburgskie verl^iny we have a good example of the motif in

"Pervoe £islo". Evtej Evseevic and Evsej Evteevic are two

sides of the same person: one is brainy in exactly the same way the other is dull. They do things in concert ("they arose

from their beds as if propelled by a single spring"), and

they complement each other in other ways. One saves money

and helps the other who tends to spend his before the end of

the month. Virtually everything in this sketch points to ward the double motif. Their respective superiors both try

to marry off their mistresses to Evsej and Evtej. The mis

tresses turn out to be the same person, leading one to 250 wonder whether the superior is also singular, both having the identical boss. The narrator remarks at one point that the woman "would have liked to have composed one unified civil servant from them both in which the innumerable multi plicity of valuable qualities would be concentrated." (129)

Butkov adds a serious tone to the motif, however, forsaking the clicheed romantic devices in favor of a psy chological approach, in a rather ante-Dostoevskian manner.

He combines the double motif with a Gogolian atmosphere of grotesquerie to create a scene out of later Dostoevskij.

He paints a final tableau worthy of the later master:

The collegiate secretaries set to dancing some 'hellish waltz'. They danced rapidly (be^eno) for a long time; the floor cracked under their feet; the chairs were broken into fragments; the beds were overturned with dug-up blankets; at the doors of the room the doorman, water car rier, landlady, and a few other outsiders stood silently and won drous ly. No one could stop the gaeity of the collegiate secretaries, and they whirled ever faster in friendly embrace. Their eyes became ever more cloudy and terrible? their facial features grew distorted by grimaces... Darkness and silence. A momentary flickering of coal in the stove il luminates the two pale collegiate secretaries with their crossed arms. Their heavy breathing terribly dis turbs the silence...(139)

The use of chiaroscuro here lends the Dostoevskian touch: re call the scene in Idiot in which Myskin and Rogo&in observe 251 a vigil over Nastasija Filippovna's body. The above scene ends the sketch, the final section of which is entitled "The

Burial of Pay Day". Evsej has gone berserk, crying "you have burned me up! 0, my money!"(139)

In our view Butkov cannot be assigned a place in the

"Natural School" pantheon with the degree of certainty that

Mejlax and KuleS’ov ascertain. Hodgson makes a persuasive point in his argument by pointing out the publisher under whose auspices the Peterburgskie ver^iny appeared in print.

That publisher was none other than "Severnaja p£ela”, a leader of the opposition camp. It seems reasonable to Hodg son, and to us, that Peterburgskie versiny was the conserva tive camp's first reply to the Fiziologija Peterburga and in general, to the serious "new" school of socially-conscious 37 v writers being heralded by Belinskij. Grec published both volumes of the collection and hailed Butkov as an improvement over Gogol1 and the other naturalists. Hodgson also main tains that Belinskij was not completely taken in by Butkov as a serious naturalist. As we noted above in his review of the work, Belinskij had reservations about the apparent distor tion of the Akakij AkakieviS motif.

If Belinskij had serious reservations about Butkov as a serious naturalist, he certainly had none about Dostoev- skij, at least the Dostoevskij who wrote Bednye ljudi (Poor

People) in 1845, the writer's first venture in original comp osition. (He had published a translation of Balzac's Eugenie 252

Grandet in 1844). Dostoevskij explored the problem of the

"little man" and the poor civil servant with "ambition". He explored the problem of money and the power it brings. He explored the problem of the struggle for acceptance in so ciety, and the psychological manifestation of the double personality.

We have noted that the hero of the decade of the

1840's was the civil servant. The poor cinovnik was the cen ter of attraction in the sketches and tales beginning in the

1830's and moving well into the 1840's. The physiologists, describing the meager existence of low urban types in a most detailed fashion picked up the established motif. The wri ters of the "Natural School" created a formulaic style and theme in their assertion regarding man's role in his social environment. This is the thrust of Vinogradov's argument concerning the rise of the "Natural School": he sees it as a sentimentalist movement which combined the Gogolian shading with the philanthropic philosophy from French literature. v Despite Gogol''s struggle against sentimentalism, his "Sinel'" was seen as a giant step toward intensifying that trend.

Vinogradov proposes that "the dream of a desired synthesis of natural forms with the principles of religious-civic sen- 3 8 timentalism troubled Gogol'."

Dostoevskij's Bednye ljudi of 1845 was greeted as a supreme masterpiece following that same Gogolian path. The reports of Belinskij's and Nekrasov's enthusiasm for the work 253 are legendary. (Belinskij stayed awake all night reading it.)

The intensity of his enthusiasm ("He is the new Gogol'!") led to even greater disappointment by the appearance of

Dvojnik (The Double) and "Gospodin Proxarcin" in subsequent years. His dismay undoubtedly stemmed from his inability to see a different technique in the first work.

When Andrej Belyj and the Symbolists, later the For malist theoreticians Vinogradov and Ejxenbaum, Tynjanov,

Gippius, and Slonimskij began to re-examine Gogol''s works at the turn of this century, a subsequent re-examination of

Dostoevskij's early works was inevitable. Victor Terras'

The Young Dostoevsky; A Critical Study (1969) explores the stylization of Gogolian works in these early tales and sketches, in which Terras refrains from calling "parody" in favor of the term "travesty". Jurij Tynjanov had explored a similar phenomenon preferring the term "stylization". The result of these and other studies has led modern scholars to recognize that Dostoevskij was responding negatively to the civil servant stereotype, by whittling away at the formula, and making the civil servant human. The poor devil is no longer viewed from the outside, by a narrator, but from his own viewpoint. Mixail Baxtin, whose Problemy tvorcestva

Dostoevskogo (The Problems of Dostoevsky's Poetics) (1929) illuminated the concept of polyphonism in this master's works, brought to the surface the techniques Dostoevskij used to break down that stereostype. One of these techniques 254 concerned the narrative style. Unlike the physiologists who viewed the subject from the outside (the narrator/ob server documented his observations), and used the character dialogue for realistic flavor and, in some cases, for humor,

Dostoevskij's heroes themselves do virtually all the talking.

Devu&kin talks so much that one may in no way regard his dia logue as a "documentary" device. His innermost feelings and thoughts are revealed.

Baxtin noted the shift in emphasis. "In the Gogolian period Dostoevskij depicts not the 'poor government clerk', but the self-consciousness of the poor clerk, an agonizing 39 self-awareness." This is the basis of the scholar's theory of polyphonism: the hero has a voice of his own which is full-valued and stands opposite to that of the author's.

One need only recall Dostoevskij's own words in a letter to his brother to explain this position. "Everyone is accustomed to looking for the author's 'mug', but I didn't show mine.

It is Devuskin speaking, not 1 . " ^ In the words of Victor

Terras, who cites Baxtin's efforts, "already in Poor People,

Dostoevskij took the Gogolian 'poor clerk', made him con scious of himself, and let him thresh out his own problems in 41 his own language."

