THE STORM

BY
OSTROVSKY
[Aleksandr Nicolaevich Ostrovsky]

TRANSLATED BY CONSTANCE GARNETT




INTRODUCTION


Up to the years of the Crimean War Russia was always a strange, uncouth
riddle to the European consciousness. It would be an interesting study to
trace back through the last three centuries the evidence of the historical
documents that our forefathers have left us when they were brought face to
face, through missions, embassies, travel, and commerce, with the
fantastic life, as it seemed to them, led by the Muscovite. But in any
chance record we may pick up, from the reports of a seventeenth century
embassy down to the narrative of an early nineteenth century traveller,
the note always insisted on is that of all the outlandish civilisations,
queer manners and customs of Europeans, the Russian's were the queerest
and those standing furthest removed from the other nations'. And this
sentiment has prevailed to-day, side by side with the better understanding
we have gained of Russia. Nor can this conception, generally held among
us, which is a half truth, be removed by personal contact or mere
objective study; for example, of the innumerable memoirs published on the
Crimean war, it is rare to find one that gives us any real insight into