both Tolstoy and Tchehov commended his work it is only in recent years that it has been judged dispassionately by Russian critics. The critic, M. J. Olgin, in his interesting comments on Lyeskov,[1] quotes a typical attack, characteristically Russian in its parti pris, by A. T. Bogdanovitch:—
"A writer endowed with talent and observing power yet without a God in his soul. A cynic by constitution and a libertine by temperament, Lyeskov is a hypocrite screening himself with lofty words in the sanctity of which he does not believe," etc.
But fifteen years later this verdict is reversed by , who writes:—
"Lyeskov remains 'unplaced' in the history of Russian thought and Russian literature. The one thing that is definite and tangible about him is a bright and refined artistic feeling for life, and a pity for man. The title of one of his stories 'Vexation of Mind' may be used as a motto for all his creative work. All Lyeskov is in these words. His mind was vexed by a longing for truth and he knew how to stir souls, to arouse in them good feelings, and to lead them on the road to self-analysis and self-contemplation at the end of which all the problems are solved."
Sementkovsky, Lyeskov's biographer, from whom we condense the information given below, makes it clear that it was Lyeskov's honesty and independence of mind that caused his work to be
- ↑ A Guide to Russian Literature. Cape, 1921