It is Terras' theory that Dostoevskij presents a sentimental or romantic theme, with the characters and setting of the "Natural School", and seeks to find a form to fit such 42 a synthesis. In Poor People Dostoevskij took the form of 255

an epistolary love story in which the hero is a balding,

middle-aged lover, "with holes in his shoes and liquor on his 43 breath." The form is left intact, but the content is under

attack, a phenomenon Terras terms "travesty".

While Terras uses this term to describe the phenom

enon, in the context of MukaJrovsky' s theory it is a deforma

tion of the prevailing artistic norm. The sentimentalist-na

turalist Gogolian tale, having become a formula by the "Na

tural School" writers by mid-decade, is deformed by Dosto

evskij . As a result the figure of Devuskin creates new im

pact. The audience is aware of a new civil servant figure.

Belinskij was aware of this new hero and was deeply affected

by the scene of Devuskin humiliation before his superior.

The standardized copy clerk hero is humanized by Dostoevskij,

no longer the cardboard figure of the "Natural School".

Comparing Poor People with "Sinel'", for example,

we can see numerous shifts to a humanizing effort. Devuskin

(from "devuSka", young girl) covets not a cloak, an inani mate object, but a young woman, Varvara Dobroselova. The

debate between Dostoevskij and Gogol' goes beyond that

point in Dostoevskij1s novel where Devuskin passes a criti

cal judgement of "Sinel'". Devuskin repeatedly refers to

shoes or boots. He, like Akakij Akakievic, walks on his

tiptoes in order to save the leather soles of his boots.

"...I don't mind going about without an overcoat and with- 44 out boots in the hardest frost." "Boots...are necessary 256 to keep up one's dignity and good name: in boots with holes in them, both dignity and good name are lost.<" "They treat me no better than a rag to wipe their boots on." (from the letter of August 5) "Probably they found something funny about my boots — yes, it must have been about my boots."(95)

The multitude of references to boots reflects on the hero of Gogol''s tale (Basma£kin — from "ba^mak") and are also a key to Devuskin's feeling of self-esteem, or lack thereof. The fact that he feels everyone notices his old dilapidated boots demonstrates his fear that they also only notice a dilapidated individual. He is a "rag": one with no will of his own. He is without dignity. But, contrary to what the Dostoevskij scholar Konstantin Moculskij says,

"poverty strips man of his dignity — it turns him into a 45 rag," it is not the poverty which makes him a 'rag', it is his lack of self-esteem. Snegirev, for example, is of lower rank than Devuskin and is undoubtedly poor, yet he also ridicules Devuskin. It was a major tenet of the "Natural

School" that social ills continually beat down a man until he had no hope. Dostoevskij explores the psychology of poverty and in the process, destroys the template established by the

"Natural School" writers.

It is in this spirit that Devuskin turns against

Gogol''s story. Baxtin writes that Devuskin speaks in his own voice, turns on himself to expose and examine his own consciousness. "He is depicting the agonizing 257 46 self-awareness." He even forces Devuskin to view himself in the mirror. It is from this study in self-perception that

Devuskin responds to "Sinel"' and his comments are quite clearly made. He sees it as a tale about himself and he is angry. In the letter of July 8 he responds to this "nasty story":

So now you can't live quietly in your own little c o rn e r — whatever it may be like — not without stirring up any mud...interfering with no one, knowing yourself, and fearing God, without people interfering with you, without their trying to see what sort of life you lead at home...Why write of another man that he sometimes goes short, that he has no tea to drink,...did I look into another man's mouth to see how he chews his crust?..and here under your very nose, for no apparent reason neither with your leave nor by your leave somebody makes a caricature of you...One hides oneself sometimes, one hides oneself, one tries to con ceal one's weak points...And here now all one's private and public life is being dragged into literature, it is all printed, read, laughed at and gossiped about! Why, it will be impossible to show oneself on the street...Why it's a book of an evil tendency, Varen'ka, it's untrue to life, for there cannot have been such a clerk. (62)

Dostoevskij has created a hero, in Baxtin's view, who is perceiving himself and his world. What is important is how he perceives himself and his world. We need only re call in the letter to his brother his remarks concerning the fact that it is not his 'mug' showing, but Devuskin's. He 258 sees his life made a caricature of, ridiculed by Gogol,,s grotesquerie. Using Baxtin's term, this "finalizes" his existence. He is as if dead and buried. He is a rational being and, as such, can change the rules at any time. He is angry because he is shown in his entirety in Akakij Akaki- eviS.

Baxtin maintains that Devuskin is upset with Gogol''s tale because he sees himself completed. He cannot act accor ding to his own psychological motivation. This may strike us as odd since all characters are "finalized" by their cre ators to some extent: they are creations of their author's imagination. But, Baxtin posits the notion that Dostoevskij has changed the frame of reference. The elements from which the hero's image is constructed are not the facts of reality, but the significance of those facts for the hero himself.

The author is not depicting an impoverished clerk, but that clerk's self-consciousness. The creator is present but he does not subject everything to his word. The created hero

"speaks in his own voice", independent of the author's.

Dostoevskij provides many of the elements of the physiology. Devuskin lives in a large house, and begins by describing how he managed to acquire the accomodations, what his room is like, and who the other boarders are. The scarcity of housing was a fact in St. Petersburg, which ex plains its repeated use as a motif. There is also the ubiqui tous "dark, gloomy, greasy staircase." The novel is littered 259 with naturalistic details. ''But don't ask about the back

stairs; winding like a screw, damp, dirty, with, steps bro

ken and the walls so greasy your hand sticks when you lean

against them. On every landing there are boxes, broken

chairs and cupboards, rags hung out, windows broken, tubs

stand about full of all sorts of dirt and litter, eggshells

and the refuse of fish; there is a horrid smell,,.in fact,

it is not nice," (April 12) The description echoes Nekrasov

in "St, Petersburg Corners",

The letter of September 5 is a physiological descrip tion of the Fontanka, "To freshen up a bit I went for a walk along the Fontanka. It was such a damp, dark evening.

By six o'clock it was getting dusk — that is what we are coming to now. It was not raining but there was mist equal to a good rain. There were broad, long stretches of storm clouds across the sky," At this point he begins to des cribe the people on the street. The scene he depicts could have come from the pen of Grigorovic.

There were masses of people walking along the canal bank, and, as ill-luck would have it, the people had such hor rible depressing faces, drunken peasants snub-nosed Finnish women in high boots with nothing on their heads, workmen, cab drivers, people like me out on some errand, boys, a carpenter's apprentice in a striped dressing gown, thin and wasted-looking, with his face bathed in smutty oil, and a lock in his hand,,.On the bridges there are women sitting with wet gingerbread and rot ten apples, and they all looked so 260

muddy, so drenched, (85)

After his walk along the Fontanka he takes a stroll along

Goroxovaja continuing his physiological description of the

city.

