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Criticism of the Natural School in the 1840's

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 March 2019

Kenneth E. Harper
Kenneth E. Harper*
Affiliation:
Department of Slavic Languages, University of California
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Extract

The Decade of The 1840's is one of the most fascinating in the whole of Russian literature, and one of the least understood. Historians of literature, in patronizing perspective, are wont to view it as a “pre-“ period, as a preparation to the great age of the novel which was to follow. Since the Russian novel was not fashioned at mid-century by the accidental confluence of three of four writers of genius, beginnings must be sought: the forties, the age of the Natural School, serve the purpose admirably. The Natural School writers, so-called because of their fondness for depicting “life in the raw,” laid the foundation for the realistic novel of mid-century. Their negative, critical approach (derived chiefly from the satiric naturalism of Gogol) was responsible for the creation of a homogeneous body of literature: philanthropic stories on the poor, the physiological sketch, the social criticism of Belinskij, and the first successes of Turgenev, Dostoevsky, and Nekrasov. The movement was short-lived, and produced few literary works of great intrinsic merit.

Type
Research Article
Information
American Slavic and East European Review , Volume 15 , Issue 3 , October 1956 , pp. 400 - 414
Copyright
Copyright © Association for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies 1956

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References

1 Soviet scholarship has produced interesting studies on the period, including Mejlakh, B. S., ed., Russkie povesti XIX veka, 40-50M1 godov, a Vols. (Moscow, 1952)Google Scholar; Dement'ev, A. G., Ocherki po istorii russkoj zhurnalistiki 1840-1850 gg. (Moscow, Leningrad, 1951)Google Scholar; Mordovchenko, N., Belinskij i russkaja literatura ego vremeni (Moscow, Leningrad, 1950)Google Scholar; Vinogradov, V. V., Evoljucija russkogo naturalizma (Leningrad, 1929)Google Scholar. These and other works, so obviously tendentious in purpose, make good use of the vast amount of material found in letters and memoirs of the period.

2 The incomplete holdings of the Library of Congress were exploited for the rightwing Syn otechestva (which suspended publication from June, 1844 to 1847) and Majak (which ceased publication in 1845), as well as for Illjustracija and Kraevskij's Litemturnaja gaieta. No issues of the Moscow daily, Moskovskij gorodskoj listok, were available. The views of such “independent” critics as V. N. Majkov and A. A. Grigor'ev, expressed in the Finskij vestnik and other short-lived publications, have not been incorporated in this paper.

3 O. I. Senkovskij, Biblioteka dlja chtenija, Vol. 53 (1842), p. 32. Senkovskij's abusive review of Dead Souls was matched by N. I. Grech, Severnaja pchela, No. 137 (1842), pp. 546-47 and F. V. Bulgarin, Severnaja pchela, No. 279 (1842), p. 1114. On the other hand, S. P. Shevyrev, the leading critic of the right-wing Moskvitjanin, defended Gogol's original and picturesque style and his gift for reproducing popular speech. In Revizor, he said, it is the mayor, not Gogol, who is responsible for the bad language. Moskvitjanin, No. 3 (1842), p. 179.

4 Bulgarin was amazed that Dal’ should devote so much time to a “description of the daily activities and lite of the porter, Gregory. Did Gregory ever dream that he would live to see such attention,” he jeered. Severnaja pchela, No. 79 (1845), p. 315. Cf. also L. Brant, Severnaja pchela, No. 236 (1845), p. 942, on the ridiculous attention paid to the lowly organ-grinder.

5 Brant, loc. cit. K. Masal'skij also protested against the popularity of peasants in bast shoes and against the “poverty, despair and debauchery” exhibited in Nekrasov's “Corners.” Syn otechestva, Vol. 8 (1848), p. 4. Bulgarin, noting that Nekrasov and the naturalists wanted to depict nature nakedly, asserted that, “We, on the other hand, hold to the rule… ‘Nature is good only when it is washed and combed,'” Severnaja pchela, No. 22 (1846) as quoted by V. Shklovskij, Zametki o proze russkikh klassikov (Moscow, 1953). p. 171.

6 “M. Z. K.,” (pseudonym of Ju. Samarin), Moskvitjanin, No. 2 (1847), p. l89. Nekrasov's famous poem, “Edu-li noch'ju,” was far too harrowing for the tender sensibilities of N. Gavrilov; it was extremely doubtful, said this critic, that any man (not to mention a woman) in polite society could finish the poem without a feeling of horror and revulsion. Moskvitjanin, No. 1-2 (1848), p. 199.

