ublished in the Library:_

27. English Literature: Mediaeval. By W. P. Ker.

43. English Literature: Modern. G. H. Mair.

35. Landmarks of French Literature. G. L. Strachey.

65. The Literature of Germany. Prof. J. G. Robertson, Ph.D.

AN OUTLINE OF RUSSIAN LITERATURE

CHAPTER I

THE ORIGINS

For the purposes of the average Russian, and still more for the
purposes of the foreigner, Russian literature begins with the
nineteenth century, that is to say with the reign of Alexander I. It
was then that the literary fruits on which Russia has since fed were
born. The seeds were sown, of course, centuries earlier; but the
history of Russian literature up to the nineteenth century is not a
history of literature, it is the history of Russia. It may well be
objected that it is difficult to separate Russian literature from
Russian history; that for the understanding of Russian literature an
understanding of Russian history is indispensable. This is probably
true; but, in a sketch of this dimension, it would be quite
impossible to give even an adequate outline of all the vicissitudes in
the life of the Russian people which have helped and hindered,
blighted and fostered the growth of the Russian tree of letters. All
that one can do is to mention some of the chief landmarks amongst the
events which directly affected the growth of Russian literature until
the dawn of that epoch when its fruits became palpable to Russia and
to the world.

The first of these facts is the existence of a Slav race on the banks
of the Dnieper in the seventh and eighth centuries, and the growth of
cities and trade centres such as Kiev, Smolensk, and Novgorod, which
seem already to have been considerable settlements when the earliest
Russian records were written. Of these, from the point of view of
literature, Kiev was the most important. Kiev on the Dnieper was the
mother of Russian culture; Moscow and St. Petersburg became afterwards
the heirs of Kiev.

Another factor of vital historical importance which had an indirect
effect on the history of Russian literature was the coming of the
Norsemen into Russia at the beginning of the ninth century. They came
as armed merchants from Scandinavia; they founded and organized
principalities; they took Novgorod and Kiev. The Scandinavian Viking
became the Russian _Kniaz_, and the Varanger principality of Kiev
became the kernel of the Russian State. In the course of