| Literary historians have coined special terms of distinction for two outstanding periods of nineteenth- and twentieth-century Russian literature. One, the "Golden Age," included the years of the blossoming of romantic poetry (1815-1840), the time of Pukin, Baratynskij, Lermontov, and Tjutcev. The other, the "Silver Age," was the modernistic period in poetry, that of the Symbolists, Acmeists, and Futurists. |
| Amazingly enough, however, the half-century 1840-1890, the interval between these two periods dominated by poetrythe era of the great Russian realistic novelwas never labeled with any particular name other than the purely technical term, the "time of realism" or of "critical realism." Yet Russian prose of these five decades received undisputed recognition abroad, becoming extremely popular with foreign readers and literary critics and exercising considerable impact on other literatures. |
| Perhaps in the eyes of the genuine lover of Russian letters, the age of realism does not particularly merit being placed above the other periods of prerevolutionary literature. For him it may be difficult to say who, exactly, is greater, Pukin or Dostoevskij, Blok or Tolstoj, Majakovskij or Turgenev. For the foreign reader, however, it is precisely the realistic novels that represent the acme of Russian literary achievement. This results from the fact that, for the person unfamiliar with the Russian language and,in general, for anyone who does not command the native language of a particular poet, it is difficult, if not impossible, to render due honor to the verse that must be read in translation. The whole beauty of the musicality, the rhythm, the fine metaphoric imagery and the subtle allusions of poetry all remain largely hidden from him. On the other hand, a translated prose workwith its ideas, heroes, and structure, whether it be a novel by Turgenev or Dostoevskij or a story by Cexovoften adheres quite closely to the original text and can be duly appreciated, even in translation. This is obviously the main reason that the Russian novel, primarily, and not Rus- |
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