Fearful sun, menacing sun,
Like the mad face
Of God going through space,
Burn the present, oh! sun,
That the future may last,
But protect the past.
N. Gumilyov: Pearls, 1912

Nikolai Stepanovich Gumilyov, with his pale face, small black moustache, slightly slanting eyes, and drooping eyelids, with a frail body but a will of steel, might have been, if he had happened to be born in a different age, a Moses, a Mohamed, or a St. Ignatius Loyola. But he was born at the end of the “stupid nineteenth century” in Kronstadt, Russia, the son of a naval doctor, and he was a “poet by the grace of God,” a militant, fighting poet, a crusader about whom another poet said “You never once in life took off your armor.”

Gumilyov's place in Russian literature as a poet, as a writer of prose “excellent in its formal perfection,” as a critic who “felt the leaning of his epoch,” as the acknowledged leader and master of a new literary school — “Acmeism” — has not been evaluated as yet.

In October, 1942, the civil war which had been going on in Yugoslavia since November, 1941, began to seem an extremely serious matter with grave international implications. Britain, the United States and the Yugoslav government-in-exile were behind Drazha Mikhailovich and the Chetniks, who were fighting the Partisans and the Liberation Front who, backed by Russia, were fighting the Axis. That looked to me pretty close to war between Britain and us on the one side and Russia on the other. Could the United States do something about it? I gathered from an assistant secretary of state that the American government had no working policy for such problems. It left them to British hands — and at that time the British hands most active in reference to the Balkans were smeared with Rumanian oil and itching for Yugoslav metal deposits. Although the American government planned to invade the Balkans, it had no intelligence service of its own in Yugoslavia. And it seemed unable to take the initiative toward the formation of a commission of British, American and Russian army officers to go to Yugoslavia and assume command of the resistance to the Axis — a step which would make Yugoslavia into a symbol of Allied unity rather than a scene of conflict between the allies.

When in 1918 the Soviet government established the first complete State monopoly of foreign trade, whereby that government should become the purchaser of all goods imported into the vast territories of former Tsarist Russia, and the distributor of all materials and products grown or manufactured within those territories, the outside world hesitated for several years to reopen trade dealings with the new State. It feared and distrusted this new commercial colossus, which on the one hand could become, in theory at least, the largest single buyer in the world of the goods it needed, and on the other, a seller that could, again in theory, break any competitor in the world market, by the mere process of offering at any price the materials it could produce in such abundance.

Soviet Music affords an interesting study for the sociologist as well as the musician. For it reflects, in its ideological evolution, the changing course of Soviet society. The evolution of Soviet music may be divided into three principal phases: (1) from 1917 to 1921, marked by attempts to create a new revolutionary art on the ruins of the old; (2) from 1921 to 1932, signalized by the rise and fall of the concept of proletarian music sui generis; (3) from 1932 to the present, governed by the principle of Socialist Realism, within the national tradition, thus effecting the connection with pre-revolutionary art as “cultural heritage of the past.”

A survey of certain current movements of American opinion regarding the Soviets is valuable as a barometer of interallied weather, especially in view of the likelihood that casual day-to-day revelations of American attitudes and feelings concerning our Ally during the war-years will have considerable power for good or evil in regulating both the mood and the sympathies which Soviet representatives will eventually bring to the peace table.

Much water has flowed under the bridges since President Coolidge wrote, on December 6, 1923, “Whenever there appears any disposition to compensate our citizens who were despoiled, and to recognize that debt contracted with our Government, not by the Tsar but by the newly formed Republic of Russia; whenever the active spirit of enmity to our institutions is abated; whenever there appear works meet for repentance — our country ought to be the first to go to the economic and moral rescue of Russia.”

The Origins of the Russian ballet reach back two hundred years to the reign of the Empress Anna Ivanovna, Peter the Great's niece (1730–1740). Anna was devoted to ostentatious amusements (balls, fireworks, tableaux), and in the summer of 1734 ordered the appointment of Jean-Baptiste Landé as dancing-master in the Military Academy which she had founded at St. Petersburg in 1731 to prepare sons of the nobility for positions in the army and the civil service. Beside teaching at the Academy, Landé also organized a private class which is the original ancestor of all further development of the ballet in Russia. Here he taught not only social dancing, but the principles of dramatic stage dancing, drawing his pupils both from the most gifted students in the Academy and from the children of wealthy urban families.

