If the contemporary Soviet philosopher were asked to give a brief answer to the question, what is art, his reply would probably be that art is a reflection of reality, a reality that is largely social. What does he mean by this reply? First of all, that the subject matter of art is to a great extent made up of the social life of man, which is like a cornucopia whence flow situations, problems, themes, materials, conflicts, and struggles with which the artist deals. These things cannot help but be “reflected” in his work. It is not meant, however, that this reflection is in the nature of an inert and passive image which exercises no influence on what it reflects. As we shall see, the influence which it exerts, directly and indirectly, is very important.

The recent siege and heroic defence of Leningrad have refocused the world's attention on this remarkable city; attention that, from the architectural point of view at least, it has always merited, for Leningrad (the old St. Petersburg), even with its northern setting and its Russian background, is probably the most perfect classical city since ancient Rome. It owes this to a wise succession of rulers, each of whom, though building to his personal taste, followed the basic pattern established by Peter the Great, founder of the city.

In 1703, Peter, having captured the mouth of the Neva from the Swedes, decided to build a new capital that would be in closer contact with western Europe.

The absence of any brief but inclusive treatment of the chief works of pre-revolutionary Russian painting has suggested the preparation of this summary, based on repeated visits to the great Soviet collections (especially the Russian Museum in Leningrad and the Tretyakov Galley at Moscow) and on the following standard or detailed historical and critical works: L. Réau, L'art russe de Pierre le Grand à nos jours (Paris, 1922); O. Wulff, Die neurussiscke Kunst (Vienna, 1932); I. Grabar, Istoriya russkogo iskusstva, esp. vols, i, iv (St. Petersburg, 1909-1914); V. Nikolskil, Istoriya russkogo iskusstva (Berlin, 1923); A. Benois, Istoriya žvopisi v XIX veke: russkaya Zivopis’ (St. Petersburg, 1901); N. Kovalevskaya, Istoriya russkogo iskusstva XVIII veka (Moscow, 1940); O. Lyaskovskaya, Karl Bryullpv (Moscow, 1940); I. Grabar, Repin (Moscow, 1933); I. Grabar, Ilya Efimovich Repin, 2 vols.

What are the relations between parents and children in the USSR? What is the Soviet policy towards parental authority? The importance of these two questions reaches beyond the family itself because they can be used as political and social barometers.

Certain differences between two successive generations are a fairly normal phenomenon; the progress of civilization and of social life over a twenty-five year period — the average length of time separating parents and children — makes these discrepancies quite comprehensible. But if these differences in viewpoint become violent conflicts, it is proof that the social life of the country is in a state of ferment. The official attitude in such cases is characteristic of the regime.

Although the years immediately following the Revolution of 1917 were unfavorable to the development of scientific research in Russia, the importance of such work was recognized by Lenin shortly after he took power. In a memorandum written in April, 1918, he outlined a plan for reorganization of the Academy of Sciences; but the political struggle and the Civil War left him little occasion to effect any practical steps in this direction.

During the NEP, the so-called Restoration Period (1921-1928), the Soviet Government undertook measures designed to maintain a certain number of scientific activities. But conditions of work were unstable and research was ineffectively organized. In 1929 the highest scientific body, the Academy of Sciences, was drastically reorganized, deprived of its traditional autonomy, and forced to adjust its work to the practical needs of the new reconstruction of industry and agriculture. At the outset “pure science” was frowned upon, neglected, and even suppressed. But subsequently its great importance was recognized, and the reversal in governmental policy was marked by the establishment of new institutes devoted to fundamental research in such fields as mathematics, physics, chemistry, biology, etc.

Autumn
List'ya v pole poželteli,
I kruiatsya i letyat …
Across the meadows whirling blow
The yellow leaves of fall;
No verdure in the woodlands now,
The dark green pine is all.
Beneath the boulder's hanging crest,
No more on beds of flowers
The ploughboy seeks his midday rest
From hot laborious hours.
Sadly the wild wood creatures go
To hidden coverts deep;
The moon is dim; the meadows glow
In silver mists asleep.

The Nazi attempt to draw philosophers and artists, who are not able to protect themselves for the simple reason that they are dead, into the orbit of their own brand of philosophy is not surprising. Their basic insecurity forced them to look for support from all quarters. Nietzsche, Stefan George, and Dostoevski are but a few outstanding examples. Most extraordinary is the Nazi claim that Dostoevski was a precursor of Fascism. Now, after complete military victory over Germany, this task is still ahead of us: to detect and destroy the subtly-penetrating lies which Nazism has built up.

It is not too difficult an enterprise to prove that Dostoevski was reactionary, hyper-nationalistic and anti-revolutionary. His political and ethical views were as contradictory and dualistic as the emotional life of his heroes.

Naturalism in literature is a phenomenon peculiar to the nineteenth century. To be sure, there have always been realistic movements in literature; but realism in the extreme form in which it manifested itself towards the end of the nineteenth century, in the theories and the works of the naturalists, is inconceivable either earlier or later. It is a consistent and logical derivative of ninteenth-century culture.

One outstanding feature of this culture is the predominance of natural science. Owing to the tremendous development which natural science underwent in this period, its prestige and its influence gradually came to be felt farther and farther afield.

The impact of natural science on nineteenth-century culture was two-fold. First was its influence on thought.

