The Spirit of Russia/Volume 1/Translators' Foreword
TRANSLATORS' FOREWORD
THOMAS GARRIGUE MASARYK was born at Göding, Moravia, in the year 1850. The child of poor parents, after passing through the primary school he was apprenticed to a blacksmith and worked at this trade for some time. He studied in Vienna and in Leipzig, and at the age of twenty-nine he became lecturer on philosophy at the university of Vienna. His first publication was a work on suicide, which he regarded as a morbid symptom of the condition of contemporary Europe, declaring its chief cause to be the decay in religious sentiment. In 1882 he was appointed professor of philosophy at the newly founded Czech university of Prague. Extremely well versed in English philosophy, and a critical student of Hume, John Stuart Mill, and Herbert Spencer, he has published a monograph on the first-named writer. Comte and modern French philosophy, Kant and modern German philosophy, have likewise been two of the main factors in his mental development, so that his whole reading of history is based upon a philosophical and humanist foundation. Prior to the war, it was perhaps among Marxist students that his name was most widely known in this country and the United States, for he is the author of a detailed study of Marxism, and is an opponent of the famous doctrine of historical materialism.
From the opening of his career, Masaryk's influence in Bohemia has been extraordinary, his leadership being accepted in all branches of public life, political, scientific, and philosophical. Apart from his popularisation, always more or less critical, of the teaching of the French and British positivists, he has been a close student of French, English, and Russian literature, and has been instrumental in promoting the issue of Czech translations of standard works, and in the establishment of a library of French. English, and Russian authors.
A Czech nationalist at a time when the present expansion of Czecho-Slovak power and the sudden collapse of German dominion in Bohemia could not possibly be foreseen, his idea was that the Czechs must be under no illusions as to their strength. He considered that a population of ten million Bohemians face to face with seventy million Germans, must look to cultural and economic forces for the maintenance of a substantial independence. Owing to his unflagging insistence upon these considerations, his party was termed the Realist Party, and the movement of which he became the head was known as "the realist movement." For some years before the war, his moral influence in the Czech lands had been unrivalled. He was considered to be the one man who could speak to Europe on behalf of his nation, was looked upon as the prime initiator of his country's national rebirth.
In Austro-Hungarian politics he was a federalist, believing that reorganisation on democratic lines could secure peace and satisfactory development for all the nations under Austro-Hungarian rule. Elected to the Reichsrat in 1891, he was a consistent opponent of the Germanisation of Bohemia and of the antinationalist activities of the Austrian bureaucracy in that country. No less zealously and acutely did he criticise Austro-Hungarian policy in Bosnia-Herzegovina. During the first years of his parliamentary activities he wrote The Czech Question, a political catechism expounding the role of the Czech nation in European history. The Czech question seemed to him an international one, but at the same time he regarded it as the very kernel of the Austro-Hungarian problem. The key-note of his political outlook may perhaps be formulated in a single phrase, in a prophecy more than once enunciated,a peculiarly fortunate venture in the prophetic field. "Austria must completely modify her internal structure, or she will be erased from the map of Europe."
Definitely espousing the Allied cause in the summer of 1914, Masaryk necessarily became an exile from his own land, and was for a time a refugee in London. This is not the place for an account of his recent activities in connection with the Czecho-Slovak movement, but we may fittingly record that as we write these lines news comes to hand that the author of The Spirit of Russia has been elected first president of the Czecho-Slovak republic.
An account of the origin of the study of Russia now presented to the English-speaking world may best be given in the author's own words.
"When the Russo-Japanese War and the revolution of 1905 increased the general interest in Russia, acquaintances of mine who knew that I had made a special study of that country suggested that I should write on the subject. I therefore published in the 'Oesterreichische Rundschau' an article giving a detailed account of the intimate connection between the revolution and Russian literature; and I also wrote reviews of the books then recently published by Mackenzie Wallace, Ular, Konni, Kropotkin, Petrov, Reissner, and Brückner. When reading these works I conceived the idea of elucidating the nature of the Russian revolution, and of discussing the Russian problem as a whole, in a study of Dostoevskii. The attempt, however, proved unsuccessful, for while making it I came to realize that it would be impossible to do justice to Dostoevskii without discussing his predecessors and successors, and that this would involve the consideration of the chief problems of the history of Russian literature, of the religious and philosophical thought of that country, indeed, of Russian literature in general.