I have not been on Goroxovaja for quite a long time, I have not hap pened to go there. It is a noisy street! What shops, what magnifi cent establishments; everything is simply shining and resplendent; ma terials, flowers under glass, hats of all sorts with ribbons. One would fancy they were all displayed as a show — but no: you know there are people who buy all those things and present them to their wives. It's such ^wealthy street!.,Such gor geous equipages, windows shining like mirrors, silk and velvet inside, and aristocratic footmen wearing epau lettes and carrying a sword; I glanced into all the carriages, there were always ladies in them dressed up, perhaps countesses and princesses,,,(85)

Devuskin here is noting his own poverty, putting himself ever

deeper into a psychological hole. He is lamenting the fact

that he cannot afford to buy these lovely things for Varen'ka,

Together with the physiological elements there are the

strong overtones of the "Natural School" present. Like so many heroines of the movement, Varen'ka has a tarnished repu

tation, Devuskin is powerless to "save" her from her further

degradation through the marriage to her seducer. He is

thrown out by the officers, and Bykov easily casts aside his

suit with a laugh. Indeed, the elements of the physiology 261

(boarding house, naturalistic details, the social status of the hero and heroine, coarse, crude urban types), are present in Dostoevskij's first published work. However, Dostoevskij goes beyond these parameters: he has humanized the charac ters and developed their conscious selves, Dostoevskij, al ways the innovator, has taken a traditional genre (the novel in letters) and a popular style (the "Natural School"), but has turned it upside down, Terras calls this a process of travesty; the absurd, patently inadequate or distorted pre sentation of a content, the substance of which is left intact

(and thus subject to ridicule, doubt and ’delayed* demotic tion,)* 47

Just as DevuMkin has passed literary judgement on

"Sinel’" and "Stancionnyj smotritel’" (Puskin’s "The Sta- tionmaster"), he indirectly expresses an opinion concerning the "Natural School" itself. In the letter of September 5

DevuSkin, in describing his walk along Fontanka and Goroxo vaja streets, depicts an encounter with a German organ grinder. Unlike Grigorovic who waxed sentimental over the goodness of the "street people", Dostoevskij presents a more sober image through Devuskin’s remarks: these people are free and independent, "He is a beggar, he is a beggar, it is true, he is a beggar all the same, but he is an honorable beggar; he is cold and weary, yet he works,..they bow down to no one and they beg their bread from no one,"(86) They have self- esteem, they are not beaten down by poverty and deprivation. 262

It will be recalled that, protestations to the contrary,

Grigorovi^ composed a sentimental, idealized portrait of these artisans. The environment has degraded these people: poverty has humiliated them, their social environment has crushed them. But Dostoevskij asserts a different view.

Devuskin reveals his true feelings on the matter in the next statement, "Here I am, just like that organ grinder — that is, not at all like him,"(87) It is not poverty which has placed him in his degraded status: it is his own lack of ego-fulfillment, Gorskov is desperately poor, yet he is noble. The development of consciousness in the hero is part of the humanizing process undertaken by Dostoevskij when he confronts the poetics of the "Natural School", Devuskin was poor in the beginning of the novel, yet he was happy ("I am so happy, so immensely happy...") when he thought Varvara noticed him. Even if he suddenly became wealthy, it would not solve the problem: it would only exacerbate it.

The transformation of "Natural School" motifs is common to most of the early Dostoevskij works. In Dvojnik

(The Double) he performs what Vinogradov calls the "natural istic transformation of the romantic 'doubles' from the Rus- 48 sian Hoffmannists." The theme of the double and madness had been popular in the works of the romantic writers. Go gol' 's "Zapiski sumas!=edsego" ("Notes of a Madman") had dealt with the theme in a grotesque fashion. Terras refers to this as a travestying of the motif. "In the place of a struggle 263

between heaven and hell over a man's soul, we see one be- 49 tween two ridiculous underlings for a snug little job,"

Dostoevskij engineers another shift in "Gospodin Pro-

xarcin" in which a poor civil servant, the stock figure of

the period, seeks to assert his ego through the power of

money. In the style of the "Natural School" Dostoevskij in

troduces the character (a boarder in a large St, Petersburg

house), then the other lodgers, and the hero's lifestyle.

Here the naturalistic details intrude into the narrative:

intrude because the narrator forces them upon the reader,

"Here the biographer confesses that nothing would have in

duced him to allude to such realistic and low details,

positively shocking and offensive to some lovers of the heroic

style if it were not that these details exhibit one peculi

arity, one characteristic, in the hero of this s t o r y (242)

This is very similar to the "disclaimer" by Grigorovic in

"Derevnja" where he regrets having to depict such lowly types.

We find here a self-acknowledged effort on the part of Dos

toevskij to create estrangement. He admits that the public would undoubtedly prefer not to read about such unpleasant

things, but they are essential to the description of his

hero. Other details are added (the greasy mattress, the

screen with holes in it, the lack of underclothes, the dirty

linen) to emphasize Proxar£in's niggardliness and to under

score the contrast which is the thrust of the work; this

fellow's parsimoniousness is not due to poverty but hoarding. 264

He dies and the mattress: is discovered to he stuffed with money„

Terras refers to these works as a trilogy in which the hero attempts to assert himself in one of the vital as pects of human existence; Devuskin experiences a great, un happy love; Goljadkin tries to come to terms with society without losing his individuality; Proxarcin reaches for free- 5Q dom. In these first three works of Dostoevskij, the tra ditional setting and characters of the "Natural School" are presented but there is a shift. The shift was engineered by the young author and was not appreciated by the critics.

With the exception of Poor People all the following works were critical disasters. Belinskij virtually abandoned him after the appearance of "Mr, Proxarcin", He saw the super structure of the "Natural School" but the content did not fit.

Since Dostoevskij's works were not to meet with criti cal acclaim, his financial posture suffered. He took a po sition as a feuilletonist at the "St. Petersburg News" upon the death of their resident flaneur. The result was the four essays entitled "St. Petersburg Chronicle", dated April

13, April 22, May 3.1, and June 15, 1847, These four essays show an insight into the atmosphere of the capital, touch on some characters who will appear in subsequent works, and in troduce the romantic dreamer motif to his writings.

These feuilletons are chatty and informal as the genre dictates, with the narrator posing rhetorical questions to 265 the reader in order to entice his interest in the flow of the pieces. They contain reviews of the season’s cultural events, book reviews, and general gossip/chit-chat about the city’s goings-on. All of these features are characteristic of the feuilleton. Petersburg is the real hero of the pieces: it is the atmosphere of the city which pervades the four essays, A joyful hymn to spring opens the first, the muggy heat of summer opens the last. His vision of the capital re volves about the weather. In the April 22 essay he personi fies the city.