When Aunt Pelageya Yushkova finished appropriating “necessities” for the journey and the future existence of the Tolstoi children (Nikolai, Dmitri, Sergei, Lyovochka, and Masha) at Kazan, Yasnaya Polyana looked as though the Golden Horde had ravaged it. An immense amount of household equipment, and carpenters, tailors, mechanics, cooks, and upholsterers from among the skilled serfs were sent on ahead. The “complete orphans” with their various attendants and staples for the road set out, accompanied by a long train of carriages and carts. The brothers grieved at parting with Auntie Tatyana. Their “second mother's” love and long service gave her a stronger moral claim to the children than that of their legal guardian, Aunt Pelageya, who always treated her with polite hostility. Aunt Pelageya could never forget that Auntie Tatyana had once received a proposal from her husband, who still spoke with enthusiasm of “Toinette,” and indiscreetly recalled before his wife how “elle était charmante!”

A Short Time prior to the outbreak of World War I a group of scholars in St. Petersburg proposed plans to explore Alaska to rediscover the sites of the early Russian settlements. The outbreak of war, however, put an end to the effort, and it was not until ten years later that the subject of early Alaska was revived in America. About that time a report was received of the alleged founding by refugees from Novgorod, in approximately the year 1571, during the reign of Ivan the Terrible, of a colony in Alaska all trace of which had been lost.

Let me Resurrect the “York Minster” episode of seventy-five years ago — and enlarge it a little for present purposes. York Minster — such was his nickname — was a native of Tierra del Fuego. He was a likable young fellow, bright, animated, rather handsome, and of a particularly shapely figure. Let him be where he might, his figure was always on exhibition, for he wore not a rag of clothing, except a square of untanned skin between his shoulders. His costume did not make him conspicuous, because it was the costume of his whole nation.

When the Germans made their mass exodus from the Baltic States in 1939, they admitted thereby that their alleged cultural mission in the Baltic area, which had been conducted for several centuries, was a complete failure, and that they had not succeeded in their push to the northeastern Baltic, regarded in Germany since early medieval times as the land of milk and honey. Foodstuffs were available there in quantity, such as dried and smoked meats and fish, honey, vegetables, rye, oats, barley, and wheat, as well as raw materials (timber, tar, hemp, flax, rope, sailcloth, tallow, wool, hides, potash, wax, furs and amber). There was an increasing demand for these goods in Western Europe, the population of which had considerably grown since the early Middle Ages.

Next spring the whole Polish nation will celebrate the one-hundred-fiftieth anniversary of the insurrection which Thaddaeus Kościuszko, after participating in the American Revolution, conducted against the invaders of his own country. Without knowing at the present moment under what circumstances this celebration will take place, we all feel that Kościuszko's program of 1794, summed up in the words: “Freedom, Integrity, Independence,” is once again our program for Poland's future.

The permanent significance of these three ideas throughout our whole history is one more proof of the continuity of Poland's development. It was in vain that Kościuszko opposed the partition of Poland, but even that partition and the following century of foreign domination could not interrupt the continuity of Polish national life. What a distinguished American historian, writing recently about Czechoslovakia, has rightly called “the vital immediacy of the past,” is an even more important truism as far as Poland is concerned. Therefore any concrete discussion of our future aims must be based upon the “consciousness of historical realities.”

The Army Specialized Training Program brought to the fore numerous problems connected with Russian instruction which, on the basis of the new experience gained, may now be profitably discussed, with some thought of formulating a standard or at least generally applicable procedure. Over the last fourteen years, I have taught beginner's Russian to some twenty-five classes, ranging from the conventional three hours per week schedule to intensive courses with one, two, or three class hours daily for periods of six to twelve weeks and, finally, to the nine months’ Army program with fifteen contact-hours per week. At first glance this might seem like a respectable body of practice on which to generalize. But while the subsequent professional performances of many of our students during this period have been encouraging, I do not wish the present article to be regarded as unduly dogmatic. Looking backward, I think we should have been more ingenious in innovation, and certainly more productive of useful textbooks and other teaching aids. But here, until very recently, lack of time, money, equipment, publisher's interest, and competent assistance may serve in some sense as a valid excuse for defects in performance.

Slavic Languages became a part of the curriculum of the University of California in 1901, when I was called there as Instructor in English and Russian. President Wheeler announced that instruction in Russian was established because trade relations between California and the Russian Empire were likely to develop. Whether that consideration was foremost in his mind I have some doubts, for less than five years later he established instruction in Sanskrit. Whatever his purposes may have been, commercial considerations proved of small consequence in the development of his Department of Slavic Languages.