Ekaterina Konstantinova Breshko-Breshkovskaya, nee Verigo, was born in 1844 in the Vitebsk District and brought up on a large estate in the Chernigov District. Her father was the scion of an aristocratic Polish family and her mother was a member of the Russian aristocracy. Madame Breshkovskaya grew up in wealth and comfort with an assured social position. Her parents were liberally inclined, and she explained her own liberalism as being founded upon her father's teachings and influence. However, Madame Breshkovskaya went far to the left of her father's mild liberalism.

As a girl in her late teens, Madame Breshkovskaya went to St. Petersburg, where she at once became an active member of the liberal and revolutionary groups which centered around the University. Like others of her class among the intelligentsia, she was driven to the left by conviction and by a mysterious compulsion to expiate the sins of her peers.

Of the Balkan peoples who regained independent national life during the nineteenth century, the Bulgarians were least favorably situated. Cut off geographically from the fertilizing ideas of the West, economically and politically under closer subjection to Constantinople, and religiously and intellectually exploited by the Greeks, the Bulgarians had in addition to cope with the contradictory interests of the great powers and the jealousy and ambition of their politically more fortunate neighbors. But because of these obstacles, the resurrection of Bulgaria furnishes examples of the workings of modern nationalism and of the impact of foreign influences on backward native conditions. Among such influences, the Serbian was one of the most significant.

To be sure, Bulgarian national feeling never completely died out, any more than Bulgaria entirely disappeared from the political map or vocabulary of Europe.

It is quite natural that the study of history in Latvia could not be established on a firm scientific basis before Latvia achieved its independence. As soon as the Latvian State University was founded in 1919, historical and archaeological departments were established in it. Young scientists were trained by their elder colleagues in all auxiliary sciences, such as paleography, diplomatics, sphragistics, numismatics, etc. A Committee for the Preservation of Historical and Cultural Monuments was created, which established in the vicinity of Riga an open-air museum, where certain ethnographically rare farm buildings, old wooden chapels, and other architectural antiques were placed. Other archaeological items not transferable to the open-air museum were taken over by the Committee and proclaimed of national importance, such as old Latvian burial pits and tombs, ritual oak trees, certain old Latvian castle mounds, ruins of castles of Latvian rulers of the early medieval era (such as: Tervete, Bauska, Koknese, Gercike), and numerous ruins of castles of the Prince-archbishop and the Livonian Order of the Terra Mariana (1207-1562).

The future of Soviet foreign trade in general as well as that of the Baltic trade has become the subject-matter of lively discussion. There are optimists who expect that Soviet Baltic trade will reach huge proportions in the approaching new world. But there are also pessimists who are not so optimistic concerning the extent of that trade.

Similar uncertainty concerning the proportions of Soviet Baltic trade prevailed after the First World War. It may be recalled, for instance, that what may be called an optimistic expectancy regarding Soviet Baltic trade goes back to the years 1918-1920 when, as in our day, large turnovers of Soviet transit trade with the newly established Baltic countries were expected. The Soviet Union supported this expectancy both by words and by deeds.

There are now close to three quarters of a million Americans of Slovak origin who were born across the ocean. Together with their American-born first and second generation sons and daughters, they represent a distinctive element in American national life.

Escaping in the ‘80's of the last century from oppression under the Hungarian rule, which tried to denationalize and magyarize the whole Slovak country, they never had any ideological conflict with American tradition and the American way of life. Quite the contrary. Here in America they have realized their human cultural and political rights, and have been able not only to progress individually and as a group but also to help their Slovak brethren in the shadow of the Tatra Mountains to gain their national freedom and the democratic privileges they enjoyed in the Republic of Czechoslovakia.

A comprehensive treatment of the teaching of Ukrainian might well begin with the statement that there are approximately two hundred schools in the United States devoted almost exclusively to this project. In addition there are many schools in which Ukrainian is merely another subject of study. The latter group consists of grammar schools, high schools, and institutions of higher learning.

Although the number of pupils in some of these schools is comparatively small (in some cases less than fifty), and sometimes the whole school is staffed with only one teacher, there is nevertheless an active interest in their promotion, and their attainments are most gratifying. The results are certain — the Ukrainian language is being learned even in obviously pauperized schools by the most direct methods. The children learn to speak Ukrainian; they learn to read and to write the language, and they often delve deeply into literature, history, and the arts.

Mr. Robert J. Hall, JR.'S observations, published under the title, "Progress and Reaction in Modern Language Teaching," in the Summer 1945 issue of the A.A.U.P. Bulletin are a belated post mortem of the defunct and buried A.S.T.P. program, and would not call for any remarks on the part of well-informed teachers and linguists, were it not for the fact that the Bulletin, by printing them, gave them a prominence which might be misinterpreted by the uninitiated.

Modern and other language teachers in this country have not labored for sixty years to give the profession a certain dignity, to be now urged to seek models for teaching cultural backgrounds, especially as regards the Mediterranean civilization, in Bantu, Tagalog, Menominee, Navajo, Eskimo and Chibcha linguistics, taught in Pidgin or Basic English. It may be that in music, singing, and dancing the prevailing trends hark back to the jungle (jangal = forest primeval), Mickey Mouse, and Jos6 Carioca, but unless the whole of the United States is to be transformed into a phonematic Hollywood scenario, no serious language teacher will even try to excavate the antediluvian tablets on which the notes of the A.S.T.P. rumba were written.