It was a damp, misty morning. Petersburg got up feeling angry and malicious, like an angry society woman who is green with malice because of what happened to her at the ball the night before. Petersburg was bad-tempered from head to foot. Whether he had had a bad night or a particularly bad attack of jaundice, or caught a head cold, or lost his shirt like a stupid youngster at cards that lasted from the evening before so that he had to get up the next morning with empty pockets...it is difficult to say; but he is so angry that it made one sad to look at his huge damp walls, his marbles, bas-reliefs statues, columns, which also seemed to be angry with the filthy weather, shivered and chattered with the damp cold, with the bare, wet granite of his sidewalks,..The whole Petersburg horizon wore such a horribly sour look.,.Petersburg was sulking...(15)

It is into this damp and malicious Petersburg that Dosto evskij plunges his characters, from the dreamer of "Belye no£i" (/'The White Nights"), to the murderer Raskol’nikov. 266

These feuilletons provided a framework for many char acter studies for the young Dostoevskij, He pauses on the subject of the man who has a good heart, who tyrannizes his friend with his uncontrollable reflections. This man of the good heart is produced only in solitude, "in some dark cor ner," This important theme is expanded in later works to in clude the "underground man", and further enlarged to include the personality which, in isolation, moves toward crime again st society. This last notion will only be discerned after penal servitude where Dostoevskij had the opportunity to view the criminal type firsthand. Even at this early stage he sees, the danger of solitude and its effect upon the per sonality, "In his complete innocence such a man forgets.., that it is only when his interests are those of society's, when one shows sympathy for society as a whole,...that it is not by drowsiness and indifference, which lead to the dis integration of society, that it is not in solitude that his hidden treasure, his capital, his good heart can be ground and polished in to a precious, sparkling diamondJ" (31)

Proxar£in, Goljadkin, and, to an extent even Devuskin, are victims of their solitude.

Two other character types are outlined in these four feuilletons, the so-called "voluntary buffoon" and the

"dreamer". The buffoon is the hero of his little tale "Pol- zunkov", composed for the Illustrated Almanac edited by Ne krasov and Panaev, Polzunkov is strongly attached to the 267

"Natural School" characters, and the story of the hrtbe-taking 51 official no doubt appealed to the two editors. He has the physical traits of the Gogolian figure (."His continual mobil

ity, his turning and twisting, made him look strikingly like

a dancing doll,") (.15) and he has the flavor of the early Dos-

toevskian hero who suffers from an intensified self-awareness.

"In short, he was what is called 'a rag1 in the fullest

sense of the word,"(6) He is one of those little men who al

so suffers from an overly sensitive heart, Dostoevskij bares

the entire nature of this character in the opening pages of the tale. Polzunkov is a relative of the later "under ground man" and those characters who flagellate themselves;

Marmeladov, Ippolit, and others in the later works.

The other character type which he describes in cap

sule form in the Peterburgskaja letopis1 is the romantic dreamer. He makes it clear that his is a St. Petersburg phenomenon; this romantic dreamer is the product of the phantasmagorical atmosphere of the northern capital, remi niscent of the Gogolian city, "And do you know what a dreamer is, gentlemen? It is a Petersburg nightmare, it is a personified sin, it is a mute, mysterious, gloomy, and wild tragedy, with all its frantic horrors, catastrophes, peripeteias and unhappy endings — we are not saying this in jest, either,"(32) Like the underground man, to whom he is related, the dreamer is spawned in solitude, "in some inac cessible quarters," The lengthy description which follows 268

is a prelude to that which comes; in "Belye noci'* O' White

Nights"). (1848) and "Xozjajka" ("The Landlady") (1847),

The condition in which the romantic dreamer finds

himself can be compared with the epileptic seizures which he described in later years, In Peterburgskaja letopis1 he refers to the dreamer in a lengthy passage, "Often in a

few hours he experiences the heavenly joys of love or of

a whole life, huge, gigantic, unheard of, wonderful like a dream,,.The moments of sobering-up are dreadful; the unhappy wretch cannot bear them and immediately takes his poison in new and larger doses,"(32) From that time on the danger for the dreamer increases, because of his greater escape from reality, "He quite naturally begins to believe that the pleasures that his uncontrolled imagination gives him are fuller, more splendid, and more enchanting than in real life.

At last, in his delusion, he completely loses the moral judge ment that enables men to appraise the full beauty of the present," (33)

This is a theme which he will pursue throughout this decade as evidenced in the short works noted above. Mo- culskij points out the flights of fancy in which the narra tor of "White Nights" indulges and compares them to passages in the Peterburgskaja letopis1. The innovation which Dosto- evskij has wrought concerns the shift away from the petty civil servant character, the stock figure of the "Natural

School", to the psychology of the dreamer/underground man 269 figure of St, Petersburg who exists in his solitude.

The problem of the isolation of the human conscious ness and the sensitivity to humiliation, the personality which develops a yearning for self-flagellation, for suffer ing, was one which occupied Dostoevskij's thought throughout his career. But the consequent problem, the danger of this character to society, the case in which the isolated con sciousness leads the underground man to crime, became a tenet in his thought only after he viewed the criminal per sonality in Siberian prison, His experiences in prison are rendered in Zapiski iz mertvogo doma (The Notes from the Dead

House) Cl860),

This is a complex work. There is some of the physio logy in it. In a sense, the first impressions, the descrip tion of the physical structure (buildings, walls, embankments) is similar to the great Parisian house of Janin or Balzac, or a Petersburg house of Panaev, or countless others. From this description Dostoevskij paints in broad strokes, several of th boarders in this house of the dead. In place of the corner of the kitchen Devuskin inhabits, or the rotting screen which surrounds Proxar£in's corner, GorjanSikov, the narrator, has his open, wooden platform which he must share with the other prisoners. It is a highly directed tour, the narrator pointing and leading the readerfs eye to the physical sur roundings , "When you come into the enclosure you see several buildings within it, On both sides of the large inner court 270 run two long loghouses of one storey,,,at the further end is the kitchen.,,” (.9.) Through, this introduction the reader obtains a sense of the physical dimensions and the structure of the prison.

After the introductory tour we meet the residents , sketched in general terms to acquaint us with the people and their crimes. These first four chapters are "first impres sions", the earliest days and weeks in the prison. "The first month and all the early days of rtiy prison life rise vividly before my imagination now. My other prison years flit far more dimly through my memory." (.19) The structure of the work allows the author to arrange the documentary ma terial in whatever fashion he desires, without needing to adhere to a strict, plotted course of events. This structure is not random or haphazard. The emphasis on the passage of time is important in the early chapters. Gorjancikov must face that fact of every prisoner's existence;' he will be in this place for a long time. The stripping away of liberty, the emplacement of the shackles, reinforces the slowness of time's passage. Once "acclimated" to the condition, the emphasis on time is much reduced, "Man is a creature who can become accustomed to anything, and I think that is the best description of him," (IQ) Indeed, the passing of the seasons is noted, but after the first chapter, the days are indistinguishable, Dostoeyskij presents a microcosm of Russian life,

Over half of the men could read and write, "In what other place in which Russian peasants are gathered together in numbers could you find two hundred and fifty men, half of whom could write?" ('12). It is through this assemblage that the narrator moves. Some of the direct speech related in the course of the narrative reminds us of the speech "samples of street people in the physiologies of Dal1 and GrigoroviX.