"From youth onwards I had been greatly interested in Russia, my study of the country having begun with its literature. Contenting myself first with translations and subsequently learning Russian, from the study of Russian authors I acquired a knowledge of the country which I then endeavoured to amplify by reading history etc. and by visits to the Russian empire.
"The aim of the present work is to furnish an understanding of Russia from the inside, through the instrumentality of Russian literature; and since I have long paid especial attention to Dostoevskii and to his analysis of Russia, what I write about Dostoevskii is the core of the undertaking.
"Properly speaking, the entire study is devoted to Dostoevskii, but I lacked the literary skill requisite for the interweaving of all I wanted to say into an account of that author. The work has therefore been subdivided. The first part, that which I now publish, contains an account of the philosophy of history and the philosophy of religion of Dostoevskii's predecessors and successors, and this is compiled in such a fashion as to present something approaching a history of the evolution of these ideas.
"The introductory section dealing with the history of Russia has been prefixed because in my account of the individual writers under consideration various historical references are requisite, and instead of complicating the exposition by notes and interpolations it seemed preferable to undertake a systematic survey of historical development, and to utilise this opportunity to direct the reader's attention to the problems subsequently to be discussed.
"The first half of the second portion will deal with Dostoevskii's philosophy of history and philosophy of religion (A Struggle for God—Dostoevskii and Nihilism); the second half will expound the relationship of Dostoevskii to Russian literature since Puškin, and his relationship to European literature (Titanism or Humanism? From Puškin to Gor'kii).
"The work will afford proof that an analysis of Dostoevskii is a sound method of studying Russia, though some might doubt this at first sight. By word of mouth certain experts have expressed such a doubt, but I hope to show that I have been right in choosing Dostoevskii as my main text—and this although, or for the very reason that, I differ profoundly from Dostoevskii's outlook.
"Whilst writing I have had in mind the interests of two distinct reading publics, that of Europe and that of Russia. This has involved a peculiar duplex position. For Europe, it was necessary to explain much that would be unknown to my readers. For Russia, I have often had to formulate the known in some fresh way, and to present the whole object of vision in an unfamiliar light.
"The result has been a certain lack of symmetry. The reader will have to forgive me for dealing with matters unknown or comparatively unknown in Europe at greater length than is consistent with the usual canons of literary composition.
"Had I written the book for Russia alone it would have been more concisely expressed. But even as it is, I have assumed a great deal as familiar. This applies above all to descriptive detail, statistics, and the like; but I devote an appendix to the bibliography of the study of Russia.
"I may add that in the year 1902, in a course of lectures delivered at the university of Chicago under the auspices of the Crane foundation, I produced the pith of the present book.
"In any work on Russia it is necessary to decide certain special questions of literary style.
"After prolonged hesitation I determined not to give chapter and verse references to Russian literature. In Europe, Russian books are accessible to very few readers, and it seemed to me undesirable to load my text with citations which would have a meaning for Russia alone. For the same reason, I have omitted bibliographical references in the case of such passages as I have quoted textually. There are no critical editions of the works of Russian authors, editions generally recognised as standard, and it would therefore be useless to refer to particular editions.
"Further, seeing that Russian books are so inaccessible and so little known, I have avoided as far as possible any polemic discussion, any detailed reference to conflicting criticisms of Russian authors.
"I have followed the evolution of Russian literature with considerable care, this statement applying also to writings on political subjects, both licit and clandestine. I have to thank my friends and acquaintances for keeping me up to date in these matters.
"Nevertheless the lack of an adequate Russian library has been a serious drawback, especially seeing that a large proportion of Russian literature, alike scientific, philosophical, and belletristic, is buried in periodicals. It is really impossible for one living outside Russia to compose a work upon that country which shall be definitive and complete from the literary point of view. In certain urgent cases, for example, I had to procure manuscript copies of entire articles—a fact that I mention merely in order to show that I have done all that is possible to one who does not live in Russia. I am perfectly serious when I declare that I am presenting nothing more than a sketch."
The translators have little to add to the above quoted exposition. It seems expedient to draw attention to the date of the work. The German edition from which the translation is made was published at Jena in 1913, and the reader must bear in mind that Masaryk's references to contemporary Russian events all refer to a period before the war, and several years before the fall of tsarism. On two or three occasions, in addition to this general reminder, we have deemed it advisable to introduce a special reminder into the text. In view of the date when the work was compiled, we have followed Masaryk throughout in speaking of "St. Petersburg" instead of using the now accepted name of "Petrograd." In certain respects, as far as philosophical discussions are concerned, the author breaks new ground, and it has therefore been difficult at times to render his meaning into intelligible English. There are difficulties even in the German original, and on one occasion, when Masaryk coins the term "solomnism," he writes in a parenthesis "I really must ask pardon of the philologists!" For the use of this and many similar barbarous terms, such as historism, historicism, and the like, the translators, for their part, must claim the reader's indulgence.
