An Outline of Russian Literature

Name: An Outline of Russian Literature
Author: Maurice Baring

by Maurice Baring

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Classics of Literature Russian Literature Russian literature, History and criticism

Public-domain ebook sourced from Project Gutenberg #33005.

About this book

Maurice Baring’s work is a scholarly survey that maps the development of Russian literature from its early medieval roots to the modern era. The opening pages set the stage with a candid assessment of English readers’ limited knowledge of Russian culture, noting the scarcity of translations for key figures such as Pushkin, Saltykov, and Leskov, and arguing that true understanding requires direct experience in Russia. Baring then proceeds to outline his study, dividing it into chapters that trace the origins of Russian letters, the “New Age” of Pushkin, the rise of prose, the reform period, and the towering contributions of Tolstoy and Dostoevsky, before concluding with a chronological table and index. The introductory chapter already signals his method: a blend of literary criticism and historical narrative that treats early Russian history as inseparable from its literary output.

Written in the early twentieth‑century British academic style, the book combines clear, measured prose with occasional literary flourish, reflecting Baring’s background as a diplomat and essayist. Its tone is both erudite and accessible, aimed at readers who seek a contextual overview rather than a detailed textual analysis. Students of comparative literature, historians of Eastern Europe, and general readers curious about the cultural forces that shaped authors like Tolstoy and Dostoevsky will find the volume a valuable entry point into the rich tapestry of Russian literary heritage.

The opening · free to read

The chief difficulty which Englishmen have experienced in writing about Russia has, up till quite lately, been the prevailing ignorance of the English public with regard to all that concerns Russian affairs. A singularly intelligent Russian, who is connected with the Art Theatre at Moscow, said to me that he feared the new interest taken by English intellectuals with regard to Russian literature and Russian art. He was delighted, of course, that they should be interested in Russian affairs, but he feared their interest was in danger of being crystallized in a false shape and directed into erroneous channels.

This ignorance will always remain until English people go to Russia and learn to know the Russian people at first hand. It is not enough to be acquainted with a certain number of Russian writers; I say a certain number advisedly, because, although it is true that such writers as Tolstoy and Turgenev have long been naturalized in England, it is equally true that some of the greatest and most typical of Russian authors have not yet been translated.

There is in England no complete translation of Pushkin. This is much the same as though there were in Russia no complete translation of Shakespeare or Milton. I do not mean by this that Pushkin is as great a poet as Shakespeare or Milton, but I do mean that he is the most national and the most important of all Russian writers. There is no translation of Saltykov, the greatest of Russian satirists; there is no complete translation of Leskov, one of her greatest novelists, while Russian criticism and philosophy, as well as almost the whole of Russian poetry, is completely beyond the ken of England. The knowledge of what Russian civilisation, with its glorious fruit of literature, consists in, is still a sealed book so far as England is concerned.