"He is setting up a howl!" a convict said reproachfully, though it was no concern of his.

"The wolf has only one note and that you have copied, you Tula fellow!" observed another of the gloomy ones, with a Ukrainian accent. "I may be a Tula man," Skuratov retorted promptly, "but you choke yourselves with dumplings in Poltava." "Lie away! What do you eat? Used to ladle out cabbage soup with a shoe." (71)

Dal.’ and Butkov used the colloquial speech of their urban types to lend flavor and humor to the narrative and to expose the reader to realistic detail. They introduced jargon into the text as well. Dal''s street sweepers refer red to the card sharper and gambler jargon, and Butkov in troduced the "go-getter", Dostoevskij's direct speech nar rative adds interest to the documentary nature of the prose.

He explains prison jargon; the "green street" or the tor ture of the palki; the "publicans", traders in vodka; the

"majdan", card playing accoutrements. 272

From the broad strokes of the opening chapters: where

the narrator views the prison as an outsider — shocked,

startled, frightened, unbelieving — the later pages unfold

as the place begins to lose its "newness" to this conscious

ness, and he becomes a character in the drama of prison

life, It is from this point that Notes loses any physiologi

cal flavor and becomes a series of psychological portraits.

We discover a gallery of types and we, along with Dostoevskij

are struck by the desperate nature of several of these types.

We meet the "inert, settled" Akim Akimic; the Old Believer,

forerunner of Makar Dolgorukij (Podrostok), Tixon (Besy),

and Zossima (Brat*ja Karamazovy); Petrov the "most fearless

of convicts... recognized no restraint of any sort"; Skuratov

the voluntary buffoon, the character who lacked "the stern

assumption of personal dignity"; Gazin, the "huge, gigantic

spider of a man"; SuSilov, the meek one; A-v, "the moral quasimodo" who demonstrated the level to which one may sink when the physical side is so unrestrained by inner standard; and Orlov, the man with impossible strength of will, not an ordinary man, the complete triumph over the flesh. These personality types were introduced to Dostoevskij in a new environment, and from this prison experience he drew many of the characters for his later novels.

During this same period in which he composed Dead

House, Dostoevskij wrote an essay entitled "Mr, — bov and the Question of Art" which served as a rebuttal to Dobroljubov 273

in particular and the 1860's nihilist critics in general con

cerning their views of the goal and purpose of art. It also

serves to illuminate his views concerning the representation

of reality in art, which relates directly to our problem

of the naive realists in the 1840's and their aim to da-

guerrotypically represent reality in literature.

Robert L. Jackson's study, Dostoevsky's Quest for

Form is an examination of Dostoevskij's vision of beauty and

form in art. This vision is one which reflects a classical

aesthetic value. Such a vision placed him in direct confron-

\/ tation with Cerny^evskij whose artistic thesis was an appli

cation of Feuerbach's materialist philosophy to aesthetics.

"The true, highest beauty is precisely the beauty man meets with in the world of reality and not the beauty created by 52 art." Art cannot compete with nature. The first purpose of art, in ^ernysevskij's view, is to reproduce nature and

life, but "art must not think of comparing itself with real- 53 ity, let alone of excelling it in beauty."

In the decade of the 1840's the foundations for such

an aesthetic view were being laid by Belinskij in his pro motion of the works of the "Natural School". As we have seen,

the physiologists believed that they could copy exactly from nature, as if on a daguerrotype plate, and create a litera

ture which would serve as an antithesis to the romantic lit

erature of previous decades. They disregarded the fact that

such a daguerrotypical reproduction discounted their own 274 authorial position vis a vis their works. They created the world they depicted. Theirs was the illusion of daguerrotypicality since they arranged the realistic details to suit their own artistic purposes. They filtered the scenic de sign through a lens to create the desired effect. It was, indeed, the antithesis to the prettified settings of roman tics, but it represented in its own way, an artistic device.

It was an effective device because it distorted the estab lished norm and heightened the work's impact on the audience.

Belinskij was not anti-aesthetic. He was a Hegelian idealist. His criticism maintained an ideal aspect, "art must be, first and foremost, art, then it can be the mirror of reality." Jackson asserts that CernyMevskij aimed at the destruction of Hegelian idealist aesthetics. £erny§evskij flatly rejects a fundamental assumption of idealist aesthe tics: the notion that the "ideal of the beautiful, not re- 54 alized in reality, is realized in works of art."

V v Dostoevskij1s article is a refutation of Cernysev- skij's arguments. A statement by the narrator in the opening pages of Notes from the Dead House may yield some insight in to the thrust of the work. "It was long ago; it all seems like a dream to me now." (11) The role of the artist is that of the transformer of everyday reality into artistic reality.

In his rebuttal to Dobroljubov he wrote, "talent is given to a writer for the sole purpose of creating an impression. One may know a fact, one can see it a hundred times oneself and 275 still fail to get the same impression as when someone else, a man with special gifts, stands beside you and points out that fact to you, explains it to you in his own words and 55 makes you look at it through his eyes." This is an indict ment of the technique of reportage as the aim of literature.

As Jackson says, "the artist does not mirror reality (the ordinary observer performs this act); rather he acts upon reality, 'explains it' through the shaping he gives to it, through form."^

These comments concerning the writer's transforma tion of reality into art are a distance from the reportage conducted by the physiologists and writers of the "Natural

School" in the decade of the 1840's. It can be argued that

Dostoevskij's aesthetic vision altered after the crucible of imprisonment. In the 1840's he was actively pursuing a belief in lofty aesthetic humanism. There is some evidence that he was a sincere member of the Petrasevskij circle in which philanthropic socialism was discussed. After incarceration his experiences with the "desperate types" caused a "crashing of illusions."

We believe it is possible to see in the works of the

1840's Dostoevskij's moving away from the tenets of the "Na tural School". His DevuSkin passes critical judgements on the model work of the decade, Gogol''s "Sinel"', as well as on physiologies of Grigorovi£. He draws human characters, not cardboard types. He did not accept the copying from 276

nature, but explored the psychology of its heroes, attempting

to illuminate the recesses of their personalities. Devu^kin

is not remembered merely as a poor civil servant, he is re

membered as an individualized poor devil who is a psycho

logical "rag". Even the descriptions which are reminiscent

of the "Natural School" (the walk down Fontanka and Goroxo-

vaja street) are not simply descriptions of street scenes, but are dramatized episodes to which Devu^kin responds,

thereby revealing his own nature.

