a region albeit which few Russians had hitherto thought it worth
their while to explore. It is true that, since the middle of the
Seventeenth Century, tentative excursions had been made in this
direction from time to time, chiefly, though, by outsiders settled
in Russia, nor had any of their efforts led to very appreciable
results. The man who first turned with serious intent to the pent-up
musical resources of his own country was Michael Ivanovitch Glinka.
He had sufficient strength of purpose to carry out his designs--he
became the founder of the modern Russian school of music and the
father of Russian opera.

Glinka belonged to a good if not very wealthy family, who lived upon
their estate in the government of Smolensk, where he was born in 1804.
From babyhood upwards he delighted his friends and relations by his
aptitude not for music alone, but also for languages, literature,
zoology, botany--in fact, for each and every intellectual pursuit
which came in his way. The brilliance of his college course in St.
Petersburg was noteworthy. He quitted it to occupy a civil post
under Government, a position, however, which he soon abandoned,
in order to devote himself solely to music. Like so many other men
of genius, he married a woman quite incapable of comprehending
his artistic aims and ambitions; to quote the words of a Russian
writer, Madame Glinka, _nee_ Maria Petrovna, "was only a pretty doll,
who loved society and fine clothes, and had no sympathy whatever
with her husband's romantic, poetic side." One is glad to state
that Glinka never had to struggle with poverty. He died at Berlin
in 1857.

He did for Russian music what his contemporary, Pushkin, did for
Russian literature, each in his own department representing a national
movement. Perhaps it is not too far-fetched a theory to trace this
movement to the momentous date of 1812, when it fell to the lot
of Russia to administer the first check in Napoleon's triumphant
career. Ever since the reign of Peter the Great it had been the
fashion to ape foreign habits, to speak foreign tongues, to import
foreign music, to mimic foreign literature. But when a foreign
invader, who had marched all-conquering through the rest of Europe,
appeared in serious earnest at the very gates of Moscow, there
was a rebound: slumbering patriotism awoke with a great shout,
and, united by a common danger, all classes gathered together for
the protection of their Tsar and their Kremlin.