Impressions of Russia |
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admiration Alexander Alexander Herzen artistic Bazárof beautiful become brother Byelinski Caucasus celebrated century character Church circle common Cossack culture death Dostoyevski empire epic Europe European everything exile expression father feeling foreign French genius George Sand German Getian Gogol hand hero Herzen honor idea Igor Ilia impression influence intellectual Iván Katkóf Kief kind lady land Lermontof liberal literary literature Little Russia Little-Russian live Lomonósof lyric married melancholy modern morality Moscow Murom nature never Nicholas novel painting passion peasant peculiar person Peter Petersburg poems poet Poland Poles Polish political Polovtsians popular present Prince prison Pushkin race re-action regarded Russian Empire Russian literature Russian national serfs Siberia Slavic Slavic races Slavophiles society soul spirit story style Tatar Tchernuishevski thou thought tion Tolstoï town trait translated Tsar Turgenief whole wholly woman women young girl youth Zhukovski
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Page 50 - Literature of the Nineteenth Century," "Danish Poets," " Impressions of Russia," "Benjamin D'Israeli," and " William Shakespeare."] Two thousand women annually, of their own accord, accompany the exiles to Siberia, frequently to hard labor. In this way a lady of high rank, Baroness Rehbinder, some years ago went with the celebrated physician, Dr. Weimar, who was implicated in the trials for the attempts at assassination. It can generally be said of those who " go out among the people," that when...
Page 104 - I have certainly heard the wish expressed, as if by common consent, by more than fifty Russians, of the most varied classes of society, and entirely unacquainted with each other, that there should be a decisive defeat in an ensuing war. We can scarcely imagine a more instructive symptom than what I have here stated of the deep despair which exists as to the present condition of the country. No other possibility of liberation from the predominant misery presents itself than that which is offered in...
Page 346 - What is it that he cultivates ? what is it that all these, young and old, the men with good will, prepare and cultivate ? Black land, fertile land, new land, grain land, . . . the broadly constituted, rich, warm nature, . . . the broad, unlimited expanse which fills the mind with melancholy and hope, . . . the incomprehensible, darkly mysterious, . . . the womb of new realities and new mysticism, . . . Russia and the future.
Page 55 - ... the patient, light-hearted, on whom no opposition makes any impression. A letter from a young married woman, who had been exiled to a town in Siberia, but without being confined in prison, was somewhat to this effect : " Dear Friends, — I can imagine that you are somewhat uneasy about me. But never in my life have I been happier. It is quite pleasant to be separated for a while from my beloved husband, who was beginning to tire me. But that is truly one of the most unimportant things. I have...
Page 29 - They mean by it the broad and deep belt of fertile soil, humus, which extends from Podolia to Kazan and even across Ural into Siberia. The wonderful fertility of this soil is ascribed to the slow decay of the grass of the steppes, which has been going on for centuries. The richest and broadest Russian natures remind us of this belt of rich soil.
Page 59 - In Benjamin Constant's old work on " Religion," it is related that at the beginning of this century, when a Russian general in full uniform rode out into a country town in a part of Siberia but little frequented, he was regarded by the natives as God himself, and that the memory of his appearance got such a firm hold among the people that when ten years later a Russian colonel came to the same place he was greeted as the "Son of God.
Page 295 - Scythian," the legitimate barbarian without a drop of classic blood in his veins. Look at this countenance ! half the face of a Russian peasant, half the physiognomy of a criminal...
Page 43 - — ' Because I thought of your happiness. I wanted to make you poor fellows free, I rebelled against your oppressors ; on that account I was put in prison.' — ' Prison ! ' — ' Yes.' — ' Why were you rebellious ? ' " In the second dialogue, which occurred two years later, the same workman speaks to another about the young gentleman who once talked with them : " ' He is to be hanged today ; the order has come.
Page 61 - ... the head of the family, is often a man less than forty years old and who uses to the full extent his power and the respect which must be shown to him. For a long time past he has sent his sons into the fields and been at home alone with the son's wives. For centuries he has gone about among all the young women in the house, like a Turkish sultan, and none of them has dared to defy him. A whole range of Russian national songs treat of the cane of the father-in-law. The result is that the Russian...
Page 43 - ... political fruit, they combined schooling with revolutionary propaganda. The resultant attitude of the people is well characterized in one of Turgenief's " Poems in Prose," prohibited, of course, by Russian censorship. The title of the poem is, "The workman and the man with the white hands": ..." The workmen wonder at the stranger, and reject his claim of being one of them, while they point to their own working hands, which smell of filth and tar, and to his delicate white hands: 'What do they...