We can find elements of the physiological sketch and

the "Natural School" in Dostoevskij1s works throughout his

career, but the thrust of the particular details he includes

in his works is not reportage. Raskol'nikov's walk along

Fontanka is a dramatic episode and is included to underscore the urban environment which has spawned him. Dostoevskij transformed the details of reality into his own artistic vision.

The earliest period in the development of what we have termed "naive realism" is one in which the physiological sketch was the dominant genre. In this period there was a dominance of reportage. By the middle of the decade the de velopment of the "village story" and the appearance of longer prose works ushered in a period of more fully developed na turalism. It is in this period that there is a discernable trend running counter to naturalism. We have noted how But kov played with Gogolian types and motifs, imitating the 277 master's language and writing style. Hodgson asserts that

Butkov exposed the "Natural School" characters as worn-out literary devices, attacking, as it were, the artistic norm.

He does not refer to Mukai?ovsky' s theory of deformation, but in our view, this is what Butkov did: he deformed the pre vailing norm. Dostoevskij, not content to depict the two- dimensional figure of the poor copy clerk, shifted the frame of reference from the author to the hero, according to Bax- tin, focusing attention on the latter's view of the real world and his relation to it. No longer formulaic, the man-environment confrontation gains a new dimension: the

"psychology" of the hero. He has depth.

Hodgson preferred to call this underground movement

"reluctant naturalism" based upon his thesis that these writers (among whom he includes Butkov, Grebenka, and Kokorev) were reluctant to force literary styles, native to Russian de velopment, into the model of Western fictional genres. The basis of his theory lies in the notion of struggle and con flict which are present in any period of literary transition.

Clearly the decade of the 1840's is such a period.

Turgenev, who began his career under the auspices of the "Natural School", rather quickly diverged from the group as his skills developed and his artistic sensibilities reached beyond the strictures of daguerrotypical realism. He was closely aligned with the "progressive" critics grouped around Belinskij and the "Contemporary", edited by Nekrasov 278 and Panaev. By the year 1848, however, his sketches lost even the traces of their programmatic character, and the portraits which came to mark his later novels began to emerge.

One need only compare "Xor1 i Kalinyc" and "Bezin lug" to see the difference.

Lesser known writers may constitute the basis of a trend in literary output which runs counter to the dominant naturalism. Jakov Butkov, Evgenij Grebenka (whose works more closely align themselves with the physiologies) are examples of this "underground". Butkov's Peterburgskie verKiny is a collection of physiological sketches but their dominant char acteristic is the exposure of physiological devices as worn- out cliches.^

Gogol' was the dominant force in the decade of the

1840's. His literary style was imitated by most other writers in the period. We have found titular councillors and copy clerks as heroes in every genre. The interpretation of his work as socially critical brought about a flood of stories about the humiliated and the wronged in Russian society. The

"Natural School" came to be represented by work which w § s .j dominated by a formula easily stereotyped into a conflict between man and his social environment.

Dostoevskij made a quantum leap, "a minor Copernican upheaval" (in Baxtin's words) in this style by focusing on the character's psychology, exposing his personality to public view. While Devulkin is a pitiful character he is not 279 marked by the overt grotesquerie which marks Gogol''s char acter. He does not like Gogol''s work because he sees that he is being made ridiculous.

The physiologists prepared the groundwork for the later prose development by bringing attention to the ordinary average man as a suitable subject for literature. No longer were only the noble, heroic types the dominant force in literary representation. Street sweepers, janitor^, petty, low-level civil servants became the central figures in the literature of the 1840's. The physiologists experimented with prose genres to the extent that they were learning how to render accurate and faithful reproduction of observable detail in imaginative fiction. Belinskij determined that this movement toward the exact depiction of reality in lit erature represented the development of a truly national

Russian literature, one which reflected native Russian types and scenes. He threw the full weight of his prestige and influence behind the movement and actively promoted the production of this type of literature. This movement came to be referred to as the "Natural School", the depiction of so cially oppressed "little men", frequently in a sentimental hue, or that of men being "educated" or transformed by the social environment form naive provincials into philistines.

The use of the label has caused controversy almost since Bulgarin coined it in 1846. One reason for the con fusion is the inclusion of such a diverse number of artists: 280

Gogol' was considered the leader, Turgenev and Dostoevskij were all considered "Natural School" writers during the decade. It was only later that they established their own styles and were recognized as independent of the "Natural

School" label. NOTES TO CHAPTER FOUR

Jurij Tynjanov went far to establish the notion of stylization in his article "Dostoevskij i Gogol': K teorii parodii", in which he notes that, "there is a concept of literary succession," which may go far to comprehend Dos- toevskij's relationship to Gogol'. "In literature, Gogol* was for him [Dostoevskij] apparently something which had to be overcome; something which had to be surpassed." He refers to Dostoevskij's stylization when he notes how he "plays" with Gogolian devices. "Stylization" is close to parody but Tynjanov refrains from referring to the relationship as one of parody, which he believes carries too many associations. "Stylization" becomes parody when the object is being made ridiculous. Dostoevskij is not making fun of Gogol', he is stylizing him. See Jurij Tynjanov, "Dostoevskij i Gogol': K teorii parodii," 0 Dostoevskom, Brown University Slavic Re print (Providence,RI: Brown University Press, 1966), p. 153; p. 157. 2 Vinogradov refers to parodies in several Gogol' stories in his Eltjudy o stile Gogolja (Leningrad, 1926) . 3 Peter Hodgson, From Gogol to Dostoevsky: Jakov Butkov, a reluctant naturalist in the 1840's (Munich: Fink, 19 76), pi vii. This concept of the minor literary figure acting as a messenger of technique and style is one which is linked to the notion of "cyclization" in which the periods of literary transition are viewed as eras of struggle. The minor writers are significant in their role as conduits of the li terary underground. It is Hodgson's thesis that Butkov passed on to Dostoevskij the literary techniques and themes of Gogol'.

^1. S. Turgenev, "Pomes^ik," Sobranie so£inenij vol. 6 (Moscow, 1968), p. 59. All future citations are from this edition and references will be made with page number only.

5 N. G. Gogol', Mertvye dusi. v Polnoe sobranie socinenij vol. 6 (Moscow, 1938), p. 247.

6A. E. Gruzinskij, I. S. Turgenev (licnost' i tvor- Sestvo) (Moscow, 1918), p. 52. Gruzinskij's reference to naturalism concerns the non-romantic features in his verse.

281 282

Gruzinskij, p. 27. g Both Gruzinskij and Richard Freeborn (Turgenev: The Novelist's Novelist (Cambridge: Oxford University Press, 1970) assert that the early romantic poetry reflects the writer's pre-occupation with romantic motifs.

