At the start, we notice a rather curious fact, which sharply
differentiates Russian literature from the literature of England,
France, Spain, Italy, and even from that of Germany. Russia is old;
her literature is new. Russian history goes back to the ninth century;
Russian literature, so far as it interests the world, begins in the
nineteenth. Russian literature and American literature are twins. But
there is this strong contrast, caused partly by the difference in the
age of the two nations. In the early years of the nineteenth century,
American literature sounds like a child learning to talk, and then
aping its elders; Russian literature is the voice of a giant, waking
from a long sleep, and becoming articulate. It is as though the world
had watched this giant's deep slumber for a long time, wondering what
he would say when he awakened. And what he has said has been well
worth the thousand years of waiting.

To an educated native Slav, or to a professor of the Russian language,
twenty or thirty Russian authors would no doubt seem important; but
the general foreign reading public is quite properly mainly interested
in only five standard writers, although contemporary novelists like
Gorki, Artsybashev, Andreev, and others are at this moment deservedly
attracting wide attention. The great five, whose place in the world's
literature seems absolutely secure, are Pushkin, Gogol, Turgenev,
Dostoevski, and Tolstoi. The man who killed Pushkin in a duel survived
till 1895, and Tolstoi died in 1910. These figures show in how short a
time Russian literature has had its origin, development, and full
fruition.

Pushkin, who was born in 1799 and died in 1838, is the founder of