7 A. Ja. Panaeva, “Zamechatel'noe desjatiletie,” Belinskij v vospominanijakh sovremennikov, ed. F. M. Golovenchenko (Moscow, 1948), pp. 178-79.

8 A. V. Nikitenko, review of Peterburgskij sbornik, Biblioteka dlja chtenija, No. 4 (1846).

9 “Smes',” Otechestvennye zapiski, No. 12 (1845), pp. 119-20.

10 Review of Fiziologia Peterburga, Sobranie sochinenij, ed. F. M. Golovenchenko (Moscow, 1948), Vol. II, p. 809.

11 Saintsbury, George, A History of the French Novel (London, 1919), Vol. II, p. 464 Google Scholar.

12 Brunetiere, Ferdinand, Le Roman naturaliste (Paris, 1896), pp. 2–6 Google Scholar.

13 A. Studitskij, Moskvitjanin, No. 1 (1846), pp. 251-56. Cf. also Shevyrev, Moskvitjanin, No. 1 (1848), p. 43.

14 “M. Z. K.” (Ju. Samarin), Moskvitjanin, No. 2 (1847), pp. 189-90.

15 I. V. Kireevskij, Moskvitjanin, No. 1 (1845), pp 2“3- I n the opinion of Bulgarin, even Lermontov compares favorably with the colorless writers of the new school: in Maksim Maksimych of A Hero of Our Time “there is truth and nature, because the author looked with the heart into the heart” of his character. Severnaja pchela, No. 79 (1845), p. 315.

16 Shevyrev, Moskvitjanin, No. 1 (1848), pp. 46-49.

17 Even the well-written sketch, said Bulgarin, “merely skims across the mind of the cultured reader, leaving absolutely no impression.” Severnaja pchela, loc. cit. Belinskij had tried to forestall this criticism (in his “Introduction” to the Fiziologia Peterburga) by pleading the cause of the writer of average ability, for whom the sketch was best suited: “Poor is a literature which is not blessed with men of genius; but poor also is a literature in which everything is either a work of genius or the work of a poor, ungifted writer. Ordinary talents are needed in literature, and the more of them there are, the better.” Sobranie sochinenij, Vol. 2, p. 757. This notion was ridiculed by “Er” (pseud, of K. Aksakov?) in a review of the Fiziologija Peterburga, Moskvitjanin, No. 3-4 (1845).

18 M. Dmitriev, Moskvitjanin, No. 9 (1848), pp. 18-20.

19 Ibid., pp. 21-40.

20 Why should Turgenev choose to portray a weak, dreamy superfluous man (in “Razgovor“), asked K. Aksakov. Moskvitjanin, No. 2 (1845), pp. 49-52. Objections to the one-sidedness of the Natural School are well summed up in the words of M. Dmitriev: ”… one would think that in Russia there is not an honorable or decent man. Fools, rogues, boors, immoral and pitiable officials, ludicrous and contemptible landowners…” —such are the heroes of the naturalists (op. cit., p. 32). The parallel of the French naturalists is again striking: Brunetiere, citing Zola's program (“Je voudrais coucher 1'humanity sur une page blanche, toutes les choses, tous les etres, une oeuvre qui serait l'arche immense.“), commented: “Noble et vaste ambition sans doute, mais I'humanité n'est-elle done composed que de coquins, de fous, et de grotesques?” Le Roman naturaliste, p. 13.

21 A. Studitskij, Moskvitjanin, No. 1 (1846), pp. 255-62.

22 “D,” Moskvitjanin, No. 11 (1845), p. 72’ Grech had said that Gogol's world had never existed. Severnaja pchela, No. 137 (1842), p. 546. N. Gavrilov held that Nekrasov's peasants in “The Troika” were pure fictions. Moskvitjanin, No. 1-2 (1848), pp. 192-94.

23 Otechestvennye zapiski, No. 12 (1845), p. 54.

24 Ibid.

25 Shevyrev, Moskvitjanin, No. 1 (1841), pp. 534-36.

26 Shevyrev, Moskvitjanin, No. 1 (1848), p. 51.

27 Shevyrev, Moskvitjanin, No. 2 (1846), pp. 170-71.

28 Ibid., p. 172.

29 Shevyrev, Moskvitjanin, No. 3-4 (1848), p. 98.

30 Ibid., p. 99. Cf. also I. V. Kireevskij, Moskvitjanin, No. 3 (1845), p. 25.

31 Shevyrev, Moskvitjanin, No. 1 (1848), pp. 51-52.