V. G. Belinskij, "'Parasa'," Polnoe______sobranie so- Sinenij vol. 7 (Moscow, 1955), p. 69. All citations are from this edition and future references will be indicated by volume and page only.

Belinskij uses this as "ammunition" against the "Moskvitjanin" in his defense of the new school. Cited in Belinskij, "Otvet 'Moskvitjaninu'," Polnoe sobranie so^inenij vol 10 (Moscow, 1956), p. 269. 11 I. S. Turgenev, Zapiski oxotnika, Sobranie so- c^inenij vol. 1 (Moscow, 1968) , p. 82. All citations are from this edition and future references will be made with page number only. 12 Gruzinskij, p. 61. 13 Gruzinskij, p. 56. 14 Freeborn, p. 30. 15 v M. 0. Gersenzon, Mecta i mysl' I. S. Turgeneva (Munich: Fink, 1970), p. 69. 16. Ibid. 17 Ibid., p. 68. 18 Ibid., p , 74. 19 Ibid.

20 Freeborn, p. 31.

^^Victor Terras, "Turgenev's Aesthetic and Western Realism," Comparative Literature, 22(1970), no. 1, 33.

^ Ibid. , p. 21.

V. I. Kule§ov, Natural'naja i-skola v russkoj lit erature XIX veka (Moscow, 1965), p. 49. Kule&ov follows in the tradition of those critics who viewed Butkov's works as sentimental statements about the plight of the little man. It is Hodgson's thesis that this is not well-founded in fact. 283

^KuleSov, p. 31. 25 Hodgson, p. viii. He recognizes a difference in the works of Butkov, and believes that the works of this writer do not fit the mold of the other writers in the "Natural School". He prefers the term "reluctant naturalism". 2 6 Butkov, Ja. P. Peterburgskie versiny. Povesti i rasskazy, ed. by B. S. Mejlax (Moscow, 1967). All citations come from this edition and future references will be made with page number only. 27 Cited in A. G. Cejtlin, Stanovlenie realizma v russkoj literature. Russkij fiziologi^eskij ofierk (Moscow, 1965), p. 102. 2 8 Kule^ov, p. 49. 29 Butkov, p. 4.

■^V. G. Belinskij, "Peterburg i Moskva," Fizio- logija Peterburga (St. Petersburg, 1845), p. 37. 31 N. A. Nekrasov, "Fiziologija Peterburga," Pol noe sobranie socinenij vol. 9 (Moscow, 1949), p. 142. 32 Hodgson also notes some references to the writings of Belinskij and Nekrasov which he sees Butkov refuting. 33 Hodgson, p. vii. 34 Ibid., p. 4. 35 Charles E. Passage, The Russian Hoffmannists (The Hague: Mouton, 1963). Passage's monograph concerns the imitators of Hoffmann in Russia and concentrates much of its attention on the early doubles and the modifications wrought by Dostoevskij. 3 6 Tynjanov, "Dostoevskij i Gogol1," p. 160. 37 Hodgson, p. 75. He also itemizes the publication dates and publisher for all Of the Peterburgskie versiny which indicates that the conservative camp published them.

38 \ V. V. Vinogradov, Evoljucija russkogo naturalizma (Leningrad, 1929), p. 313.

^Mixail Baxtin, Problems of Dostoevsky's Poetics trans. by R. W. Rotsel (Ann Arbor, MI: Ardis, 1973), pT 39. 284 40 Several scholars have noted the importance of this letter from Fedor Mixajlovi£ to his brother. Robert L. Jackson, Dostoevsky's Quest for Form (Bloomington, IN: Physsardt, 1978), 24.

^^Victor Terras, The Young Dostoevsky: A Critical Study (1846-1849) (The Hague: Mouton, 1969), p. 222. This work is an analysis of the early works of Dostoevskij in terms of theme, language, and technique. 42 Like Tynjanov ("Dostoevskij i Gogol1"), Terras refrains from using parody as a term comparing the works of the two masters. He prefers travesty and gives a full explanation of the choice in terminology. 43 Terras, Young Dostoevsky, p. 14. 44 F. M. Dostoevskij, Bednye ljudi, Polnoe sobran ie so&inenij vol. 1 (Leningrad” 1972) , p. 76. All citation are made from this edition and future references will be made with page number only. 45 Konstantin Mochulsky, Dostoevsky, trens. by M. A. Minihan (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1967), p. 34. This is not to say that the scholar is unaware of the problem of self-esteem and pride as factors in Dos toevskij 's thought. But, in light of Baxtin's analysis, the mere representation of money as the cause of the loss of dignity seems to use to fall short of the problem.

^Baxtin, p. 39. 47 Terras, Young Dostoevsky, p. 14. 48 > Vinogradov, Evoljucija, p. 214. 49 Terras, Young Dostoevsky, p. 14. 50 Ibid., p. 27. Terras goes on to note that "if Dostoevskij were known only for the stories "A Faint Heart", "An Honest Thief", "A Christmas Tree and a Weeding", and "Polzunkov", one could assign him to that school without reservation.11

^Jurij Mann, "0 dvizu£3ejsja tipologii konfliktov," Voprosy literatury X(1971), p. 98. Mann's article notes the standard conflict in the "Natural School" works as the bribe-taking state official. 285

52 \ N. G. Cerny&evskij, "EstestiXeskie otno^enija iskusstva k dejstvitel'nosti," festetika i Titeraturna ja kritika (Moscow, 1951), p. 43.

"*^Ibid., p. 43, 44. 54 Jackson, p. 136.

55F. M. Dostoevskij, vol. 18, p. 77.

^Jackson, p. 72.

57Hodgson refers to this exposure of the worn-out cliches of the "Natural School" writers as a process of "troping" wherein the writer, in this case,, Butkov, exposes the devices (civil servant, copy clerks, poverty, hack writers) by making them obviously comic and exposed to public ridicule. CONCLUSION

The decade of the 1840's was one of transition in

Russian literature. Russian writers were feeling their way to a new literary style and new composition techniques. The

Russian Formalist Critics seized upon this transition decade because they had begun to view literary history in a new way. No longer satisfied with the continuum theory in which one movement was seen to follow another in clear and perfect succession (one may call this a Darwinian evolutionary pat tern in which literary forms were compared to biological species which evolve and die out), theoreticians such as

Ejxenbaum, Vinogradov, and Tynjanov hypothesized a notion of

"cyclization" or "literary evolution" in which major strug gles occur in periods of seemingly minor literary activity.

"As always in history, this process is developed not in view of one line of facts, but in a complex form of interlacing and opposition of various traditions and methods, the strug gle of which forms the epoch.

