Studies which have been made in the West of this important topic of international literary relations have been either very general or biased or both. It is indicative of the Stand der Forschung that M. Gorlin's sketchy article, “Goethe in Russland,” remains to this day one of the sources most frequently referred to. The most recent contribution to our topic is Mathew Volm's study W. A. Zhukovskii als Übersetzer (Part ii). It is a most detailed evaluation and analysis of Zhukovski's translations of Goethe. Unfortunately, however, Volm has chosen to make of his work a polemic against Gorlin's views; he maintains that Zhukovski not only was equal to his task as a translator of Goethe but in his renderings actually proved himself a greater poet. It cannot be said that this approach resulted in an acceptable contribution to our topic. Moreover, Volm's work, like Gorlin's, is completely lacking in factual, biographical material and argues its thesis in a historical vacuum.