Cordial acknowledgments are due to R. W. Seton-Watson, R. A. Leeper, and L. C. Wharton, who have rendered help of inestimable value in the elucidation of various difficult points.
A final word is requisite concerning personal names, the names of places, and the thorny problem of transliteration. Following the usual convention, the names of royalties have been anglicised. As regards the Russians this has not been applied to the grand princes, but only to the tsars and their successors. This is why we speak of "Ivan Kalita" and of "Ivan III," whereas the ruler who is most frequently spoken of in England as "lvan the Terrible" is termed "John IV," just as "Petr Velikii" becomes "Peter the Great," or in most cases simply "Peter."
With regard to personal names in general, we have not followed the author strictly, but, acting on the advice of L. C. Wharton of the British Museum Library staff, have adopted, with a few trifling modifications, the Bohemian transliteration as used in the Slavonic library at King's College, London. It is possible that this system will be adopted some day in the British Museum Library catalogue, but for the present in that catalogue a more complicated system is used, whose chief merit is that it provides uninstructed English readers with more obvious clues to Russian pronunciation. In the subjoined table, the Russian alphabet is given in the first column, the British Museum transliteration in the second, and the Slavonic library transliteration (the one we have adopted) in the third:
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Our only divergences from the Slavonic Library transliteration are that we completely ignore the ъ or "hard sign," whilst in the case of the ь or "soft sign" we ignore it as a terminal letter as far as personal names are concerned. Thus we write Gor'kii, where the soft sign is medial, but Pestel, though in the Russian there is a soft sign at the end of this name. In the transliteration of Russian words other than personal names we similarly ignore the hard sign, but reproduce the soft sign, both medial and final, writing "krest'janin" (peasant) and "knjaz'" (prince). Certain Russian words used repeatedly in the text, words with which many English readers are already familiar, such as "volost" and "artel," are treated as English words, the terminal soft sign being dropped, at any rate after their first use. Finally, we have preferred to retain "th" for the transliteration of ѳ (thus distinguishing that letter from ф), though in the most recent form of the Slavonic Library transliteration ѳ, like ф, is rendered by "f."
Even an elaborate treatise can hardly convey to English readers the niceties of Russian pronunciation, and it must suffice to give the following hints:—the Russian "g" is always hard, as in "gander"; "r" is strongly trilled; "ž" is pronounced like z in "azure;" "h" is strongly aspirated even in the middle or at the end of a word, and has a guttural sound, somewhat resembling the ch of the Scottish "loch"; "c"=ts; "č"=ch (as in "church"); "š" =sh; "šč"=shch; "y" sounds like the final y in "dirty," but is rather more guttural; "e" and "ě" are usually pronounced ye as in "yet"; "ju" as in "you" and "ja" as in "yah." Substantially, with the exception of e and ě (see above) the vowels are pronounced as in Italian.
It has not been thought expedient to apply this system of transliteration to geographical names, except in the case of minor places practically unknown in England. For all well-known geographical names, such as "Dnieper," the conventional English spelling has been used. Where rival spellings occupy the field, Longman's Gazeteer has been followed. The native spelling of nonrussian names of Slav origin has been retained.
The bibliography has been transferred from § 47 to an appendix, this accounting for the inconsecutiveness in the numbering of the sections. It will be noted that the leading authorities are German. The translators did not feel competent to compile an adequate and up-to-date bibliography of English authorities, though English versions have been mentioned in the case of some of the German books, and a few original English works have been added to Masaryk's list. In a private letter, R. W. Seton-Watson, himself a leading authority on Slav questions, writes—"The German authorities are essential for all serious students, and it is for such a public that the bibliography is added." The reader will note that the German and the French transliterations of Russian names have been retained in the references to works on Russia published in the respective tongues. The system of cross references used in the index will suffice, we hope, to avert any possibility of confusion.
London, November 17, 1918.
This work is in the public domain in the United States because it was published before January 1, 1929.
The longest-living author of this work died in 1972, so this work is in the public domain in countries and areas where the copyright term is the author's life plus 51 years or less. This work may be in the public domain in countries and areas with longer native copyright terms that apply the rule of the shorter term to foreign works.
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