Jan Mukarovsky, a leading theoretician of the Prague

Linguistic Circle, posited a notion of aesthetic norm as a social fact. He believed that each era establishes an aes thetic norm which is then attacked by artists establishing a new norm as the previous one becomes automatically perceived 286 287 by the audience. The basis of this notion is that art is an aesthetic experience in which perception of the artistic ex perience must be prolonged. Prolongation occurs through the deformation or distortion of the established norm. This process had been called "estrangement" by the Russian Viktor

V Sklovskij some twenty years previously.

On the surface of the decade of the 1840's stands the genre of the physiological sketch. One cannot confront the analysis of the genre without contending with two larger issues: the existence of the so-called "Natural School" and the role of Belinskij in the intellectual life of the decade.

The existence of the movement traditionally referred to as the "Natural School" is widely accepted. That Belinskij was the leading intellectual force in the decade is also widely accepted. In Annenkov's words,

Belinskij's first article expressed the intellectual condition of young people of the time, in whom trends of every description lived at close quarters with one another. The bond uniting them was an identical love of learning, of the world, of free thought, of homeland. Their condi tion may be likened to a sizable natural reservoir in which the waters of future rivers mingle peacefully to gether until such time as a geologi cal upheaval divides them and chan nels them off in opposite directions. Belinskij was the subterranean blaze2 which hastened that upheaval.

The problem arises before the investigator to probe the re lationship between these three elements: the physiological 288 sketch, the "Natural School", and Belinskij. The individual members of the equation may not be studied independently.

The second problem is how tc probe the interrela tionship of these three elements with the goal of elucidating the roots of the prose tradition which followed this period of transition. After considerable research on this problem we believe that the extant analyses of the physiological sketch and the "Natural School" are inadequate. Vasilij

KuleSov has not exposed a complete picture of the movement's development, and posits a socio-economic rationale for its popularity. His ultimate purpose is to prove the roots of

"critical realism," the mainstay of Soviet literary thought.

A. G. Cejtlin has performed a great service to scholarship by his exhaustive research of both Russian and foreign works and the identification of Western prose models is a major step above Kule^ov's narrow approach. Cejtlin, however, is rather myopic: he sees only physiologies and his criteria for the genre are too broad.

We believe that the better approach is one in which the relationship between man and environment is explored.

This is the tack which Jurij Mann has taken in regard to the

"Natural School". We believe that it may be applied to the physiological sketch as well. The physiologists presented the relationship as static description: their primary goal was to describe the relationship in order to illuminate the structure of the organic society. Frequently their subjects 289

(the organ grinders, janitors, street sweepers, etc.) are

treated as "curiosities." The writers of the "Natural

School" went beyond the description of the symbiotic rela

tionship and depicted a conflict between the social type and his environment. This conflict, readily copied and imitated, was easily stereotyped. The philosophy of French philan

thropic socialism flowed into this conflict with the result

that the confrontation became formulaic.

These events, the input of philanthropic socialism

and the broadening of the relationship into the conflict,

converged with the emergence of Belinskij's philosophical position concerning the role of literature in society. He

actively promoted an ideologically-bound literature in which social ills and injustices would be exposed. As a

result we see tendentious works such as Who is to Blame?,

"The Muddled Affair", and others rise to the forefront of

literary output. Belinskij propagandized for the works of

the "Natural School" because they depicted the problems which women faced in society, they condemned the evils of serfdom,

they showed the destitute of the city attempting to find a way to survive in the face of social injustice. It was the

idea present in these works which justified their being com posed. The "Natural School" was a combination of revived

sentimentalism and philanthropic socialism.

Belinskij overlooked the fact that he was confusing

empirical reality and artistic reality. We have proposed 290 that the physiological sketch writers may have been attacking the prevailing aesthetic norm established by the romantics.

Their efforts to document reality and render a daguerrotype may be considered attacks on the romantic conventions of beautification of natural settings, extraordinary heroes, and the grandeur of nature. They depicted ordinary low types in their day-to-day routine in a language which was reflect ing the "word-as-label" view. The ordinariness of these sketches contrasts sharply with the extraordinary aesthetic of the romantics.

We perceive a clear shift by mid-decade, away from the physiology toward more developed narrative forms. This shift coincided with the rise of the "Natural School". There is an increase in narrative sophistication as well as a deepening of dramatic tension (social conflict). The physiologists believed they could selectively borrow the trap pings of science (objective description, jargon) and depict the human "species" in the organic society. This literature provoked cries of outrage from critics who maintained the validity of the prevailing aesthetic norm. Prostitutes, jan itors, clowns were not considered suitable for artistic li terature. Critics such as Bulgarin and Sevyrev, for example, believed that art should serve a higher purpose, a more noble aim, than the representation of common, everyday reality.

There were writers who acquired their apprentice ship in this early realist movement, but went beyond its 291 narrow1 strictures to establish their own individual styles.

Turgenev was clearly one such writer. His earliest sketches for Zapiski oxotnika are much more reflective of the village stories and physiologies than later ones. He was not inter ested in daguerrotype realism. Jakov Butkov was a writer whose sketches and tales represent a departure from natural ist technique as well. While there are those who believe him to be the epitome of the movement, we agree with a recent study which reveals a divergence from that naturalism positing a theory of literary underground. The grotesquerie and word play which the writers of the "Natural School" ignored in their master, Gogol', in favor of word-as-label technique, are present in Butkov's sketches.

Hodgson, who posits this theory of "reluctant na turalism", believes that this underground led to Dostoevskij.

This master was not content to depict the cardboard types of the "Natural School" and created a new "polyphonic" novelistic technique according to Baxtin, which shifted the narrative perspective from that of the author to that of the hero himself. In this process the hero reveals his own atti tudes and feelings about the "real" world so that the issue of daguerrotypicality is obscured. The "real" world becomes the world as seen by the individual and not the "generally accepted" real world of the mass of men. Such an "individu alized world" is not readily subjected to formula. 292

Ortega y Gasset has argued that artists of the nine teenth century reduced the strictly aesthetic elements to a minimum, and "let the work consist almost entirely in a 3 fiction of human realities." He indicts this realistic art as being only partially art because the enjoyment of it does not depend upon our power to focus on images, which he believes is a powerful characteristic of the artistic sensi bility. This realistic art only requires human sensibility and a willingness to sympathize with our neighbor's joys and worries. "No wonder nineteenth century art is so popu lar, it is made for the masses inasmuch as it is not art 4 but an extract from life." The physiological sketch played a distinct role inthis developmental process. The physiologists sought to re-produce reality using a language which denied the use of any device which obscured or ob structed the conveyance of meaning. NOTES TO CONCLUSION

■^Boris Ejxenbaum, Leritiontov, Opyt istoriko-literaturnoj ocenki (Munich: Fink^ 19 67), p. 10. 2 Pavel Annenkov, The Extraordinary Decade trans. by I. R. Titunik (Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press, 1968), p. 4. 3 Jose Ortega y Gasset, The Dehumanization of Art (New York: Doubleday Inc., 1956), p. 10. 4 Ortega y Gasset, p. 11.

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