For Several Centuries Denmark shared with the Hanseatic league predominance in the Baltic area, but the first three decades of the sixteenth century witnessed radical changes. The Hansa was affected adversely when new routes were discovered to important overseas markets, when European states underwent fundamental reorganizations in structure, and when for some reason the herring changed their course. Denmark found herself weakened by the political revolution following the reformation, the expansion of Spanish, Dutch, and English seapower, and the dissolution of the Kalmar Union due to the Swedish independence movement. As a result, the old balance of power in the Baltic area was destroyed. Had Sweden, Poland, Prussia, the Holy Roman Empire, or any combination of these taken over the place which Denmark had held for so long, no significant new development would have resulted. The fact that Denmark's decline coincided with and partly caused the rise of Russian power in northern Europe marks the importance of the period.

Planes bringing President Beneš and his collaborators — both Czechs and Slovaks—back to their country may land at a time when much sporadic fighting will still be going on in and around Germany. Underground forces will have aided, or joined, the Allied armies. Will the accumulated rage against the invaders lead to a mêlée in Czechoslovakia? We make no gratuitous predictions. If there is still much fight left in the German soldiers by the time the war reaches Central Europe, the country may be a scene of horrors. The SS-men are sure to go on killing to the bitter end. But the majority of German officials and evacuees from the Reich, as well as many of Henlein's and K. H. Frank's traitorous henchmen will have fled to Germany in time. Moreover, many Czechs and Slovaks who have been sent to the Reich can be swapped for Germans, if Germany is willing and able to negotiate at the moment. The more accurate rulings are prepared by the United Nations for the orderly prosecution of war criminals, the better. Lists of crimes are being well kept.

The So-Called Expanded Version of the Russian Law (Lex Russica, Pravda Russkaya) consists of three parts: the revised Pravda of Yaroslav's Sons; Vladimir Monomach's Statute; and some supplementary enactments. It is at the end of the third part that clauses dealing with slaves and grantees are placed (Sections 110–121). Some students of Russian legal history call this collection of articles a special “Statute on Slavery” to correspond to Vladimir Monomach's “Statue on indentured laborers” (Zakup). It may be dated in the second half of the 12th century, possibly in the reign of Prince Rostislav of Smolensk and Kiev (1160–67).

L'Auteur responsable de la présente chronique se rappelle avec enthousiasme, mais non sans confusion, le jour de novembre 1918 où, dans le dernier fascicule d'une revue clandestine, il résumait fiévreusement les événements d'un Mois apocalyptique. Il s'excusait alors de la pauvreté d'un historique improvisé, balbutiant, lacuneux, bref, tout à fait indigne du formidable spectacle qu'il avait la charge de commenter. Les mêmes émotions, une gêne pareille, le chroniqueur beige de Renaissance les éprouve, à vingt-cinq ans de distance, à la veille, dercchef, d'une victoire qui est très certaine et d'une paix qui l'est beaucoup moins… .

A l'heure actuelle nous entrons dans cette année 1944 qui restera mémorable comme la dernière de ce que nous avons appelé, et de ce que l'histoire universelle appellera la Guerre de Trente Ans du vingtième siècle (1914–1944).

Two Decades Ago, in 1923, the Slovak Academy of Arts and Sciences known as Matica Slovenská, celebrated its sixtieth anniversary. Present at the international convention of this body held in the Slovak cultural capital of Turčianský Svätý Martin was the figure with whom we have here to deal, Martin Kukučin.

A man of sixty-three at the time, a distinguished physician known for his unselfish labors in three countries and on two continents, to say nothing of being the reigning figure in Slovak letters, Kukučin was one of the half dozen stars of this stellar occasion.

Because of the great transformation of Asiatic Russia in recent years, and the rapid development of Alaska during the present war, the Pacific Northwest is so placed geographically that it should occupy a prominent place in the field of Russian studies in the years to come. Even before this war began, there was every indication here of increased interest in the Russian field, particularly as it pertained to the Far East.

Although, academically speaking, there were several desultory attempts to begin the study of Russian here in the Northwest at an earlier date, the permanent foundation of Russian studies was laid at the University of Washington in 1931 – significantly enough, the year the Japanese entered Manchuria. In the academic year 1931–1932, during the Winter and Spring Quarters, a course in Russian literature was offered in the English Department at the University. From the beginning it attracted a good enrollment. Since that time, including the Summer Session and Extension Service, in round figures, nearly 1000 students have taken Russian literature.

The Thirty Years War at first centered in Bohemia and, after the disastrous Battle of the White Mountain in 1620, Protestant partisans were forced to seek refuge in the neighboring states of Saxony, Silesia, Hungary and Poland. As their hope of an early return to their native land waned, they scattered to more distant lands, such as Holland and England. A few of the bolder exiles sailed on Dutch and English ships to America.