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Gogol and Anglo-Russian Literary Relations during the Crimean War

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 August 2018

Carl Lefevre
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Extract

Gogol was little known in England before the Crimean War. Earlier there had been only one criticism of his works, and that an incompetent one (1841); a sketchy, erroneous mention of him in a table of Russian literature published in a periodical (1842); and the first translation of one of his supernatural tales, “Viy” (1847). Then the Crimean War brought forth a malicious forgery of his masterpiece of social satire, Dead Souls (1854), which occasioned three long articles, two of them exposing it for what it was, and a third simply exploiting it to suit the propaganda needs of the hour. On the more constructive side of the wartime interest in Gogol, first translations of two of his tales, with prefatory critical comments, were published in periodicals. Excepting a scattered handful of lost translations and one pioneering critical study, there was no further English interest in Gogol until the 1880s.

Type
Research Article
Information
American Slavic and East European Review , Volume 8 , Issue 2 , April 1949 , pp. 106 - 125
Copyright
Copyright © Association for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies 1949

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References

1 L., “Russian Literary Biography &c,” Westminster Review, XXXVI (July, 1841), 35-57. This periodical was originally a Benthamite organ and later was edited unofficially by John Stuart Mill (1837-40); it continued until 1851. See Graham, , English Literary Periodicals, pp. 251-52.Google Scholar

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

3 Ibid.,

4 Blackwood's, Edinburgh Magazine, LXII (October, 1847), 457-84.Google Scholar

5 E. A. Osborne, “Early Translations from the Russian: II. Pushkin and His Contemporaries,” London Bookman, LXXXII (August, 1932), 268.

6 Gettman, Royal A., Turgenev in England and America, “Illinois Studies in Language and Literature” (Urbana, Ill., 1941). See Chapter I.Google Scholar

7 Ibid., p. 14.

8 Ibid., p. 29.

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

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

11 op. cit., p. 353.

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

13 Home Life in Russia, by a Russian Noble, (London, 1854), Preface, pp. i-iv.

14 December 2, 1854, pp. 1154-55. This periodical was a very important weekly journal of belles-lettres, and was especially noteworthy for the quality of its scholarly articles. See Graham, , op. cit., pp. 318-19.Google Scholar

The article is unsigned, like most others of the time. It is worth noting, however, that Morfill, W. R. writes in the Academy for February 25, 1893 (XLIII, 169-70)Google Scholar, that “the fraud [Heme Life in Russia], would probably have passed unnoticed if it had not been for the protest of the late W. R. S. Ralston” (p. 169). He does not indicate the nature of the protest, however, nor name a periodical or book in which it may be found; and Poole's docs not attribute the review to Ralston. Ralston was interested in Russian literature and he wrote several articles on it in this period and later, but nothing on Gogol. His scholarly specialty was Russian folklore, and he published one of the earliest works in English on this subject,Russian Folk Tales,(1873). He also wrote Krilojf and His Fables,(1869) and The Songs of the Russian People,(1872).

15 Athenaeum, p. 1155.

16 “Our Weekly Gossip”, Athenaeum, (December 9, 1854), 1496.

17 Ibid.

18 “Modern Russian Literature” [reprinted from the Eclectic Review], the Eclectic Magazine, XXXIV (April, 1855), 450-61. This periodical was a “sectarian religious organ of the Dissenters,” and a close imitator of the Edinburgh Review., See Graham, , op. cit., p. 239.Google Scholar

19 Ibid., p. 454.

20 Ibid.

21 “Russians at Home—Past and Present,” British Quarterly Review, XXI (January and April, 1855), 130-57. The British Quarterly Review, is an important source of material reflecting Anglo-Russian literary relations of this early period. The first full-length essay in English which deals with everything Gogol wrote appeared in it in 1868, and the first essay on Turgenev which discussed all his novels, in 1869, both written by C. E. Turner. The publisher of this periodical issued a translation of Turgenev's On the Eve, in book form in 1871.

22 Ibid., p. 143.

23 Ibid., pp. 132, 133, 136, for example.

24 Ibid., pp. 131-32

25 Ibid., p. 139.

26 Ibid., p. 138.

27 Fletcher, Giles, The History of Russia; or, The Government of the Emperor, with the Manners and Fashions of the People of That Country (London, 1643)Google Scholar.

28 British Quarterly Review, p. 157.

29 “Russian Literature”, Dublin University Magazine, XLVI (September, 1855), 198-308. This periodical was one of the outstanding miscellanies of the time, accordingto a contemporary article in the London Review., See Graham, , op. cit., p. 335.Google Scholar

30 Merimée, Prosper, “La Littérature en Russie,” Revue des Deux Mondes, S.6, XII, (November 15, 1851), 627–650.Google Scholar Also reprinted as an appendix to his Carmen, (1852). This article undoubtedly influenced most of the English critics of Gogol in this period.

31 Dublin University Magazine, p. 298.

32 Ibid., p. 299.

33 Ibid.,

34 This translation is not indexed in Poole by the title or the author, nor under any other subject heading I have been able to conjure up; the introductory material is referred to and briefly discussed by Professor Gettman (op. cit., pp. 15—16), but he does not mention the translation which is the substance of the article. I have encountered no reference anywhere to this translation.

35 Dublin University Magazine, p. 304.

36 Ibid., p. 303.

37 Ibid., p. 304.

38 Ibid., p. 303.

39 Cossack Tales, trans, from the Russian by George Tolstoy (London, 1860).

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

41 Edward Turner, Charles, “Nicholas Gogol,” British Quarterly Review, XLVII (April, 1868), 322-45.Google Scholar

42 Osborne, E. A., “Early Translations from the Russian: I. Before Pushkin,” London Bookman, LXXXIII (July, 1932), 217.Google Scholar